I have always been very proud of my ability to keep my work and home life relatively separate. I wasn’t one of those people that brought a pile of file folders home every night or felt the need to constantly be on my Blackberry. I even shut off the email function on my Blackberry, so I wouldn’t be constantly interrupted by urgent, but not important emails. This all ended when I got a magnificent, but productivity killing iPhone last month. My Blackberry unceremoniously died, leaving me with four months on my contract and a need to be reached while I was out and about. The iPhone promised to be my knight in shining armor, with GPS to help me from constantly getting lost when I was going to meetings, web access so I could update my blog and Twitter account while on the go, and email access so I could clear out my in-box while I was waiting for appointments. I love my Apple computer so much that getting an iPhone seemed like the next logical step in our relationship.

I knew I had a problem when I was at my son’s 5th birthday celebration at the Rainforest Cafe  (my least favorite place in the world to eat) and was checking my Twitter updates. There was a bountiful source of information about philanthropy just sitting in my hand waiting to be enjoyed and then I realized I had become one of THOSE parents. You know, the ones that listen to sports games during their kid’s piano recital or talk on their cell phone while they are pushing Junior on the swing.

Sometimes convenience just makes you feel like you always have to be connected and that you always have to be up to date on everything that is happening in your world of interest.  When there is so much good information out there, how do you discipline yourself to only pay attention to the great information? How do you weed out the 225 mediocre tweets and really pay attention to the one that will make you change the ways that you do your work in the future or that will make you laugh out loud, or that will make you act for a cause that you care about. How do you ignore the din of too many people babbling and pay attention to the one whisper that will really make a difference?

How do you use technology to make your life more focused and purposeful?

I have always been a big fan of Rosetta Thurman, from Perspectives from the Pipeline. She and I share a passion for making sure that the skills and talents of our generation are being fully utilized to strengthen nonprofits. She has an amazing post about that topic, that I think is too important not to share. Let me also say how impressed I am that she has time to read Rumi. An excerpt from Rosetta is below:

Rumi speaks of the importance of doing the work that you are called to do. When you don’t seek to use your talents in the service of your purpose, it’s a waste of your time here on earth. Why go to the trouble to figure out what you want to do with your life, then go work for an organization that plops you behind a reception desk all day long? Why go to college with a burning for passion women’s studies and end up in a nonprofit whose mission you’re only lukewarm about? Ask yourself the question: are you wasting your golden bowl?

In these difficult economic times, nonprofits need the skills and talents of the next generation now more than ever. Things in the game done changed. It’s no longer enough for you to wait for someone to tell you what to do next. It’s not acceptable for you to sit there in meetings knowing you have a brilliant idea, but keeping your mouth shut out of fear.

Read the rest of this great post here.

What can you do differently in your current position to make sure that you are fully using the skills and talents that you bring to the sector?

I recently began volunteering at a local food pantry. Volunteering is something I have participated in off and on over the last several years as my schedule permitted. Since financial resources are limited I thought at least I could give of my time a few Saturdays a month. Personally, volunteering serves a dual purpose least of which is that it allows me to focus on someone else and not so much on my own job hunting problems. But also, as a program officer, it forces me to stay engaged with the community. I am able to see programs funded by a foundation in action and the fruits of so much hard labor. While this particular pantry is not funded by my foundation, I sometimes wonder as I interact with clients: Is that child a recipient of an after-school program our foundation funds? Does his father participate in a job training or ESL program that we fund? I wouldn’t be surprised of course if the answer was “yes.”

I realize what I do for the food pantry does not offer the same social cache as serving on a prominent fundraising board that raises six figures may. Picking through produce, unpacking pounds of product and stocking shelves—not much of a conversation starter. But the tangible results of my efforts are immediate and no less valuable. Then it struck me: What if more of us in the foundation world got our hands dirty? What if we spent a little time on the frontlines interacting with the recipients of our foundation’s dollars? I believe we may gain a new appreciation (and dare I say respect) for what a nonprofit—particularly a direct service nonprofit—goes through on a daily basis. It may also help remove that elephant from the room—the power dynamic.

I realize there is a value-added component to chairing a committee or lending your professional expertise to an organization that has certain capacity issues. But couldn’t we go a step further? Instead of fundraising for a literacy organization, why not tutor? Instead of serving on an advisory board of a women’s shelter, how about leading workshops or acting as a mentor for the individual clients? I hear stories from grantees of how frustrating it is when program officers don’t return their phone calls or don’t provide feedback as to why they didn’t receive the funding or simply that they just don’t “get it.” I chafe at the implication and don’t know how to respond. It’s unfortunate that simple respect is lacking. Are we so far removed from the organizations we serve? Aren’t we all in this together?

For those in the foundation world who do participate in a more grass-roots way with nonprofits in your communities, I applaud you. For those who don’t, I ask why? I don’t volunteer for the recognition—that belongs to the nonprofits that operate the programs to address the vital needs of the communities. I do it as a reminder of why I moved into this world in the first place. Perhaps I take this stance because I am new to the field and I have not become jaded and comfortable. Honestly, I hope that never changes.

Paulette Pierre is a Program Officer intern at The Field Foundation of Illinois. She has a graduate certificate in Non-Profit Management and Philanthropy from Loyola University and is currently pursuing her MA in Interdisciplinary Studies at DePaul University.

Here’s part two of the interview with Hildy Gottlieb, author of the book The Pollyanna Principles. The book launch is occurring all week. Feel free to checkout more on her website, www.hildygottlieb.com.

Q: The future is the book’s primary focus. In fact, the future appears on the book cover, the promotional materials, and throughout the book. Why are you so focused on the future?

Well for starters, we cannot change the past nor the present. The only thing we have control over is the future. That’s where our power lies. Whether that future is next month or next year or 50 years from now, everyday we have this great opportunity to create the future we want for our kids and our grandkids–and for ourselves!

Think about it–the present is simply the result of actions taken in the past. In other words, today WAS the future, before it became today. We were creating the future a year ago and ten years ago. Our actions back then created our current circumstances!

So we have the choice, right now–do we want to lament the present and focus all our efforts there? Or do we want to take control of the only thing we do have control over–creating a healthier, more vibrant, more humane future?

Q: What about the present? This time of recession (even depression) and resulting decreases in funding seem to threaten most of us in the field. How do we survive to do great work in the future?

The most productive way of dealing with today’s problems is to acknowledge that the present is not just a matter of reacting to an onslaught of circumstances created by our past actions. The present is also simultaneously creating the future. That’s not airy-fairy mumbo jumbo–it’s just a plain fact.  

That leaves two choices. We can choose to focus almost exclusively on the survival of our organizations. In that mode, we will make each decision by putting our own organization first, and everything else second.

Clearly this does not bode well for the reason our organizations exist–to make our communities as strong as possible. These days, I’m hearing a lot of people say, “We have to cut services. The community will understand…”

Is that really the best we can do? When times are tough, our communities need us MORE, not less. What kind of Community Benefit Organization has as its mission, “We will serve the community, as long as times are good”?

So we can choose to hold ourselves primarily accountable for our own organization’s survival, or we can choose to hold ourselves primarily accountable for making our communities as strong as they can be.

When we focus on the question, “What is best for our community in the next month, or 12 months?” we come up with a set of answers that weren’t even on the table when we were only thinking of ourselves. One of those answers will include, “Our organizations must be strong,” but it will not be the only focus by far.

Focusing on building the future of our communities, we will work with other organizations towards common community-driven goals. We will tap into our collective strengths. We will build the collective capacity of all those groups.

So we have the choice–will we be victims of today’s circumstances or leaders for creating a better tomorrow for our communities? As leaders, what will we hold ourselves accountable for? As leaders, what tomorrow will we work to create? As leaders, how will we help others find their own strengths?

Those are questions that give us back our power and control. We build organizational strength while simultaneously building community strength. And all this happens while we are consciously creating the future we want for our communities, rather than looking back in 12 months and wishing we had done so!

Q: What people and organizations do you think will gain the quickest results from using the principles?

Really the answer is anyone. We have seen individual organizations accomplish mind-blowing community change, simply because they made the conscious choice to do so, and then took practical steps to make it so.

As soon as we decide we will aim our work at what is possible for the community, we immediately begin reaching out to others, building collective community capacity. We build an army for change, and it happens.

Q: Your past work includes starting the world’s first-ever diaper bank. Many people probably would say you’re unconventional. How were you able to turn your unconventionality into an asset rather than a liability?

Wow–it never occurred to me until your question that anyone would consider it a liability! My business partner, Dimitri, and I have always just seen what needed to be done, and then done it. It’s entirely a practical approach to life–it’s probably why we were so good at business turnaround!

With the Diaper Bank, we learned that no government safety net provides diapers, and yet diapers could stop a mom from getting a job, because daycare centers don’t provide diapers. A lack of adult supplies could turn an otherwise healthy older person into a recluse. A lack of clean diapers led to child abuse. The stories were horrible. If you know how to fix that, how could you not do so?

The Community-Driven Institute is the same. We have found an approach that creates significant, visionary change in communities, that mostly just requires we rethink and adjust the work we are all already doing. How could we do anything but share that with whomever will listen?

Q: Where should readers go for more information about implementing the Pollyanna Principles, particularly for sources beyond the book?

A lot of the resources we have for folks are free, because again, our goal is that people put these principles into action. In addition to the workbooks we have produced, there is a channel at YouTube with a series of videos, all of which is obviously free: http://www.youtube.com/pollyannaprinciples.

There is also good discussion beginning to brew at the Community-Driven Institute group at Facebook. And I am on Twitter way too much, with good discussion happening there as well. We know that as we change the way we see things in this sector, that will require a supportive and encouraging ongoing learning environment, and so those social media discussions are a vital piece in this work.

We also have begun teaching consultants how to focus their work on helping their clients create more significant community change. The curriculum for the Institute’s Consultant Education Program is here: http://help4nonprofits.com/ConsultantsEducation/ConsultantEducationCurriculum.htm.

We are hosting a free 90-minute Introduction to Community-Driven Consulting teleclass this Thursday at 1pm EDT, again to get people thinking differently about their work.

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Paul Bachleitner is a communications, marketing, and development consultant. He has over nine years of experience working in communications and development in the nonprofit and philanthropic sector and over 11 years of professional communications experience. His current clients include Diversity in Philanthropy and the Marginalized Males Funders Group (MMFG). He has worked for and served the Minneapolis and St. Paul foundations and participated as a national leadership fellow during 2006-2007 with the Association of Black Foundation Executives (ABFE). More information about him is available at his website, www.bachwriter.com. Feel free to contact him at paul@bachwriter.com.

You’ve probably come across the ideas of Hildy Gottlieb during your day-to-day work in one form or another, either in person or, as I did, via an intercom during at least a couple national phone conference seminars I heard while working at The Minneapolis Foundation.

Ever hear of the concept of friendraising?

Her book, (titled appropriately enough) FriendRaising, helped spread the concept as a means of cultivating board members and gifts by building friendships with the community. Through her work as president of the Community-Driven Institute, she helps organizations become more significant by reengaging their communities.

In case you’ve missed it, there’s a big community component to her work.

Her new book, The Pollyanna Principles, draws from her experience as an educator and consultant to address a real challenge for charities and other organizations working in the community—regardless of the quality of work, most efforts don’t realize significant improvement in a community’s quality of life. The book addresses why this happens, but more importantly how it can be changed.

I had the good fortune to talk to Hildy directly by phone and interview her via e-mail last week. We’re publishing the interview in two parts. Part two will be posted on Wednesday, March 18. Here’s part I:

Read the rest of this entry »

Emerging Practicioners in Philanthropy is one of my favorite groups and one of my frustrations with the Next Gen track at the Council on Foundations conference last year was that too many of the Next Gen sessions were at the same time, so you couldn’t attend the full track. This year EPIP is addressing that concern by hosting an amazing pre-conference for the next geners. From EPIP:

INNOVATION & LEGACY:

The Place of the Next Generation in Philanthropy

A High-Value, Low-Cost Training for the Next Generation of Foundation Leaders

Preceding the Council on Foundations 60th Annual Conference

In these economic times, investing in the next generation of foundation talent remains a critical strategy for sustaining the legacy and innovation of our field. Yet, for understandable reasons, professional development budgets are being slashed. In response, Emerging Practitioners in Philanthropy (EPIP) is pleased to provide a new type of training that is highly affordable and offers a unique value proposition for foundation professionals and trustees in the under-40 demographic. This two day pre-conference offers in-depth skill-building workshops from some of the premiere educators in our field such as GrantCraft; semi-structured intergenerational learning featuring esteemed foundation CEOs and leaders; and personalized career services from Idealist.org. This pre-conference is being held in partnership with the Council on Foundations, Resource Generation, and 21/64.

Separate registration is highly affordable at $200 per person, with a $150 discount rate for dues-paying EPIP members. Scholarships will be available for dues-paying EPIP members, including from the Professional Development Fund, which supports conference travel for young foundation professionals of color. Email precon@epip.org to request scholarship information. Under-employed foundation professionals, as well as those from public foundations, are encouraged to apply for scholarships. With a start-time after lunch Saturday and adjournment Sunday afternoon, participants need not miss work days and will only need one hotel night. Participants are strongly encouraged to attend the Council on Foundations 60th Annual Conference. Atlanta-based colleagues are strongly encouraged to attend. Information and registration is available on the EPIP.org website here. Online registration is reached directly here.

Paul Brest, effectiveness guru and President of The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, has a pretty scathing critique of the new NCRP criteria that I just endorsed. I think Rosetta Thurman described this issue best on her twitter feed

“Paul Brest disagrees with NCRP’s new criteria for philanthropy. @TristaHarris disagrees with Paul Brest.”

Check out the article and my response here and let me know what you think.

I pride myself on my organizational skills and ability to bring order to chaos. Those traits saw me through undergrad while working full-time and now grad school with a similar schedule— all while trying to maintain some semblance of work-life balance. When confronted by an overwhelming array of tasks I tend to fall back on that old adage: “How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.” This serves as a catalyst to focus my energy in the most efficient manner. But adding the cyclical duties of a program officer and all this entails (professional development workshops and industry functions) as yet another line item on my to-do list was daunting even to me. In my humble opinion, two skills are paramount to success in program work and in life—organization and time management. True, these are qualities one can learn but honestly, do you really want to add those to your to-do list as well?

With each grant cycle my proposals are always in various stages of completion. Now in my third cycle, I think I have hit on a system which works well for me:

Sort: When given a proposal packet I sort through all documents to be sure the organization has included everything we require—particularly the financials. I focus on those first because I find they can give me a good overview of the organization’s fiscal health. Also, if the numbers raise a red flag I can jot down any questions I may have and ask them at my site visit.

Schedule: I now move to contacting the organization to set up a visit. I try to get on their schedule as soon as possible—spacing the visits out to maybe two to three a week— until I have gone through my entire docket. In this time frame, I always have to allow for a game of phone tag before I can pin them down to a date.

Prep: We use templates and worksheets which does make the write-ups easier. I attack the financial worksheet first as this can be the most tedious. While reading through the proposal I highlight and note anything on which I my need further clarification. Finally I found writing up a list of questions beforehand to ask during my visit allows the meeting to run smoothly.

Regroup: When I get back to the office after the site visit, I immediately note not only facts about the organization but also my thoughts and impressions. This is the basis of my recommendation or decline at the next staff meeting.

Write-ups: If the proposal has met staff approval, I can begin my final write-ups. I find it much easier to make a dent in these as soon as possible. If I still have some left after all the visits are done I can set aside a day or two later in the cycle to devote solely to this duty.

Sounds pretty straightforward, right? Believe me it took trial and error before I became comfortable with this routine. Other program officers may have their own system for attacking the mountain of files on their desk and some may actually thrive on the chaos and pressure of waiting until the deadlines. But as I watch the piles of files that inhabit my desk slowly dwindle I know another grant cycle is slowly coming to a close.

Paulette Pierre is a Program Officer intern at The Field Foundation of Illinois. She has a graduate certificate in Non-Profit Management and Philanthropy from Loyola University and is currently pursuing her MA in Interdisciplinary Studies at DePaul University

Most foundation endowments have tanked by 30% or more over the last six months, and nonprofits are scrambling to replace reduced or eliminated grants. But if you need to panic, blow air into a brownbag on your lunch break. Now is a time for action. The harsh economy offers philanthropy some great opportunities for renewal.

One is to take advantage of new technology and advance your web presence into the 21^st century. How do I do this, you ask, when your tech guru’s been laid off and your budget to hire a consultant wouldn’t cover a half hour of time?

You can take a few relatively simple and inexpensive steps that will make you more tech savvy than most grantmakers or nonprofits, even if you’re just starting to master your Outlook calendar .

Action Steps

First of all, give yourself credit for reading this blog. Reading and responding to blogs can help you understand and present new media ideas. Here are some others:

• E-mail signature: I know it’s basic, but if you don’t already, feature a link to your site prominently in your e-mail signature. But it’s best to go beyond this and include a link that relates to your focus area. For example, if you’re a program officer for hunger issues, include a link to a relevant page of your website, and if you’ve written anything about the issue, include a link to this, too.

• Capture names of site visitors: Requesting two simple pieces of information—name and e-mail address –enable you to stay in touch with anyone on your site. It’s really a must if you’re going to heighten your web presence. Make sure a way to sign up is easy to access, (the best way is to feature it prominently on your front page). If no one in your organization knows how, you can purchase a service from AWeber  or others that will do it for you for as little as $19/month, much cheaper than 15 minutes with most consultants.

• Get interactive; start and maintain a blog: If your website doesn’t have a blog, offer to start one up. If your website doesn’t have the capability, sign up for a free one on Blogger  or WordPress  and include a link from your website to the blog. The bottom line is: organizations need to build relationships with their constituents in this brave new web world. This means giving and receiving feedback. You’ll create a stronger bond with people and gain some new insights on how to be more relevant, particularly if you’re a grantmaker trying to connect with the community. Moreover, this costs you nothing and occupies no more than 60-90 minutes/week.

• Search and comment: Go to sites like Digg or Delicious, or simply go to Google and search for blogs or news and information sites related to your focus area(s). Start reading them. Comment on them. Build relationships with other readers and commenters. Always include a link to your website and a means of contacting you with each post. This gets word out about your organization and offers a means for interested people to find you.

• Write for other organizations in your focus area: For example, if you’re in social justice, contact organizations, like Amnesty International, local community newspapers’ websites, affinity groups, and others doing work like yours. They’ll almost always be pleased to have another contributor (whom they don’t have to pay). This spreads news about your organization to hundreds or thousands of people sharing your same interest. And it costs you nothing. Just be sure a link to your organization and a way to contact you are included with the article/entry you write.

• Publish your e-newsletter regularly: Do so, whether it’s every quarter or every month. The importance isn’t so much in what you say, just that you’re saying something. People come to rely on hearing from you, and you’ll stay on their radar. If you don’t have an e-newsletter, start one. Even if your website doesn’t offer e-newsletter capability, a number of online companies offer services that hold your hand through creating an e-mail, start to finish, that can be set up very quickly and professionally with a minimal time investment and for a cost as low as $15/month. Some examples are: Constant Contact and Vertical Response.

• Fundraising online: If your organization raises money, include a way to donate that is prominent and can be accessed with a click from your front page. If you don’t currently have the capability from your website, contact Paypal or Gooogle Checkout to set one up. Yes, it costs you a percentage of a gift to process the transaction, but these are also gifts you never would’ve had if you haven’t been accepting gifts on the web.

• Register with facebook, linkedin, and others: It’s a free and a very quick way to build relationships for your organization. If your organization isn’t registered, take steps to make sure it is. You can sign up in a snap and onscreen prompts can coach you through completing the profile in a half hour or less.

Build this List

If you have other ideas to include, we’re interested to hear them. Please ad them in the comments below and we can grow the list.

A legend at my foundation passed last week.  I’m not sure how well Terrence Keenan is known outside of the health foundation world, but his amazing work in philanthropy became the basis of an award created in his name at Grantmakers in Health.  He worked in philanthropy for 40 years and though his focus and committment was to the health and health care of Americans, his leadership in philanthropy spans all areas in the field. 

Last week I wrote about what makes a perfect 21st Century foundation.  Here are Mr. Keenan’s thoughts on what makes a great foundation altogether:  

 A great foundation is informed and animated by moral purpose.

 A great foundation accepts responsibility and stewardship for pursuing these purposes.

 A great foundation walks humbly with its grantees—it acknowledges that their success is the instrument of its own success.

 A great foundation is deliberate. It is guided by judgment. It acts where there is a need to act. It takes necessary risks—and proceeds in the face of great odds.

 A great foundation is a resource for both discovery and change. It invests not only in the identification of answers, but also in the pursuit of solutions.

 A great foundation is accountable. It functions as a public trust—and places its learning and experience in the public domain.

 Finally, a great foundation is self-renewing. It adheres to a constant process of self-reflection and self-assessment. It knows when it needs to change and to adopt measures to improve its performance.

More about Mr. Keenan’s philosophy on health philanthropy can be found at: http://www.rwjf.org/files/publications/other/ThePromiseAtHandByTerranceKeenan.pdf