Retooling

We are rolling up our sleeves today, and together with a large crowd of nonprofit leaders, 'retooling' the way we do business in this challenging economy. John Replogle, CEO of Burts' Bees, and our new neighbor here at American Tobacco, started us off this morning with a rousing speech. "This economy sucks," he said. But it creates opportunity and gives us a gift - it's good to be needed. He pushed us to look for positives in this downturn. And said what a privilege it was to be in a room with this crowd (how true). John is an active, smart, thought-provoking business leader, and one that is becoming more and more engaged in our community.

How refreshing that is. And his message could not come at a better time for all those gathered in Bay 7 today.

Of course, everyone loves and got a Burts' Bees lip balm- but this crowd is not one to just accept a corporate message. Nonprofits in the Triangle are savvy, are involved, and run strong organizations. But they've taken a beating, and revenue streams are drying up. So the purpose of today- and this Economic Response Initiative we have (for a lack of more imaginative term) is to figure out how we all stay strong: do more, with less.

Our Board Chair Phail is providing much guidance as our Master of Ceremonies (here, wearing some Burt's Bees freebies) and a needed positive outlook. As someone who served for many years at the head of Durham Technical Community College and is now in a top leadership position at Duke, among many other organizations, he's got much to share.

17 Top-Notch (some of our region's best) consultants are giving their time to work hand-in-hand with nonprofits on topics such as: "Building a Better Board," "Build Adaptive Capacity for Turbulent Times," "Making it with Le$$." Above, here, Matt West, President & CEO of Intangibles works with folks by the river on "New Lines of Revenue:" How can I get out of the down-on-my-knewws, donation/contribution model, and become a marketing, promotional, and revenue-generating machine for my 'clients'? (don't we all need that??)

It's quite impressive to see over 250 (or more than that, I hear) of our region's most creative folks, all in one room, ready to tackle this. We also released the results of our nonprofit survey, which tells us how nonprofits are struggling in this economy.

Here, Bert Armstrong, of Armstrong MgGuire & Associates talks about What to do NOW to reach your End-of-Year Goals and where can you find new monies this year. (he had a large and attentive crowd)

Stay tuned for what's next with this...

Budgetting in Today's World

So what does it take to put together an Operational Budget these days? Not what it used to... I can't count how many Board meetings I have been part of as President or Executive Director of a nonprofit- but as we all know, these are challenging times. So it's different now. The economy is not predictable. And as a community foundation- we depend on investment returns, which have dwindled.

We had our Quarterly Board Meeting today, which was also the last meeting for the fiscal year. This means we presented our budget for next FY. We are proposing to continue our growth, and keep up our pace, do more, with less. As our wise Chair, Dr Phail Wynn, stated we are facing 'economic dislocations.' (I like this better than the term he used last time: "carnage")

Here is our Chair, encouraging the board to "ask deep and penetrating questions" about the budget. The board complied and asked away. And we all answered. And I got a headache.. But the budget passed.

Luckily, Ken was able to produce some positive (8 plus) returns from our new investment strategy. You can see his confidence here.

Papers. Numbers. Trends. We are keeping a close eye on things.


I have said it and will say it again, we're lucky at TCF to have board members like RIck and Frank who are chairing our Finance and Investment Committees- we could not be in as strong a position as we are without their sweat equity and guidance. We know they work hard: "This is the board that takes the most time" (Rick) and we know they are committed for the good of the community.

We have a strong year ahead in terms of programs and services. Our region demands that we continue with our high level of grantmaking. We can't decrease that, as some other foundations have had to do. So this means more scrutiny, more due diligence, more questions.

In the end, we formed a Task Force to answer longer term questions. Should we do some additional fundraising for operations? Should we consider raising fees? What do the next 2 - 3 years look like for TCF?

Stay tuned..

Learning about the Big 5

Yesterday was time for another one of our monthly Lunches with the President (that would be lunch with me, aided by Libby). This one focused on social media, in our forever-quest to embrace it and continue to spread the word to nonprofits about using it.

But, we are no experts at this (YET), so we invited Tony Poilucci of VisionPoint Marketing of Raleigh as our guest speaker. He did just about one of the best presentations on this that I've seen- straightforward, with relevant examples (who knew you could do a search on twitter and see what people are twitting about you?) and with great hints for nonprofit use.

So what is the case for social media for nonprofits? A strong one in my opinion.

First, social media is being used by everyone around us. It's fun, free, can help spread the word about your good work, and connect good people to your cause.

But it appears daunting. It has struck me a couple of times over the past few weeks as I've sat in rooms of people trying to 'learn' this that nonprofits who haven't yet dipped their toes into using any of "the Big 5" (as Tony called them) may be taking too long to do so, so we should just jump in and try. Experiment. Many of us with children know that this is how they are communicating as well as this is how many of us are connecting with old and new friends and colleagues around the world.

The Big 5 (Below), however, must be part of thoughtful strategy if we use them as part of our organizational work. Have a planning process, create a strategy and then evaluate it.

1. Facebook / LinkdIn
2. Twitter
3. YouTube
4. Flickr
5. Blogs

Thanks, Tony, and everyone who came yesterday. And send us your blogs, YouTube videos, and more so we can post!