Philanthropy Front and Center-Cleveland

Are You Ready for Planned Giving?

Five Suggestions:

1. Learn the language of planned gifts.

You can start with the Glossary of Terms [PDF] from the Partnership for Philanthropic Planning, a professional association dedicated to helping people and organizations create charitable giving experiences that are the most meaningful in achieving both charitable mission and the philanthropic, financial, family and personal goals of donors.

Here's a sampling of additional organizations that provide planned giving glossaries: Detroit Opera House, United Church of Christ, KPBS (San Diego), Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Here's the Foundation Center's FAQ, Where can I find information on planned giving?

2. Assess your organization's readiness.

In response to their most frequently asked question on how to get started, the Partnership for Philanthropic Giving offers a guide to assessing organizational readiness that is aimed at nonprofit executives and board members. Are You Ready for Planned Giving begins with questions an organization should ask itself before doing anything related to a gift planning program and ends with suggested steps organizations can take to get going. 

3. Attend a free program.

On September 22, 2010 (11:30am-1:00pm), the Foundation Center-Cleveland will present a free "Brown Bag Lunch" program, "The Basics of Planned Giving" featuring three seasoned presenters. You're invited. Bring your lunch and questions and learn about the essentials of planned gifts - what they are, how you set them up, how they are funded, and how you promote them.

4. Read up on recent trends in planned giving.

Visit our library to read or borrow these and other items:

~Holly Hall, "Fund Raisers See Glimmers of Hope, but Tough Challenges in 2010." Chronicle of Philanthropy vol. 22 (11 February 2010) p. 11-2.

~Bruce R. Hopkins, The Tax Law of Charitable Giving. 4th ed. New York, NY: John Wiley & Sons. 2010. xxii, 817 p. 

~Kevin Johnson, The Power of Legacy and Planned Gifts: How Nonprofits and Donors Work Together to Change the World. San Francisco, CA: Jossey Bass Publishers. 2010. xxvi, 310p.

5. Network with your peers.

Did you know? Ohio has nine planned giving councils: Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbus, Dayton, Hills of Ohio (Zanesville), Southeastern Ohio, Springfield, Mahoning/Shenango (Youngstown), Toledo. See full list here.

Are you a member of LinkedIn?  Check out these groups:
~Partnership for Philanthropic Planning
~Legacy / Estate / Gift Planning and Planned Giving Professionals

 

 

Announcements: Nonprofit Voter Education Network and Woodruff Prize

The George Gund Foundation, The Cleveland Foundation, and the United Way of Greater Cleveland's 211/First Call for Help, are supporting a local voter education effort. The Nonprofit Voter Education Network (NVEN) is holding a NVEN/OhioVOTESkick-off event September 14, 2010 from 9:00-11:30am at Trinity Cathedral to highlight free services and resources available to help organizations incorporate non-partisan voter participation and education into their programming.

This is part of a statewide effort to encourage higher voter participation among homeless persons, low-income people, new Americans, first-time voters, those with disabilities and ex-offenders. Free trainings, promotional material, webinars and others resources have been designed to help nonprofits integrate voter registration, voter education and voter mobilization work into their ongoing activities.

To register for the event, contact KariNoir Mallory at 216 436-2082.

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The Woodruff Foundation is now accepting nominations for the 2010 Woodruff Prize, which seeks to honor and award clinical excellence. The Foundation recognizes the difficult conditions under which front line clinical staff currently works. Increased demands on productivity, heightened documentation requirements, flattened organizations offering fewer chances for promotion, and erosion of morale due to staff cuts have all contributed to difficult working conditions. Further, pressure on agency budgets has limited training and education investments. The Foundation understands that clinicians have now have fewer opportunities to learn new approaches, upgrade skills, familiarize themselves with special populations, or refresh their practice, which ultimately slows the potential for clinical growth and client change.

The Woodruff Foundation therefore wishes to direct the 2010 Woodruff Prize to support the kind of learning opportunities that are limited in this difficult environment. $12,000 will be awarded to a clinical staff member of a Cuyahoga County-based behavioral health organization. The prize will be granted to the agency where the winner works, and split roughly into thirds to pay expenses in these three categories:

• the winner's travel and training costs
• the winner's release time
• other clinical learning, training or development costs at the agency

Learn more about the prize, eligibility, and how to nominate someone, here.

What Can We Do For You?

A few weeks ago, I asked what the Foundation Center-Cleveland could do for you.  C. Drosdeck commented:

Would love to have more non-business hours opportunities to get to the Center. Any possibility of additional late afternoon/early evening times or even a Saturday morning once in awhile?

Do you agree?  If so, tell us by leaving a comment. While you are at it, tell us other ways we can be of greater service to you. Leave a comment.

--Cindy Bailie

15 Ways to Improve Grantee Communication at Your Foundation

(Kris Putnam-Walkerly is founder and president of Putnam Community Investment Consulting, Inc. Her blog, Philanthropy 411, and Twitter feed are widely followed by practitioners and thought leaders in the sector. This is her first post for Philanthropy Front and Center Cleveland.)

The California HealthCare Foundation (CHCF) commissioned a Grantee Perception Report from the Center for Effective Philanthropy in 2009. Though its ratings with respect to both consistency and clarity of communication were statistically similar to or higher than those of other foundations, comments and suggestions from grantees indicated room for improvement in communication between staff and grantees. CHCF decided to retain Putnam Community Investment Consulting to identify ways to improve its communications with grantees. Our focus, in turn, was to analyze the results of CHCF's Grantee Perception Report and to conduct further research that included assessing the grantee communications practices of CHCF program staff and other foundations, as well as examining the presentation of grantee resources on its Web site.

Why? Because clear communication with grantees matters. According to CEP:

Grantees are typically a foundation's chosen agents of change, selected for their ability to create impact. The better a foundation can communicate its goals and strategies to grantees, the more effective these partnerships will be -- and the more likely grantees will be to perform in ways that are consistent with the foundation’s goals....

Effective communication with grantees is not just the job of program staff, but of staff at all levels of the foundation -- from administrative assistants, to human resources, communications, evaluation, and executive staff. CHCF certainly subscribed to this idea when it embarked on a review of its grantee communications practices. Below are fifteen recommendations for improving grantee communications that resulted from that effort (the full report, Improving Communication Between Foundation Staff and Grantees [PDF], is available for download):

1. Consistently communicate your foundation's goals and strategies through both written and verbal communication with applicants and grantees.

2. Regularly discuss grantee communications challenges, best practices, and grantseeker feedback survey results at program team and staff meetings. You can also encourage regular meetings of program officer/program assistant teams to discuss the status of proposals, grants, and grantees, and even organize formal discussions for program assistants to share their strategies for successful grantee communications and to troubleshoot communications problems.

3. Ensure program staff has adequate time and resources for consistent grantee communications and for building strong relationships with grantees.

4. Incorporate grantee communications into staff performance appraisals.

5. Conduct regular grantee satisfaction surveys to keep grantee experiences at the forefront and to track progress in making improvements.

6. Pay special attention to communications measures identified by CEP that support grantee satisfaction and effective communication. These measures include the quality of interactions with foundation staff, clarity of communication of a foundation's goals and strategy, foundation expertise in its chosen field(s), consistency among communications resources, and selection and reporting processes that are helpful to grantees.

7. Make sure program staff consistently direct grantseekers to grant guidelines, templates, and other resources designed to help them.

8. Spend time talking with grantseekers about: (1) your selection process and timeline; and (2) the foundation's and applicant's expectations (e.g., for final deliverables, reporting, communication during the grant period) before a grant proposal is finalized.

9. If multiple foundation staff will be working with the same grantee, be sure they coordinate their communication and expectations and represent a "single voice" emanating from your foundation.

10. Develop a grantee communication checklist for program staff. We created one for CHCF that you can download and modify to meet your foundation's needs.

11. Compare your funding guidelines against the common characteristics of highly successful funding guidelines developed by CEP. Make adjustments to your guidelines as appropriate.

12. Consider conducting/organizing a communications audit and/or Web site usability focus group.

13. Solicit grantee feedback when making improvements to funding guidelines and/or your Web site.

14. Ensure that funding guidelines and Requests for Proposals (RFPs) make a clear connection between the funding opportunity and your foundation's goals and strategies.

15. Make sure it's easy for grantseekers to find information on your Web site about how to apply for a grant.

You can learn more about the California HealthCare Foundation's efforts to improve its grantee communications and assess impact here.

Has your foundation made efforts to improve its communications with grantees? If so, what worked? If you work for a nonprofit, what foundation communication strategies work best for you? And what would you like to see foundations do differently? Use the comments section to share your thoughts and ideas!

-- Kris Putnam-Walkerly

This Week at the Foundation Center (August 30 - September 3)

Tuesday, August 31:
Proposal Writing Basics, 10:00 - 11:30am
This class will provide instruction on the key components of a proposal to a foundation or corporation and will answer questions that first-timers often have about the process of applying for a grant.

How To Approach a Foundation, 11:30am - 12:30pm 
Grantseeking involves relationship building as well as proposal writing.  This class will teach you how to initiate contact with potential funders, plan calls and meetings, prepare for site visits, and build partnerships with donors.

Wednesday, September 1:
Finding Foundation Support for Your Education, 6:00 - 7:30pm
Join us for our overview of finding financial aid for your studies.  Learn what you need to know before approaching foundations, how to create a personal profile to attract funders, and where to find print and electronic resources that list scholarship information.

Library Hours:
Monday:  12:00 - 4:30pm
Tuesday:  9:30am - 4:30pm
Wednesday:  12:00 - 4:30pm
Thursday:  9:30am - 4:30pm
Friday:  9:00 - 1:00pm - special hours - early closing for Labor Day holiday