little green light™

A cornerstone of successful fundraising is stewardship. It’s been said many times before, and it’s true. Good stewardship leads to increased support from your donor base.

Stewardship can open up an untapped reservoir of potential funds, but it is an art that is often forgotten or neglected because nonprofit organizations doing fundraising either don’t have a systematized way to track their donors, or they have a system or database that is inaccessible to all but one or a few expert users. No system, or a system to which a few have access, means little visibility into who’s being contacted, when that contact is being made, and what the current status of the relationship is.

Say your data is stored in a database or in a handful of customized spreadsheets. Either way, it is probably managed by one or two people who are trained in handling or know the ins and outs of these tools. When that information needs to reach members of your staff, board, and volunteer base, it has to go through these people, and its flow tends to become bottlenecked. Your organization’s best advocates are now waiting rather than accomplishing tasks and asks on your behalf.

A big advantage to using a system like little green light™ (LGL) is that it has expertise and intelligence built in to help you with stewardship. For example, LGL automatically identifies and tags your top 100 donors, lapsed donors, and active donors. This means you can get quickly get a view into the status of your relationships with existing donors with one or two clicks. You might find some low-hanging fruit in your top 100 lapsed donors who haven’t given for the past eighteen months.

If you do a good job of keeping your key supporters engaged, they’ll increase their level of support. That whole effort can then build on itself, encouraging a groundswell of support because the benefits will be seen and felt by your constituents, your staff, your board members, and your volunteers.

People used to primarily gather in empty classrooms or meeting rooms in houses of worship to strategize about raising money. This still happens, but with today’s busy schedules, this close collaboration can be more challenging to achieve. This is part of why we decided to build little green light™, among other reasons, namely:

• Lots of nonprofits are out there doing fantastic things for society;
• They all need to raise money;
• The best way to raise money over the long term is to build relationships with individuals.

That last item harkens back to a fundraising method some may find old-fashioned, but in fact it far outperforms the others. Despite all the Twitters and Facebooks and e-mails and flyers and events and mailers and memberships, it still holds that the number one thing you can do to fundraise is gather a group of people committed to your mission and allow them to build relationships with individuals on behalf of your organization.

This is hard work, but it’s not out of reach for the people that little green light™ was designed and built to assist. Anyone can accomplish it. You don’t need to know a secret handshake. You don’t need to send out an internet blast using just the right wording. You can simply invite people dedicated to your mission to join together and do what they can do best for you, which is to feel genuinely passionate about your cause and to talk to others who are also passionate about it. little green light™ makes it easy to do all those things—engage, share, and expand the number of folks who are doing that fantastic and important work.

Because little green light™ is shared across the internet, it in effect is the modern equivalent of gathering in the basement of a church or synagogue or mosque or in an empty classroom. Given life’s current fast pace, it enables you and your board and team to get together more frequently and stay on the same page more easily using the same method that’s been successful across history.

Last night we rolled out a new version of little green light™ (LGL) with basic time tracking, so you can easily keep tabs on how much time your team spends on fundraising and donor management for budgeting and reporting purposes. One of our customers requested this feature, and we think it could be useful to everyone, so we built it. Here’s a quick look at how it can work.

Track time as you work

Click the clock icon to add hours to any activity (activities encompass any unit of work, including tasks, documents, notes, gifts, and goals) on the list.

Filter activities to get the list you want

Look at activities by any combination of date range, team member, list, type, constituent group, or constituent tags (key words). 

Export the results as a report

Export the full result set for any activity search into a spreadsheet to view hours, team member, and role information for each activity. 

Honorable mention

Other noteworthy features and updates in this release include: 

• Campaigns and funds list – view all of your campaigns and funds in one unified list, with financial progress information for each
• Better reminders – now all of your task reminders (anything due within the next 48 hours) are bundled in one e-mail sent to you once a day
• Dashboard calendar – overdue tasks and contact reports now stand out from the rest of the items on your calendar

We launched little green light™ (LGL) to a worldwide audience at NTEN’s Nonprofit Technology Conference (NTC) in April.  NTC is the place for nonprofit leaders to engage with technology that can be critical to their success. Nearly 1400 people come together from across the country and around the world to connect with peers. As the NTC website puts it, “now, more than ever, nonprofits need to invest in technology to create efficiencies that increase our effectiveness.”

LGL attracted steady interest from a wide range of people who came by our booth and asked great questions. Some were development professionals, others were consultants to non-profits, and still others were searching for tech solutions to help their non-profits achieve the mission.

We gave away a box of T-shirts and collected a pile of business cards from folks who were interested in LGL and registered to win our green iPod Nano. By the end of the Science Fair, we had engaged dozens of people in serious conversation about LGL and how it can help them do donor management better.

An interesting pattern emerged in our conversations:

• People were really excited about the unique collaboration aspect of LGL.
• The project management/task management orientation in LGL made a big impact on people: they want to use their data effectively as both a management and reporting tool!
• The cost surprised people; they had assumed our subscription rate was a per-person fee, and they were impressed we can offer such a high-quality product at an affordable price.

Nick hangs the banner

Chris setting up the computer

Chris talks to an interested conference attendee

Nick presenting the iPod Nano to Dennis Chyba of adcieo

Nick "lives" in the computer

After 18 months of development, we at the Bicknell Information Group are proud to announce that the beta period for little green light™ (LGL) is over and we are open for business! 

LGL combines donor management, constituent relationship management, and fundraising campaign management in one unified, easy-to-use interface. No extra configuration or software is required to begin using it.  LGL makes it easy for non-profit staff, board members, and volunteers to plan and track their fundraising work together by letting them collaborate 24 hours a day from any location.  LGL is designed for your whole team to communicate about constituents with continual access to giving history, letters, and current contact information, providing real-time tracking and reporting on fundraising status and activities.

In summary, with LGL you can enjoy the following benefits: 

• Easy setup. Import your data from Excel, Access, or another system and get to work right away.
• Engage your whole team. Keep staff, board members, and volunteers involved and up to date.
• See who’s doing what, when. Track your fundraising status in real time.
• Web-based, hosted, and secure. No installation necessary. Accessible from anywhere. SSL security.
• Affordable. Plans start at $19.95 per month. No fee for additional users.

In the words of one of our beta customers, Amory Rowe (Founder, In the Arena):

“Little Green Light preserves that most precious of all resources (especially for those of us in the independent sector): time.”

If you want to give it a spin, it’s easy to sign up for a free 30 day trial. Our new and improved website shows you how to sign up and provides help tutorials. In minutes, you can create your own custom account and get to work. After a free 30-day trial, the cost for a monthly subscription is modest and geared toward your operating budget. All accounts include SSL secure web access and there is no limit to your number of users. Pricing is as follows:

• $19.95 per month for organizations with an operating budget of less than $500,000 per year

• $39.95 per month if your operating budget is between $500,000 and $2 million per year

• $79.95 per month if your operating budget is above $2 million per year

Thomas Tierney, co-founder of The Bridgespan Group, spoke today about:

1. The massive growth in the nonprofit sector in terms of number of organizations and associated philanthropy
2. Leadership concepts to help your nonprofit stay focused and achieve a sustainable future

Growth, Innovation, Excellence – some “wow” trends

According to Mr. Tierney, we are seeing a “wave of change” like an “industrial revolution” for nonprofits. There are several rather staggering statistics Mr. Tierney cited.

• There are 3,000 new foundations in the last 10 years and $20 billion held in donor-advised funds
• The number of nonprofits over the last 20 years has tripled and we are seeing almost 98 new nonprofits a day
• Volunteerism is at a 30 year high

Leadership Concepts you can use today

Mr. Tierney doesn’t see a pattern (or template) of how nonprofits successfully deliver results. However, they have found through their intensive study and work with nonprofits that there is a pattern of questions that the leadership can and must engage in answering on a regular basis. A bold, overarching question a nonprofit might ask itself is, “how do we double our impact in 10 years?” The four questions Mr. Tierney recommends are:

1. What results are we holding ourselves accountable for? If we can’t answer this question then we are dealing with too much ambiguity.
2. How will we achieve the results we’re holding ourselves accountable for? This might include the concepts of logic model or theory of change. We must engage in continuous learning and we can, and should, use field knowledge and not assume we always need an expensive evaluation.
3. What will these results really cost? How will we fund them? Too often we take a $10 million problem and convince ourselves that we can only raise $1 million; we do that and then we under-deliver. This creates a cycle of mediocrity and eventual decline. An example was an organization that decided to sell salad dressing for $3.50. They thought they were making it for $3.15. However, when you factored in all the costs necessary to produce 1 bottle of salad dressing (wastage, salaries, rent) it actually cost $90!
4. How do we build the organization we need to deliver our results? Executive Directors often start to get burned out, want a Chief Operating Officer and the Board says “that’s too expensive.” Often organizations are “strongly led and under-managed” with a concept like a founder and executive of an environmental organization who said to Mr. Tierney “I like trees not people!”

Mr. Tierney also talked about a number of leadership ideas we might take with us and attempt to use in our everyday efforts to do good in this world.

• An important principle for sticking with these questions is the ability to just say “no” to ideas, stakeholders, and even funding that pushes the organization away from the results it sets out to achieve.
• Fundamental concepts from management consulting hold true in nonprofits as well. For instance it is very clear that just like in the business world the “who” matters a great deal. Strong and united leaders will have little trouble with a less than “perfect” strategy but a perfect strategy will fall flat on its face without talented people.
• Financial incentives motivate people less than “culture” (how we do things here).
• We as leaders send daily signals (it is not what you say but what you do) and we must be courageous enough to deal with conflict. You must seek out performance feedback loops on yourself–constructive criticism is key.
• We have a span of influence, maybe 10 or 25 people, who will do the most to keep our organization vibrant and impactful. We should concentrate a lot of our time on these people and be ruthless about saying “no” to those outside this sphere!
• Ask yourself after a month or so, “what was the bottom quartile of my time?” You have one. Look for ways to spend more time in the top quartile.
• Focusing on the “leadership supply” is extremely important. Businesses select over 2/3 of their new leaders from within; nonprofits select over 2/3 of their new leaders from without–when culture is so important nonprofits try to bring in a new leader that often! Looking for the “right person in the right job at the right time” isn’t easy, but if you find yourself looking at your management group and thinking you wouldn’t hire them again if they interviewed for the job they’re in you are in trouble.

In closing, Mr. Tierney told a story about a top program officer at the Gates Foundation who keeps a very large photo of a young child in Africa in her office. She calls this child “the boss” and tries to do her best to make “the boss” happy. Everything is about “the boss” and we all have one just like she does. It is not the funder, the Board member or anyone else, it is the person, the life, on whom our work is making an impact.

All in all this was a very positive three hours spent learning about trends and leadership practices for nonprofits. I encourage you to visit The Bridgespan Group’s website. Also, Mr. Tierney gave a wonderful talk that is available via podcast at the Stanford Social Innovation Review which is, in itself, a marvelous resource.

Thanks also to the NH Center for Nonprofits for putting on this great day.

In a recent article in the Chronicle of Philanthropy titled “New Rules of Attraction,” author Holly Hall talked about how the “traditional” methods of fundraising are faltering and charities are increasingly looking for ways to appeal to online donors. These methods include direct mail and telemarketing–both of which appear to be losing ground. A lot of money is being spent on “hiring extra staff members to devise and test new ideas, and are upgrading software to analyze the results.”

None of this appears to be saving money, and instead appears to be costing just as much as direct mail. Indeed, the Nature Conservancy is launching an online campaign to raise $1 million but “conservancy officials have no idea if the electronic drive will meet its goal.”

Interestingly, the article does suggest some “new approaches” things that are working well to attract new donors, including, surprisingly enough, “Making Pitches in Person.” The article then describes the efforts of World Vision, the international relief group, which asks its most loyal donors to volunteer to seek donations from other people. Apparently the organization began to recruit its donors to give presentations about giving to their colleagues at work and church. They now have 255 “Child Ambassadors” (those who give 8 presentations a year) who have recruited more than 4,000 new monthly donors. An example is:

“Vicki Casper, a flight attendant at Southwest Airlines, is World Vision’s most successful recruiter. She has single-handedly persuaded 400 people in the past two years to become monthly donors, including a passenger on a recent flight to Indianapolis. He offered to sponsor a dozen children for at least a yand, as he got off the plane, handed Ms. Casper checks for each child totaling more than $5,000.”

Hmmmm, if you are beginning to think this “new” method sounds kind of old-school, you are not alone. A consultant in the article says just that: old-school techniques such as “member-get-a-member” are gaining traction in an online world. We at Little Green Light would agree.

Little Green Light does something no other database is designed to do: it gives ambassadors, volunteers, members reaching out to their friends and acquaintances access to a database shared by a team of people—they can communicate with their team to build momentum. If Vicki Casper were using LGL, her volunteer coordinator and her whole team would have known about that $5,000 group of checks as soon as she could log in to the internet. We believe that is powerful, momentum building stuff.

LGL focuses on open, fast communication among people who want to raise money for the organization they love. Contact us now at info@littlegreenlight.com if you want a speedy, user-friendly tool to help you stay on task and communicate with your team about fund raising.

Best,

Chris Bicknell

Today I learned that a number of foundations would give more money to collaborations than they would to individual requests! I attended the Philanthropy Partners Conference hosted by the Maine Philanthropy Center today at the beautiful Samoset resort in Rockport, Maine.

The conference was an important opportunity to hear from funders and non-profits alike on topics such as:

• Funders Collaborate?!
• Nonprofit Collaboration – Making It Real and Making It Work: Experiences from the Field
• Listening to Your Partner: What Nonprofits and Funders Value Most About Each Other
• Building Nonprofit Capacity: How Grantmakers are Strengthening the Sector
• Project vs. Operating Support: The Oldest Debate in Grantmaking
• Nonprofit Mergers – By Choice or by Necessity But Not a Dirty Word Anymore
• Investing in Change: Grantmaking and Public Policy

The tone for the conference was set by Rip Rapson, head of the Kresge Foundation who spoke about how foundations needed to change a great deal to really help non-profits achieve the greatest impact possible.

As you can see from the headings of sessions listed above, collaboration was a key theme of the day. Funders spoke of their need to collaborate to tackle big problems and non-profits spoke of their collaborative efforts–both successful and unsuccessful.

One participant asked the collaborator funders to comment on how much time it takes for non-profit people to collaborate and wondered if there was some technology answer that would help build community and trust while also saving some time. The answer from one of the funders (who was recently wowed by Little Green Light) was that “Yes!” Technology can help and is being used in a project he’s working on to increase communication and knowledge sharing among distant participants of a network.

Several other funders stated it simply: “Non-profits who really collaborate shouldn’t worry that their ’slice of the pie’ will decrease. In fact, they all agreed they would give more money in new and more challenging places to true collaborative projects.”

We at Little Green Light find this to be very encouraging and we’re pleased we’ve designed an easy to use tool for our clients to use when they work together on projects. The communication is so simple and the transparency among partner organizations so complete–trust comes naturally!

Best,

Chris Bicknell