The FAMCare Blog

Good morning - this post comes to us from our friends at Move Mondays.  I have posted the article here in it's entirety.

A new video was posted this morning from our friends at Movie Mondays. 

How does a nonprofit with a couple thousand Facebook likes and an Excel spreadsheet of donors utilize the digital leverage of big organizations? In the absence of physical contact, digital communication is the new virtual glue that links stakeholders to organizations. The digital universe, however, has rapidly expanded into a vast, crowded, and mercurial communication space that favors the leverage of large organizations.

The now familiar slogan that I have chosen as the title of this blog is not meant to be a political statement or an endorsement of any kind. Rather, I was musing over why Bernie Sanders, a 74- year-old self-described socialist, appeals overwhelmingly to Millennials.  I wanted to understand how these “Feel the Bern” Millennials differ from Baby Boomers and how the differences are impacting the social consciousness of America.

FUNDING BIAS

Nonprofit donors have been traditionally reluctant to fund overhead. They feel better when their funds go to feed the hungry or house the homeless rather than supporting unpopular “administrative expenses” that, if truth be told, they often see as a management ripoff or gross inefficiency. It isn’t like donors don’t realize that the organization that actually executes the nonprofit’s mission has a generic cost that fuels the mission itself. They just feel that it should be almost zero, or, at least, none of their funds should be wasted on the office and salaries.

LEVERAGE

Redefined

The word leverage, has become an unsavory Wall Street word that nonprofits avoid using because most people in finance associate the word with taking on a pile of debt to expand a limited amount of core capital. Merriam Webster defines leverage as “the use of credit to enhance one’s speculative capacity”.

“Don’t tell people what you do…tell them why you do it” 

(Simon Sinek: How Great Leaders Inspire Action, TED Talks)

Mission-driven companies are forces to be reckoned with. Usually born out of a strong founder-led culture, mission-driven companies consistently outperform the competition. True passion for a mission is not something leaders can fake.

How do you eat an elephant?

…the old quip goes.

One bite at a time

…pipes the punchline.

In the world of nonprofit, the mission statement is the elephant that can't be digested in one bite. A great mission statement sums up the work and purpose of a nonprofit. It communicates to donors and employees alike what the nonprofit agency is all about.

What would a PC be without Windows? Back in the day I purchased a high powered laptop from an Internet dealer that was shipped without Windows preloaded. I removed the gleaming new machine from the box and immediately had one of those moments when you thought you knew where you were going, but suddenly realized you were lost. Here was the latest computer with the most robust memory and the fastest processor on the market, and I had no idea how to use it. I didn’t even know how to turn it on, let alone put it to work.