Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation

Board leadership is critical for successful nonprofit organizations. Board members are your ambassadors; they develop strategy, help fundraise, and give your organization a level of professionalism and cohesiveness that it needs to thrive. When your board isn’t functioning well, your organization isn’t either.

Fortunately, there’s help.

Dodge has just announced a new round of its Board Leadership training series, an intensive, step-by-step program to build a stronger and more effective Board of Directors for your organization.

We have teamed up with The Nonprofit Center at La Salle University’s Business School to present a FREE, comprehensive series that has three components:

1) FOUNDATIONAL OVERVIEW: Two mandatory introductory full-day workshops: Assessment/Lifecycles and the Board Bootcamp

2) DRILLING DOWN: A series of six follow-up intensive workshops on the most pressing Board Development subjects

3) INSTITUTIONALIZING THE LEARNING: Access to our “Just In Time” consulting, as well as an opportunity to apply for a matching grant which pays for a consultant to work with your full Board on any area that your organization has identified as a priority.

Please note: all workshops are limited to 25 participants and will fill up quickly. Preference will be given to Dodge grantees and groups who attend the two mandatory Foundational Overview workshops (Assessment/Lifecycles and the Board Bootcamp) and are working towards eligibility for the matching grant.

View the full workshop series and schedule, and register online here.

Image: Joe Geinert

Today’s guest blog comes from Sue Nyoni, founder of Conscious Technology and facilitator for our Technical Assistance workshop series on Smart Social Media.

By Sue Nyoni

In 2009, I led the first series of social media workshops offered as part of the Dodge Technical Assistance Initiative. At that time, only a handful of the people attending were convinced of the value of social media to their organizations. Many of them weren’t even really sure what “it” was and were completely unfamiliar with Twitter and Facebook. As a consequence I had to spend most of the time defining social media and then demonstrating its potential value to them. It wasn’t easy and there was some serious resistance.

Fast forward two years, and here we are with a new series in full swing. The series consists of a full day session which covers how to strategically plan for the use of social media in support of mission and goals, followed by five tool-specific webinars. Much has changed in the intervening two years. I didn’t need to explain what Twitter and Facebook are, nor did I have to convince anyone of the potential value of social media to their organizations. It was clear that everyone in the room now knew WHAT “it” is, but they still didn’t know what to DO with it.

Every organization attending had already made some foray into the social media space, with varying levels of success. What they felt they lacked, however, was confidence in their ability to use these tools to maximal effect. They were unsure how to integrate social media into their missions, goals, programs and processes.

The landscape of the social web has certainly changed since Dodge first offered this series. New platforms have come and gone, and the reach of existing platforms have shifted. While the technology may have evolved, the challenges for many nonprofit organizations remain the same: not having in-house expertise and support; not having dedicated resources to commit to social media efforts; not knowing which tools to use and how best to use them; the frustration of trying to keep up with the latest and greatest tools.

Given these challenges the most practical advice I can offer is to be realistic about what you are trying to accomplish and the resources you have available to you to make it happen. It’s OK to start small. You don’t have to be on every single social network. In fact, unless you have dedicated media staff you can’t do that and do it well. Far better to focus and get the basics down. With so many tools and so little time to master them all, it is very easy to get caught in flurry of social media activity without actually accomplishing much. It is far more effective to pick the one or two tools/networks which best support your goals and learn them well so that you can use them well.

This foundational approach is what we are trying to achieve with this series. Over the course of the next few weeks I’ll share with you some tips for getting the basics down. In the meantime we’d love to hear your experiences with social media.

Getting attention for your organization in today’s world can be challenging. It’s no longer enough to rely solely on traditional media or grassroots engagement to get a story out to the public and garner support.

We’ve heard from our grantees that they are eager to hone their communications strategies and learn how best to use social media tools, but that the technology changes so fast, it’s overwhelming to keep up. We’re responding to our grantees’ needs with a new series of free Technical Assistance Communications Workshops to help them catch attention, raise awareness and inspire action.

Public Image Works, led by Ennis Carter of Design for Social Impact, is a three part participatory series that allows you to do a deep exploration of your organization’s identity, develop a promotional plan, and figure out where and on whom to focus your energies.

Smart Social Media for Nonprofits, led by Sue Nyoni of Conscious Technology, is a one day overview workshop on how to utilize social media for your communication strategy, followed by five online webinars exploring effective and innovative ways to use Facebook, Twitter, Blogging, and Online Fundraising Tools.

To register, please visit us on the Dodge website.

* Please note that the workshops are intended for Dodge grantees, but where possible, we try our best to accommodate other non-profits.

Introduction by Wendy Liscow, Program Officer

“Our goal is the success of our grantees.”

This is how one of our board members recently summarized Dodge’s investment in technical assistance and capacity building for our grantees. Many of you have already registered for our current Board Leadership Training series, but if you haven’t already, register now. Today’s guest blogger, David Gray, is one of the many consultants working with our grantees who attended our Board Training series and were then eligible to apply for a matching board capacity building grant. David  has a lot to say on the topic of financial management for nonprofits, and his new book is arrives in stores today. We thought you would appreciate a taste of his wisdom.

David Gray
President, Finance Arts, LLC

With increasing focus in the nonprofit sector on the broad concept of sustainability, many organizations are struggling with determining just what sustainability means. Does sustainability mean, “How do we stay in business?” Does it mean, “How do we ensure we have enough money to keep doing what we are doing?” Does it mean, “How do I stay in business without counting on the continuing support of fickle foundations?”

Before you can determine how to become sustainable, by any of these definitions, I believe it is essential to understand your business model, and the annual cash flow that emerges as a result of your business model. I believe this so strongly that I have written a book about it, The Finance Arts Guide To Nonprofit Cash Flow (available at Amazon and other online booksellers).

We don’t tend to think about nonprofit organizations in terms of their business models but every organization has one, whether they know it or not. The business model combines how an organization is capitalized (what kind of financial structure has been used to create and operate it) and how, in most cases, the services we provide are “bought” and paid for. Of course, in many cases, services aren’t “bought” by the end user. Neither a soup kitchen nor an orchestra charges the end user a price that covers the costs of providing the service, so additional funds are required. How we organize this financial picture determines the business model.

In a perfect world everything we do would be paid for in full, and in advance. So we would collect all the funds and then generate the service so that at no time would we be “out of pocket.” In the real world there are few nonprofit organizations that can generate sufficient funds in advance of incurring costs for providing services. Theaters sell subscriptions to get money in advance of providing the service. Private schools try to get tuition in advance for the same reason. But even these organizations must raise additional funds and it is very difficult to do so in advance of the theater season or school year.

Your business model also determines your annual cash flow. Imagine that you are a florist. You need to have lots of flowers on hand for Valentine’s Day but you don’t really know how many, and people don’t tend to buy them in advance. So you have to pay for the flowers in the hopes that you sell them on Valentine’s Day. You need to come up with substantial money in advance. Many businesses maintain lines of credit with banks for just such purposes.

This contrasts with the busy spring wedding season when most florists require substantial deposits as part of their contract to provide wedding flowers. Here the florist is at much less risk because they have already got funds from the customer to pay for the flowers in advance.

The cash flow of the nonprofit organization will reflect the business model. Do we get money in advance of providing the service and therefore have relatively stable and positive cash flow? Must we provide the service and wait for months for reimbursement from a government agency, reflecting an ongoing cash shortage? Of course small and even medium sized nonprofits may have trouble getting lines of credit so it makes sense to have money saved and set aside for such times.

You can’t address making your organization sustainable, by most any definition, without understanding what your business model is and how that model is reflected in your cash flow. Once you do have an understanding of your business model and its commensurate cash flow, you can then determine whether a line of credit, a cash reserve, an endowment, or some combination of these will provide the most effective route toward sustainability

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David Gray is President of Finance Arts, LLC, which provides personal financial planning and nonprofit consulting services. Gray, who is a Certified Financial Planner and Certified Divorce Financial Analyst, has also served as Executive Director of nonprofit organizations. His book, The Finance Arts Guide to Nonprofit Cash Flow, is a user friendly guide to understanding nonprofit finance. In the book Gray reviews familiar personal finance topics and explains how they relate to their nonprofit organizational counterparts. Including real-world examples from his own experience, and that of his wife, former New York City Ballet Principal Dancer Kyra Nichols, Gray makes the irregularity of nonprofit cash flow easier to comprehend. Gray also introduces a new method for determining the appropriate cash reserve for nonprofit organizations, based not on outdated rules-of-thumb, but targeted to the specific operational model of the individual organization.

Finance Arts, LLC, located in Princeton, NJ, provides nonprofit consulting and personal financial planning on an hourly fee only basis.

www.FinanceArts.com
dgray@FinanceArts.com

With only three weeks until the October kick off the Dodge Foundation’s Board Leadership Training Series, past workshop participants share valuable “takeaways” that have changed the way they work. The series began with Laura Otten of the Nonprofit Centre at LaSalle University’s School of Business. She challenged board members to make a commitment to gain the tools to become a more effective governing force. Last week, Alan Levitan, the Board President for the Arts Council of the Morris Area, reported how his board made changes in their board recruitment and meeting structures. This week we hear from both the Artistic Director and Board Chair of the Lydia Johnson Dance Company who provide their unique perspectives on how the workshops influenced their perception of the challenges they face. It doesn’t matter what size your organization is, or where you are in your organizational lifecycle, these workshops promise to be transformational.

Changing the Face of Reality
By Lydia Johnson and Camilla Finch Teitelman

Lydia Johnson, center, with dancers Kerry Shea and Jessica Sand

Lydia Johnson: Artistic Director and Founder

When I first arrived at the Dodge Workshops I was hesitant to share all of the reality of our small Dance Company’s situation. We were presenting full-scale performances with 10 professional dancers in both New York and New Jersey. We had recently performed at Jacob’s Pillow (a prestigious dance festival). We had received insightful and deeply positive reviews from the New York Times, and Backstage Magazine and articulate listings in About The Town in The New Yorker. A well-known New York arts Blogger had come forward asking to feature the Company in a series of articles on the creative process. He wanted to follow the creation of a new dance from start to performance and publish photos of our rehearsals on his blog. We had plans for a Gala Celebration of our 10th Anniversary at both our home theater, SOPAC in South Orange NJ, and in New York at The Ailey Citigroup Theater. Our dance classes were steadily growing and we had an expanding scholarship program for underserved children who wanted to dance.

But this was not the whole picture! There was a reality that our glowing reviews and newly redesigned website did not expose. Our dancers are paid by the project and thus the scheduling around their other commitments and jobs is extremely difficult. We have no office. We had no paid administrative staff. Our Board is a small group of dedicated supporters who meet in each other’s houses. At that time, they were constantly trying to figure out how to divide the never-ending list of volunteer jobs for the next event. Our equipment was unbelievably old and difficult to use. I had to race back and forth between two 10-year-old computers when I was working since one would not open PDF’s and the other held our old hard drive- based database. I functioned as Executive and Artistic Director and Administrative Assistant. I choreographed, taught and did publicity and all of the secretarial work. The Board members who had been with us for a number of years were exhausted from doing everything from cutting up vegetables for fundraisers to planning how to raise awareness of our performances. And most importantly, our understanding of the process of focused fundraising was just beginning to emerge. We were consulting with a development professional but only sporadically.

Ensemble for DUSK, Lydia’s two-part Gorecki ballet

I assumed we would downplay the difficulties of being so small and underfunded. True, we were accomplishing miraculous things with almost no resources, but what we couldn’t possibly have seen, without the Dodge workshops, was that this path we were on had been traveled many times before by creative nonprofits who were now integral to their communities! Nonprofits we admired and aspired to be like had actually been where we were now!

As David Grant began to speak on the Lifecycles of nonprofits, I felt the lifting of the burdens I had been carrying. The burden of thinking we were alone in this experience, that the difficult path was unique to us and therefore somehow our “fault.” The burden of thinking we would be judged harshly if anyone really knew how we were functioning. The burden of being unable to ask questions regarding how to progress since we were reluctant to expose the whole situation – assuming it would shock and upset possible advisors.

Josh Kurtzberg and Laura DiOrio

What a revelation the workshops were! We were given the tools to place our journey in perspective. We had markers and concepts with which to understand our strengths and our limitations. And most importantly we began to understand the tools to change and grow in ways that simply would have been impossible without the structured information and warm support we received.

Kerry Shea and Eric Vlach; Laura DiOrio and James Hernandez, from Lydia’s Untitled Bach

We realized, for example, that while our programming was at a “mature” level, our infrastructure was at a “start up” stage! Well okay that wasn’t such a bad realization – I began to honor and respect even more the wonderful people I was working with and to respect our persistence and ingenuity in moving forward given a pool of resources which were as yet inadequate! The pathway we were on had been traveled before. It had colorful and clear signposts! We were in good company – we were in fact a part of the community of growing nonprofits – and our strength could be expanded by opening up to the pool of collective knowledge I now realized existed. •

Camilla Finch, right, with founding Board member Rayna Pomper

Camilla Finch Teitelman: Board Chair, Founding Member

There was a moment of truth for me during the Dodge fundraising workshop that helped LJD put in place many new changes. Allison Trimarco (the instructor for the Board as Fundraisers workshop) said “You can’t continue to work at this level of sacrifice. It’s just not sustainable.”

We had all known this for years but hadn’t found the right way to change it. We knew the next level for LJD was right around the corner, but we didn’t seem to be able to get there. Of late, we had put in place a number of new initiatives. We had added two new board members—bringing our grand total to six, we expanded our fundraising activities to include individual asks in addition to mail solicitations and income from performances and events, and we began writing more grant applications. But it clearly wasn’t enough. It just took too much to keep the organization going at the current level; moving it forward was another matter.

Going to the Dodge workshops galvanized us to treat LJD more like a business. (Although if I had known what a lousy business running a dance company is I might have had second thoughts!) Our Board meetings became more structured. Board roles were more defined and responsibilities laid out clearly. We faced and changed some of our fiscal management and changed our view of fundraising from a huge sometimes embarrassing chore to a game, even a puzzle. And finally, the Dodge workshops gave us a platform from which to discuss issues that we had often found difficult. “That’s OK, but you know Dodge said…” I dare say was uttered more than once.

In the future, I can see using other tools we learned at Dodge, including strategic planning, methods for assessing our programs. And of course, rubrics for the board and all the activities of our organization! •

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Lydia Johnson, (Choreographer, Artistic Director)

Originally from Massachusetts, Ms. Johnson is the Artistic Director of Lydia Johnson Dance, which has received generous support from the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation in 2008, 2009 and 2010. LJD performs and teaches regularly at SOPAC in South Orange, NJ where they are Dance Company in Residence, as well as at The Ailey Citigroup Theater in New York. The Company performed recently at Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival in Massachusetts. LJD was founded in 1999 and has received additional support from The Garden State Arts Foundation. The Company has been featured in a series titled “The Creative Process” written by Philip Gardner and photographed by Kokyat on the New York arts blog Oberon’s Grove.

Ms Johnson studied at SUNY/Purchase and on scholarship at The Alvin Ailey American Dance Center. She continued her studies in New York with Finis Jhung and Sara Rudner among others. She presented her early work in New York at numerous dance spaces and founded One Night Stand, a series of Co-operative showcases, which allowed choreographers to present new work inexpensively. She has received a Monticello Foundation award sponsored by The National Association of Regional Ballet as well as a Harkness Dance Center Space Grant from the 92nd Street Y.

Camilla Finch Teitelman, LJD Board President

A journalist by trade, Ms. Finch Teitelman worked on the ABC Network News programs, 20/20, World News Tonight with Peter Jennings and Business World with Sander Vanocur. She has also worked in print journalism with, among other publications, Crain’s New York Business. A native New Yorker, she moved to New Jersey 17 years ago where, along with Lydia Johnson and Rayna Pomper, she began the process that led to the founding and development of Lydia Johnson Dance. Currently LJD’s Board President, Ms. Finch Teitelman is moving into the nonprofit sector and is near completion of a Certificate in Nonprofit Management.

Performance photos courtesy Oberon’s Grove