Friday, April 17, 2009

Information Continues to be Released Regarding Economic Stimulus Opportunities!

NorthSky staff had an opportunity to participate in a webinar, A Recovery Act Update for Michigan Nonprofits, presented by Leslee Fritz, Director of Michigan’s Economic Recovery Office. The presentation was helpful in highlighting the ways in which the Recovery Act funding will come into communities, the status of those streams, and where we need to go to get up to date information. The ARRA funding that is available to nonprofits is coming in two ways:
  1. Through formula grants to existing programs (e.g. Medicaid, school funding, Food Stamps, Community Development Block Grants, etc.). This funding is moving out quickly to state and local governments and other organizations through existing mechanisms. Many of the formula funds to states and governments require that they work with community organizations. Nonprofits are encouraged to check with their municipalities for opportunities to partner.
  2. Through competitive grants, the vast majority of which will be at the federal level. These competition announcements are coming out more slowly. There are some out now, but according to recent briefing they are expecting the bulk of these competitions to be open in July and August. All ARRA federal grant competitions must be posted on www.grants.gov (more information below). The state will likely have some competitive grants which will be posted on www.michigan.gov/recovery (more information below).
The funding made through formula grants to existing programs and through competitive grants will cut across almost all sectors – health, education, human services, transportation, energy, housing and community development, the environment, and arts and culture.

Prior to the signing of the ARRA, the Governor requested summaries of “shovel ready” projects from organizations around the state. The purpose of the list was to assess the need in the state and lobby for resources to come to Michigan. Most of the ARRA funding is being coordinated at the federal level, or simply passing through the state to local communities through formula grants. The little discretionary funding that is left for the state is going to meet their ongoing budget shortfalls and will not be used to fund any of the “shovel ready” projects. Organizations with shovel ready projects are encouraged to pursue competitive ARRA grants and contact the units of local government that received formula allocations to pursue partnership opportunities.

If you are interested in securing economic stimulus dollars for your nonprofit, it’s important to check three resources daily for updates:

www.michigan.gov/recovery - State of Michigan’s portal for ARRA information. Click on “Grant Opportunities” for a summary and contact information for all ARRA grant opportunities (formula and competitive).
http://www.grants.gov/applicants/recovery.jsp - The grants.gov page dedicated to federal recovery act competitive grant opportunities. There are links to all the federal departments’ newly created recovery web pages as well as a link to a listing of all of the open Recovery Act competitions.
www.recovery.gov – The federal government site for Recovery Act news and reporting.

The PowerPoint and question and answers from this webinar can be accessed at: http://www.mnaonline.org/pdf/MNAGovOfcPPTPresentation_April142009.pdf. Look for a link to the full transcript of the presentation and question and answer session in next week’s update.

Additionally, on April 9, the White House held a special “briefing for outside organizations about the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA)” to provide an opportunity “to learn about how the ARRA funds are being distributed in the various departments and how you as organizations can participate.” The National Council of Nonprofits attended the briefing and has published this Special Report so nonprofits across the country can have equal access to this important information. (Source: National Council of Nonprofits)

Friday, April 10, 2009

Why Do Capacity-Building? Another Way to Think about Our Work

I was recently challenged to help one of my clients explain the concept of capacity-building to her board – why we should do it and why it should be funded. I’ve been doing this work for so long that it just makes logical sense to me! Why doesn’t it for everyone?! I decided to use a theory-of-change logic loop and it has proved useful. I thought I’d pass along both the tool and the logic of capacity-building.

I borrowed this very basic theory-of-change logic loop from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation’s internal evaluation unit. It looks like this:




Issues and Opportunities


To apply this logic loop to capacity-building, I had to consider first the issues that have caused capacity-building to arise for nonprofits and what opportunities become available to organizations as a result. Here’s what I put together in describing “Issues and Opportunities:”

  1. Nonprofits traditionally receive funding only for programs. Many funders have had restrictions about using funding for operations, equipment and other such elements of infrastructure.
  2. Therefore, nonprofits have under-developed infrastructure. Many struggle with the basics such as financial reporting, as well as functions such as quality improvement systems. A common theme is under-developed board governance and, in some cases, poorly functioning executive leadership.
  3. Nonprofits cannot sustain programs long-term. When the three-year grant ends, all too often, the program ends. Or it must be reorganized to attract funding from another funder. How many of us have written grants where we said we’d find a way to fund the project long-term and we had, at best, a vague idea of how to do that?
  4. As a result, there is ongoing expansion and contraction of services to the community. This makes it difficult for service seekers to know where to go to get what. And it is expensive to keep repeating the “start up” cycle that comes with new funding for a new idea (or new funding for an old idea revised). Changes in service delivery should be guided by needs, not by the availability of funding.
You may have other ideas about the issues and opportunities. The logic loop helps us to identify those.

Responses

So, now what? What is the response to these issues and opportunities? Here is how I answered:

  1. Initial research has identified the elements of strong nonprofit functioning. Research done by McKinsey and Company for Venture Philanthropy Partners identified seven broad categories of capacity that nonprofits need to have to function successfully.
  2. It is possible to assess functioning via capacity-building assessment. McKinsey’s work has been converted to a grid that accesses the capacities that nonprofits have in four areas: leadership, adaptability, operations and management.
  3. Funders understand the need to fund infrastructure development. In our region, Rotary Charities has led the way by making grants to help agencies assess their capacities and then develop plans for how to address their gaps. Rotary also provides up to three years of funding for the implementation of capacity building activities. Many of you have or are participating in this process by completing an organizational capacity assessment and developing a plan for capacity building with NorthSky.
  4. Capacity building activities are undertaken. The field of nonprofit management and consulting are beginning to develop and provide services and programs that address a variety of capacity issues. We see board development, fund development, volunteer management among the more predominant needs.
This is good news. We have a tool that can help us assess capacity. We have funders who are willing to invest in strengthening capacity. And we’re starting to develop the programs that address the capacity gaps. So, off we go? Not quite!

Outcomes

We can’t leave this discussion without talking about outcomes. We all know our funders want to know what impact their funding produced. But, most importantly, all of us as leaders and staff in nonprofits need to know what outcomes we’re trying to achieve. That is true of capacity building as well. There are three levels of outcome to consider:

  1. Initial outcomes: how did the functioning of the organization improve? Are boards functioning better? Is more money being raised?
  2. Long-term impact: are these organizations better able to meet their missions? Are they serving more clients? Are their services more effective?
  3. Social change: is the community better off because of the investment in these nonprofits? Is the community healthier? Are its citizens enjoying a better quality of life?
These outcomes seem logically connected, don’t they? But, we really don’t know for sure unless we can answer all of these questions with sound research. And this is where it gets tough – answering the last two questions requires considerable time and resources to design and implement research studies. More about that in a minute...

Putting it all together

If I put all of this information, in abbreviated form, in my logic loop, we end up with a concise way to look at what might seem like a very complex thing called capacity-building. It looks like this:




And, if I over lay on this model an approach to evaluating capacity-building, I come up with this:


Getting back to outcomes for a minute, how much time and resource should we invest in evaluating capacity-building? We can and should be able to articulate initial outcomes. But long range outcomes and social change are better left to large funders, university-based researchers and scientists, and field theorists.

I am hopeful that the logic loop offered here will give all of us the compelling rationale for continuing the very important work of capacity-building. And I hope you can see that you can apply this approach to other aspects of your work as a nonprofit organization. I wish you the best of success on behalf of your clients and the community!

Post your comments on Chris Ameen’s capacity building model.

Friday, April 3, 2009

Great Tips for Time Management

I took some time off during Spring break and headed to Dallas for a long weekend. Great thing about plane trips (especially when you experience long and unplanned delays); you catch up on your reading!

One article in Nonprofit World really hit home for me. “Never Enough Time by Paul Lemberg provides some great tips for time management and improving work/ home balance.

Some of the author’s tips:

  1. Create a list of priorities. Make them explicit and post them prominently on your desk. Evaluate how well these priorities advance the mission of your organization and your strategic plan.
  2. Re-think your master “to do” list. Update it frequently and avoid creating a messy list that is a “hodgepodge” of items. Order the most important items first.
  3. Start fresh everyday. Identify seven or fewer items of most importance to accomplish each day. Each item on the list must advance a critical issue for your organization.
  4. Re-think meetings and rituals such as answering email or reading. Evaluate meetings and rituals against your highest priorities. If it doesn’t address a critical issue, don’t do it. Eliminate it, delegate it, or just get rid of it!
  5. Evaluate your progress. At the end of each week, assess how you are doing against critical goals.

Some time management activities I’ve incorporated into my own life include innovative ways of adding exercise into a busy schedule. I always carry my walking shoes and work-out gear in the car and conduct meetings while walking (with many of you! You know who you are!) Or I walk to meetings that are within a mile or two of the offices.

I create my daily “to do” list for the next day at the end of the work day so I hit my desk ready to go in the morning.

And, of course, I always carry a giant tote bag of reading material with me on planes with the goal of emptying that tote before arrival at my destination. I save a great novel for the trip home as my reward.

What about you? Any tips to share? Post your comments