Operations

At a recent meeting of Boston nonprofits, a community leader announced that a committee of concerned citizens was seeking to help multiple nonprofits to think about mergers.

Until recently, small social agencies successfully provided programs with a combination of state funds, private donations and foundation grants. Today, state contracts are rapidly shrinking, private donors have less capacity, and foundations cannot fill the gaps.

The community leader said his foremost concern in these times is constituents, not that organizational boundaries be preserved. If you are considering a merger, your first question should be: “Will our clients be better served by a merger?” The next question is “What will make the merger process work?”

In our experience with merger projects, Management Consulting Services (MCS) has learned a number of lessons. We would like to share our lessons with you if you are looking for a merger partner.

Important Features in a Merger Partner
In the past, organizations seeking a merger partner would have the luxury of a long courtship period, followed by lengthy negotiations leading to a prolonged implementation period. Today, the new partners are likely to be on a schedule more like speed dating. They must select the right partner and move quickly to realize the expected benefits.

Are our programs having the Impact we want?  Do program Finances justify a program’s viability?  How can we identify strengths and weaknesses?

Executive Directors are striving to cope with shrinking budgets.  If programs must be cut or curtailed, what approach helps with decision making?  Management Consulting Services (MCS) has developed a process and tools for program analysis.   Executive Directors, and their Boards, have found the MCS approach to be helpful.

Step 1.  Develop Program Assessment Criteria

The process begins with definition of the criteria to be used in evaluating programs.  Recently, an MCS client agreed to the following criteria for its programs:

As 2009 approaches, it’s high season for annual appeal campaigns, and with the economy in a recession, these donations become absolutely more critical to keeping organizations going. It’s fairly common to see in these appeal letters or in an annual report, a chart or graph that captures and states the amount to which a donor’s contribution goes to direct services. This is usually done in response to the general desire from donors that every dollar go to providing services and not to operational infrastructure.
The question that agencies are compelled to answer is, “How much of my money goes to supporting services?” But the question itself, and answer to it, tells the donor nothing about how effective the organization is in delivering services or the impact it has in meeting social problems. The question also demonizes overhead, as Dan Pallotta, a writer and blogger about nonprofits and philanthropy says, “when in fact ‘overhead’ is what's required to build the infrastructures we'll need if we ever really want to solve the huge social problems.”
As a former program person and funder, you’ve never had to convince me of the need to fund overhead, and I’ve tried to educate others about the importance of it. So, here’s my appeal to donors as they (or even you) consider and respond to annual campaign letters to support overhead.
Dear Sir/Madam,
As you consider the many requests for your support, we want to make sure you’re aware of the significant contributions overhead plays in our organization.

Over the last couple of months, I have seen more and more job postings from innovative nonprofits that are hiring for online community manager positions. This is a welcome sign that we are fast reaching an inflection point in the adoption of 2.0 technologies. Whether creating new positions or adjusting current positions, nonprofits are adjusting their human resources to meet the growing demands of building online community.

There a number of skill sets that one ought to look for when hiring the online community manager: