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5 ways to liberate your team from email overload

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This story published in the June 16, 2014 issue of Fortune magazine rings true for every nonprofit we serve.  Sending clear, concise emails can help us all stay more productive. You and your employees can waste several hours a day wading through the inbox. Here’s how to say more while mailing less.

1. Quit trying to solve problems by email
Gather everyone for a 15-minute huddle at the same time every day or week. With the right people in the room, it’ll take you seven minutes to resolve issues that might otherwise lead to an hour and a half of emailing back and forth. Plus, since you all know when you’ll see each other next, you’ll spend less time messaging one another to set up other times to talk.

2. Use hyperspecific subject lines
Be nitpicky! It’ll keep everyone from wasting time searching in-boxes for lost messages. To set up a June 15 call about your budget, use the subject line “June 15 call re: budget.” If the date switches to June 17, take three seconds to update it in the subject line. And when you get an email with a vague subject line like “Two questions,” change it to something more precise in your reply.

3. Insist on extreme brevity
Keep emails Twitter-tight, and tell your team not to send you missives that you have to scroll through, advises Joseph McCormack, author of Brief: Make a Bigger Impact by Saying Less. “Write them on a smartphone, for a smartphone,” he suggests. And don’t barrage employees with giant attachments. Instead, take a cue from Jeff Bezos: Read the material silently at the start of a meeting — then discuss it on the spot.

4. Ban emails with multiple parts
More than 43% of professionals abandon complicated emails in the first 30 seconds, according to McCormack’s research. “They either pause and say, ‘I’ll get back to it later’ — or don’t read them,” he says. Ask your team to stick to one topic per email and to send a new message for other, unrelated requests. And if you get a three-part message, respond to each one with a separate, accurately renamed email.

5. Close the conversation quickly
Long acknowledgments or thank-yous can lead to email clutter — but no one wants to be rude by leaving messages unacknowledged. To thank someone or answer a simple yes-or-no question, put your response in the subject line followed by “(EOM)” — short for “end of message.” Recipients will know they don’t need to open the email. Hint: Spell out EOM the first time. It’ll save you from getting a bunch of responses asking what “EOM” means.

Best management practices matter!

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A headline article in the May 29, 2014 issue of the Chronicle of Philanthropy confirms that donors are willing to invest more in to nonprofit organizations able to demonstrate best management and governance practices. Specifically, the study analyzes fundraising success of accredited nonprofits vs. non-accredited nonprofits.

Three university business professors compared 102 fully accredited nonprofits with the same number of unaccredited organizations. The study, released last month, found that the accredited nonprofits raised a median $286,589 in the year they applied for accreditation, and that figure rose to $323,754 during the first year they were accredited. The median donation to the uncertified organizations declined over the same period. A complete copy of the article is available here.

While applying for accreditation can be costly, it costs nothing to ensure your nonprofit organization is employing best practices and implementing processes that meet accreditation standards. Don’t know where to start? Attend one of Spokes’ monthly “Best Practices in Nonprofit Governance” classes to learn more about accreditation standards and how Spokes can help you strengthen your operations to secure more donor support!  Spokes members may also login to our members-only website to download the Standards for Excellence Organizational Assessment and editable templates for key operational policies.

Online Giving: An Opportunity & Legal Pitfall

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What do Blackbaud’s 2013 Charitable Giving Report, the 2013 Millennial Impact Report and the 2013 eNonprofits Benchmark Study have in common? More and more donors are donating online. All three reports announced double-digit increases in the percentage of online gifts received in 2013 over 2012. The Boston Marathon bombings, Midwest storms, Philippines’ typhoon disaster and #GivingTuesday are cited as key drivers in increased online giving, however, the trend also reflects a cultural shift in philanthropic values and donor engagement. Having a “Donate Now” button on your nonprofit’s website has become a requirement for any nonprofit that wishes to grow its donor support.

But, online donations present a unique legal challenge for nonprofits. Every nonprofit must register in any state where it conducts fundraising activities. So what does an organization do when faced with the prospect of online giving and soliciting gifts nationally – or worldwide? Do you register your organization in all 50 states?

In response to these questions and as an effort to minimize charitable solicitation fraud through the internet, a group of attorneys and state charity officials convened as The National Association of State Charity Officials (NASCO) and defined a set of guidelines for internet fundraising known as The Charleston Principles (visit www.afpnet.org for details).  The following is a summary of the principles to help determine when and where your organization needs to register:

  • Every nonprofit must register in the state identified in its principal place of business address. If you are hosting fundraising or educational events where donations are accepted or soliciting local volunteers and donors, your non-Internet activities alone require registration in your home (“domicile”) state.
  • Every nonprofit using an interactive website (“Donate Now!” button) should register, at minimum, in its home state with the assumption that most of the online gifts received will come from your surrounding proximity.
  • If your organization specifically targets persons physically located outside of your home state – either by email or website – it must register within that targeted state. Clarification: If your organization receives a handful of donations from donors located outside of your state, there is no need to register in the donors’ states. If, however, your organization later sends an email  appeal requesting a second donation from one of those donors located outside of your state then  your organization is targeting persons physically located outside of your home state and would be required to register with the donor’s state.
  • If your organization receives online contributions from persons located outside of your home state on a repeated, ongoing basis or of a substantial amount, it should be registered within those states where the online donors are located. Clarification:  As an example, if a donor from Nevada makes a $50,000 online donation to your California-based organization (a gift that represents 25% of your total annual funds received), such gift would be considered “substantial” by the Internal Revenue Service and require your organization to register with the state of Nevada.

Keep your nonprofit current with these 5 online giving trends.

Good News Bad News for Boards & EDs

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Listen up, nonprofit leaders! I’ve got good news and bad news.

I’ll start with the bad: according to Harvard Business Review’s April 2013 issue, corporations share many of the same governance issues that nonprofits do.  It’s both disheartening and comforting to know that good Board leadership and governance is hard to create, manage and sustain in any sector.

The good news is that the issue – and specifically the article “What CEO’S Really Think of Their Boards” – offers some sound advice for both Directors and Executive Directors/CEOs.

First, the article suggests that Directors:

  1. Focus more on the risks that are the most crucial to the future of the organization. Don’t shun risk or see it in personal terms.
  2. Do their homework to understand the issue/industry the organization addresses.  And, stay consistently plugged in.
  3. Bring character and credentials, not celebrity, to the table.
  4. Do more to challenge strategy constructively.
  5. Make succession less, not more, disruptive to operations.

 

One of the most powerful revelations presented in the article came from former SEC chairman and Aetna CEO William Donaldson: “The Board is a social entity.  And the human beings on it – they act like human beings do in groups. The longer individuals are there, the more allies they have, the more they have their dislikes, the more irrational they become in terms of personal conflict.”  He’s amazed that more work has not been done to illuminate “the social contract within a board.”

Donaldson’s comments underscore two key similarities – and often functional roadblocks – in corporate and nonprofit Boards: ownership and the importance of relationship.  Directors of public corporations do not own the companies they are directing.  They sit in their Director roles in service to the shareholders of the company.  Nonprofit Board members also do not own the organizations they lead and are in service of their stakeholders (or beneficiaries of the nonprofits programs and services).

Regardless of the sector, Directors must put aside personal agendas when they step into a Board meeting and abide by the social contract they hold with one another and their shareholders/stakeholders.

The article concluded by identifying three key takeaways:

  1. The entire organization will get more value if the partnership between the CEO and Board is strong.  If governance isn’t working, it’s everyone’s job to figure out why and to fix it.
  2. Most boards aren’t working as well as they should.  Although governed by bylaws and legal responsibilities, interactions between CEOs and Directors are still personal, and improving them often requires the sorts of honest, direct and sometimes awkward conversations that serve to ease tensions in any personal relationship.
  3. The best leadership partnerships are forged where there is mutual respect, energetic commitment to the future success of the organization, and strong bonds of trust.  Great boards support smart entrepreneurial risk taking with prudent oversight, wise counsel and encouragement.

I encourage you to share this summary in your next Board meeting packet and set aside some discussion time to explore everyone’s thoughts and reactions to the article’s findings.  Perhaps doing so could present you with a wonderful opportunity to strengthen your partnership and refine your collective focus for the rest of 2013.

If you would like to read the entire article, please feel free to stop by Spokes.  And, as always, if your organization would like a little extra encouragement, coaching or assistance in facilitating these sometimes daunting conversations, Spokes is here to help.  Just call – 805-547-2244!

Nonprofit Tax Filing Requirements

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Most of you will already be familiar with the time frame for filing your organization’s non-profit returns with the IRS and the Franchise Tax Board.  These forms must be filed no later than the 15th day of the fifth month after the fiscal year end.  For example, if your entity’s fiscal year ends on December 31st, your filing is due on May 15th.  The filing requirements have changed over the past few years, and the filing requirements are different for the IRS than they are for the Franchise Tax Board.  For 2012, the filing requirements are as follows:

IRS Requirements

Form to File
If your gross receipts are:
990-N 
Normally equal to or less than $50,000
990-EZ
Normally less than $200,000 and total assets are less than $500,000
990
Equal to or more than $200,000 or more and total assets are equal to or more than $500,000

FTB Requirements

Form to File
If your gross receipts are:
199-N
Normally equal to or less than $25,000
199
Normally greater than $25,000

All non-profit organizations must file one of the above returns.  If you qualify to file forms 990-N and 199-N, these are postcard filings that can be done very easily online.  If you need more information you can check the IRS or Franchise Tax Board websites, or contact your tax preparer.

Speak and Be Spoke(n)!

So, tell us!  Do you have any lessons learned to share with your fellow nonprofits regarding tax filing requirements?

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