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Traveling format billing for non-profit organizations

please join me in a visualization exercise what I'd like you to do is you can either sit quietly and just think you can write notes on a piece of paper or you can just close your eyes but I'd like you to visualize a community that you care about and I'd like you to think about why you care about that community I'd like to think you travel round a little bit go to the places you like to go travel to other places that you know you might like to go just kind of think through why you care about that community just take a couple seconds to do that yourself now I'd like you to think of the role that nonprofits might play in that community that you care about I'd like you to think about what nonprofits you might be aware of some of you will know a lot of nonprofits some of you may not know many at all please don't make judgments on your awareness of nonprofits they're there and they're very involved it's just a choice whether we get involved or not so with that said the reality is that we are all stakeholders in our community and in the nonprofit's that serve that community there are so many different stakeholders that are involved in so many different things and the reality is the stakeholders just simply someone that has a care or concern about something so these nonprofits are there and they're working in our community and we need to ask ourselves why simon Sinek gave a talk in 2009 a TED talk where he talked about the importance of why and when he said this is he says the why often differentiates companies from others and so when it comes to a non-profit we need to ask him what's the why and so when we look at that the interesting thing is most often nonprofits there's a lot of passion and a commitment there there's oftentimes a clear understanding of the need that they serve and so we just need to understand what that y is and so why do nonprofits exist in the first place well that goes back all the way to the American Colonization where people were willing to work together for the betterment of society in general so the need for nonprofits has always been there and guidestar.org which is a leading provider of information related to nonprofits says that there are just over 1.8 million active nonprofits in the United States today so what does that look like in a community like Rapid City where most of us call home in the state of South Dakota six thousand nine hundred and thirty seven nonprofits registered on the guidestar.org website in the Black Hills the surrounding area the Black Hills over 1,000 Rapid City itself city proper 691 you take an estimated census of approximately 74,000 people divided by 691 nonprofits in our community and that's about one for every 106 people oftentimes nonprofits are referred to as charitable religious or educational organizations but there are many different categories that they fall into and so that's what we're going to talk about what does those nonprofits do and how can we potentially be involved how can we help them what would we do to help them how could we help them what would we do when we're talking about what that help might look like I encourage planning and evaluation and what that means is planning is putting together a plan and that can be a simple plan or a large plan and evaluation is determining the significance or worth of something usually by careful study or appraisal so in this situation we have a map and maybe with us will help us understand what planning and evaluation looks like we use a map to show ourselves where we're at and then to decide where we want to go and then how do we get there an example of how planning and evaluation would not work is Alice in Wonderland when she was talking to the Cheshire Cat the cat she asked the cat which way should she go and he asked which way do you want to go and she said I don't know and he says well it doesn't really matter then does it so when we say planning and evaluation nonprofits need to determine where they are where they want to go and how they're potentially going to get there that would be our nap map analogy to other simple analogies that will help you understand what planning and evaluation might look like or how it fits together would be breathing breathing is rhythmic and it's constant in and out in and out planning and evaluation planning and evaluation they go together just like if you were fixing yourself something to eat you wouldn't call it a sandwich if it didn't have a piece of bread on top and one on the bottom and so by its very definition to sandwich something means to put it in between two existing entities or pieces of bread so I'm encouraging nonprofits to consider how planning an evaluation could be those slices of bread that the activities and efforts fit into and the level of planning and evaluation that takes a wide spectrum let's think about some of the different ways you can do planning and evaluation in today's world we can do small events and we can do large I remember in the military where we would have large briefings and debriefings and we would just be big plans big evaluations but I also remember soldiers like 5 to 10 soldiers working on a movement to contact where we would literate of sticks and grass or whatever and we would put together a plan and then we would evaluate it by what the military calls an after-action report which is simply what went well what didn't go so well and what would we do differently in the future those are how we can just simply go from the small to the big in the business world there are many different kinds of planning and evaluation systems processes and methodologies that can be used - many - to tell you right now in this speech but what I would tell you is that if a business is not doing planning and evaluation they're probably not going to be a business for very long that's the reality of the situation businesses have to plan and evaluate or they won't exist and so when we look at that let's look at some examples of how that might look in the actual nonprofit world and this simple and these learning examples that we'll use we're going to look at a spectrum or a lifecycle that starts with emerging goes through developing and ends that established simply an illustration to give us an idea where that nonprofit might be and its growth and development so our first example is starting out this is where you're a non-profit you're just getting ready to go this is where we have to be honest with ourselves about what our nonprofit is doing and how we're going to do it in this situation oftentimes it takes three board members to start a non-profit I've seen too many examples of where that's the founder of the visionary their spouse and their best friend all right if those are the only three people that you can get on your board of directors at that time I would encourage you to maybe take a step back gather some support put together a team and through planning and evaluation the reality is is that you may not have the skills the knowledge skills and ability the KSA's to do what you're saying you want to do and that's okay be at peace with that be patient with the fact that you will more than likely be a nonprofit sometime but you have to be realistic about how many people you can get involved in what level they're going to be involved with you so that's an example of starting out our next one is finding a path forward you have a nonprofit that the board and the leadership gets together and they decide what the vision and the mission of that organization is they determine what the objectives are how they're going to handle the day-to-day activities that's planning but if we don't evaluate what we're doing and we don't look at the results that we're receiving we won't be able to understand how it's going and when I say that in this situation let's say that the these were all established but the evaluating was not done what happens is in the military it was called mission creep which were our objectives are agreed upon the objectives start to creep out on us and they start to grow beyond what we're capable of doing so in this situation the executive director is involved in too many things the evaluation is not being done board members start to pull away leadership starts to diminish the organization starts to collapse in that's an example of how important planning and evaluation is when you're just getting started our next example is one that a lot of nonprofits are involved in and that's events and these are important activities and efforts that these nonprofits are making and a lot of times we'll have a planning committee and so you'll put together a planning committee you'll say let's make this the event the best we can make it and that's great and those people are passionate about making that event happen but if we don't determine what the objectives are of that event and we don't understand what the success criteria is then how will we know what we did was what we needed to do so in that situation we have to evaluate we have to stop and look at what we did and determine if we met the objectives and criteria of that event and we have to do that in close proximity as well we can't wait until next year when this event comes back around and this is the event that we do every year at this time of year and we're going to just wait and we'll just let the planning committee fire it up again that would be taking us back to a map analogy that would be like us going somewhere working there for a long period of time and then determining that we're not where we were supposed to be we don't know how we got there and we don't know how to get where we were supposed to go in the first place it doesn't work so that's why you have to evaluate in close proximity to your planning events or your immense that you are involved in planning for the future you have a board now we're moving more towards an established board they've got goals and objectives and ideas about what the future looks like they've got the people on the board that will help them get there the reality is though is that maybe there's things that are happening on a day to day basis that are stopping you from getting to where you want to go and then we have to continually do planning and evaluation not just for the long-term but for the immediate term to to tell us what we're doing right now in this situation there's so many day-to-day activities that are coming up so many emergencies that the nonprofit can't get to the future that they're projecting to they have the people and the skills but they're just not getting there and so that's an example how you have to be realistic about where you're at and what you're doing and our last example is on the other end of the spectrum we started out with a small board that maybe didn't have the skills knowledge and the knowledge skills and abilities that we needed to get going and now we have an established nonprofit with a very professional board high-quality caliber people that are very passionate about their involvement at this end of the spectrum though what can happen sometimes is if we're not doing good strong planning and evaluation sometimes we can just go with the flow sometimes people are just there maybe in title and position only and that doesn't help either we have to be able to discuss what's going on we have to be able to talk through the challenges that we're facing we have to be able to work through the plans and the evaluation of those plans and look at what's going on so if you have a board that's just maybe going with the flow or might be what's considered a yes board that's an area that maybe we need to work on - those are all all these things are just to tell us that we have the opportunity to work through what we're doing in this situation remember that visualization exercise we did remember all the great things that are happening in our community remember all the wonderful things that these nonprofits are doing to make it the community that we care about planning an evaluation will make us that much stronger it'll help all the stakeholders in that organization have a better understanding of what they're doing and how they're doing it it kind of ties everything together and this is where a potential pivot can be made and when I say pivot maybe it's time to just kind of stabilize what we're currently doing before we move on to anything else maybe it's time to let go of something or organize something before we move on to anything else maybe it's time to potentially partner with another nonprofit or possibly even merge with them and maybe it's just time to shut that nonprofit down the main point is is through strong planning and evaluation we have an opportunity to improve and we have an opportunity to potentially pivot so how do we do that through volunteerism is one of the key life Bloods of nonprofits the reality though is that volunteerism is changing in America a lot of people want to be involved in shorter term efforts or efforts that they're passionate about things that they have been the knowledge skills and ability to be involved in things that they want to be involved in and nonprofits need to respect that how do they find that help by asking for it by letting people know that they would use that help in planning an evaluation maybe somebody's coming alongside you just to help with the planning and evaluation they don't need to be on the board they don't need to be a time intensive volunteer they just want to help in that specific event or activity or effort maybe they have those that passion to do that these are all things that we can do and when it comes to volunteers and their time we need to think about it as if somebody was making a large financial donation to a non-profit we need to be honest with them about how much do we need and what do we do with it how would we use that time and ability how would we get them engaged how do we plug them into a place that fits for them and fits for the organization how do we watch for that fit that will just kind of tie it all together and give us an opportunity to work together our call to action is this consider how your nonprofit would benefit from planning and evaluation I encourage you to have nonprofits share with you what they are doing and how you might be involved even if that means just you be more aware of how they are helping make the community the community that you care about thank you you [Applause]