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The Elevator Test

November 25, 2014 by Betsy Garside

dinner partyIt happens at this time of year: You find yourself at a cocktail party (or Thanksgiving dinner, or gathering of new friends) and someone asks, “so what does your organization do?” You launch into a detailed overview of what your hard-working NGO aims to accomplish, filtered through the lens of your own piece of the work. Sometimes your audience of one lights up and asks the follow-up question you had hoped for. Often, sadly, they do not.

This is not your fault (unless you are a leader of the organization). Rather, you have just stumbled up against a question that too many organizations don’t undertake to answer: What’s your elevator speech? Said another way, why does your organization matter in the world — and to the person to whom you are speaking?

Several years ago our colleague David Williamson wrote a series of pieces about the elements of nonprofit marketing for Georgetown University’s Center for Nonprofit & Public Leadership. The first essay in the collection was about developing an elevator speech. There is a reason it was first in the series: This marketing exercise and resultant tool helps everyone connected with an organization, whether you are the assistant answering “what do you do?” or the board chair answering “is this organization a good one to invest in?”

To start, read David’s piece about passing the elevator test. And if you’re interested in really digging in to the story-telling idea, Chip and Dan Heath’s Made to Stick makes for a good deeper dive.

Filed Under: Ideas for non-profits, Management Tagged With: Georgetown nonprofit program, marketing, nonprofit, nonprofit management, storytelling

Small Data, Big Insights

September 30, 2014 by Thomas Brendler

There is no doubt that the vast troves of data residing on the web—“big data” as they have come to be known—hold enormous potential to inform business strategy and boost productivity. One recent report estimates that data could generate gains of 1 to 5 per cent, seemingly modest improvements which could translate into game-changing returns. Amid such great promise, rising demand is spawning dozens of specialized start-ups, several fueled by venture capital—and an entire field of research, computational enterprise analytics.

The biggest challenge right now is how to sift efficiently through this raw information, in order to piece together digestible and meaningful trends and patterns—a process that has been characterized as “wrangling” and “janitor work.” (A task, as you might expect, that can take up most of a typical data scientist’s day.)

“The leap from the tools to the insight is the weak link,” Professor David B. Yoffie of Harvard Business School recently observed. Echoing this sentiment, University of Washington computer science professor Jeffrey Heer cautioned, “It’s an absolute myth that you can send an algorithm over raw data and have insights pop up.”

These scholars raise an interesting question: where do institutional insights come from? Is it, as they seem to suggest, a matter of the scale and the integrity of data, and the sophistication of analysis? Do more data necessarily mean bigger or better insights?

By contrast, in-depth interviews live at the other end of the data spectrum—allowing organizations to learn about themselves and their operating environments by digging where they stand. They provide an opportunity to probe critical issues with the help of people who are knowledgeable and invested. As with all forms of research there is a certain amount of mess involved, but the richness of what organizations learn from such close looking is hard to match.

These conversations can also teach big data a thing or two: they consistently reveal how vital it is to be clear about what you’re looking for from the outset, to formulate meaningful questions, and to think carefully about whom to ask them. The results may be “small data” by comparison, but the insights they generate can be far deeper.

Filed Under: Ideas for non-profits

The Impact of Impact: It’s not just what we learn, it’s what we do with it

May 19, 2014 by Thomas Brendler

Today, few would question the value of assessing organizational impact and its promise of accountability. What was a bold crusade more than a decade ago has now become mainstream: assessment, evaluation, monitoring, and theories of change have become household terms, commonplace—even obligatory—in grant proposals, strategic plans, annual reports, and conference agendas. Robust assessment systems have come to be expected, and can confer competitive advantage.

Yet in some recent conversations, we have begun to hear questions about the effectiveness of these practices. Some sense a risk of measuring for measurement’s sake, without much thought about how the information generated will ultimately be used, and by whom. That the mere act of inquiry—especially when highly visible—can suffice as a signal of innovation and self-scrutiny. In short, these observers see a danger of assessment becoming an end itself, and in the process missing the point of doing it in the first place: to inform and improve what organizations do.

One factor at play, some suspect, is that for many organizations assessment is not native or organic—driven instead by funders, peer pressure, or even by internal efforts to justify predetermined strategy. In their view, one consequence of this pressure to assess is overcompensation, resulting in a vast surplus of information—information that no one is sure is actually being used. A recent examination by the World Bank, reported in the Washington Post, found that one third of Bank reports had never been downloaded, and another 40 per cent had been downloaded less than 100 times.

One answer may lie in another booming trend: big data. The Foundation Center, through its IssueLab, is beginning to explore ways of aggregating and analyzing data from those mountains of reports, to draw out lessons and discern broader trends. Perhaps these may even come in tweetable insights.

Filed Under: Ideas for non-profits

Damage control: Lessons from the NBA

May 5, 2014 by Betsy Garside

There have been some doozies of teachable moments in crisis management in the past few years — on the national stage, everything from BP to Toyota to Ford. Countless other crises have unfurled on smaller stages, many having to do with nonprofit organizations. Boards and management would do well to pay attention to what Adam Silver just did on behalf of the NBA.

We found Ron Fournier’s piece in The National Journal on the Sterling-Silver scandal to be spot on. The direct quotes from Adam Silver are the best lesson.

What did Adam Silver do? He took control, learned the facts, got counsel, and engaged key audiences. What we found most impressive was that Silver gave concise answers to questions. Concise, as in under 20 words. Can you remember the last time you heard someone answer a reporter’s question both clearly and briefly? Yes, we were left pondering for a bit as well.

Most nonprofits think “this could never happen to us.” We’re betting that the NBA did not plan for this scenario, either — to have the president of the United States make highly negative comments about an NBA owner from halfway around the world?! Read the piece by Ron Fournier. Then send it along to all your board members. Next board meeting, you’ll want to build in time to discuss how your organization might handle a comparable situation.

 

Filed Under: Ideas for non-profits, Management Tagged With: crisis communications, damage control, NBA

The stakeholder list: How to

March 8, 2014 by Betsy Garside

For any nonprofit, stakeholders matter. These are the influentials who can make your organization succeed — or not. They may be funders, mission-critical targets, or volunteers. So whether you’re launching a strategic planning process, testing your brand perceptions or exploring the feasibility of a new programmatic direction, you need to know what your stakeholders see in your organization.

Developing the master list of key stakeholders, however, is not quite as easy as it might seem.

This is something we do — often — as we help our clients explore new strategies and change direction. The process of developing a tight list of key stakeholders always takes longer than expected. The end result, however, can be a tremendously useful product, not just for the strategic project underway but for ongoing cultivation and use.

A recent blog post for the Harvard Business Review lays out a good way to develop a stakeholder list. For nonprofits, the considerations are slightly different — for example, you will need to consider those who give your organization money, and break that monolithic group down. This five-question process is a good start. See what you think.

One thing we’d add? That first brainstorm — where you throw all possibilities into the hat — should include input from the broadest scope of your organization. Otherwise, you may find yourself rescreening the list — and rescreening yet again — to get the internal buy-in you need on your master stakeholder list.

Here’s the article on Harvard Business Review, or if you’re not a subscriber, here’s the PDF of the piece.

Filed Under: Ideas for non-profits, Management Tagged With: development, nonprofit, research, stakeholder

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