Breaking News: Layoffs At Kintera, Earnings Call Set For Today

One month after Kintera received notice about potential de-listing from NASDAQ, widespread layoffs have begun at the San Diego-based software provider to nonprofits. The cuts are ahead of the firm’s quarterly earnings call slated for this afternoon.

Company insiders said more than 40 people were cut starting Tuesday, although Kintera officials declined to comment in advance of today’s 4:45 p.m. Eastern conference call to discuss first quarter financial results. The department losing the most people was finance, followed by marketing and product development, according to insiders.

Roth Capital, one of the few analysts still tracking Kintera, downgraded the stock from “buy” to “hold” on Monday, 15 months after making it a “buy.” Kintera, which trades on the symbol KNTA, ended 2007 with almost $16 million in losses, down from $33 million in 2006 and almost $42 million in 2005. For the first quarter of 2007, losses were $8.2 million.

An insider told The NonProfit Times the earnings report “is not expected to be good” but that the layoffs were more “matching expenses to resources.” Another insider was less optimistic, saying, “This doesn’t surprise you, does it? You had to see this coming.” Neither source would disclose the number of people losing their jobs.

Read complete article here...

Online...They've Got Mail: 10 marketing strategies

The current economic situation nationwide, combined with higher costs and tighter regulations relating to postal fundraising, will make online marketing even more important in upcoming years.

Vinay Bhagat, chief strategy officer for online fundraising firm Convio, maintains that nonprofits will need to invest in effective online marketing programs. He offers 10 best practices for getting started online:

• Ensure your Web site makes the right first impression. Prospective donors are very likely to visit your site before making a gift in any channel.
• Collect email addresses of current donors. Communicating online with donors enhances their value. Few organizations have emails for more than 30 percent of their active donors.
• Optimize your Web site to convert visitors to email subscribers. Target a 3 percent conversion rate of unique visitors to new subscribers.
• Make every communication count. Write emails with a constituent-centric point of view, and steer clear or sending non-compelling material.
• Inspire. Provide value and be transparent to your donors about how funds are spent.
• Ask for money, regularly. Include a soft ask in every communication.
• Use multiple emails in a series to lift appeal response rates. Suppress those who respond to earlier appeals in the series.
• Make fundraising appeals tangible and compelling. People are presented with lots of appeals and offers.
• Empower volunteers. Raise money through online peer-to-peer fundraising software tools.
• Encourage monthly giving. The lifetime value of monthly donors is much higher than single-gift donors.

Introducing NPT Desktop Delivery Service - A New Way To Receive The Latest Nonprofit News

The NonProfit Times is excited to announce a new way to receive breaking nonprofit news, fundraising tips, job postings, information on upcoming events and more, without opening your email! Introducing NPT Desktop Delivery, a communication service which sends subscribers daily nonprofit updates directly to their desktops.

How Does It Work?

• Download NPT Desktop Channel, a free tool powered by THINK360
• Choose what time of the day you would like to receive your message. Don’t have time to read it? Click it, it goes away and you can bring it back up later by clicking on the NPT Desktop Channel icon that will be placed on your desktop. You’ll get just one message per day.
• Sign up today, get your first update tomorrow!

Click here to download NPT Desktop Channel NOW! The software is quick and simple to install.Top Reasons To Use NPT Desktop Delivery:· NPT updates delivered straight to your desktop· You control when messages are delivered· No more blocked emails, so you won’t miss important nonprofit news!· Completely hacker-proof Powered by: THINK360

Benchmarking With A Warped Stick - Latest Column from Don't Tell the Donor

A lot of nonprofit fundraisers seem to love benchmarking studies.

I really can’t blame them. Fundraisers are always judged by their numbers, after all. If we are going to be compared what we raised during the same period in previous years it only makes sense to understand the context of giving to other similar organizations.

Anytime your fundraising program experiences large increases or decreases, it’s helpful to understand if the change is being driven by broader external factors or by specific issues to your audience and mission. Benchmarking studies can help identify trends in key indicators and give fundraisers the context we need in order to understand our own performance better and plan for the future.

Unfortunately, not all benchmarking studies are created equal. Some studies are nothing more than lazy half-assed analysis from vendors hawking thinly veiled sales pitches. Other well-meaning benchmarks often use questionable methodology. A flawed approach can produce misleading conclusions.

It’s therefore critical for fundraisers to share their feedback and reactions to what the benchmark studies are showing. This article compares the methodology of three of the most cited (and debated) benchmarking studies making their way around the blogosphere today. Perhaps the most well known fundraising benchmark study is the annual report on philanthropy published by the Giving USA Foundation as a public service initiative of the Trust for Philanthropy of the American Association of Fundraising Counsel (AAFRC). These are the people who received a lot of media attention by estimating that Americans donated nearly $300 billion to charity during 2006.

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Dirt Cookies Instead of Air Sandwiches

They're not supposed to taste good. After all, they're called dirt cookies. Bright Hope International, based outside Chicago in Hoffman Estates, Ill., is selling "dirt cookies" as a symbol of poverty around the world. The nonprofit offers a package of six cookies for a donation -- of any size -- but stresses that $50 can provide a Haitian family of six with food for a month and the ability to plant their own garden.

"Eat dirt so they don't have to," the Web site proclaims.

Food shortages and escalating prices have made the poor on Haiti so desperate they eat the dirt cookies, made of clay, to alleviate hunger pains. Bright Hope's dirt cookies are 100 percent edible but they're not sold for the taste as much as for raising money and spreading awareness. With ingredients like shortening, salt, coffee, buckwheat flour, teff (an Ethiopian grain), cocoa powder, corn starch and terramin clay, the cookies won't tempt your palate, but they will give you a good idea of what poor people in places like Haiti have resorted to eating.

- Mark Hrywna

Free Corporate Donation Search Portal

The NonProfit Times announced the launch of a free online portal that gives free access to corporate donation data for fundraising research to nonprofit grant writers and others researchers. The portal’s address is http://www.nptgrantsearch.com.

The portal is powered by Internet search company NOZA, Inc., provider of the world’s largest database of charitable gifts. The research portal was launched with more than 4,300 searchable records of corporate donations valued at $1 million or more to U.S. charities.

The only free service of its kind, users can search, view and save information about the corporate donor, recipient organization, size of gift, and year of donation. Nonprofits can research current donors and create customized prospect lists to assist in solicitation planning.

Access is available immediately at http://www.nptgrantsearch.com or from NPT’s home page, http://www.nptgrantsearch.com.

Eleanor Clift Starts NPT Column - Estate Tax will survive the November election

Political pundit Eleanor Clift starts a Web-only column for The NonProfit Times, which will appear monthly through the November presidential election. A Newsweek columnist, book author and television commentator on The McLaughlin Group and numerous other programs, she'll talk to Washington, D.C., insiders to let nonprofit managers know what to expect on important issues.

Here is a sample from her first column:
Not Dead Yet - Estate Tax will survive the November election

By Eleanor Clift
The estate tax was a hot political issue when Republican pollster Frank Luntz renamed it “the death tax,” persuading millions of Americans without enough assets to be affected that Uncle Sam would fleece them at the grave, denying heirs what was rightfully theirs. Calling for an end to the estate tax became a rallying cry for Republicans throughout the nineties, but politicians don’t talk about it anymore, and there’s a reason for that.

Whoever wins the White House in November, John McCain or one of his Democratic rivals, Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton, the estate tax will still be with us. Planned giving officers at nonprofit organizations should rest easy. There is no way a Democratic Congress will allow the estate tax to expire, and Democrats will have the numbers in both the House and the Senate to work their will regardless of which party captures the White House.

In the House, a high number of Republican retirements, 29 at last count, make it a certainty that Democrats will increase their margin, a proposition that seemed shaky until recently. The Democrats took control in November ’06 in part because they won marginal districts that could revert back to the GOP. That looks unlikely in the wake of the Democrats picking up the seat held for two decades by former House Speaker Dennis Hastert, a sign that there is trouble ahead for the Republicans...

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Don't Tell the Donor - An Honest Critique Of The Fundraising Conference Circuit

I will never forget the first fundraising conference I ever attended. It was energizing to be surrounded by hundreds of passionate fundraisers from a wide range of nonprofit groups who were eager to share their successes and failures. The experience convinced me that this was a profession where I could spend my career learning and growing while helping a great cause.

Unfortunately, some of my recent conference experiences have been underwhelming. In fact, after one particularly boring conference, a colleague told me that the old adage must be true, “those that can – do; those that can’t – attend conferences.”

The truth is that I'm not one of those people who tries to argue that we as fundraisers are too busy raising money for the urgent and critical work of our respective organizations to take two or three days out of the office and spend valuable resources to attend a conference.

I remain optimistic that a vibrant conference circuit is the best avenue to provide continuing education to fundraisers. Our fast-paced industry benefits from bringing creative and innovative thinkers together to learn new tactics and meet new leaders.

The legal and medical professions believe so strongly in continuing education that they mandate a certain number of CLE or CME credits to maintain their licenses. It’s easy to understand why. We live in a rapidly changing world and it is a liability to employ staff whose knowledge or expertise stagnates....

Read Complete Article Here...

Don't Tell The Donor

The anonymous blogger "a fundraiser," blew like the wind through the NTEN conference in New Orleans last week. Here's a report.

"More than 1,000 of the cool cats in the country are descending on New Orleans for the 2008 Nonprofit Techology Conference hosted by NTEN over the next couple days.

David Pogue, the personal technology columnist for the New York Times will be speaking at the plenary session at 8:30am... although given some of the festivities on Wednesday night, I doubt that all of the attendees are going to drag their butts to that event on time.

Beth Kanter was one of a couple dozen honored colleagues to be recognized by NTEN at the member's luncheon. Her award was "Most likely to have an account on every social networking site."

Nancy Schwartz has already posted to her Getting Attention blog that she is thrilled with the focus on how attendees can make connections with other nonprofit fundraisers and marketers.

They even have an official widget to track updates from the conference and they have a cool syndication feature for blogs that post to their own sites with the tag 08NTC."

For more, go to donttellthedonor.blogspot.com

NTEN And NPT Survey Shows Tech Budgets Average $40,658

Staffing the information technology (IT) function is frequently a challenge for nonprofit organizations. Financial resources are typically limited and hiring managers often feel overwhelmed and under-educated when it comes to IT. Determining where IT should fit into the organization, how many IT staff people are needed and what those people should be spending their time doing can be difficult decisions.

To shed some light on these questions NTEN and The NonProfit Times teamed up and created the Nonprofit IT Staffing Survey. We began this effort with the 2006 survey– the first of its kind. We repeated the survey in 2007, and plan to continue doing so annually, so that we can provide a long term view of nonprofit IT staffing.

This report, the second on the findings, covers IT salaries, budgets and evaluation in the nonprofit sector. The first report, published in January of 2008, covered the nature of IT staffs and departments at nonprofit organizations.

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E-Newsletters: Making Your Code Uniform (Relatively)

To make your organization’s simple HTML e-newsletter appear (relatively) alike across platforms, one tip from the experts: code like it’s 1999. This means:

• Decide which email clients are a priority. One expert prioritizes Outlook, Thunderbird, Yahoo, Gmail and Hotmail, and recommends against prioritizing Lotus unless your organization uses it (“It’s a pain in the neck to standardize.”). Set up email accounts with each of the email clients to test your email.
• Also for seamlessness, use tables for layout, not cascading style sheets, or CSS. Many email clients don’t understand CSS.
• Again, don’t depend on CSS. Use inline styles. This means going back to the old-school style of formatting: putting tags for color, font, decoration, margins, etc., directly on links, paragraphs and images. (Example: a style="text-decoration:none; color:#00ff00; font:Arial".) According to one expert, you can put styles into the header, but make sure to define them in the body of the email as well.
• Don’t use Javascript, Flash, video or anything a 1999 Web browser couldn’t handle.

Management ... Clouding the decision-making process

As nonprofit managers have learned, an organization does not operate simply in a world of organization and constituent. Current events can play a huge role in the operation of any nonprofit, from the smallest to the largest.

Writing in the book Wise Decision-Making in Uncertain Times, published by the Foundation Center, Dennis R. Young cites the work of Lester Salamon and others to show that there are several forces that have affected nonprofits recently and will do so in the future. They include:

• Government funding. Government funding of social services has increased since the Reagan cutbacks, but the composition of that funding has changed and continues to be uncertain. Medicaid, for example, plays a greater role in supporting social services
• Developments in philanthropy. Trends indicate that charitable giving is becoming a less significant proportion of nonprofit income over time, but such revenue promises to remain a critical component of nonprofit support.
• Demography. The American population is becoming increasingly diverse and multiracial. More than 40 percent of young persons are now "minorities," and by mid-century are expected to become a majority.
• Technology. Modern and rapidly improving communications, information and other technologies continue to transform the economy as a whole. The implications for nonprofits are enormous and are not predictable.
• September 11. Most short-term effects of this day have been dissipated or accommodated over time, but an analysis of long-term effects heightened awareness of the need for nonprofits to embed themselves in supportive networks.

Branding... Your image can take a hit from myths

By now, the term "branding" is ingrained into the consciousness of everyone in the nonprofit/philanthropic sector. Despite this widespread awareness, there is a lack of understanding about just what a brand is and what it does.

At a recent national conference on nonprofit marketing, Larry Checco, of Checco Communications in Washington, D.C., discussed the most common myths about branding and offered the straight story on where those myths go wrong. The myths are, as he sees them:

• Myth: Marketing and branding are one and the same. Fact: marketing and advertising sell products and services. A brand is a reflection of everything associated with the organization, including but not limited to the quality of the organization's work, as well as its reputation, staff, leadership, culture, core values, programs, services and products. A good brand is nothing less than an organization's DNA.
• Myth: Once you have an attractive logo and catchy tagline, you have your brand. Fact: Your logo and tagline are the banners for the brand. Your brand drills much deeper into your organization's core values.
• Myth: Branding is the responsibility of your communications/marketing staff. Fact: Branding is the responsibility of everyone in the organization, from board members to support staff. If it helps, consider the person who answers your phones as your Director of First Impressions.
• Myth: We don't have a budget for branding our organization. Fact: If you effectively leverage your current resources, you might not need much of a budget to better brand your organization.

New NonProfit Times Editorial - Don’t Tell The Donor and many more!

NPTimes has a new editorial section! Visit us every two weeks to check out our latest web-only content including articles from Don't Tell The Donor and many others. Click Here to go to NPT's Web Exclusives. Below is a taste of the latest article from Don't Tell The Donor featured on our site.

*Editor’s Note: Don’t Tell The Donor is one of the hottest blogs in the sector. It’s written anonymously because the author is well known in the sector and he/she/its bosses wouldn’t be pleased. Be assured, The NonProfit Times knows the author’s identity, at least enough to write the check. You’re going to have to trust us.

When I was growing up, my mom used to say to me:

“Little fundraiser. I told you to clean your room. Go in there and do it right now or else, I will take this garbage bag and go clean it myself – and you won’t like what I’m going to throw away!”

It was the scariest threat my mom ever made. Yet, I never found out if she was bluffing or not because nothing motivated me more than the fear of my mom rampaging through my room throwing my beloved toys in the trash.

I’ve been thinking of this personal experience during the past few years as I’ve listened to Congress’s threats that if the nonprofit sector failed to regulate itself then government will stage its own intervention. We all know there are some bad apples within the nonprofit sector. But, there should be a way for the industry to clean its own room first before a bunch of bureaucrats get involved.

In October of 2004, at the urging of Congress, the Independent Sector conveyed the “Panel on the Nonprofit Sector” in an attempt to build consensus around a list of principles that could serve as a guide for self-regulation. The idea was that if nonprofits could find a clean our own house of misbehavior, we could avoid the intrusion of scary government intervention.

Read Complete Article Here...

Nonprofit IT Staffing

Staffing information technology positions at nonprofits is not easy and it can be very expensive. The NonProfit Times and NTEN, the nonprofit technology network, teamed up to find out the state of the nonprofit IT sector from more than 1,000 organizations. Small organizations continue to struggle. The average tenure of an IT profession is slightly more than four years. Read the report at: http://www.nptimes.com/webex.html#nten

*&%$#@* Your Email Got Trashed

With a little imagination and a bit of a potty mouth, it shouldn't be too hard to think of what the "Seven Dirty Words" might be in George Carlin's infamous 197s stand-up comedy routine.

SubscriberMail offers up a different set of words, not ones that the Federal Communications Commission might have an issue with, but rather those that email junk filters might flag and not deliver to inboxes. The Lisle, Ill.-based email marketing services and technology company issued a white paper, titled "The Seven Dirty Words you can't say in subject lines; plus 100 others."

Among the words that make the black list were pretty obvious ones that you likely have seen in your own junk folder:

• Eliminate dept
• Free, or FREE, or maybe Free access, free gift, free info and free instant
• Any words having to do with sex, pornography, cures or medication; and more specifically, Cialis (though nonprofits probably don't have to worry about putting that last one in an email subject line)

Other words might not be as obvious, or they might be more frequently used by nonprofits:

• Undisclosed recipient
• Text that has gaps, or numerical digits at the end
• Multi level marketing

For a complete list of the dirty words to avoid in subject lines, visit: http://www.subscribermail.com/white_papers/seven_dirty_words/
-Mark Hrywna

Web tools that can make your life easier

Although getting the maximum use out of online tools can be complicated at first, even daunting to smaller organizations, there are avenues that can be helpful.

Rick Christ, managing partner of NPAdvisors.com in Warrenton, Va., an online marketing consulting firm, suggests several resources that can be helpful to any nonprofit. They are:

• MySpace.com. If you're looking for free Web page hosting, with blog tools, room for photos, email and newsletter service, get one that comes with about 100 million other users who are online 24 hours a day.
• Paypal. It is free to set up. It costs about as much per transaction as most donation processing services (and less than many), ant it is a tool of choice for 67 million people whose sole purpose in having it is to transfer money online.
• Text messaging. When the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) failed to provide street lamps and the forms necessary to run search operations in post-hurricane New Orleans, relief workers used text messaging to stay in touch with each other and constituents were able to ask questions and provide updates.
• IM (instant messaging). It is another free way to be "open" for business.
  ThePetitionSite. Com. This is a site for online advocacy, a place to post a petition and drive advocacy.
• Yahoo! Groups. This provides file sharing, group email, calendars and other features.

Online...Who's bidding at your auctions?

Who takes part in online auctions? According to a bidder study by Cambridge, Mass.-based cMarket 2006, the following can be said about the people competing for items at online auctons:

• 71 percent of online auction bidders are female.
• 92 percent go to the Internet once a day or more.
• They spend 49 minutes each time they log on.
• 79 percent typically access the Internet from home for personal use.
• They visit online auctions about four or five times a year.
• They spend an average of 17 minutes each time they visit an online auction.
  51 percent prefer to support their favorite nonprofit/charitable cause through online auctions.
• The top reasons for participating in online charitable auctions include lending support, purchasing products and services, and ease of use.
• 95 percent agree somewhat or completely with the statement: Online charitable auctions provide a unique way to purchase items of interest while giving to a worthy cause.
• Two-thirds indicate, "charity for which the auction is being given is a cause I believe in" as the most important reason they participate in the first place.
• The three categories bid on most recently by those who visited an auction are travel (16 percent), food/dining (12 percent) and home items (9 percent).
• Of the 34 percent who would be interested in a "pay over time" option, virtually all would be at least somewhat likely to use it.
• 50 percent would be willing to bid at least 20 percent more on an item if a pay over time option existed.

Finance... Mission-related investing

Some foundations are exploring the concept of mission-related investing, sometimes known as socially responsible investing.The Minnesota Council on Foundations, through its Partnership on Corporate Responsibility, suggests that mission-related investing could include:

• Portfolio screening: A foundation could screen portfolios to include best-in-class corporations or to avoid corporations with poor records on social issues, environmental issues or other issues of interest to the foundation.
• Proxy voting: Shareholder activity could include voting proxies on a company’s proxy statement or developing a set of proxy voting guidelines covering issues of concern to the foundation. These activities night also include engaging corporations in dialogues on issues of concern as well as filing and co-filing shareholder resolutions.
• Early investment: Mission-related venture capital uses the foundation’s assets for early-stage investment in companies that are seeking solutions to the problems that the foundation is seeking to solve through its grantmaking.
• Community investing: Community investing assists underserved communities in meeting their development needs. The Council acknowledges that there is disagreement in the foundation field about the use of mission-related investing. Some argue that the board’s primary fiduciary responsibility is to ensure the maximum return on investment assets. Others believe there is a responsibility to consider whether investment decisions will further charitable purposes, or at least not run counter to them.

Management... Being entrepreneurial and nonprofit at the same time

Many nonprofit organizations have benefited from adopting an entrepreneurial approach to their mission. Such an approach can utilize new ideas as a way of bringing in fresh air and increasing funding.

In a selection titled "Entrepreneurial Nonprofit Institutions: The Many Roads to Rome" that appears in Wise Decision-Making in Uncertain Times, published by the Foundation Center, Reynold Levy of the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York City writes that there are certain criteria that must be in place for a nonprofit to develop and sustain an entrepreneurial character.

• Any institution that aspires to be entrepreneurial must maintain a financially sound base of operations. This means balanced or surplus budgets and diversification of revenue sources.
• The nonprofit must be driven by its mission and focused on its accomplishments. A well-articulated and understood mission helps to define programmatic choice and guide the allocation of scarce resources.
• There must be a certain brand of leadership. The top of the organization must exhibit an upbeat, can-do attitude. Leaders must see opportunities, not problems. They demonstrate a sense of humor, a sense of perspective and a resilience that enables them to face setbacks without seeming defeated.
• The organization must be externally focused. It must be shaped to better serve customers or suppliers or partners. Doing so means that executives within institutions begin to see themselves as others see them.