Mini Innovation Lab: Community Foundations and Shared Data

Guidestar Annual Learning Conference: Donor Edge
Innovation Lab for Community Foundations
As Effective Communicators, Brand Builders, and Knowledge Connectors
through Shared Data
Facilitator: Beth Kanter, Trainer, Speaker, and Author
GuideStar Annual Learning Conference: Donor Edge – May 2014

Innovation: a new idea, device, or method; the act or
process of introducing new ideas, services, programs or
methods

HOW?
Human-Centered Design
The discipline of developing solutions in the service of people

Human Centered Design
Behaviors
• Engagement with people
• Iteration
• Interdisciplinary collaboration
It isn’t …
• Something entirely new
• A one-shot deal
• A one-size-fits-all development process
Reduces overall development costs and mitigates the risk
of big failure
• Helps organizations get the right solution, faster
• Equips you to tame highly complex problems
• Promotes collaboration and problem solving
• Provides teams a framework for repeatable innovation

• Leave the room
with some new
ideas about how
to improve
communications,
or knowledge
sharing with
shared data.
Agenda
OUTCOMES
• Interactive
• Co-Learning
• Everyone is a designer
FRAMING
Innovation Lab
Overview
CF Presentations/Active
Listening
• Sacramento
• New Haven
Concept Map/Discussion
Defining the Problem
Brainstorming Solutions
Team Presentations

• How can community foundations effectively communicate to
nonprofits, donors, prospective donors and community leaders
about the value of shared data?
• How can community foundations become the acknowledged
community knowledge connector or philanthropic portal using
shared data?
Problem Statements

• Use the worksheet to write down notes during
the presentation
• What struck you? What have you tried? What
is new?

Getting from “Here” to “There”
DonorEdge (GivingEdge):
Data, Disruption, Dilemmas, and Destiny
* Pending minor credit card adjustments (i.e. refunds)

Destiny: How GivingEdge
Will Take Us “There”
Our Vision for The GivingEdge (GE)
 Establish the foundation as a learning/knowledge center
 GivingEdge goals
- Greater transparency among nonprofits
- Higher donor engagement through GE
- Increased individual giving
- Common grant application
 Holy Grail: Lift the nonprofit sector:
 Social media
 Donor engagement
 Clarity in mission
 Financial literacy
 Strong boards
 Marketing
 Collaboration

Dilemmas:
What we face now
 Internal
 Time
 Incorporating technology as a backbone tool
- when you lead with paper
 Internal practices of processes (finance, grants
processing and management…)
 Staff capacity
 Piloting, testing, retesting, exploration - time
 Trying new things, entrpreneurial
 Data rich in quantity but data poor in quality
- Does the tech pipeline (the input) produce quality and usable data (the output)?
 Cost and budgeting
 Priority

Dilemmas:
What we face now
 External
 Competing funder tech tools (can there be a “common
app” a la college application?)
- Burden for NPOs
 Vendor constraints
 Communicating data bites in sound bites to traditional
and social media
 Changing landscape of giving
 Collaboration among funders: how is this branded?
 Nonprofit sector woes and capacity
- Understanding numbers
- Perceived exposure
- Sharing knowledge
- Permission to inspire with what works

Disruption:
What we needed to do
 Have a vision:
- DonorEdge as the facilitating tool that sticks
 Push – be the one
 Take the shots
 Call the question
- Financials
- Boards
- Capacity
Build your allies
- Funders, donors, nonprofits
 Establish community leadership

Data:
The backbone
Using data to
 Capitalize on what you have – CFs have
obsessive tons of internal data
 Start, set, and direct the external
conversation
 Baby-steps: transform with just a few
NPOs to get to the sector, 10% a success
 Learn and do, reflect and look at selves, a
la Guidestar

Data:
SRCF data points
 Founded 1983
 Assets: $119M (March 2014)
 Our region: Sacramento, Yolo, Placer, and El
Dorado
 Staffing: 13 FTE
 Impact: homelessness, arts, youth (education),
raising philanthropy (GiveLocalNow)
 Transitions: new CEO, embarking on strategic
plan, Day of Giving outcomes, visibility, growing
staff
 GivingEdge: 400+ profiles

THANK YOU
[Your community foundation name/logo]
Thank You

ROSE, BUD, THORN: Understanding Method (Problem Framing)

• Use the worksheet to write down notes during
the presentation
• What struck you? What have you tried? What
is new?
Becoming a community knowledge hub

The Community Foundation
for
Greater New Haven
• Increase the amount of and impact of Community
Philanthropy in Greater New Haven.
• Founded in 1928
• Current Assets $420+ Million
• 40% of gifts come from bequests/planned giving
• 34 FTEs (includes leadership initiatives)
• Serve twenty town region with 600,000 plus population
• Affiliate-Valley Community Foundation

Leadership Activities & Investments
• New Haven Promise
– Modeled after Pittsburgh Promise
– Collaboration between TCF, City of New Haven and Yale University
– TCF investment is $500K of unrestricted funds per year voted on each year
• New Haven Healthy Start
– Over 20 year history with TCF
– Federally funded Maternal and Child Health Program focused on improving
birth outcomes
• Community Fund for Women and Girls
• Progreso Latino Fund
• ConnCAT- Bill Strickland’s Manchester Bidwell -$250k/year
• Prisoner Re-entry and Immigration Integration

Community Knowledge Goals of
The Community Foundation
• To enhance the value and the impact of The Foundation’s
grantmaking, stewardship, donor service and development
work;
• To achieve greater use of The Foundation’s community
knowledge by donors and others in the community;
• To strengthen local nonprofits through their use of The
Foundation’s community knowledge tools;
• To enhance the brand, the recognition, and the leadership
profile of The Foundation; and
• To increase giving to The Foundation and local giving
generally.

Target Audience for Community Knowledge
• Internal Staff & Board
• Nonprofits
• Current Donors
• Potential Donors
• Community
**Challenge is prioritizing audiences and balancing the
different needs of each audience segment-What is the
best way for them to receive information and
eventually act as a result of that information?

Messaging and Tactics
• giveGreater.org® started as the centerpiece for this community
knowledge work-local resource for knowledge and giving
• The Great Give® as annual giving campaign-wealth of
knowledge on donors
• Learn section on website
– Eight issue areas
– Issue briefs
– Articles and news
– Linked to giveGreagter.org
• Publications
• Convenings- large and small
• Internal Reports
• Community Breakfasts

What’s Working
• Community and Strategies and Knowledge Committee of the Board
of Directors
• A variety mediums used but consistent message is critical
– newsletters, (hardcopy and electronic)
– Annual Report (hardcopy and electronic)
– giveGreater.org, The Great Give, website, Donor Central
– Social media
• Partnerships are critical- GuideStar, Nonprofit Finance Fund,
DataHaven, CT. Voices for Children, OJP, Kimbia
• Integration into grants process and capacity building
**Challenge is to manage all of the different mediums with small
communications staff
**Challenge is managing relationships with partners when there are many
layers to the relationship-vendor, grantee, contractor

Evaluation
• 80% of our donors report doing research on a nonprofit before
making a gift
– 60% report using giveGreater.org for that research
• The Foundation’s knowledge of local nonprofits is rated 6.1 on a
scale of 1-7 (ranging from “not at all helpful” to “extremely
helpful”) and is the fourth most valued aspect of the Foundation
among 14 aspects.
• New Giving is steady at about 40%
• Site traffic for all knowledge resources has been steadily
increasing
• giveGreater.org and The Great Give are TCF’s largest source of
new contacts with over 50% of current mailing list coming from
these sources- Cultivation System.
**Challenge is that some of this stuff simply cannot be measured
while some will take generations to measure impact.

Overcoming Challenges
• Prioritizing audiences and balancing the different needs of each
audience segment-What is the best way for them to receive
information and eventually act as a result of that information?
• Managing all of the different mediums with a small
communications staff
• Managing relationships with partners when there are many layers
to the relationship-vendor, grantee, contractor
• Some of this stuff simply cannot be measured while some will
take generations to measure the impact
• Biggest challenge is determining how to best re-balance
giveGreater.org as a year-round knowledge tool with The Great
Give which is primarily a once a year giving tool to promote
philanthropy

Continuous Improvement
• Continually assess and reassess
• Be consistent is seeking feedback from your constituents
• Re-evaluate your original goals- do they still hold true?
• Continue to take risks and try new things
• Look at what your peers are doing- don’t reinvent the wheel
• Work across departments
• Find good partners

Affinity Cluster
• Create concept map
on the wall
• Group discussion on
themes
Concept Map (Patterns and Group Understanding)

Abstraction Laddering)
• How can community foundations
effectively communicate to nonprofits,
donors, prospective donors and
community leaders about the value of
shared data?
• How can community foundations become
the acknowledged community knowledge
connector or philanthropic portal using
shared data?
Problem Statements
 Work in small groups
 Pick one of the statements
 Ladder it up and Ladder it Down
 Pick the best problem statement
 Write on large sticky note
 Vote

Round Robin: Group Concept Ideation)
• Sometimes the collective voice of
several speaks more powerfully than a
single voice alone.
• Round Robin allows for the generation of
fresh ideas by providing a format for
group authorship.
• As an idea is passed around from person
to person, it can grow and change in
unexpected ways and uncover original
ideas
• Participants inherit and build up on each
other’s ideas.
• Even if idea seems crazy or impossible, it
might contain the seed of something
great
• The result is that the idea is bigger than
one person could imagine on their own

ROTATION #1
ROTATION #2
How can community foundations effectively
communicate to potential partners about the value of
shared data to influence behavior that will advance
community-wide goals?

Team Presentations: Making and Prototyping: Synthesis
You have 20 minutes to review and synthesize an idea from the ideas captured
during the last exercise. Your team should pick one or combine elements from
different ones. You will use markers and poster paper to create a visual for your
presentation. Remember, you don’t have to the world’s best artist, just convey a
meaningful representation of your ideas. Even stick figures and primitive drawings
can help you present the possibilities.
Use one of these formats:
• Storyboarding
• Concept Poster
• Magazine Cover

Storyboarding
• Draft the main story line of your idea – beginning, middle, and end. Use images.
• Put a descriptive phrase for each box.
• Determine the characters and the setting and the future scenario.

Think and Write: What is your take away – one
thing that you can put into practice? Raffle

Mini Innovation Lab: Community Foundations and Shared Data

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Mini Innovation Lab: Community Foundations and Shared Data