Eye on FDO

Be Smart About Your Nonprofit's Finances - Philanthropy Front and Center

New post from Philanthropy Front and Center on an upcoming workshop about preparing for filing your 990. Of particular interest to New York-based nonprofits:

Are you tackling your financial records in preparation for filing your organization's Form 990? Need a little guidance? You're just in time to attend an evening workshop at the Arts & Business Council of New York! Gary M. Flaum, Certified Public Accountant, will explain how to comply with IRS and New York State guidelines and make your organization's audit or review easier.

Read the whole post for more details>>

Philanthropy Front and Center: What to Consider When You're Contemplating a Merger

Tracy Kaufman writes on Philanthropy Front and Center - New York today about the complicated topic of nonprofit mergers. As part of a longer series on nonprofit collaboration, Tracy tackles the merger issue with answers to questions such as: Why do nonprofits merge? What types of obstacles might come up? What can be done to facilitate the process? The post concludes with a list of resources for further reading to learn more about mergers.

The post follows from a Foundation Center seminar held on July 27, Nonprofit Collaborations: Focus on Mergers:

Our expert panel was moderated by Sandra Lamb, president and CEO of Lamb Advisors, and featured Ethan Kahn, audit manager at MBAF-ERE CPAs, LLC; Linda S. Manley, legal director at the Lawyers Alliance for New York; and Jill O'Donnell-Tormey, executive director at the Cancer Research Institute. The presenters stressed that while a merger can be extremely beneficial for your organization's financial well-being and your mission, it is also a complicated, costly legal undertaking, fraught with obstacles along the way. Below are a few of the things they recommend that you think about when considering a merger, and ideas on what can make the process more successful.

Read the full post on the New York blog.

If you're interested in learning even more, Grantspace offers several resources on the topic. Here's a selection:

• Philanthropy Chat: Tom McLaughlin Discusses Mergers and Alliances (podcast)
• Knowledge Base entry on collaboration, including mergers (FAQ)
• Upcoming event: Come Together: Successful Bay Area Partnerships (San Francisco event)

An earlier version of this post credited the Philanthropy Front and Center post to Ines Sucre; the post was written by Tracy Kaufman.

How to Contact Grantmakers and Get Results

Whenever possible, grantseekers are advised to contact a grantmaker before sending a proposal. Preparing for that initial contact and determining what to say is all part of building a relationship with a prospective funder. Poor preparation—or lack of it—can undermine your efforts and even your organization.

Learn what to do (and not to do) in order to make a memorable and positive first impression at our free live Q&A online chat Monday, June 20, 1-2pm ET. Marilyn Hoyt, nonprofit executive, consultant, and trainer, will answer questions about the right and wrong ways to approach grantmakers during all stages of the funding request process. Tap her expertise and share your own experiences. We devote most of the hour to your questions and comments!

Register for the live event at GrantSpace.

 

Arts Funding

For those of you looking for funding in the arts, join us on GrantSpace on February 11, 2011 for a live, text-based event, Crowdfunding in the Arts: Meet Kickstarter & USA Projects. Representatives from Kickstarter and USA Projects will answer your questions about how their online funding platforms can help artists get individual donations for their projects. Register.

Kickstarter is the first online funding platform for creative projects and is powered by a unique all-or-nothing funding method where projects must be fully-funded or no money changes hands.

USA Projects, created by United States Artists, the national grant-making and advocacy organization, connects people with artists and raises tax-deductible contributions for original work in the performing, visual, media, and literary arts.

After this live chat event, join us for our live presentation online of Grantseeking Basics for Individuals in the Arts, where you'll get an overview of how to approach other funding sources, including foundations and corporations, for your work in the arts.

There was also a recent post on the Philanthropy Front and Center - New York blog about nonprofit arts groups and making the case for government funding. It sums up the highlights of a recent panel on the subject - a must read if you plan on applying for government funding! 

Upcoming Events

If one of your New Year's resolutions was to make an effort to engage in professional development — whether that means taking a class, learning more about social media, or networking — the Foundation Center is making it easy to get started! All of our field offices are hosting some notable events throughout the rest of the month and into February that are definitely worth checking out.

• Our Atlanta office is hosting "Expert in Residence" Susan Burnash of Purple Duck Marketing. She's already written a couple of great blog posts on marketing for nonprofits, and if you're in the Atlanta area she is still hosting live workshops and coaching sessions at the Center.
• All Foundation Center field offices will be hosting a GrantSpace launch event on January 26. Each location has a different and exciting program, featuring local experts on a variety of topics of interest to grantseekers. As if that wasn't enough, there will be door prizes for those who attend!
• Looking ahead, the Foundation Center-New York will be hosting a networking night about putting the "Fun" in "Fundraising." Come ready to meet and share stories with your colleagues. Visit the event page on Grantspace for more information and to register.
• If this year you hope to engage more with social media, check out some of these posts on the Foundation Center-Atlanta blog about getting started with Twitter.

These are just a few things to get you going—as always, keep up to date on the Foundation Center calendar for upcoming classes and events.

Corporate Funding

If you're a frequent user of Foundation Directory Online Professional, hopefully you are familiar with the "Search Companies" tab. Yet companies are often forgotten as a source of funding or other resources for nonprofit organizations. The Foundation Center - San Francisco recently hosted a workshop with Joni Podolsky, author of Wired for Good: Strategic Technology Planning for Nonprofits and principal of CommunityCollage Consulting. Throughout the workshop Corporate Partnerships in a Downsized World, Podolsky discussed the many reasons why corporations give, resulting in a better understanding of how nonprofits can create stronger partnerships with corporations. A full round-up of the event can be viewed at the Philanthropy Front and Center blog.

Learn more
If you want to learn more about corporate giving, check out the Foundation Center's Introduction to Corporate Giving, which is available as self-paced e-learning, a webinar, or as a free classroom training course. For a more in-depth introduction, try the day-long course Securing Corporate Partnerships. Also be sure to check out the other resources available on our website, including sample documents, podcasts, and videos.  

Live Fundraising Q&A

(from Philanthropy Front and Center)

Believe it or not, charitable giving surges in the last three months of each year, when the holiday spirit and tax planning ironically converge.

Join us at the Philanthropy Front and Center-Cleveland blog on Wednesday, Sept. 29, 2010, 2-3pm ET, when veteran fundraising consultant Tony Poderis will answer your questions about how to capture this end-of-year largesse for your nonprofit. Mr. Poderis has been a fundraiser, speaker, and author for more than 30 years, with 20 of those as Director of Development for The Cleveland Orchestra. He also is a frequent contributor to our online message board, PND Talk. Register for the live chat here.

This live, text-based Q&A session will take place online here. At the scheduled time, use the window at this page to submit questions and comments, interact with the presenter, and follow the conversation as it happens. You are also welcome to send in your questions early by submitting a comment at the post here.

Immediately preceding this live chat will be our free webinar, Introduction to Fundraising Planning. Watch the recorded version anytime, or register to "attend" the live version on Wednesday, Sept. 29, 2010, at 1pm ET.

On an unrelated follow-up to the last post, a fun, quick "reminder" about how to use social media.

Update Central for May

One of the many benefits of an FDO subscription at the Professional level is access to Update Central, where you can get a quick summary of the numbers of newly added grantmakers; high growth grantmakers (significant increases in total giving or total assets); and grantmakers with contact information changes, fields of interest or types of support changes, and leadership changes.

You can also build a custom Update Generator by selecting category—new, high growth, or recent changes—and one or more states. Run the generator to get a list of grantmakers meeting your criteria along with a brief description of the update and a link to each grantmaker's FDO profile. In addition, you can sign up to receive summaries of each month's additions and updates to our grantmaker database via e-mail.

Here's a summary of updates for May 2010:

Category	Updates	Year To Date
New Grantmakers	320	716
High Growth Grantmakers	30	729
Contact Information Changes	1,254	5,463
Fields of Interest/Types of Support Changes	646	2,493
Leadership Changes	463	2,500

To explore Update Central and learn more about the numbers above, Professional subscribers can visit Update Central directly. Subscribers at other plan levels can learn more in the Update Central section of the Help file. 

Funding for Education Month

May is Funding for Education Month at the Foundation Center. Join us this month at any of our five library-learning centers for free events and classes, and online for resources that will help nonprofits and scholarship seekers find new funding prospects. 

Visit the Focus on Funding for Education web portal for podcasts, research reports, and other resources, and be sure to check the events calendar for your local Foundation Center library to see what's going on in your area:

Atlanta

Cleveland

New York

San Francisco

Washington, DC

And if you're not located near a library-learning center in one of those five cities, there are Education Month webinars coming up too. See the webinar calendar to register.

Funding for Arts Month

October is Funding for Arts Month at the Foundation Center!

As always during our special focus months, there's plenty happening that's sure to be of interest to FDO subscribers, including special events and free training for artists and arts organizations. Be sure to check the events schedule for the location nearest you at our Focus on Funding for the Arts page. Then, explore some of the other arts-related goodies we're making available, including interactive maps and charts, news, RFPs, foundation-sponsored publications, and commentary.

We're also conducting a free online webinar on funding trends in arts and culture on October 30. A panel of experts in the field will present the latest data on both foundation and public support and explore the arts and culture funding outlook. For more information, or to register, please visit our web site.