Blueprint Fundraising

Hey everyone, Blueprint Fundraising and Communications has a new address. Phone and fax remain the same.

400 - 21 Water Street
Vancouver BC V6B 1A1

This is a reminder of some upcoming deadlines for the POD (Partners in Organizational Development) program:

• March 2, 2007 for ArtsPOD
• April 27, 2007 for Social ServicesPOD and EnviroPOD

If you are a BC nonprofit in the social services, environment or arts sectors, a POD grant could help you strengthen your organization or adapt to challenges. POD grants can be used to hire a consultant or resource person to help you work through your issues (some of them anyhow!). You can find out more at the Centre for Sustainability website.

If you think that your nonprofit is immune to embezzlement, don’t be naive!

A new study by researchers at Villanova University explores the extent of embezzlement within the Catholic Church. They surveyed chief financial officers of 78 Catholic dioceses in the US (that’s half of the dioceses in the country). They found that 85% reported embezzlements from 2000 to 2005. Seven reported losing $500,000 or more!! A copy of the full report is available online.

That is a shocking amount of theft. The researchers point out that churches offer an ideal setting for internal theft because in a small operation one employee may be responsible for everything — giving them access to both assets (often cash) and the financial records. Sound familiar? This is a problem for any small nonprofit.

I’ve worked with some very reputable organizations that have been the victims of embezzlement, primarily because of poor internal controls. Here are a few ways you can improve controls (from Wayne Amundson at The Canadian Association).

Internal Control Measures

The internal control measures that should exist in associations and non-profits include:

• Whenever possible, segregate duties. If one person has access to, or processes an entire transaction (e.g. payment and processing), the risk of fraud is high.
• If possible, rotate work duties. Often, the embezzlement scheme requires constant cover-up activity, and rotation of duties will make that difficult.
• Obtain insurance, and when necessary, bond employees.
• Control the addition of new vendors.
• Control changes to the payroll.
• Watch for signs of addiction and/or increased affluence in employees/volunteers.
• Have your bank account statements delivered directly to the executive director.
• Ensure that effective policies are in place to manage refunds.
• Keep blank cheques secure, and maintain number sequence.
• Control access to the credit card processing.
• Have all invoices approved prior to payment.
• Have policies in place for expense reimbursement, and ensure all claims are approved.
• Get the auditor to provide a management letter with particular attention to internal control measures.
• Ensure that reconciliations are prepared and reviewed.
• Ensure that policies are in place to address gifts, freebies, trips, etc.

Some common fraudulent activities include:

• Theft of cash receipts
• Under-the-table payments, bribes or kickbacks.
• Recording false discounts
• Theft of incoming cheques
• Tampering with cheques issued (forged signatures, altered dates, adjusted amounts)
• Stealing blank cheques or counterfeiting duplicate cheques with altered payees
• Creating and paying fictitious vendors
• Creating inflated or phony expense vouchers
• Altering billing records
• Theft of inventory
• Altering purchasing, receiving or shipment records
• Paying non-existent employees
• Skimming payments on account. Typically, an employee records a contract at a lower amount than actually owed then steals or “skims” the excess.
• Falsifying receivables, and stealing the payments.
• Altering accounting records to hide the theft of funds
• Cash disbursement scams
• Credit card refund schemes

Charity Village also has a great article on this with tips to improve your procedures: Nonprofit fraud: Focus on segregation of duties and good reporting procedures.

Photo via Flickr: “Money offers” in Thailand by zzen.

Kevin Bacon has teamed up with Network for Good to launch an interesting project that plays on the “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon” phenomenon from the 1990s. Back then, the idea was that in six steps or less, any film actor in history could be linked through their roles or relationships to Kevin Bacon.

Building on this meme, Bacon started SixDegrees.org, a portal where you can view the favourite charitable causes of various celebrities and support them through online giving. You can also start your own project and become your own “celebrity for a cause.” The idea is that the world is small and we’re all connected — Bacon’s video on the home page explains it well. Except for the celebrities, it reminds me a little of GiveMeaning.org — in that you can start your own projects, fundraise for them, and track progress through the site.

The Chronicle of Philanthropy recently reported on new research that celebrities are not a big draw for donors (although they undoubtedly help to draw attention to important issues). Here are the basics of some research conducted by Cone Inc.:

• 15% of Americans said they would be influenced by celebrities in deciding whether to support a charity
• That is far less than the percentage of respondents who said they would be influenced to support a cause by family members (77%), friends (64%), their place of worship (60%), co-workers (40%), or companies (30%)
• 76% of Americans said that word-of-mouth requests from family or friends were the most effective way for a charity to reach them — followed by newspaper and magazine articles (56%), events (51%), and advertising (50%)

Read the press release and more details here.

The photo above is from one of my favourite Kevin Bacon films: The Woodsman.

If you need some inspiration on how to develop meaningful online relationships with supporters, check out this (very un-scientifically chosen) list of the 59 smartest nonprofits online.

According to the authors: “These charities were chosen for their excellence in online storytelling and collaboration with their donors. We didn’t play favorites to one cause over another, nor did we look at their fundraising goals or number of members. Instead, these organizations are winners because of their web 2.0 smarts and a willingness to engage their constituents far beyond asking them to dig into their pockets. These are organizations that give their volunteers and members a voice and get out of the way. They’re pros at mobilizing awareness online. They’re experimentors. Innovators. On a mission. They’re fearless.”

I’ve been poking around the sites and there is so much amazing stuff going on! It makes sense that some of the biggest international advocacy organizations are on the list — online is how they mobilize support now. Smaller and more local organizations need to do it too. But how did the Ferrets Unlimited Ferret Shelter of Ohio make it on the list?? They look like a wonderful group… perhaps I need to spend more time on their site.

“Goda Playin” photo courtesy of G0Da on Flickr.

As part of the Nonprofit Blog Exchange Virtual Event, I’m exploring Michelle Murrain’s blog Zen and the art of Nonprofit Technology. It’s not for technophobes and makes me think how little the organizations I work are truly engaged in new technology and all the opportunities it can bring.

I especially like her rant about the lack of solutions for nonprofits who need to manage data for more uses than just fundraising. There are lots of donor databases out there but many organizations have to run parallel databases and applications for other types of constituents and forms of engagement — causing headaches and duplication.

On the topic of choosing a donor database, NPower has a new resource — Getting the Most from Your Decision: Four Steps to Selecting Donor Management Software. There are a few tables toward the end which rate common software packages on budget, ease of use, customization and features.

I have a long list of topics that I have been meaning to write about for MONTHS. I pledge to be a better blogger in 2007. Here are some random tidbits you might enjoy.

• BC women honoured for their quiet giving (featuring Marjorie Anne Sauder, Martha Lou Henley and Carol Newell).
• Record levels of Canadian giving in 2005 (7.9 billion!).
• The BC Society Act is under review, with consultations to take place this spring and summer. You can read about in the October 2006 issue of Miller Thomson’s Charities Newsletter (a great resource by the way).
• More than 24 countries have approved an International Statement of Ethical Principles for fundraising.
• Forbes magazine philanthropy section rates US charities and profiles billionaires.
• Research shows that the act of charitable giving releases dopamine in the brain.
• Interesting article on the challenge of fundraising for the arts, when other social problems are so urgent.
• Provocative LA Times editorial urging you not to waste your charitable giving on rich universities.

AFP Vancouver is offering help for those seeking their CFRE (Certified Fund Raising Executive) credential this year. A 1.5 hour workshop will help applicants understand the process and find out how to prepare for the exam. The workshop will be offered before each of the four 2007 exam windows. It’s open to both members and non-members. Contact AFP Vancouver for the details.

Here are the important dates for 2007:

• Apply by January 10 for the March 9 – 31 exam window
• Apply by April 9 for the June 8 – 30 exam window
• Apply by June 24 for the Aug 24 – Sep 15 window
• Apply by October 8 for the Oct 26 – Nov 17 window

If you can’t attend the annual Fundraising Congress in Toronto in the fall, you can still access many of the presentations online. AFP Toronto has a great website, with lots of handouts and session notes from the annual conference and Fundraising Day.

As I sent out various holiday messages at the end of 2006, I found emails to friends getting bounced back by zealous spam filters. Clever filters are making it more difficult to get legitimate messages out to groups of recipients — a hassle for fundraisers who want to keep in touch with donors and prospects via email.

You aren’t sending spam are you? Of course not. Neither am I. So here’s a nice list of tips for helping your emails make it through, via Guidestar. Some of the most common items that receive points from spam filters are:

• Images accompanied by little or no text
• Very long list of recipients
• Large or very long messages exceeding a recipient’s limit
• Attachments
• Colored backgrounds
• Large fonts
• Colored fonts
• Messages created with Microsoft FrontPage
• Punctuation in the subject line
• Words in ALL CAPS in the subject line
• Trigger words or phrases in the body or subject line, such as “click,” “free,” “guarantee,” “limited-time offer,” “urgent matter”