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Help 4 NonProfits & Tribes
Community-Driventm Institute
e-Newsletter
Building Community-Driven Organizations

July 2005
(If our newsletter does not appear below, or if it appears as gobbledy-gook, please click here to get the newsletter from the Help 4 NonProfits Website. And please let us know, and we will change your newsletter settings to “text only.”)

Hello!
July is the start of the Monsoon Season in our desert home - a time when we desert rats rejoice in every drop of rain we can beg from the clouds. When the storms whip through, you can find us on our front porches, watching the downpour, screaming, "Isn't this wonderful?" to our neighbors, who are under their porches, watching and smiling. In moments, the storm will pass, the sun will be out, and we will wait for the possibility that tomorrow might just bring some more. We hope the season has some magic for you as well, in whatever part of the globe you find yourself!

We have a lot in store for you this month - a new article, a recorded version of last month's teleclass, and as always, announcements of things to come.

Newsletter Index Links
1) New Article: Organizational Sustainability: It's About More than Just "The Money"
2) New Class Available On-Demand: Accountability: To What End? Introducing Community-Driven Governance
3) Revisiting the Magic Matrix: Listen to a Story of How It's Been Used!
4) Close-Out: "Power Notes" - Everything Must Go!
5) New E-newsletter: Help 4 Funders
6) Follow-up on our "OOPS": Last Month's Newsletter Fiasco!
7) Looking for Stories (and offering a reward!)
8) Sharing this Newsletter
9) Sneak Preview: More Community-Driven programs!

Please read and enjoy, and pass these items along. We know it will help you improve the quality of life in your community. And isn't that really why we all do the work we do?

New Article:
Organizational Sustainability: It's About More than Just "The Money"
These days it seems every new fundraising trend is dubbed "the road to sustainability." There is the "individual donor" movement. There is the "entrepreneurial nonprofit" movement. And of course, the old standby - endowments. The thing these approaches, and all the others, have in common, is that they focus on financial sustainability, as if money were the only thing standing between nonprofits and a sustainable future.


A funder friend, talking about the organization Dimitri and I founded, once told us, "You couldn't kill the Diaper Bank now if you wanted to. The community wouldn't let you." Now THAT's the sound of real sustainability!
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New On-Demand Class:
Accountability: To What End? Introducing Community-Driven Governance
What's the point of being accountable for the money, if your board isn't FIRST accountable for your organization's mission? Listen to the on-demand version of our Community-Driven Governance Class, and give your board a whole new way of looking at what it means to be accountable.


This recorded version of our live teleclass lets you listen at your convenience, as many times as you want. And because half the learning in any class comes from asking questions (and hearing what others are asking), we invite you to join the listserv discussion after the class, to share your thoughts with others who are on the road to becoming more Community-Driven

We were blown away by the comments of an attendee at one of our live workshops, who called the Community-Driven model "The wave of the future for nonprofit boards." After you've listened to our teleclass, we think you will agree!
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The Magic Matrix:
Hildy Tells a Story!
As we continue to focus on sustainability, we find we are using the Magic Matrix more and more. The reason is simple: while the Matrix takes the guesswork out of deciding which fundraising activities to choose, it includes "sustainability" as one of the variables in that decision.


Because the Matrix is on our minds a lot lately, we thought we would try something new - an audio clip of a real story, of how a real organization used the matrix, and how that changed their board's whole approach to fundraising! You can hear that story and learn more about the Magic Matrix here.
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CLOSE-OUT:
on Power Notes
We still have a few copies of the PowerNotes line left. But once that supply is gone, there will be no more.


If you aren't familiar with Power Notes, these compact books carry one heck of a punch! From insights into attracting and retaining employees, to insights into rural economic development, to insights into - well - insight - the value in these power-packed little books is incredible. And now they are all only $5.00 apiece!

Quantities are limited, so check it out now!
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Help 4 Funders:
A New e-newsletter!
Thanks to inspiration from funders all over the country, we will be launching a new e-newsletter just for funders. We are hoping to get an issue out every few months, and it will be aptly named Help 4 Funders!


The newsletter will be starting up in the fall, so sign up now! (Sorry - subscriptions are limited to funders only).
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Follow Up:
A HUGE Thank You After Our "OOPS!" Last Month
Well, we sure learned a valuable lesson last month. Ok, we learned 2 lessons. First, check and recheck the links when you are sending an email to thousands of people, especially if you're tired. And second, when you mess up, take the hit - apologize and be honest. We have to wonder how many marriages might still be functioning if folks realized how powerful an apology can be! And that's what we found out the hard way last month (then again, most apologies probably come the hard way, don't they?)


For those who don't know what we're talking about, last month we had a bit of a SNAFU with our newsletter. We sent the wrong one. We realized what we did after the newsletter had already arrived in your mailboxes, and we were horror-struck. It didn't take us long to know there was only one thing to do - ‘fess up, apologize, and ask for your forgiveness.

What we didn't count on, though, was the overwhelming response to that apology! We received so many wonderful responses that has taken us way too long to answer them all! Notes of encouragement. Notes to pat us on the back. Notes to commiserate. One friend referenced Hemingway; another referenced the Tylenol debacle from years ago. Best of all, folks took the opportunity to share their own mess-ups!

One gal told us about the time she forwarded a Spam solicitation to her organization's entire mailing list. A few told us they had done the same with family photos.

A consultant friend shared this story: "Just last week, I was preparing an email announcement to about 150 recipients. I was fooling with the HTML, getting it all up and running, when much to my chagrin, it began processing the emails! No amount of screaming at the computer helped! All 150 of those not-ready announcements went out in a flash!"

And so, to all who wrote words of encouragement, thank you. If anyone ever wonders why we choose to work in this sector, the answer is what we saw last month. The people who work and volunteer in the nonprofit sector are compassionate, caring, and yes - they have a great sense of humor. How else could we do the work we do every day?!

So thank you, more than you can know, for showing us the very best of human nature. You all turned a horrible day into one of the best days we will ever remember. And how cool is that?!
How Do You Use Our Stuff?
Looking for Stories (And Offering a Reward!)
After hearing all the stories folks shared with us last month, we are hooked - we want to know more! And so we are asking all of you who have used our products and our articles and our workbooks, and all who have attended our workshops: Would you tell us your stories about how you've used our "stuff"?


Have you used our Board Recruitment Workbook? What parts worked well for you, and which parts did you have to tweak? Do you have a story you can share? Perhaps a before and after?

Or how about the Matrix, or the Speaker Workbook, or the other items we sell at the site? What about our articles and tips? Our teleclass, our workshops - how have you used what we've provided? How have they worked for you? What happened?

Tell us a story!

As we rework our website to focus entirely on the Community-Driven model, we can't imagine there will be a single page we won't be adjusting, and we would love to add your stories to the site.

And if we wind up using a story you have shared, we will send you a gift certificate towards purchasing anything we have at our site!

So tell us - how do you use what you have received from Help 4 NonProfits & Tribes?
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Share This Newsletter:
Every month, hundreds of new subscribers sign up for our e-newsletter, most of whom learn about our site from a friend or colleague. Here's one of our favorite comments this month:

As a consultant, I get so much benefit out of your website and mailings! In our business, we find we are talking and thinking about many of the same issues you write about - and wish we had your gift of description and issue organization. Thank you! K.W., Chicago, Illinois

Because board members so rarely receive information on how to do their job better, please be sure to pass this newsletter along to your board. Or better yet, sign them all up to receive a copy of their own!
Sneak Preview:
More Community-Driven Programs!
The August newsletter will introduce 2 new teleclasses coming up this fall. The first will take a closer look at the Capacity Planning aspect of the Community-Driven model. How can your organization plan to ensure you have the capacity you need?


The second teleclass will coincide with the release of our Friend-raising workbook this fall. That class will be a hands-on look at raising real friends - not just donors, but all kinds of friends - for your organization's work.

And we have a new product we will be announcing in August as well. Like the Magic Matrix, this is a tool that will make life easier and more productive. (And you'll find a sneak preview of it in the article on sustainability!)

Thank you, as always, for the work you do to make your communities better places to live. We wish for you all the possibilities life holds.




Help 4 NonProfits & Tribes Institute
http://www.Help4NonProfits.com
4433 E. Broadway Blvd. Ste 202
Tucson, Arizona 85711
Copyright © 1997-2005 ReSolve, Inc.

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