For Further Reading: Power Questions

Andrew Sobel and one of my favorite fundraising authors, Jerold Panas, offer an outstanding book for anyone in full time or volunteer fundraising: Power Questions: Build Relationships, Win New Business and Influence Others.

Building relationships for your business start with thought-provoking, deep questions that keep the focus on those you are meeting with. These questions help you dive deep and ensure a mutually respectful and appreciative relationship in both directions.

In this book the authors quote a seasoned executive who says, "I can always tell how experienced and insightful a prospective consultant, banker or lawyers is by the quality of their questions and how intently they listen. That's how simple it is."

Simple? Perhaps.

Common? Not yet.

This book goes on to offer hundreds of examples of excellent, open ended questions that help you deepen any of the key relationships in your life.

Have you picked up the book yet?

Have you started reading?

What do you think?

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Death, Taxes and 990 Filings

In a 1789 letter to Jean-Baptiste Leroy, Benjamin Franklin wrote, "..In this world, nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes." 

Today, I would add another element to that centuries old quote: 990 filings. 

Is your nonprofit a Internal Revenue Service (IRS)-recognized 501 (c) (3) organization? Being a registered nonprofit in your state is not the same thing as being an official tax exempt nonprofit at the federal level. 

Assuming your nonprofit is IRS-recognized, are you filing your 990 forms each year? Doing so is as absolute a requirement as filing your own income taxes each year. It is not optional. There is no grace period. This simply must be done. 

Since so many nonprofits are run entirely by volunteers, is this hard to remember? Sure. However, the nature of your nonprofit (all volunteer versus paid staff) does not change the requirement that the proper paperwork be filed each year to maintain your status.

Recently, one very well meaning treasurer of an all volunteer nonprofit received a postcard in the mail reminding him of the availability of electronic filing of his organization's 990. He thought this mailing would come annually to remind him to get the filing done. The mailing was one time to announce the IRS transition to simpler filings for smaller organizations. Because the annual 990 filings were not done, this organization may have to go through an extensive and complicated process to re-apply for nonprofit status. 

This does not have to be your nonprofit's story. Simply set a remind to make sure your form 990 is properly filed by the 15th of the 5th month following the end of your fiscal year.  For example, if your fiscal year ends with your calendar year, your 2013 990 is due by May 15, 2014.

If your annual gross receipts are under $50,000 per year, you may find more information filing your Form 990 electronically here. For other organizations, visit www.irs.gov and search on the term 990 in the upper right hand search box.  

What works well for your annual filings for the small nonprofits you are associated with? 
 
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Improving Listening: Baseline for Better Fundraising

Successful fundraising is interconnected with effective listening. The most successful major gift fundraisers have hundreds of stories of how they listened the gift. 

Listening is hard. The difference between typically speaking speed and our brains' capacity to understand creates the first gap. Distractions only add to the complexity. 


How do you develop listening skills to be more effective in your fundraising, and, by extension, in moving your mission forward? A few online resources for your consideration:

1. A Developing Listening Skills video from Cambridge University Press ELT. 


2. A blog post from Gaily Perry: A Fundraiser's #1 Skill: The Lost Art of Listening. 


3. A blog post from Vanessa Chase: Why Listening Trumps All Else in Fundraising. 


4. Tips for Active Listening are available on the Mind Tools website. 


5. Rick Goodfriend offers practicing better listening thoughts on this YouTube video. 


What are your favorite listening tips?


How has applying listening skills moved your mission forward?

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Ideas for Your Nonprofit's Online Content

Last week's post explored the importance of video and and ideas for a basic online presence to move your nonprofit forward, using the backdrop of a recent Google study. Once you apply those ideas, how do you avoid "low content," or having nothing to share?

Content topics for your nonprofit's online presence may include:  

• A story from a beneficiary of your nonprofit about how the impact of the received support
• A story from a volunteer for your nonprofit about they he or she gives of available time to your mission
• A story from a donor about why he or she feels supporting your organization is a worthwhile investment
• Your mission statement 
• A summary of your recently completed projects
• Information on your upcoming projects, to give donors a sense of what a gift would help do if they made one today  
• Your Form 990 filed annually with the IRS. Instead of making someone researching your organization go to other publicly available sources for this information, why not make it easy in the interest of transparency? 
• Any opportunities for involvement: what are the three most valuable things someone interested in your organization could do today to help you move your mission forward?
• Your meeting minutes and other reports or updates. Transparency breeds trust

What content additions do you have to this list?

What nonprofit content do you recall from your time online this week?
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