Executive Issues

The hybrid model for nonprofits is proving problematic. On occasion, the need to generate returns for investors overwhelms the social mission. In other cases, the business falters altogether and cannot support the nonprofit.

Within the last two years, several ventures have split up or been dissolved.

The ACLU's Leading Freedom Forward campaign transformed the organization's mind-set and major- and planned-giving strategies.

C-level executives Angel Aloma, Danny McGregor and Atul Tandon, along with moderator Tom Harrison, discussed the biggest issues concerning fundraisers at the DMA Nonprofit Federation New York Nonprofit Conference.

C-level executives Angel Aloma, Danny McGregor and Atul Tandon, along with moderator Tom Harrison, discussed the biggest issues concerning fundraisers at the DMA Nonprofit Federation New York Nonprofit Conference.

Fundraisers from all walks of life are encountering many challenges these days, but what do the C-level executives see as the most important issues facing the sector? At the Direct Marketing Association Nonprofit Federation’s 2010 New York Nonprofit Conference, three top nonprofit executives joined moderator Tom Harrison, president and CEO of Russ Reid, to discuss these issues in a two-part session, “Cracking the Shell: Open Dialogue & Discussion With America’s Top Nonprofit C-Level Executives on the Sector’s Most Pressing Issues."

When the Haiti earthquake hit back in January, the outcry and response were swift and plentiful. In this new era of the iPhone and other mobile devices, the biggest buzz in the fundraising sector was generated from the mobile-giving explosion following the disaster. But the biggest takeaway for fundraisers — all of them, not just disaster-relief organizations — is that donors have certain, higher expectations these days, and your organization must meet them.

At the 2010 Bridge Conference in National Harbor, Md., last Wednesday, Tony Elischer, managing director of Think Consulting Solutions, said fundraisers should focus on the third “R” — rewriting, as in rewriting how you think and how you fundraise. To do that, he proposed looking at fundraising as four babies — brave baby, baby and the bathwater, looking to the future baby, and fully managed baby — in his keynote presentation, “Futurology 2010: Focus, Determination & Transformation."

The days of organizations standing on a mountaintop and broadcasting their messages for the world to consume are rapidly evaporating. No longer is control solely in nonprofits’ hands, no matter how much they wish it was. To truly succeed in raising funds and solving the world’s problems, nonprofits must work in concert with networks of social changemakers — passionate individuals and organizations, among others.

More than 80 percent of donors would recommend the organizations they support to another potential donor, yet many organizations rarely ask for existing donor referrals.

At nonprofit groups in the New York metropolitan area, more chief executive officers than other senior staff members took pay cuts in the 2010 fiscal year, according to a new survey of compensation trends by the Nonprofit Coordinating Committee of New York. However, austerity wasn’t universal for top leaders, and signs point to bigger paychecks ahead for more of them in 2011.

Thirty-one percent of organizations reported a pay increase to their top executives in 2010 compared with the previous fiscal year, and 42 percent expected another increase next year.