The Change I’m Making

Over the course of this semester, this blog has seen a bit of activity. It’s actually my most successful blog–all of my other ones sit forgotten about because I just cannot remember that password or email address.

In the last month, I have made some real progress in an area where I think there is an issue in the nonprofit world. I want people to be able to easily see–all in one place–what their favorite nonprofits have been up to for the past year. Business produce annual reports so that their shareholders can see this. Why can’t nonprofits do it for their donors? They can. They just don’t. That’s what I’d like to see change. That was my furthering of this discussion. Making the argument that just because something isn’t done often doesn’t mean it’s not a good idea. Nonprofit organizations producing annual reports is an idea worth talking more about.

So I’ve created a template accessible for free for any nonprofit organization to use for their own annual report. Cost was listed as one of the reasons that nonprofit organizations don’t produce annual reports. That template can be accessed right here on my blog in the post titled The Nonprofit Annual Report Template. Creative title, I know. The audience for this template is the nonprofit leaders in my community. I’m totally fine with nonprofit leaders from other communities finding it and using it, too.

But I’ve also written an article that will hopefully one day see some press time. In the article I detail the differences between the nonprofit 990 tax form and the annual reports produced by business of different sizes. The article contains information about what an annual report really does on a basic level and why the 990 tax form isn’t really doing anything great for nonprofit organizations regarding showcasing their projects to their donors. Unless their donors are accountants or lawyers–which they could be, but they aren’t all accountants or lawyers. This article is written with nonprofit leaders in mind–younger ones; leaders who are ready to shake things up; leaders who have just started their own nonprofit organizations and want to be up on the latest trends.

I do wish I could have figured out a better way to publish the template. However, it’s something I plan to keep working on. Just like I plan to keep working at this article until the Nonprofit Times wants to publish it. There is a future here for all of these things. It feels like there’s a future for me in the nonprofit world. This is the first time all semester I’ve felt like I could really find my niche in the nonprofit world.

As far as my Writing for Communities and Nonprofits class is concerned, all of this writing I was able to do because of the people that came in and spoke with us. I never would have thought to do an article for a nonprofit annual report if our own UCF Foundation hadn’t come in and told us that they produce one. I would never have even known that there are nonprofit specific publications if Dr. Wardle hadn’t tasked us with comparing them. Rhetorical analysis is something I can never not do anymore, so thanks for that Dr. Wardle. This class, and by extension this blog keeping track of my progress through it, have really changed the way I think about nonprofit organizations and about writing in general. I feel like I have a much clearer understanding of why things are written in a certain way for one audience and in a different way for another audience that should be similar but isn’t.

The Nonprofit Annual Report Template

Below you will find a scrolling box containing a template for your nonprofit’s annual report. All you need to do is select everything in the box–by double clicking some text and hitting Ctrl+A–and then copy and paste this selection into any word processing software you like. I recommend Google Docs because it has the same functionality as all the rest and can be accessed anywhere there is internet.

Enjoy!

Project Update

Things are coming along swimmingly!

My write-up for annual reports and 990’s has started to become less an academic paper and more an article–which is sort of what I wanted it to become later. So. I think that’s okay.

I haven’t gotten into InDesign yet. I really have to buckle down and do that this week. The template is the important part of this project. I’m not exactly sure where to start with the software, though. Someone had mentioned in class that the SGA computers have the software on them. I’m going to spend some time today watching how-to videos before I get in there and start touching things.

So far, none of my plans have changed. I still want to have some written reasoning as to why nonprofit organizations should consider using an annual report instead of a 990 to communicate their year with their communities.

How I’m Going to Actually Write for Change

I’ve gotten very interested in the business side of the nonprofit world. I think because I didn’t realize that there really was one. I’ve been getting into business in general this semester, actually. Anyways.

I’ve decided to learn more about annual reports. What they do, who they’re for, what makes them different from other reports. Nonprofits do not generally produce these reports, so my research will be mainly regular businesses. The UCF Foundation, however, produces a really neat one every year, and I’ll definitely be able to access that and learn from it.

With this understanding of annual reports and my general knowledge of “business” in general, I’m hoping to be able to reach out to nonprofit organizations in my community (maybe farther!) to show them how this report can be helpful to them. The general consensus is that nonprofits don’t produce these reports because their donors and “society at large” feel like they’d rather their donation dollars/time go towards the mission directly. Basically, I want to show nonprofits that these annual reports can serve a purpose that does further their missions.

At the end of this project, I’d like to produce a template for an annual report that any nonprofit can use. This template will be provided free of charge and should be simple enough that a volunteer (or founding member) with any tech savvy can fill it with the correct information. For the purpose of my college class, I will be producing an analysis of these annual reports. My lofty-long-term-goal for this is to produce an article that I hope will make it in to one of the business-centric nonprofit publications–perhaps the Stanford Social Innovation Review or the Nonprofit Times!

I know that I have a lot of work ahead of me. Currently, I only barely understand an annual report when I read it. So. I’ll definitely need to learn to understand those. I’ve been told that InDesign is a great software tool for building web-based things; so I will be looking into learning that in order to create the template. I’m assuming a lot of my research will be done with the help of my good friend Google; I also plan on reaching out to the UCF Foundation for help understanding their annual report and the reasons they make it the way they do (it’s a really slick piece of work).

To set myself a schedule:
I plan to compile research on annual reports during this week. I will also be starting my analysis of these reports.
Next week, I will be setting aside some time to learn more about InDesign and possibly related software in order to build the template later.
The last two weeks will involve finalizing what I believe are the most necessary parts of an annual report for a nonprofit organization, finishing up that analysis (maybe starting that article!), and reaching out to some nonprofit organizations to see how they react to my template.
By the time I do my final presentation, I would like to have gotten at least one nonprofit on board with creating an annual report based on my template! Not just because it would make my presentation really easy if I could just stand in front of the class and say “They made this because I made this. The end.”

Hopefully this turns out to be something awesome and super helpful! Wish me luck!

YAYA with Nico and Heather

YAYA is the Youth And Young Adult Network of the Farm workers’ Ministry. It is, what they call, a solidarity network. They work with multiple farm worker organizations to educate the public about farm worker plights, equip farm workers with the tools for better working conditions, and mobilize the communities of and surrounding farm workers to action. One of the main points Nico and Heather stressed about farm work is that it is a skilled labor job–it’s not actually just anyone who can spend all day every day picking produce.

I learned that they work closely with a community of farm workers located in Fellsmere, Florida. Which happens to be the town I was born in. I was turning 8 when we left there, so it seems like there was a lot I just didn’t understand. We lived on 5 acres of land with a pond and a lot of trees. Up against the back side of our property was an orange grove (or was it grapefruit?). I remember coming home from school sometimes and the oranges (or grapefruits) all being gone. I think I was 5 or so when my mother explained to me that it was someone’s job to come and pick the fruit when it was ripe and ready to eat. How did I think the fruit got into the grocery stores? I have never been back–more because of some personal issues with our old house than anything–but it’s nice to see that there are people helping that little town.

One thing I found really interesting about YAYA is that they don’t make decisions and then raise awareness for the farm workers. They take all of their ques from the workers as far as what they are raising funds or awareness for. YAYA is a mega phone for voices that normally go unheard because the majority of people don’t want to listen.

While I knew that the pay rate was a big issue for farm workers, I didn’t know of the serious adverse affects of the pesticides they are constantly exposed to. In fact, I didn’t realize that the pesticides were sometimes being applied to the produce as it is being picked–I thought it was applied during the night or something. These pesticides can cause any problems from a minor rash to serious birth defects (women who are pregnant work all the way up until they have their child). A group of farm workers now located in Apopka got Lupus from working in pesticide ridden fields for so long. Lupus is something you can pass to your children. So that’s what’s happening even though this group no longer works in the fields. It’s an incredibly viscous and tragic cycle. I also learned that the US is the most lax when it comes to pesticide laws and control.

Nico told us that writing for YAYA is much more than just grant writing (which he does). He has also written film scripts, reports, workflow charts, spreadsheets, phone scripts, and program agendas. It seems like it’s really just a little bit of everything!

The Foundation for Me! Laura Pooser and Anne Boterri

Laura Pooser and Anne Boterri work for the UCF Foundation which is located right here on the UCF campus. Surprising, right? The UCF Foundation was created to raise money for UCF to fund projects such as professor and graduate research studies and scholarships for students.

Laura Pooser is a UCF grad herself. She majored in Graphic Design and worked for a long time for different ad agencies in the area. She was an art director and handled projects dealing with print materials and copywriting. She decided one day that she needed a change and looked into the nonprofit world. She now works as a fundraiser for the UCF Foundation, specifically for the College of Arts and Humanities (which is my college!). Ms. Pooser raises monies from international sources interested in the UCF message, companies, and individuals–with an emphasis on endowments from these individuals. She believes in face to face interaction and engaging potential donors. “Through engagement,” she told us, “people will eventually donate.”

Anne Boterri works as more of a technical communicator for the UCF Foundation. Which is a new position that was created just a few years ago as she was looking for warmer climes to work in–she’s originally from New Hampshire! She heads up a lot of their publishing ventures. She told us, though, that there’s no document we can create that will make someone write a check; so we have to remember to value the face to face interaction and engagement of potential donors. Ms. Boterri is all about storytelling–probably a carryover from her Liberal Arts degree. She worked in journalism for a while, too. When she helps create a document for the UCF Foundation, she focuses on “great photography and great headlines” because that’s what people are going to see first.

We learned some interesting things about donations to the UCF Foundations and the donors that make them. The UCF Foundation has a very clear idea of what kinds of donations they will and will not accept. Donations are considered gifts, not necessarily monies received. Quid pro quo gifts are not really gifts–a donation to the UCF Foundation will not sway the admission of a student. Discriminatory donations are not accepted either. Examples of something like this would be offering to donate to start a scholarship fund and then narrowing down the requirements for the scholarship to only a specific ethnic group or basically a particular student. Donors are able to specify things like GPA and/or area of study for their scholarships, though!
A lot of emphasis is placed on donor intent and making sure they know that we understood what they meant when we implemented their donation to a specific area. There is a lot of documentation that goes on tracking the money that comes in so that we can keep donors updated on how their dollars are making a difference.

Ms. Pooser and Ms. Boterri told us, like many others have, that working in the nonprofit world is all about your passion for the cause you’re working for. Ms. Boterri told us that there’s a lot of writing to be done in the nonprofit world and that we can’t be afraid to put the words together and get them out there.

The Real All Star

Tyler Chandler works for a nationwide organization known as After-School All Stars. They believe that by giving at-risk middle school children something constructive to do after school will keep them off the streets and out of trouble. It seems to be working as the organization is spreading quickly throughout communities all over the country.

What I thought he was coming in for was to tell us what he does for After-School All Stars and then why its so great and the usual salesman things. That’s not quite what he did. He took us on his personal journey from writing the morning news for ABC to where he is today. He told us what he did to get there–hiking with delinquent youths in order to build huts, for example. But he left us with much more than his personal story. He pretty much gave us a million ways to get into the nonprofit world and a million ways to make ourselves useful and necessary.

He started writing grants for the nonprofits he worked for because no one else was doing it. Once the dollars started flowing in, people decided he was pretty important and should be kept around. It didn’t hurt that he was able to get grants for operational costs to cover his own salary when he was just starting out!

He told us that it’s a very small amount of people who write in the nonprofit community and that the need for people with strong writing skills is constantly growing. Nonprofit’s don’t just need people to write grants. These organizations need all kinds of documentation and programs. They need someone to make up curriculums for their programs. They need technical writers to keep everything straight. This really piqued my interest as my degree is pretty much centered around technical communication and professional writing. It was interesting to learn that there is a demand for those kinds of skills within nonprofit organizations.

I have “be realistic” and “keep at it” written in bold in my notes. While I learned more detailed things than that, those are the two things that will probably help the most when I’m starting to look for ways to help the nonprofit I’m currently partnered with.

Growing Food!

Jennifer and Jason Helvenston founded Growing Food after a very lengthy battle with the city of Orlando over whether or not they should be able to grow vegetables in their front yard. Good news, Orlando finally decided they can! Now, though, the Helvenstons are going through the long process of applying for 501(c)3 status for their organization. Which is just great for us students, because we now have close to first hand knowledge of the whole process.

Mr. Helvenston told us that it is society and the organization itself that makes a nonprofit a nonprofit. How society sees a nonprofit carry out its mission is how society judges the legitimacy of a nonprofit. The IRS judges the legitimacy of a nonprofit based on its status–those with the 501(c)# status are legitimate to them, those without are not. At the beginning of the status-seeking process, the Helvenstons’ accountant thought they should apply for 501(c)4 status, as that status is mostly for organizations built around farming and agriculture. However, Growing Food grows food as a byproduct of the community they have created. For this reason, we were told that having an accountant is vital to the application process and that having that accountant on board with your message is just as important. We learned the document to apply for 501(c)3 status can be anywhere from 50 to 100 pages long and it can take a year or more for the IRS to process all of the paperwork*.

Mr. Helvenston also gave us some insight to the way he and his wife think about running the “business” side of their organization. He talked about regenerative transformation and a triple top-line instead of a triple bottom-line. He told us that he thinks in very cyclical patterns and is always trying to see how the cycles connect and how they can be connected. We were told to look into holacracy as an alternative to hierarchy. Mr. Helvenston told us that a good way to visualize where you want to go is to visualize your utopia and work backwards from it instead of forwards to it.

What the Helvenstons really strive for with their organization is to grow healthy communities full of healthy bodies. Growing Food’s mission statement is “Planting seeds; helping people grow”. At their core, they believe in the Golden Rule–do unto others as you would have them do unto you. This means that they don’t compete unnecessarily with other nonprofits trying to accomplish similar goals. They don’t fight with Homeowners Associations when they’re trying to get vegetable gardens approved; they find what works for both communities involved.

I honestly don’t know how he packed so much information into the hour-long session he had in our class, but Mr. Helvenston really changed the way I view startup organizations (and by extension, startup businesses). There are so many things he told us about starting from the ground (literally!) up. If there’s one thing I could use for my future as a writer specifically, it would be I should try to really understand the message of any organization I work for–be it a grassroots nonprofit organization or a Fortune 500 company. My understanding of the organization or company’s mission will benefit the way I communicate with and for them.

 

As a fun side-note, they were scheduled to have a featured skit on the Colbert Report during their fight with the city. It was to feature them scheming to take over America with beautiful, sustainable vegetable gardens in front yards everywhere. By the time the Report picked up the story, however, the city was mostly on-board with the Helvenstons; the lack of conflict made the skit less funny and it didn’t run.

 

 

*If you’re wondering if the year-long process can be expedited, the answer is yes! You can send a letter to the IRS stating that you’re waiting for the organization to receive its 501(c)3 status before making your initial donation. You don’t have to tell them how much you plan on donating or anything like that. If you’d like to do that, leave me a comment with your email and I’ll find you a template and an address!

 

Guest Speaker: Angela White-Jones

On Tuesday, my Writing for Communities and Nonprofits class had the pleasure of hosting Angela White-Jones, the Grants Officer for Quest, Inc.  She directs and manages the branch of Quest that receives and requests funding from any source.

She taught us that doing our research on any foundation we attempt to receive a grant from will be one of the most important things we do.  Learning what causes the funder is currently backing, making connections–if you don’t already have a connection, you’ll have to learn to make them yourself, and getting the timing right are all very important things to do before submitting a grant proposal.  Mrs. White-Jones told us that we need to be ambitious and not feel defeated because one of our proposals comes back a “No.”  Most funders, she told us, will tell you why they rejected your proposal if you take the time to call and ask.  Often, though, a grant proposal is rejected simply because the foundation has reached its grant limit already and there’s none left for you.

One thing that surprised me is that funders are starting to “get really into Return on Investment”.  Prior to now-ish, donating to a nonprofit was just doing good for doing good’s sake.  Now, though, these funders want to see what their donations are doing–how many people are they helping, how many houses built or campers are sponsored with their money?  I had originally thought that the nonprofit sector was the last remaining “good for good’s sake” space, but it seems that I’m slowly becoming wrong.

What I took away from Angela White-Jones’ visit is that organization is a key element to her daily life, and should be to mine if I want to do what she does.  I learned that personality can go a long way in helping make connection, and that making connections sometimes means being brave and just introducing yourself.

Slight Variations on a Theme: Grant Proposal Analysis

Every so often, a nonprofit organization has to take stock of what it has and decide what it needs to continue growing in its field.  When their needs are “more funding” or “a new website” or “the ability to hire a few more interns for the summer”, these organizations have to figure out how to meet their needs without access to many of the benefits that come with a for-profit organization.  Generally this comes down to applying for grants from foundations that exist almost solely to give money to nonprofit organizations that they deem worthy.

Nonprofit organizations go about applying for this money by submitting what is called a grant proposal.  Some foundations have a form that a nonprofit will fill in and submit, others require the organization to write an essay of sorts detailing how much they need and what it will be used for.  While grant proposals offer many variations on a theme, it’s still fairly easy to know when you’re looking at one.

In this report, I’ll be exploring what factors make a grant proposal a grant proposal.  I’ll explore what things about them are consistent and where there is some room for variation.

 

The main similarities between grant proposals include the exigence, the request for funds or services, the explained use of funding, and a description of the company.  These similar categories generally include similar information or purposes.  For example, the exigence is the same across all nonprofit grant proposals:  the nonprofit organization found that it needed funds/services for a particular project and reaches out to find them.

The requests for funds or services may vary in details such as the amount of funds requested–but that’s to be expected.  What’s interesting, though, is that some grant proposals seek a long-term source of funding from a foundation, and others don’t ask for a specific amount of money at all.  In one grant proposal, the Lexington chapter of Habitat for Humanity asks the Junior League “to provide $30,000 ($10,000 per year for 3 years)” to help with the building of a new facility.  In another that we analyzed, Build Together has submitted a grant proposal form to Echoing Green wherein they do not specify an amount needed from Echoing Green but instead gave a long term plan of their financial goals and how they plan to fill any gaps that appear in their finances over the next few years.  Either approach can work well for a nonprofit organization.  When you know exactly how much you will need for the year, you can ask for a specific amount.  When you know that you need more money than you can ask for, sometimes it’s best to give examples of how much other organizations have donated and hope that the foundation gets the message!

While similar in format, the nonprofit’s explanations of how they will use the funding can vary in length of projected goals and amount of statistics included in the explanation.  Quest Inc., in a grant proposal, asked the Wayne M. Densch Foundation for $10,000; with this money they “will provide campership for 20-30 guests for summer of 2014.”  This was the summary they offered after having fully explained their program and how it operates.  I think having one succinct statement for an explanation of funds would be highly effective as it gives the foundation a solid point to focus on within your proposal.

The description of the company, while similar in content, seemed to vary from proposal to proposal.  Some nonprofit organizations spoke of themselves using numbers and facts, while others were more anecdotal in their self-descriptions.

 

It’s not just the pieces of the grant proposal that make it what it is, though.  The language style used is consistent across the field.  Formality in their articulations is key.  Of course, this seems obvious; but it’s one of the main things that separates a grant proposal submitted to a foundation from a request for funds or donations submitted to a local business, school, or known philanthropist.  The nonprofits do get personable when they feel they can, though.  It all depends on the organization and how they view themselves.  Are they a very serious organization operated more like a business or are they an organization of warm, hopeful upstarts that are just trying their hardest to change the world?  Lakeland Volunteers in Medicine submitted a request for a donation of services to help build a website; they used only formal language and statistics.  This fit them as an organization because they run a free clinic which must be operated like a business even though it doesn’t turn a profit.  Building Together was quite personable in their grant proposal application form.  Their grant writer included anecdotes about his time with the company along with very long-term goals–which could be construed as young and hopeful language.

Beyond their language style, what is actually said makes a grant proposal unique.  The articulation of a specific need and a specific goal and the request of funds or services itself is common throughout grant proposals and generally doesn’t exist in other kinds of documents.

 

While it seems like everything about every grant proposal is similar, that is not quite the case.  Some organizations–such as Build Together–use anecdotes to make themselves stand out against the seas of black and white formality.  The anecdotes are certainly not required pieces.  Other organizations will mention how much other foundations have given at other times in hopes of increasing their chances of success with the grant proposal they are currently submitting.  The author of the grant proposal may also vary between organizations.  Some of the larger nonprofit organizations will have a whole department dedicated to grant proposal writing. Some organizations may have one dedicated staff member for grant proposals.  And some of the smaller or very new nonprofits may not have anyone grant proposing specifically, but elect someone from their team when the need arises.

 

While you may not look at grant proposals often, they are certainly unique enough documents that you can tell when you are looking at one.  Whether very formal or slightly personable, they articulate a need and request.  Grant proposals include a description of the organization, and an explanation of how they will use the funds or services they have requested.  They may or may not include anecdotes of the author’s time in with the organization.  The author may or may not be trained in grant writing.  The similarities let you know what you are looking at, while the variations help you decide if this is the cause that’s worthy of your donation.