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.

 

Rhetorical Analysis of Two Publications

One of the more reputable sources of information on the internet tends to be the websites of news-related magazines or journals.  The websites are able to provide everything the print edition of the publication can and then some things it cannot–such as “this just in” style news stories, links to social media sites, etc.  Nonprofit organizations can make special use of space in these publications both in print and online–one article in two places, that has to be at least 150% the audience amount of just having an article in one place, right?  (Statistics was never really my strong suit, so don’t go quoting that number.  At least, don’t say you heard it from me if you must quote it!)  Online versions of non-profit publications help with awareness of the publication itself in that searching for key terms embedded in articles and/or their titles will yield links to the website.  Ease of access combined with reputability means that the online versions of nonprofit publications can help keep you up to date with the nonprofit world whether you are looking to volunteer, donate, watching events unfold, or just wanting to learn more about the sector in general.  Specifically in this post, I’ll be analysing at business related publications’ websites.  These would be important if you were looking to start your own nonprofit, help manage an existing nonprofit, seeking a career in the nonprofit sector, or just have an interest in learning about the leadership roles of nonprofit organizations.  What I’m interested in learning is how different publications go about sending the same message to different audiences.

 

In this post you’ll get to follow me around two pockets of the internet as I analyse the websites of two business themed non-profit publications, The Non-Profit Times and the Stanford Social Innovation Review.

The Nonprofit Times boasts that it is the “leading business publication for nonprofit management”.  Since no one else seems to be boasting the same thing, it’s safe to say that they are indeed that.  The featured article section is a scrolling box containing a few different articles.  Upon first arriving at the website, an article about the Ice Bucket Challenge is the lead feature.  This publication seems to be aimed at a slightly older crowd–my best guess would be the 40-50 age range.  A quick scroll down the main page shows links to other important articles separated by content.  Of course, there are links to their social media pages and blogs.  They also have job listings and a convenient place for you to sign up for their newsletter.  There’s also this red scrolling bar with what they must think is very important news.  It never goes away no matter how hard you scroll.

The Stanford Social Innovation Review claims that it is “informing and inspiring leaders of social change”.  Since nonprofits are all about their mission statements, I think it’s safe to assume that they are living up to that claim.  There is a scrolling box of featured articles on this website, too; although the Ice Bucket Challenge does not appear in these features.  The first article in the feature box is an article on the equal rights fight for gay marriage equality.  This publication seems to be aimed at middle aged crowd–35-45.  A quick scroll down the main page shows links to other important articles, blogs, podcasts, and webinars.  There are links to their social media pages.  You can sign up for their weekly newsletter and download a .pdf of the current issue of the Review.  They also have links to their past issues that you can browse through if you’re looking for something specific.

 

The analysis herein will mostly pertain to the exigence, topics, and methods used in each publication’s articles.  Understanding why an article was written about a certain topic in a certain way will yield the most useful information as to figuring out how these publications choose their articles.  It will also help in learning how these different publications get the same message across to interlocutors that seem to be in two different groups.

For brevity’s sake, I will only be analysing the articles in the “featured” section of each website.

 

As I said before, the first article of The Nonprofit Times’ featured article section is an article on the ALS Association’s Ice Bucket Challenge.  However, this isn’t a typical Ice Bucket Challenge article; this article is about the ALS Association withdrawing their trademark applications for the challenge–entitled ALS Ices Trademark Applications, Hits $100 Million.  This article is one of the main reasons that I believe that The Nonprofit Times is aimed at an older audience:  older business-people are going to care less about the videos being posted and more about what the business end of the ALS Association is going through this summer.  The rhetor here is telling us not only that the association is withdrawing its trademark applications but also why the association is withdrawing its trademark applications.   The article states that “the organization will withdraw the applications, saying in a statement that it filed for the ‘trademarks in good faith as a measure to protect the Ice Bucket Challenge from misuse…’” (Hrywna 2014). Mark Hrywna speaks to the audience matter-of-factly, but not as if he is close to them.  The distance is not cold, but business-like.  He isn’t sitting at your coffee table discussing this with you, you’re discussing this in a conference room.

Next up is an article by Zach Halper titled Foundation Based On Bitcoin Wins Nonprofit Status.  (Which is super cool, btw.)  It tells a brief tale of the company founded about a year ago that supports “various public health and environmental causes using exclusively bitcoins, a digital currency” (Halper 2014).  Because of the incredibly new and volatile nature of bitcoins and digital currency in general, I think it’s safe to assume that Halper was compelled to write this article because of his interest in the bitcoins themselves.  Again, this is an all facts article.  Halper even does a pretty good job of downplaying the volatility and mixed feelings surrounding digital currencies by using very positive quotes from foundation members and listing big names as donors.

Zach Halper has another article on the featured list–Charity Defense Council Plans $1 Million March.  A quote from CDC Founder and President Dan Pallotta seems to be the reason for the article:  “Founder and President Dan Pallotta claims this will be the ‘largest demonstration of the sector, and for the sector’ in the country.  ‘This is unlike any charity walk ever staged — it’s for the cause of causes themselves — charity, in solidarity, finally taking a stand for ourselves and our potential’” (Harper 2014).  Sometimes, a piece of writing is written around one line, and I think that was the line for this piece.  Again, there is some name dropping as Harper lists some of the confirmed marchers.  It would seem that associating an event or organization with some big names can really help people believe in it.  This article is written in more upbeat language than the one I previously mentioned by Harper.  I think it’s because this time there are slightly fewer facts to go around as the March won’t take place for another year.

100% is the short and sweet title of the next featured article–written by Patrick Sullivan–of The Nonprofit Times.  (Very quickly, in case you don’t plan on reading the article, the title refers to a model of splitting fundraising costs in such a way that individual/public donations go 100% towards an organization’s mission while donations from corporations/institutions or major donations from individuals [these large-scale donors are called “legacy donors”] go towards funding the organization’s operations)  This article was written so that the 100% model could get more good publicity.  Sullivan obviously believes in the model; it’s evident from the way he reports on it within the article.  His examples are of organizations who have had great success in increasing their small-mid sized individual donations after switching to the 100% model, and the one quote he adds against it isn’t supported by an example.  Sullivan’s article was written in a more “user-friendly” manner in that fundraising models were defined, and when the general public was spoken about it’s because of the good they were doing and not that they weren’t doing enough.

The chilling title Lockout Looms at Metropolitan Opera is last on The Nonprofit Times’ list of featured articles.  Lockout discusses the ongoing negotiations between Unions and the Opera itself and the hope that the two sides can reach an agreement before the 2014-2015 season begins.  The Nonprofit Times reports on this issue because the Metropolitan Opera represents a huge nonprofit organization whose annual expenses have begun to overreach its endowment.  This is an issue that any nonprofit could face.  There is an overall hopeful tone, though.  It’s reported that there have only been two seasons that were cancelled in the Opera’s time, and there are even people quoted giving recommendations as to how the Unions can function more efficiently and therefore save money.  This article, though, isn’t written to an Opera goer; this article is written to those in the Unions and those in management positions of other nonprofits who can really understand the jargon and what “ineffective spending” really entails.

Overall, the articles contained (at least, the articles featured and then assumptions extended) in the Nonprofit Times cover a wide range of topics concerning nonprofit organizations, are written by authors who have an interest in a topic they wish to share, and are generally very factual and sometimes jargon filled pieces.  The Nonprofit Times uses articles written for these reasons, about these things, in this way to appeal to an audience who has a logical, business-minded view of the world.  Articles are written with very, very little to no bias so that management and other leadership can make decisions about how a certain nonprofit functions on their own.  These pieces are written for a crowd who already know the vocabulary and just want to be kept up to speed with what’s happening in the nonprofit sector.

 

 

The Stanford Social Innovation Review’s first featured article is titled Equal Effort.  Sylvia Yee takes a look back at the past decade of the marriage equality movement and a brief look to the future.  She’s had a self-proclaimed great view of the movement from her position within the Evelyn and Walter Haas, Jr. Fund–which has given over $60million to support marriage equality and rights in general for gay and lesbian people (heavily paraphrased from Yee 2014).  Timing may have been the exigence for Yee’s article overview of the marriage equality movement.  Big things started happening about 10 years ago when Massachusetts became the first state that allowed same-sex couples to marry and have the same  rights as different-sex couples.  Yee writes the expository in a very personable and inclusive way–using terms like I and we instead of the odd pronouns usually present in journalism pieces–but does not go so far as to make her article into a narrative.

Nicholas Hazard wrote the next featured article titled Jobs for Better Health.  The article is chock full of facts about the health benefits of having jobs and why the Affordable Care Act can make a beneficial impact instead of the detrimental one that some would have us believe.  It isn’t immediately apparent why he would feel compelled to write this article until almost the end when he discloses that “[s]ocial enterprises like my own are already tackling long-term unemployment…” and then goes on to state that they need a little more help (Hazard 2014).  He’s writing to an audience who would have read the article with scepticism–diving right into talking about the ACA is still somewhat controversial as a lot of people have strong opinions about it still.  By giving them the facts and then tying the health care portion of his article into a call to arms for fixing unemployment, he’s given the audience a problem and its solution.  Everybody likes to be a problem solver.

Next up on the featured articles list is David La Piana’s article Making a Graceful Exit.  This is a very specific topic for a very specific audience–not everyone is running a foundation and not every foundation is looking to exit their field.  La Piana began to notice a trend and felt compelled to share his how-to knowledge.  He runs a consulting firm and serves the Atlantic Philanthropies.  He speaks to this audience through examples and step-by-step instructions that will stand the test of time.  This, he knows, is an article that someone managing a foundation can store away for a few years and open up later for help in, well, making a graceful exit.

Two women tackle the article entitled The Rise of Gender Capitalism.  Sarah Kaplan and Jackie VanderBrug produce an incredibly in depth overview of how investing with a “gender lens” can benefit not just women entrepreneurs but the entirety of the economy.  They’re very clear about how the amount that companies are investing in women has grown over time, but it becomes apparent that their compelling reason for this article was that it isn’t growing fast enough.  They report numbers that show a very real gap between the amounts invested in women-led companies and those led by men.  The women add small bits of narrative to their lengthy expository by giving examples of companies who have learned and are learning how to work with women to produce products for women that aren’t just re-colored-to-pink items.  It seems that they are trying to appeal to an audience who is looking to get into investing with this gender-lens.  To this end, they have listed a few foundations and companies who do that already and how existing companies can become more involved.

There is a somewhat strange and vaguely misunderstood attempt to blend the for-profit and nonprofit sectors recently.  Maribel Morey writes an article, The Rockefeller Foundation’s Hand in Hobby Lobby, that showcases one example of this blending.  I won’t go into detail, but earlier this year, Hobby Lobby was involved in a Supreme Court ruled case that had something to do with birth control and their employees’ health care coverage.  Morey writes this article as a cautious warning.  “This blending of the for-profit and nonprofit realms is not necessarily a path towards such a utopian future”, she says (Morey 2014).    [This is a bit off track, so I’ll put it in brackets.  You may skip if you like.  One of the great things about online publications is the ability given to readers to comment on an article and for the author to answer.  Morey, in an answer to a few comments on her article, basically states that if the nonprofit sector seeks so much to become like the for-profit sector then we will be left with no truly altruistic foundations.  Obviously, this is cause for concern.  Her bias is not present in the article, just in her personal opinions given in the comments section.]   Morey writes to an audience of anyone who may be interested in this aspect of nonprofit business.  She writes to them about the issues they may face if they use their nonprofit’s funds to help out for-profit businesses, but she does not scold them for mistakes they may or may not make.

Dan Potter seeks to change minds about judging a business strictly by it’s profit with his article Why the Future of Social Innovation is Open.  He gives a brief description of the dangers of judging a business by how much money they make instead of how much good they are doing/able to do with that money.  This article isn’t really to the business-minded, it’s for the rest of us.  He wants to make sure we know that the word “profit” for a company is somewhat akin to school kids’ standardized test scores–both numbers, neither give a real understanding of what is going on.  He is also looking narrowly at some companies when he says, “If we want to move beyond profit we also need to ensure that when organizations publish performance indicators, understanding the data doesn’t require expert knowledge of a particular sector” (Potter 2014).  So the author has this thing going on where he’s speaking to a couple different audiences and has to average out his use of jargon and vocabulary.

The articles contained in the Stanford Social Innovation Review, I still believe, are aimed at a younger audience.  I think they are also aimed at a wider range of education and involvement levels than some business-related articles are.  These articles tackle a very wide range of topics that are written through a business lens as opposed to articles written about business.  They’re written by authors who have an interest in their topics–some of them because they work with or for organizations that are directly related to the causes their articles are championing.  The Stanford Social Innovation Review’s articles–while written from a business angle–are generally written with a call to arms message somewhere within.  This makes sense as the title of the magazine contains the words “social” and “innovation”.

 

What I have learned from analysing these two publications’ websites is that different audiences do need to be written to differently.  Older, business-minded audiences want articles containing facts.  They don’t like the narratives as much and prefer expository explanations.  The younger crowd of business-minded people are more inclined to respond to the narratives contained within expository articles.  The younger crowd seems more likely to respond to a call to arms, so the articles for them are written with a “here’s how you can help” type section.

Understanding the audience of a certain publication can help you decide where you should be sending your article to be published.  A longer, narrative style expository would be more suited to the crowd of the Stanford Social Innovation Review than it would be to the Nonprofit Times.