When planning the launch of Minnesota Philanthropy Partners, we knew creating a video about our grantmaking work was an important component. As we unveiled a new name for our network of 1,600 funds, foundations and organizations, we wanted to reassure nonprofits that the grantmaking for three of our anchor foundations,  The Saint Paul Foundation, F. R. Bigelow Foundation and Mardag Foundation, remained the same.

Video is also a great way to make our grantmaking processes more transparent. We hope that an insider peek into our practices will help nonprofits be more informed when working with us, which would then result in more powerful collaborations. Our program team wants to work closely with nonprofits. We welcome conversations with organizations to learn about their work and understand if their programs and objectives fit with our funding priorities and commitments.

Ultimately, this new grantmaking video, along with other communication efforts like our Nonprofits to Know^TM  video series and MNSights magazine, is intended to help strengthen philanthropy in Minnesota. We hope the outcome of the new video is that more great programs find our foundations and that our community is the better for it. Have a look and let us know what you think!

Valerie Halverson Pace, center

If you don’t think philanthropy in Minnesota and the Ukraine have much in common, think again.

On October 20-21, I attended MCF’s conference in St. Paul, The Evolution of Corporate Philanthropy: Building Value and Creating Change, where discussion revolved around truly integrating corporate citizenship and philanthropy within a company’s business strategy.

The previous week in Mykolajiv, Ukraine, the Ukrainian Philanthropists Forum, in conjunction with the Center for Social Programs RUSAL, East Europe Foundation, held Ukraine’s first international conference on corporate volunteering.

Both groups heard from Valerie Halverson Pace, west region manager, Corporate Citizenship, at IBM in Rochester, Minnesota, and an MCF member. She spoke of the change that she’s seen in the past 15 years at IBM, a company cited here and halfway around the world for doing things right and pushing the boundaries of corporate citizenship.

According to Pace, IBM is working across business units in 170 countries on pressing issues including the environment, economic development, education, health, literacy, language and culture.

IBM is applying their technology and the talent of their employees to solve problems, rather than simply making cash donations. They provide leadership and insist on excellence. And, whether it’s using voice recognition technology to help children learn to read or cloud computing to make disaster relief tools instantly available to recovery workers, they collaborate with qualified partners and fully expect to effect widespread positive change.

IBM’s efforts include: the Smarter Cities Challenge, a competitive grant program awarding $50 million worth of IBM expertise over three years to 100 cities around the globe; Service Jam and more.

Turns out MCF and the Ukrainian Philanthropists Forum are both members of WINGS, a global network of 145 grantmaker associations. And Bill King, MCF president and a WINGS board member, is responsible for facilitating the Ukraine-Minnesota philanthropy connection.

It’s a great example of one way that MCF is working to promote and strengthen philanthropy in Minnesota and far beyond the borders of our state.

- Susan Stehling, communications associate

• A new blog where others can join the discussion.
• Stories about the work of their partners and fellows.
• Timely updates about news, opportunities, events, resources and media coverage.
• New ways to interact with the Foundation via Twitter, Facebook and RSS.

Find all this and lots more at the new BushFoundation.org.

- Susan Stehling, MCF

Here’s a challenge and suggestions to meet it from a recent meeting of the MCF ComMotion Network: “Keep it Creative: Producing Out-of-the-Box Ideas for Run-of-the-Mill Communications Issues.” There’s also a related “lived scenario” from West Central Initiative.

Challenge:
Your foundation wants to host an event, competition, award program or something similar. You know social media can play a part. Now you must create a strategy that uses social media to its best potential.

Tools:

• Develop a social media core team.
• Use email, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Web, and Flickr to help plan the event and generate new ideas.
• Use Twitter and blogging at event sessions.
• Facilitate networking before, during and after the event through profile development or use of an interactive web forum.
• Offer an incentive, e.g., for every “like” or post, the foundation will donate $1 to x.
• Use polls to increase interactivity.

Takeaways:

• Ensure that social media is a part of your bigger strategy.
• Know your audience, what you want to communicate and what you want to accomplish with your communications.
• Answer, “What do you want your audience to do?”

A Lived Scenario from West Central Initiative

Challenge:
Last year the foundation decided to hold a photo/video contest with entrants visually and verbally (entries would include a 100-word essay) illustrating: “Creating a better tomorrow for west central Minnesota.”

Goals:

• Define the area’s regional identity. We hoped entries would shed light on how residents perceive west central Minnesota.
• Collect 100 images for use in materials celebrating the foundation’s upcoming 25th anniversary.
• Jumpstart and promote the foundation’s social media marketing.

Tools:

• After searching for an online photo/video contest tool, we chose Strutta, as it allowed us to host a contest for photos and videos, have judges select winners and let viewers vote for popular choices.
• Strutta also allowed the foundation and entrants to promote entries using Facebook and Twitter. (I used Facebook and Twitter [foundation and personal pages] to increase entries, “Your photos are great. Enter them in our contest!”)

Results:

• We received 87 entries, including many lovely photos and thoughtful essays.
• We learned that creating a better tomorrow means, “caring for our children and for our natural resources in the best way we can.”

This is the last in a series of posts from MCF’s recent ComMotion meeting. However, watch for an update to May 27th’s “Creatively Redesigning a Marketing Strategy” post soon.

Image West Central Initiative

- Sheri Booms Holm, West Central Initiative

If the answer is yes, and you’re looking for funding for your efforts, be sure to check out the Knight Community Information Challenge.

Sponsored by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation (an MCF member), the challenge encourages news entrepreneurs to partner with community or place-based foundations in order to receive a grant from Knight. This year’s deadline for applications is Monday, March 7.

Since your foundation partner will be the official applicant to Knight and because they must match Knight’s funding, finding a partner is step one. So how do you go about partnering with a foundation in your area?

A good starting point is this blog post on Knight’s site, which contains advice from past winners and details three good tips for news entrepreneurs seeking foundation support. Tips include:

• Don’t be surprised if a foundation doesn’t immediately embrace journalism
• Do your homework about the mission of the foundation
• Think ahead: A plan for sustainability is critical

Be sure to check out the entire Knight Community Information Challenge site, where you’ll find contest rules, profiles of past winners (watch interviews with Round III winners below), and much more.

• Applicants must be U.S. community or place-based foundations (though community partners are welcome);
• projects have to meet a local information need;
• and foundations must match Knight’s investment.

- Susan Stehling, MCF

As foundations, our core business–to put it succinctly–is nonprofit capacity building. Grantmaking is the main way that we do this, but we believe that marketing can also help build capacity. Our new web video series, Nonprofits to Know^TM, is an exciting new way we’re doing this.

Each Nonprofits to Know^TM video focuses on a nonprofit that is doing extraordinary work in Minnesota. Our Grants and Program, Development, and Marketing and Communications teams collaborate to identify the nonprofits we will feature.

We’ve invested in a tripod, camera, wireless microphone and a computer and editing software. The cost, when compared to hiring a video production company on a per project basis, has been well worth the investment.

To help nonprofits share the videos, we have developed an FAQ about ways to market the video using social media, email and the nonprofit’s website. We also help to distribute the video–posting it on our YouTube channel, creating links on our website and via social media, and e-mailing links to interested people via our donor relations, program officers and gift planners. We’re also proud to be posting these videos complete with closed captioning for the hearing impaired.

Clearly, the nonprofits benefit from the video series–many of which have wanted to create videos but had been budget constrained to do so. But we believe that our foundations also benefit from this initiative. The Nonprofits to Know^TM series help us demonstrate our community expertise, and we believe the videos help us create partnerships with donors, nonprofits and community leaders who want to do innovative and extraordinary work.

- Jeff D. Achen, Minnesota Community Foundation and The Saint Paul Foundation interactive media strategist

Want to see a great example of the the videos that Minnesota Community Foundation and The Saint Paul Foundation are creating for their grantees?

Check out the video below created for the Peta Wakan Tipi’s Dream of Wild Health Program. Peta Wakan is a non-profit that promotes the social, economic, physical and cultural health of American Indian people through programs like Dream of Wild Health.

Are CEOs ready to dive into web 2.0?

Based on a survey of 73 foundation executives, the report, Are Foundation Leaders Using Social Media?, reveals that:

• Established forms of online communications like e-newsletters and Listservs are used at a much higher rate (65% and 45%, respectively) than social media.
• Nearly three-quarters of respondents say that social media has been at least somewhat useful to philanthropy over all.
• Only 50% state that social media has helped further their own organization’s work.

The report also yields interesting information including what blogs on philanthropy and the independent sector are read by leaders most frequently, as well as two profiles of social media “power users” with a breakdown of what their online activity looks like.  To read more and download the four-page report, visit Foundation Center’s Philanthropy News Digest.

- Cary Lenore Walski, MCF web communications associate

CC Image Seattle Municipal Archives

The challenge calls on Minnesotans to support 50 nonprofits serving youth in greater Minnesota. The foundation is providing $300,000 in matching funds to double donations and incent giving. Each nonprofit will receive a one-to-one match for the first $6,000 it raises on GiveMN.org during the campaign, which runs through Tuesday, October 5, 2010. That’s tomorrow, so there is still time to donate!

The innovative leadership of the Otto Bremer Foundation is exactly what we need to keep Minnesota communities thriving. Follow their lead and help these organizations reach their goals.  More than $200,000 in matching funds remains on the table. Your donations will be doubled until 4 pm tomorrow. So, take the challenge today and encourage your friends to do the same!

Background
The Otto Bremer Foundation recognized that matching funds could encourage organizations in greater Minnesota to use technology to grow their resources, and they ensured the organizations had the support and tools to successfully run an online giving campaign — a first for most of the nonprofits.

Foundation staff coordinated with Bremer Banks to convene trainings in St. Cloud, Willmar and Alexandria. Nonprofits from across the state came to learn about trends in online fundraising.  They strategized about how to encourage donors to “click” instead of write a check.

The organizations are stretching to do something new — moving from “the way things have always been done” to “the way we need to do things to be relevant in the future.”  They are working with donors who are unsure about making a donation on a computer.  And they are marketing to new donors who love the ease and convenience of giving online.  They are changing donor behavior one click at a time.  And the dollars are trickling in.

This is fundraising and grantmaking in 2010. This is foundation and community collaboration in 2010.

The Otto Bremer Foundation has a long history of supporting nonprofits that serve youth throughout Bremer communities. The Otto Bremer Foundation, GiveMN and the participating organizations are proud to take part in this campaign to help youth in greater Minnesota.

- Dana Nelson, GiveMN executive director

The report The Next Generation of American Giving discusses not just the next generation, but four generations and their charitable giving - what makes each a target worthy of donation solicitations, how do they prefer to be asked to give, and how do they prefer to give and engage with nonprofits?

Released in March 2010, the report was commissioned by Convio, a provider of constituent engagement solutions for nonprofit organizations, and conducted by market research firm Edge Research, with technical support provided by Sea Change Strategies.

The report sought to answer what every nonprofit wants to know: How do we attract the next generations of donors without compromising current revenue from mature donors?

The short answer: The best fundraising is profoundly multi-channel. Seek ways to integrate those channels for stronger results.

The long answer is, of course, much more complicated.  In  Convio’s March/April 2010 online newsletter, in an article titled “Next Generation of American Donors: Changing the Art and Science of Fundraising?” by Tad Druart, Convio’s director of marketing and communications, the company’s Chief Strategy Officer Vinay Bhagat says:

This research and the decline in donor acquisition rates indicate that the marketing model needs to shift to attract the next generation of donors while supporting continued direct mail success. Charities need to move away from a solely direct response focus to a multi-channel approach with a heavier emphasis on online marketing, emerging channels such as mobile and social media, and empowering supporters to market and fundraise with and for the organization. Online marketing programs that have mostly operated as a silo must be integrated with traditional campaigns.

Here are some of the of the report’s findings.

Overview of the Generations

Mature Generation

• Born before 1945.
• U.S. population: 39 million
• 79% gave to a charitable organization (other than school or place of worship) in the last 12 months.
• Annual average total giving: $1066
• Number of charities given to: 6.3

Boomers

• Born 1946-1964.
• U.S. population: 78 million
• 67% gave to a charitable organization (other than school or place of worship) in the last 12 months.
• Annual average total giving: $901
• Number of charities given to: 5.2

Gen X

• Born 1965-1980.
• U.S. population: 62 million
• 58% gave to a charitable organization (other than school or place of worship) in the last 12 months.
• Annual average total giving: $796
• Number of charities given to: 4.2

Gen Y

• Born 1981-1991.
• U.S. population: 51 million
• 56% gave to a charitable organization (other than school or place of worship) in the last 12 months.
• Annual average total giving: $341
• Number of charities given to: 3.6

How Do the Generations Like to Give Money and Get Information?

As one would expect, giving a check by mail is the run-away most common giving method for Matures. While giving by mail is still prevalent for Boomers and Gen X, it is significantly less so than Matures. The likelihood of giving via a website increases with younger generations; for Gen X, giving via the web only slightly trails mail, but for Gen Y, the web slightly surpasses mail.

An intriguing note: All generations give at similarly high rates through donations at the check-out registers of retail stores.

Similarly, the predominant charity information channel for Matures is mail. For younger generations, the channels are more varied, encompassing a combination of e-mail, websites and social media.

One of the most interesting findings in the report notes that when looking at how charities solicit donations from those with whom they have pre-existing relationships, donors said the most appropriate form of solicitation was indirectly via a friend who asked for a donation. This finding that  indirect messaging is impactful could have great implications for all those strategies that involve communication “hits” directly between the nonprofit and the donor.

Again, for communication between donors and familiar nonprofits, mail was considered acceptable by more Matures. Mail did, however, score well with younger generations as well, but it is balanced with e-mail, “indicating the importance of multi-channel appeal strategies,” the report writes.

What Triggers Giving?

According to the report authors:

Younger donors are more likely to support a charity when friends/family ask versus the charity asking them. They consider much of their giving relatively random based upon their emotional reaction to something in the media, or based upon who asks. Older donors have a well established commitment to their primary charities. They have a budget set aside for charitable giving, and know the organizations they plan to give to. This suggests that it is harder for a new charity to break in with older donors, but once you secure them, they are quite committed. Younger donors represent relatively open targets. The best way to reach them is either through inspirational stories in the media or better still,via their friends. Given that a vast majority of charitable marketing efforts today are directed towards direct donor engagement and solicitation versus stimulating peer-to-peer engagement and general media exposure, it would suggest that those marketing efforts are poorly aligned with what younger donors say motivates them to give.

To read the full report, including recommendations for “Actions You Can Take Tomorrow,” visit the Convio website.

Learn More at the MCF 2010 Annual Convening

This report and other insightful research and tools will be part of an Idea Session, “Unleashing Our Human Assets: A Fishbowl Conversation on Engaging All Generations for Change,” at the 2010 MCF Annual Convening. Titled “Innovative Strategies for the Future: Realizing Our Full Potential,” the convening for Minnesota grantmakers will be held Oct. 28 and29. For more info, visit MCFconvening.org.

- Chris Murakami Noonan, MCF communications associate

Click on the screenshot above to visit ILTF's new, user-friendly site.

None of the issues that grantmakers are tackling is simple, that’s for sure. In fact, it never ceases to amaze me that, just when I think I “understand” poverty or school readiness, for example, another cutting-edge grantmaker and the nonprofits they’re working with teach me about new aspects of an issue and innovative solutions to address them.

While I basically can grasp what an issue encapsulates just by its name (homelessness or health screenings are examples), that was not the case when I went to interview the staff at Indian Land Tenure Foundation (ILTF), a Minnesota Council on Foundations member, for our summer issue of Giving Forum focusing on public policy.

What is Indian land tenure? Indian land issues are complex, and I needed a place to go to learn.  I turned to the foundation’s website. While I was able to gather sufficient information on the issues and strategies so that I could formulate an article on ILTF’s public policy work, what ILTF has just done since – revamping its website – will go miles in educating and impacting its work on Indian land issues.

First, what is Indian Land Tenure Foundation?

In short, ILTF’s mission is to see that “land within the original boundaries of every reservation and other areas of high significance where tribes retain aboriginal interest are in Indian ownership and management.”

According to ILTF, these key points are behind its mission:

• Overall, less than half of the reservation land in the U.S. is owned and controlled by Indian people. On some reservations, such as White Earth in Minnesota, only a tiny percentage of reservation land is Indian-owned.
• From 1887 to 1934, more than 90 million acres of reservation land that was guaranteed for the exclusive use and occupation of Indian people were taken out of Indian ownership and control. Only a fraction of those lands have been recovered since then.
• With each passing generation, Indian communities and families continue to see tribal lands slip out of their control at an alarming rate.

How the New Website Can Help Paint a Picture of This Complex Issue

Here are some of the key features of the site:

• Learn about the effects of the General Allotment Act of 1887 and the major land issues affecting Indian people today, including land loss, fractionated ownership and checker-boarding.
• Access information and educational resources on the history of Indian land tenure in the U.S., including an interactive map with data for each reservation that was allotted and free land tenure curriculum for Head Start, K-12 and college.
• Find information on available grants and search a database of grantees.
• Read stories about Indian communities recovering their homelands and strengthening their cultures and economies.

“We serve many different audiences from diverse geographic, demographic and cultural communities, so we wanted the new website to be appealing and accessible to everyone,” says Erin Dennis, ILTF’s communications specialist. “While our primary focus is on supporting projects and initiatives that help Indian people and tribes with land recovery and management, we also hope to educate people who may not know very much about these issues. As a community foundation, we rely on contributions from other organizations and individuals to accomplish our goals. To that end, we also hope our website will provide potential partners, donors and funders with an understanding of the importance of addressing these issues now and the positive impact we are making on Indian communities.”

- Chris Murakami Noonan, MCF communications associate