There’s an obvious connection between Halloween and chocolate. In the nonprofit sector, there’s an equally obvious connection between Halloween and UNICEF. Cadbury began to fill in the missing link a few years ago by contributing directly to UNICEF’s Halloween campaign. Candy packaging for Halloween featured UNICEF advertising, and corporate gifts supported UNICEF schools in Rwanda and Malawi.

Now Cadbury is taking its involvement a step further with promotion and IT services for The Schoolhouse Project. At the project’s website, www.theschoolhouseproject.ca, visitors can locate their community and join together to build a virtual foundation that represents the value of education in every child’s life. Each dollar adds another virtual brick to the foundation. Cadbury will create a Haunted Halloween Night celebration on October 31 in the community with the highest number of bricks.

“By leveraging an existing program, Cadbury can focus its commitment and dollars to help build an education for kids living in Rwanda and Malawi without the added expense of building a new program,” says Cadbury's corporate communications manager, Stephanie Minna Cass. The overall partnership with UNICEF reflects the company’s commitment to education as a critical development goal for the continent that supplies so much of its raw material.

Through these columns, you’ve probably come to realize that there’s a lot more to fundraising software selection than just deciding what to buy. Should you go it alone? If your organization is small, with only a few programs and campaigns or a small donor base, you’ll probably be looking at entry-level products. If that’s the case, you will be able to evaluate the available systems in-house to make a choice.

However, once you reach the mid-range and high-end levels, the options can be considerably more complicated. You may want an experienced consultant to help with the evaluation. Depending on the skill set of your staff and the availability of their hours, partnering with the right consultant can be a smart choice for long-term savings.

A good consultant can provide services before, during and even after your software purchase. The range of offered services can vary widely. Consultants may only demonstrate and recommend software, or they may assist you with evaluation, implementation and training. Others provide additional services like customizing or optimizing the system for your organization’s specific needs. 

In a year when funding is tight and many organizations are cutting their training budgets, Pareto Fundraising has found a new way to express its passion for helping charities grow. The company is offering four full passes to AFP Greater Toronto Chapter’s Congress 2009, set for November 30 through December 2.

Intended for fundraisers who would otherwise not be able to attend, each pass covers the registration fee for the full three days of Congress. Travel and lodging are the responsibility of the passholders.

“At Pareto Fundraising, we are passionate about helping charities grow. One of the best ways to boost the capacity of charities is through training and professional development,” says the company’s North American regional director Jonathon Grapsas. “As we become better fundraisers, we can raise more money and make the world a better place faster.”

In August, we invited readers to submit ethical turkeys for consideration by the Gift Planning in Canada Ethics Squad, promising to award a real Thanksgiving turkey on behalf of the best entry (or the worst, depending on your perspective).

Thanks to all the readers who sent us their turkeys. We are pleased to announce a tie for first place! The winning dilemmas appear below, with the Squad’s response to one in this issue; the second will appear next month.

“I previously worked for a foundation where all bequest gifts were to be endowed in perpetuity. The program was marketed this way in print for both donors and the lawyers creating the bequest gifts. Many bequests included the name of the endowment fund, and donor discussion and presentations talked about perpetuating the donor’s annual gift. After the foundation was named in the will, stewardship discussions with donors would often centre on the importance to them that their gift be held in perpetuity.

Gobble, gobble. While Gift Planning in Canada readers were enjoying turkey dinners this Thanksgiving, the Ethics Squad were busy reviewing entries for the GPIC Ethics Challenge. Thank you to all of you who submitted sticky situations for consideration.  We are pleased to announce that we have a tie and two turkeys will be donated to food banks in honour of our winners. Both winners raised excellent sticky and confidential situations, and, in keeping with the terms of the Challenge, we are keeping their names anonymous. All entrants will receive a small token of our turkey appreciation, so watch your mailbox for your parting gift.

This month we will look at a sticky endowment situation and provide some insight.

“Furious with the Foundation” writes “I previously worked for a foundation where all bequests were to be endowed in perpetuity. The program was marketed this way in print for both donors and lawyers creating the bequest gifts…[a new] board went back and looked at bequests they’d already received to see if the ‘perpetuity clause’ [was formally written] in them; if not, they yanked [the money and spent it] after 9 years, 364 days.”

One of the first things Jill Geisler heard from her journalism management mentor was that mediocrity is a curse. “You’re too kind to fire it,” he told her, “and you don’t dare promote it.” After thirty years in leadership, Geisler knows that mediocrity is a universal challenge for managers trying to assess and improve the performance of a team. There are always some team members who have to be described as uninspired, formulaic and lacklustre. In other words, they’re average – not awful, but never great.

In better times, average employees weren’t necessarily a major challenge as long as they stayed out of trouble. Their managers could focus on genuine underperformers and daily organizational brush fires. But not in these tough times, Geisler warns. “Managers are being asked to justify every position on the team and expect them not only to perform well, but often to add new duties.”

Fighting mediocrity begins with making certain that managers aren’t contributing to it themselves. Here are some questions that will help you discern whether you’ve created or deepened the problem.

1. Have I been clear with this person about roles and responsibilities?
2. Have I communicated our standards of quality and how they are measured?

If there is one common theme among the digital thought leaders speaking at September’s Artez InterAction in Toronto, it is that the digital world is full of opportunities and savings for nonprofits – and a few dangers as well.

Jason Potts of England’s Think Consulting Solutions described the ultimate unlikely digital candidate. Imagine a history-focused national charity, most of whose supporters are females over 60. Are you surprised to learn that when the organization asked, it learned that 86% of them have broadband Internet access, 95% have mobile phones and 33% have iPods?

The charity recovered promptly from its amazement. It created a digital version of the photo-rich magazine that is the cornerstone of its promotion and stewardship. When 30% of its supporters agreed to forego the print version in favour of the online one, the charity saved the equivalent of contributions from 9,000 new donors over the first year.

A nonprofit’s tagline is the briefest, easiest and most effective way to communicate your organization’s identity according to nonprofit communications expert Nancy Schwartz. Many people think she’s right, which explains the response to her Nonprofit Tagline Awards. Seventeen hundred organizations submitted their taglines and nearly five thousand nonprofit professionals took up the opportunity to vote on the 60 finalists. Here are the 2009 winners in each category:

Best overall

Nothing Stops A Bullet Like A Job – Homeboy Industries. This mini-masterpiece tells a memorable story in just six words. It stops you in your tracks, makes you want to learn more and sticks with you afterwards, says Schwartz. That’s the kind of potent nonprofit messaging every organization desires.

For the past ten months, we’ve examined a variety of marketing tools that can be combined into a successful, long-term marketing/PR strategy and plan for your organization. During the next two months, we’ll add the final tool, media relations, to the marketing mix.

Publicity can enhance all of the other tools in your marketing toolkit, yet over the years I’ve found that nonprofits underutilize it. Each time you organize an event, complete a successful project, write an article, deliver a speech or create a newsletter, you should be thinking about the publicity opportunities. Successful media relations involve building relationships with key media by giving them newsworthy items throughout the year.

Here are six steps to generate publicity for your nonprofit, your programs and services, and your special events.

Have you ever wondered how to determine whether or not you should be holding an event? Betsy Clarke’s book A is for Ask includes “The Event-Ability Quiz” by Ken Wyman, a tool to help you determine how successful your event could be. In fact, it is a useful guide to any group that is even considering a special event. It covers every item that should be considered in making the final decision: Do we or don’t we?

Using a self-scoring scale, The Event-Ability Quiz asks you to rate the following:

• Your organization
• Volunteer team
• Invited guests and supporters
• Your public profile and awareness
• Costs and income
• Type of event
• Planning

A new poll to support Canada’s Top Teen Philanthropist Contest (see In Brief for call for entries) confirms that adolescents are committed to helping the poorest among us. And many of them are using social media to change the world: 81 per cent of 19-year olds-use Facebook and 30 per cent use Twitter to promote their charitable work.

Compared to a similar poll conducted last year, poverty supplanted health as the most popular cause for teens. (CF&P’s survey among Canadian adults in January of this year detected the same trend. – Ed.) Teen interest in helping charities associated with poverty jumped 16 per cent over last year to 38 per cent. 

“While the economy may have taken a downturn this past year, the giving spirit of Canada teens is soaring,” said Mackenzie’s strategic philanthropy VP Brad Offman.

Do you lie awake nights envying the colleagues who raise money for a delicious new building filled with naming opportunities while you toil away on the annual fund to pay salaries and utility bills? If you do, Jeff Brooks has bad news and good news for you. In short, he says, learn to live with designated giving.

There are organizations so afraid of seeing their operating donations evaporate that they won’t consider adding designated (or restricted) giving to their fundraising programs. There are others with a lofty commitment to the notion that donated money shouldn’t go to the squeakiest wheel or the sexiest project. They put all their gifts in one pot, with spending decisions made by an internal group of “experts” or power brokers – but definitely not by Joe and Jane Donor.

Writing at www.donorpowerblog.com, Brooks warns, “This [designated giving] is not something we’re going to be able to debate about forever. Donors increasingly want choices. And they’re increasingly getting them. If you can’t figure out how to run your organization while allowing donors to designate their giving, donors will eventually pass you by. That’s a coming market reality.”

AFP Canada South Chapter, Philanthropy Day Award Breakfast. Thursday, November 12, 8 a.m., Ambassador Golf & Country Club, Windsor. Order tickets by November 5. Members $35, non-members $40.

Fedela Falkner, 519-253-3000 ext. 4141, ffalkner@uwindsor.ca; www.afpcanadasouth.org

AFP Greater Edmonton Chapter, How to have Conversations with Donors about Planned Gifts, Kathryn W. Miree, past president, National Committee on Planned Giving (U.S.). Wednesday, December 9, 10:45 a.m. - 1:15 p.m., Canadian Western Bank Tower, Edmonton; Grande Prairie & Fort McMurray TBA. Members free; guests $20.

http://www.afpedmonton.ca/PDFs/12-09-09_audio.pdf, Edmonton; JBallance@gprc.ab.ca , Grande Prairie; melane.leblanc@keyano.ca, Fort McMurray

To recognize the significant charitable commitment of Canadian teens, Mackenzie Investments is sponsoring Canada’s Top Teen Philanthropist Contest. Full contest rules and criteria are available at www.mackenziefinancial.com/teen. Submissions are due November 2, so if your charity has noteworthy youth among its supporters, text them now to get their entry together.

The winner will receive a $5,000 donation for a favourite charity, plus $1,000 as a personal prize. The contest will also recognize five runners-up with $500 each to the charity of their choice.

Joining Brad Offman on the judges’ panel are Craig Kielburger, co-founder, Free the Children; Jane Wu, winner, Top Teen Philanthropist in 2008; Monica Patten, president and CEO, Community Foundations of Canada; Danielle Silverstein, director, Jays Care Foundation; and Carlos Bustamante, host, YTV’s The Zone.