Picks of the Week: March 1 - 7, 2009

Website of the Week -- Grassroots Institute for Fundraising Training

The Grassroots Institute for Fundraising Training (GIFT) is a multiracial organization that promotes the connection between fundraising, social justice and movement-building. GIFT provides analysis, training, and resources to strengthen organizations, with an emphasis on those focused on social justice and based in communities of color. Programs include:

• Grassroots Fundraising Journal to provide organizations with affordable and practical information and ideas for fundraising
• Fundraising Internships to develop new fundraisers of color
• Training for Trainers to increase the number of progressive fundraising trainers of color
• Raising Change: A Social Justice Fundraising Conference
• Training and Consulting Services
• Print and Online Resources

Go to: http://www.grassrootsfundraising.org. To subscribe to their valuable newsletter, email enewsletter@grassrootsfundraising.org.


Publication of the Week -- Arts Marketing Insights: The Dynamics of Building and Retaining Performing Arts Audiences by Joanne Scheff Bernstein

From the publisher: Audience behavior began to shift dramatically in the mid 1990s. Since then, people have become more spontaneous in purchasing tickets and increasingly prefer selecting specific programs to attend rather than buying a subscription series. Arts patrons also expect more responsive customer service than ever before. Because of these and other factors, many audience development strategies that sustained nonprofit arts organizations in the past are no longer dependable and performing arts marketers face many new challenges in their efforts to build and retain their audiences. Arts organizations must learn how to be relevant to the changing lifestyles, needs, interests, and preferences of their current and potential audiences. Arts Marketing Insights offers managers, board members, professors, and students of arts management the ideas and information they need to market effectively and efficiently to customers today and into the future. In this book, Joanne Scheff Bernstein helps readers to understand performing arts audiences, conduct research, and provide excellent customer service. She demonstrates that arts organizations can benefit by expanding the meaning of "valuable customer" to include single-ticket buyers. She offers guidance on long-range marketing planning and helps readers understand how to leverage the Internet and e-mail as powerful marketing channels. Bernstein presents vivid case studies and examples that illustrate her strategic principles in action from organizations large and small in the United States, Great Britain, Australia, and other countries. Click here to preview the book on Josseybass.com.


Trend of the Week -- More Us Teens Volunteer Than Work Part Time

American teens are setting an example for their parents through their volunteer work, according to a new poll by Harris Interactive. The random national telephone survey released this week by the Federal Way-based charity World Vision found that more teens volunteer to support a charitable cause — 56 percent — than have a part-time job — 39 percent. Parents and guardians said 82 percent of the teens in their lives do something to support charitable causes, including volunteering, recruiting others to a cause, wearing a button or T-shirt or donating money. Forty-six percent of the adults surveyed said they volunteer their time, but they also take credit for inspiring their children to volunteer. The Harris Interactive poll was conducted in the United States between Jan. 29 and Feb. 2 among 2,003 adults.
Go to: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29371988.


Resource of the Week -- HR Village

HR Village is an HR website covering a wide variety of HR issues. Created by a number of senior HR consultants and professionals from the US, it offers a good range of resources for the HR professional. It provides specific information and tools for each level of HR practitioner, from specialists within multinationals, to managers of smaller start-up ventures. The site provides helpful knowledge from experienced professionals. The hrToolkit includes sample job descriptions, administrative forms, an employee handbook and other HR documents, which can be customized to meet your needs. The site also hosts a considerable database of common and not-so-common FAQ to browse through on a wide range of HR-related disciplines, which are broken down into clearly defined sections. This and the toolkit are probably the most useful sections for nonprofits. Go to: www.hrvillage.com.


Tech Tip of the Week -- Change Default Location for Saving Files in Word 2007

In Microsoft Word 2007, to change the default location for opening and saving files:

• Click the Office button
• Click the Word Options button at the bottom of the window
• Click Save to display the “Customize how documents are saved.” information
• Click the Browse button next to Default File location
• Locate the folder that you would like to set as the default file location
• Click the folder to select it and click OK
• Click OK again to complete the change