Monday, September 16, 2013

Picks of the Week: September 8 - 21, 2013

Website of the Week -- Human Services Research Institute
Since 1976 the Human Services Research Institute has provided consultation and conducted research efforts at both the state and federal levels in the fields of intellectual and developmental disabilities, substance use and prevention, mental health and child and family services.  HSRI works to:
  • Assist public managers and human service organizations to develop services and supports that work for children, adults, and families;
  • Enhance the involvement  of individuals and their families in shaping policy, priorities and practice;
  • Improve the capacity of systems, organizations, and individuals to cope with changes in fiscal, administrative, and political realities;
  • Expand the use of research, performance measurement and evaluation to improve and enrich lives.
For more information, go to: http://www.hsri.org.

Publication of the Week --  Connected for Good: A Gameplan for a Generous Life by John Stanley
From the publisher: The best kind of generosity is done with others, not for others. People of means and substance are growing weary of fundraising run by charity leaders who’ve adopted the tactics of professional salespeople. They’re looking for ways to make change that’s important to them, rather than just responding to an endless stream of appeals and campaigns. They may have been taught to donate and volunteer as part of their faith or family tradition, but they haven’t learned how to do so in a way that is effective and meaningful. In Connected for Good, John Stanley explores the Generosity Gaps—places where men and women hold back their giving. Stanley believes that we can act on our generous impulses to the full if we start from the heart’s desire for connection. Giving that involves personal relationship and engagement is then more satisfying and sustainable. Going beyond the traditional time, talent, and treasure, Stanley encourages giving from the full range of our renewable currencies:
  • Giving in our relationships means practicing amazingly ordinary generosity with those close to us. It also means building bridges between people in our network for their benefit, not ours. Friends and family are a tremendous source of richness.
  • Giving our strengths begins with the gift of presence and attention. We can then make sure that the charitable work we do draws on our skills and talents, making it more powerful for the organizations we serve and more enjoyable for ourselves.
  • Giving our resources falls into proper perspective when we give relationships and strengths first. Our feet follow our money, and we also find creative ways to use our possessions, space, time, and assets.
Finally, Stanley explores how to make use of the multiplier effect to greatly increase impact. You give something away and receive as much or more back in return. You give but your supply isn’t diminished. Building relationships, expanding strengths, and leveraging resources contributes to the multiplier effect, as does giving upstream to prevent problems at their source.


Trend of the Week --  Relief Donors Stay Loyal, Tiring Of Disasters
According to a study by ORC International commissioned by The NonProfit Times, a majority of donors given a choice between giving to a non-disaster charity or to disaster relief response would not give to disaster relief. More people reached via cell phone would give to the non-disaster charity. By a count of 47 percent to 44 percent, with 9 percent unsure, donors would give to a non-disaster charity if they could make only one gift. Of all respondents, 33 percent would give to a non-disaster charity to which they have always given and 14 percent to a non-disaster charity to which they have never given.
In the study, a nationally-projectable sample of 1,005 Americans was asked the following question: If you had $25 and could make just one charitable donation with it, which of the following types of charities would you donate to? The choices were a non-disaster relief charity or a disaster relief charity. Within those distinctions, respondents were asked if it was an organization they have always supported or if it was an organization they had not always supported. For more information, go to: http://www.thenonprofittimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/9-1-13_SpecialReport_DonorResearch.pdf

Resource of the Week –  Volunteer Management Resource Library
The Volunteer Management Resource Library, hosted by Susan Ellis and the Energize, Inc. website, is organized by subject and each subject page provides Online Bookstore links, free articles or excerpts, free electronic books or guides, as well as an annotated list of Web sites with more material on the subject. This is the most comprehensive – and up to date – resource of its kind available. Go to: http://www.energizeinc.com/art.html

Tech Tip of the Week -- Change Text Case in Word
To change the case of text in Word, try this:
  • Select text
  • Press Shift + F3 until it changes to the desired case style
Pressing Shift + F3 toggles the text case between sentence case, UPPERCASE, lowercase, and capitalize each word. Be sure to hold down the Shift WHILE you press F3.  Also, it works in all versions of Word. However, if you include text with punctuation at the end, it will skip the option to capitalize each word. You can also try this in PowerPoint.

Tuesday, September 3, 2013

Picks of the Week: September 1 - 7, 2013

Website of the Week -- National Center for Family Philanthropy
The National Center for Family Philanthropy is dedicated exclusively to families who give and those that work with them. The National Center provides the research, expertise, and learning opportunities necessary to inspire a national network of giving families every step of the way on their philanthropic journey. Families learn how to transform their values into effective giving to achieve positive and enduring impact on the communities they serve. Activities include:
  • Conducting groundbreaking research studies on multi-generational giving, the motivations of donors, the role of the estate planner/advisor in giving, the practices of family foundations, and the capacity of community foundations to meet donor needs
  • Provision of workshops, speeches and monthly teleconferences to networks of donors, individual donors, and advisors wherever they are located
  • Publication of the most widely read e-newsletter for donor families and their advisors, Family Giving News
For more information, go to: http://www.ncfp.org

Publication of the Week --  Content Marketing for Nonprofits: A Communications Map for Engaging Your Community, Becoming a Favorite Cause, and Raising More Money by Kivi Leroux Miller
From the publisher: Nonprofits are communicating more often and in more ways than ever before, but is anyone paying attention? In her follow-up to The Nonprofit Marketing Guide: High-Impact, Low-Cost Ways to Build Support for Your Good Cause, Kivi Leroux Miller shows you how to design and implement a content marketing strategy that will attract people to your cause, rather than begging for their attention or interrupting them with your communications. You'll learn how to plan, create, share, and manage relevant and valuable content that inspires and motivates people to support your nonprofit in many different ways. Inside you'll find the following:
  • Eye-opening look at how nonprofit marketing and fundraising is changing, and the perils of not quickly adapting
  • Up-to-date guidance on communicating in a fast-paced, multichannel world
  • How to make big-picture strategic decisions about your content, followed by pragmatic and doable tactics on everything from editorial calendars to repurposing content
  • Real-world examples from 100+ nonprofits of all sizes and missions
Click to previewthis book on Amazon.com
Kivi Leroux Miller

Trend of the Week --  Community Service Requirements May Reduce Volunteering Later
New research suggests that making community service a requirement for high school graduation may reduce volunteering among older students. According to a study, which was published in the Economics of Education Review, Maryland's state-wide requirement that students complete seventy-five hours of service learning before graduation led to significant increases in volunteering among eighth-grade students — generally in school-organized activities — but reduced volunteering rates among older students, raising the possibility of lower volunteering rates over the long term. Based on data from a nationally representative survey of eighth-, tenth-, and twelfth-graders, the report found that before the requirement was implemented in 1993, the percentage of high school seniors in Maryland engaged in service activities was 7.8 percentage points higher than the national average. By contrast, between 1997 and 2011, after the service requirement went into effect, the percentage was 9.2 points to 17.4 points lower than the national average, which rose over the same period. R. Scott Pfeifer, executive director of the Maryland Association of Secondary School Principals, cautioned that the study's findings may under represent less obvious volunteer activities among older students. For more information, go to: http://foundationcenter.org/pnd/news/story.jhtml?id=435000017

Resource of the Week –  Three Toolkits from the Kellogg Foundation
The Kellogg Foundation has developed three toolkits for nonprofits. The Communications and Marketing Kit is designed to help non-profit organizations use communications to achieve their social change goals. The Evaluation Toolkit is designed for nonprofits seeking to design an effective, useful evaluation. The Policy Toolkit has been designed to support nonprofits and grassroots organizations in understanding the role of policy at all levels of government - local, state and national, and more importantly, prepare them for engagement in the policy process. This web-based handbook features the policy process and principles, guiding questions to help translate and understand the process and principles, as well as case stories to illustrate key ideas. Go to: http://www.wkkf.org/knowledge-center/publications-and-resources.aspx . Links to the guides are located under " Most Popular Downloads" in the right margin of the webpage.

Tech Tip of the Week -- Creating a PowerPoint Presentation Using Word 2007/2010

To use a Word document to create a PowerPoint presentation
  • Format the document using Word heading styles
  • PowerPoint uses the heading styles in your Word document to set up the slides in a presentation  ̶  each Heading 1 becomes the title of a new slide, and each Heading 2 becomes the first level of text
  • You must apply a heading format to the text you want to include in a slide
  • You can manually insert heading styles or create a document using Word outline
To create a Word Outline
  • Click the View menu
  • Click Outline in the Document Views group
  • Type your outline using Tab to add subheadings (promote)
  • Press Shift Tab to decrease the indent (demote)
  • You can also use the Promote and Demote buttons on the Ribbon
  • Save your outline
To Insert Outline Text from Word into PowerPoint
  • In PowerPoint, click the Outline tab in the left pane
  • Click the Home tab of the Ribbon
  • In the Slides group, click the arrow next to New Slide
  • Click Slides from Outline