Strategic Planning – Board Input Survey

If any of you brave hearts are about to embark upon your next cycle of strategic planning, I share with you, below, a Board Input Survey we co-created with the help of our strategic planning consultant, Michela Perrone of MMP Associates. The survey worked extremely well and helped us all get clear, real, and focused on exactly what we need to do over the next 3 years.

Several features of the survey, and the process itself, contributed to some very honest feedback. It helped distill the ensuing discussion down to the very essence of our purpose and mission.

The Likert scale is unique and captures movement across all attributes of the organization. The open ended quesitons encouraged thoughtful feedback. The completed surveys were submitted directly to the consultant, Dr. Perrone, who prepared a general summary in her own words of the results, without individual attribution. And the outcome was a concise strategic plan across four distinct “Critical Areas of Engagement” that captured the very essense of our work.

Click “Read more” for the entire text of the Board Input Survey.

Community Foundation for Northern Virginia - Community Investment Grants

The Community Foundation for Northern Virginia is pleased to announce the award of $221,815 in Community Investment Grants to 35 nonprofits meeting critical community needs in Northern Virginia.  The grants were awarded in four categories:

• Poverty Relief
• Child and Youth Development
• Health, Mental Health, and Aging
• Education

Go to "Read More" below for the entire list.

Update on the Haiti Earthquake Relief Fund at the Community Foundation

In just four business days, the Community Foundation for Northern Virginia has raised $70,145 for our Haiti Earthquake Relief Fund.

Since the fall of 2005 when I first became President of the Community Foundation, we have never engaged in efforts to fundraise for a cause outside of Northern Virginia. Before we took this step, the thought certainly occurred to us that we were spending our precious donor relationship capital on a need unrelated to our service area. There was no asset development or financial gain in this for either the citizens of our region or for the Community Foundation, as we are donating every dollar we collect through the Fund to the American Red Cross for emergency relief efforts in Haiti.

So why did we do it?  I think there are several good reasons:

• Because we are a center of philanthropy in Northern Virginia and are widely perceived as such.
• Because some donors are clearly moved to fund this need, now.
• Because when we asked some community leaders and faithful donors should we do this, they unanimously said yes.
• Because it just feels like the right thing to do, no matter what else is on our plate at the moment.

Just this once, for this special cause, we have vastly expanded the definition of “community” in “Community Foundation for Northern Virginia” to include the Haitian people who are suffering some of the worst deprivations and sorrows this human life can inflict.

As a community foundation leader, watching this unfold is inspiring and affirming.  We feel so grateful for the response to the Haiti Earthquake Relief Fund, so appreciative of the chance to help, and so eager to learn whatever lessons this effort will teach us about our role in Northern Virginia.

Haiti Earthquake Relief Fund at the Community Foundation for Northern Virginia

The Community Foundation for Northern Virginia announced yesterday the creation of a Haiti Earthquake Relief Fund. To my knowledge, this is the first time in our organization’s 31 year history that we have actively engaged in fundraising for a cause that was not squarely centered on our region.

Like the rest of the world, we are horrified by the devastation in Haiti from the January 12 earthquake. Images pouring out of the region on Wednesday the 13th were heartbreaking and impossible to ignore. Those images raised some questions for us last week. As leaders of a local community foundation, what role could and should we play here? Should we attempt to fundraise for relief efforts? And if so, were there other leaders from the broader community who would want to help?

By close of business Thursday, January 14, staff had sent out targeted emails to Board members and certain donor advisors we believed might be open to providing a matching grant for victims of the earthquake. By noon on Friday, we had raised $12,000 in matching grant commitments. With these funds in hand, we then reached out to the Fairfax County Chamber of Commerce, the Northern Virginia Technology Council, the Loudoun County Chamber of Commerce, the Loudoun CEO Cabinet and others, asking if they would be willing to distribute notifications to their membership base advising them of the Fund and requesting contributions.

As I write this blog post, we have built the donation page for the new Haiti Earthquake Relief Fund on our website. All contributions, including the original $12,000 in seed matching grant funds, will be donated to the American Red Cross. Our donation page for the Fund went live Monday morning, January 18, at which point the Fairfax County Chamber of Commerce, the Northern Virginia Technology Council, and hopefully others distributed the email, Facebook and Twitter announcements of the Haiti Earthquake Relief Fund’s creation at the Community Foundation.

Philanthropy, 2020 - Post # 2

As foundation leaders, what will be the greatest opportunities and the most daunting challenges in the decade ahead?  The January 14, 2010 issue of the Chronicle of Philanthropy decides to take an educated guess. This is the second of three posts on the topic.

Technology Gets More Interactive

What will be the impact of technology on the nonprofit sector in the next decade? This article in the January 14 issue of the Chronicle of Philanthropy tries to envision this.

According to some United Nations research, 6.3 billion people, or a whopping 83% of earth’s population, will own a cell phone by 2014. This ever increasing connectivity and resulting networking and access to information will certainly modify the nonprofit world’s fundraising activities, communications with donors, and program evaluations. It will also enable donors to better understand how their dollars were spent.

Of course, there’s a predicted downside as well. There will be increased competition from other entities who will find it increasingly easy to attract resources to their causes.

I personally enjoy the challenge of staying on top of our technology communications game. But technology is just a tool. Like community foundations everywhere, the Community Foundation for Northern Virginia works hard to more deeply understand the needs of our community and focus philanthropy on them. It is our primary purpose. If we do that job well, then the technology tools we choose to communicate the resulting knowledge is just a question of organizational process.