Wave of Collaboration

I am so excited about Google Wave!

Just this morning in a staff meeting, we talked about improving communication among staff. Of course, being the nerd I am, I suggested looking at technological solutions. I think Google Wave may be just the thing.

Now just to wait for Google to launch it... and, to find a few game co-workers to guinea pig it with me.

Sponsorships in Trouble

Fundraisers are scrambling more than ever this year to secure corporate sponsorships. Sponsorships are the key to making special events viable, and they are becoming harder and harder to get as companies take a hard look at their balance sheets.

Recently private donors stepped in to save the Washington Park Summer Festival, which had been canceled by the city of Portland after presenting sponsor Daimler Trucks North America (formerly known as Freightliner) withdrew its sponsorship.

The winners in this story? Portlanders, Washington Park, and... Hotel Lucia and Hotel deLuxe. That's right: the sponsorship was saved through a challenge from Gordon Sondland, CEO of said hotels. He and his hotels received prominent coverage due to the challenge. It's a great fit, becuase the hotels market themselves to an arty niche.

Nicely done.

The next Portland institution facing sponsorship woes: the mighty Rose Festival, which has seen a thirty percent drop in sponsorship renewals between this year and last. The good news: they are now just five percent short of their goal. There will still be elephant ears for all. Check out the link for a lengthy Oregonian article on the state of sponsorships in the city.

A couple of thoughts on this phenomenon:

1) It would be interesting to track post-recession revenues for companies that maintain or increase their charitable sponsorship dollars, compared to those that decrease their giving. This plays into that old adage that one should increase one's marketing during a downturn to position oneself to leap ahead of competitors once things turn around. Where does charitable giving play into this mix? (If anyone's trolling for a thesis, feel free to run with this idea. Let me know what you find out.)

2) It's a good time for non-profits to be thinking more broadly about corporate partnerships rather than just sponsorships. In his presentation on lean development shops last week (review coming soon) Michael VanDerhoef mentioned that Virginia Mason uses a partnership model of corporate relations rather than attempting to secure sponsorships for each individual event. Many corporations will continue to give; it's just a smaller pie, and the innovators are the ones who will get a slice.

Secret Agent Manager

Who me, a hero?

(Or, as at least one commenter has said, a creep.)

Back in December (file this under "historical background"), U.S. News and World Report featured prospect researchers as the "hidden heroes" of the nonprofit world in its profile on the "Best Kept Secret Careers." Or as commenter Diane said, a career one had best keep secret, lest one die of shame due to one's career choice.

Oh, my.

Hilariously, the article claims that prospect researchers can do exactly what I always emphasize to my development officers that I can not do: determine a prospective donor's "pet peeves" and "emotional hot buttons."

That is, unless their pet peeves and emotional hot buttons are so well known, they've been documented in a local paper. (It has happened.) We're not criminal profilers or detectives digging through the garbage.

Oh, wait -- maybe it's the x-ray vision. Let's go with that. Strap some tights on, researchers -- we're secret heroes!

(Thanks to hot tipper Jess in Tacoma for forwarding on the article.)

Event on Thursday: Get lean and join the 1980s

It's commonly said that the non-profit sector is about twenty years behind the business world. Come join the 1980s at Willamette Valley Development Officers' Advanced Skills Workshop: The Lean Development Shop. The workshop is Thursday, May 14th from 8 - noon downtown. Check out the announcement here for more details and to register.

The "Lean" method gained renown in the business world in the 80s, when it was simply known as the Toyota method. See the link for a Wikipedian description of "leanness."

This sounds like a fascinating workshop -- the description claims that when Virginia Mason adopted lean methodology in 2002, it gained these impressive results:

• Dramatically improved fund raising results, without adding staff;
• Higher staff satisfaction and lower staff turnover;
• Enhanced return on investment of budget resources.

Faithful readers know that I am a sucker for efficiency. And in this economic climate, who isn't looking for a better ROI? And for that matter, higher staff satisfaction doesn't hurt either.

See you Thursday!

Mining and Mapping the Swine Flu

The AP reported yesterday that Kirkland, Washington-based biosurveillance firm Veratect detected the swine flu outbreak using data mining. And told the Centers for Disease Control about it 18 days before the World Health Organization issued its first warning.

According to the story,

Veratect, based in Kirkland, Wash., uses a technique known as "data mining" to automatically search tens of thousands of Web sites daily for early signs of looming medical problems or civil unrest anywhere in the world. Anything of interest is turned over to a team of 35 analysts to determine its significance and to post on the company's Web site.

The story later brings in its expert:

"This approach is not yet vetted," said Dr. Marguerite Neill, an infectious disease specialist at Brown University and a spokeswoman for the Infectious Disease Society of America. "It is an interesting idea, but we haven't used it before."

Sounds an awful lot like, "but we've always done it this way" to me.


And in other data-related flu news, the mysterious niman has been outed as Henry Niman, a biochemist in Pittsburgh, in CNN's punnily-titled "Online swine flu map goes viral." Niman is the creator of the flu map I posted here on Monday. CNN linked to the Google Maps Mania blog, which promises a collection of swine flu map links, but of course, that blog is now overloaded with traffic.

So, I'll leave you with HealthMap.org, which appears even more outdated than Niman's. But which is accepting submissions, junior virogeologists.