True confessions in online marketing

Most of my career I have spent as an entrepreneur and fundraiser.  Setting out to change the world for girls to empower them in science, engineering, math, and technology has proved immensely rewarding.    I owe part of my success to my love of marketing.  Since the Carter administration I’ve been contemplating how to get on TV and share my bigger message.  I remember feeling disillusioned as a small child that the only people that seemed to make the news had done do because they died in tragic accidents.  Never to be discouraged, I took matters into my own hands and by the 6^th grade when my friend Kim Overton, a serial entrepreneur, and I orchestrated an impromptu carnival at the university housing projects I was embolden enough to pick up Kim’s moms rotary phone and dial the Austin American Statesman directly, insisting that they “Send a photographer and reporter right away!” This Eloise approach to public relations worked for me as an 11 year old.  We secured our first media placement, a fabulous shot of Kim on the cover of the metro state that I wish I had today.

As so began my complete fascination with marketing, especially good marketing.  After spending my middle school years playing “ad agency” in my (working single) mom’s conference room at work I set my sights on the McCombs school of business and a degree in marketing.  My 3.7 GPA paid off and I was the first person in my family to be accepted into business school.  My dad was so proud he almost couldn’t stand it, this from a man had spent his life generously exaggerating the mere half successes of my youth: “Rachel was first chair violinist in the orchestra!”  In reality I was 9^th chair and I only sat next to 1^st chair because the chairs were arranged in two rows.  My dad would probably dispute this.   

I often wonder where I would be today had I actually earned that degree in marketing but we will never know since I was derailed by a poor grade in business calculus.  Having internalized the message since 6^th grade that I was “bad” at math and subsequently be forced to kiss my childhood dream of a marketing degree goodbye, I set out to change the world for girls and ensure they found math, science, engineering and technology as empowering as they are fun.

After a successful and rewarding career launching and running an organization empowering girls in math  I have spent the past two years of my life somewhat undercover as an online marketer, steeped in best practices for non-profits doing online marketing and online fundraising.   For me, it has been like getting that marketing degree only more fun and rewarding because it was in practice, not theory and through my efforts hundreds of nonprofits have doubled their fundraising results or more, raising on average 83% more money and getting a 300% return on their investment.  I could have never done that in a class in college.   

Last week I heard Dr Peter Bishop, futurist from the University of Texas at Houston speak at the Texas Nonprofit Summit.  What jobs will there be in the future? They don’t exist yet.  They will be determined largely by innovation and the efforts of the creative class – coined by Richard Florida as a profound new force in the economy and life of America - a fast-growing, highly educated, and well-paid segment of the workforce on whose efforts corporate profits and economic growth increasingly depend. Members of the creative class do a wide variety of work in a wide variety of industries---from technology to entertainment, journalism to finance, high-end manufacturing to the arts. While they may not consciously think of themselves as a class, they share a common ethos that values creativity, individuality, difference, and merit. Places that succeed in attracting and retaining creative class people prosper; those that fail don't.

Who doesn’t want to work in workplace culture of creativity, individuality, difference, and merit?  I’m proud my hometown of Austin, Texas ranks at the top of the list for the creative class and thankful to be a part of it, self-earned marketing degree and all.

Opportunity is everywhere and life is what you make of it!   

Stay classy,

Rachel

Helping Board Members Fundraise

This post originally appeared on Connection Cafe on April 26, 2012.  When we think about having a strong fundraising board it can be tempting to think about filling your board with lots of big name individuals that you expect to write huge checks. In reality, these people may have no real connection to your cause. And if you are lucky enough that they do, they may be too busy to either commit to board services or worse, they’ll commit and never show up at meetings. 

Too often, eager to fill a vacant seat or secure a well-known name, we fail to clearly articulate expectations of service to prospective board members, or downplay the expectations of service.

“There is no question that orienting new board members to their responsibilities, especially around fundraising, is critical,” says Linda Crompton, BoardSource President and CEO. “In our 2010 Nonprofit Governance Index, BoardSource found that 90% of the boards with a structured orientation process were rated as effective, compared to only 67% of the boards without such a process.”

In addition to a job description, prospective board members should receive a board manual and board contract to help them understand and be successful in their role.

Board Manual

“Board manuals can be a key resource in facilitating the work of a board member. New members should receive a manual when they join the board and be encouraged to use it to track or manage all of their work. A board manual can also be used as the basis for an orientation training session. Board members report higher satisfaction when they participate in a formal, in-person orientation, and reviewing the content of the board manual will ensure that new members are consistently and thoroughly oriented to the work of the board and the organization.” –Greenlights for Nonprofit Success

Templates for organizing your board manual are available through many organizations. For one set of examples, check out the free board resources from our friends at Greenlights for Nonprofit Success.

Board Contract

One of the most critical pieces of content in your board manual is your board contract.  Ideally your contract lays out the following:

• Individual gifts the board member will make
• Fundraising the board member performs on behalf of the organization
• Program attendance
• Committee participation

Don’t forget the signature at the end, and make sure you each get a copy. 

Board members are your most committed volunteers. By providing them with excellent training and clear expectations, you are showing that you value them as exactly that.

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Married Single Mom

This blog post originally appeared on March 8th on Role Reboot .

I feel like I’m part of a new demographic—I’m happily married but still, most nights I single parent. Why? My husband works nights, while I work days. Like most working moms, I don’t just work days; I work days and “the second shift” at nights as a parent. Only, my second shift is a solo shift. So I’m picking up toys, making dinner, doing laundry, bathing the kids, reading stories, and playing games with them, but I’m doing it solo.

I knew going into my marriage that my husband worked nights, and would as long as he kept the job he loved, where he started working at age 18. I walked straight into this lifestyle without much hesitation. (This wasn’t the first time my unwavering optimism would get me in over my head.) My husband is the Recreation Director for the Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired. The 165 kids on campus he is responsible for don’t get out of school until 3:00 p.m., so he works 1 p.m. to 9 p.m., planning, organizing, and leading the kids, and often a crew of volunteers, through every fun recreational activity you could imagine, from creating a haunted house, to running a marathon, to playing air hockey.

Most of my friends are married, and both husband and wife work 9-5 jobs. In my active imagination, they joyously share the responsibilities of cooking, cleaning up after dinner, bathing, reading, and putting multiple children to bed while eating a gourmet meal and having a glass of wine. The rest of my friends are divorced and are co-parenting and, although I am ashamed to admit it, I envy them as well. When they aren’t single-parenting like me, they are “off duty” and childless every other weekend and select weeknights, free to sleep in, read books, head out of town, or nap all day.

There are times I send out cries for help, usually through social media. Or at work, I’ll bid my fellow 9-5’ers goodbye as I head out for my solo second shift. My frustrations are at once validated and gratified with messages of encouragement, sympathy, or admiration. I flash back to a few years ago when my twins were newborns, and I’d gone back to work running Girlstart, the nonprofit organization that I’d founded, after a few months of maternity leave. Sleeping in shifts, nursing, exhausted, and overwhelmed, I would have moments of feeling particularly isolated, starving for human connection or sympathy. I’d deck the twins out in cute matching outfits, put them in their stroller and bask in the smiles and compliments that complete strangers bestowed on me.

Was it narcissistic, selfish, or petty? Maybe, but it got me through some pretty rough days. (Even now, five years later, I still delight in seeing people’s faces light up when they see the twins. There is this sudden smile of recognition that these are not two ordinary children but a pair, and seeing that recognition of their uniqueness light up another person’s face as they kindly greet my children with a warm, beaming smile is a lovely experience.)

My husband is deeply offended by any referral to my single-parent status. A mention of my responsibilities or workload in his absence is perceived as a direct insult and condemnation of him as less of a father. It’s one of those classic Men-Are-From-Mars moments: All I’m seeking is sympathy and understanding, and all he hears is an insult. So instead I share with my girlfriends or work colleagues my latest supermom, singlemom feat: a homemade picnic dinner in the car on the way to swim class, or calming two four-alarm meltdowns occurring simultaneously in surround sound. While it feels glaringly obvious to me as the primary caregiver and main breadwinner that I shoulder the lion’s share of responsibility, my husband does take the kids to school every day and faithfully washes the dishes. While I definitely feel like I have more tasks on my plate than he does, I am grateful for what he does.

I’m friends with other women who, like me, are the breadwinners for their families. There are times I wish I weren’t doing this alone, and I want to shirk from the financial responsibility of it all, to say nothing of the single-parenting workload. Both the financial and the parenting arrangements just happened; I can’t say it was a premeditated conversation about roles. I ambitiously crafted my professional path, creating opportunities that were challenging and rewarding and that compensated me to my satisfaction. I love working and I expect to be paid what I am worth. So in some sense, it feels a bit like a loop without a logical or obvious exit. My husband has a drastically lower tolerance of risk than I do, and has been in the same role at a job he loves for many years. Could he make more and have a 9-5 job? Probably, but I don’t know that he would get the same sense of reward and meaning from it.

And so our arrangement continues in perpetuity. We move on, trudging forward in life and marriage often feeling like two coworkers with the same demanding, but adorable, bosses.

The other day at the twins’ swim class, I spotted two special-needs adults being gingerly, thoughtfully, carefully, and patiently encouraged by the staff members working with them to try out the swimming pool. I thought of my husband and what he is spending his time at night away from his family doing—helping blind kids learn how to ride bikes, swim laps, take a spinning class, dance the night away at the prom, and otherwise lead a normal life, enjoying all the things that we take for granted as sighted people. I watch how calm, patient, supportive, and encouraging these instructors are at the pool, and I think to myself how their work takes as much energy, if not more, than parenting does, and how lucky these special-needs adults are to have caregivers like them. And how lucky my kids are to have a dad, and me to have a husband, who has a job he loves helping blind kids to live joyful, independent lives.

Even if he leaves the toilet seat up after seven years of marriage.