Introduction & Scope
This article highlights the management requirements and areas of interest for someone planning to / currently managing a non-profit organization. All the information presented here is purely based on the experience of the author in heading such an organization. While the scope is very huge the aim of this article is to highlight the various areas briefly and to give an overview on one area – namely a sample fundraising scenario of organizing a concert.
Non-profit Organizations Introduction
A non profit organization is generally an organization made up of a group of people coming together to achieve certain goals but without the intent to distribute profits as dividends among its members. The members of the organization may work for it completely voluntarily without any compensation or the organization may hire staff for its operations. It is not that a non-profit organization may not generate a profit or surplus, it is just that the purpose of the organization is , not to generate profit or surplus for its shareholders. The organization may use the profits generated towards achieving its goals, paying staff, maintaining a reserve for future downturns in fundraising, expanding or diversifying operations etc. Each country has its own laws, regulations and expectations of such an organization and the terms used to describe such an organization also vary. Generally Non-profit organizations are seen to do work for the betterment of communities and humanities such as education, healthcare, disaster response and relief, social justice campaigns etc. In the United States, an organization is deemed to be a Non-Profit organization when it receives a certificate designating it as such by the Internal Revenue Service under the section 501(c) of the Internal Revenue Code.
There are various types of Non profit organizations. These are based on what their end goal is, how they operate, where they operate etc. Organizations can be foundations which seek to raise funds for a goal or cause and provide grants to individuals or other organizations working in the areas of their interest. There are organizations that raise funds through their own fundraising programs, as well as seek grants and donations and also actively work on the area of their interest such as Amnesty International. There are some organizations that almost or fully volunteer based with not compensation or very little operating costs and others which has a larger paid staff like Teach for America. There are organizations that operate in multiple countries or multiple cities in a country via various chapters which can have varying degrees of autonomy or they may be centrally located and conduct all their operations from there. There are other organizations that purely are dependent on grants from various foundations and/or donations and do not have any other active fundraising campaigns. Organizations spanning countries would need to have permission from the governments to operate in those countries. Such organizations would need to be registered in each of the country as a designated non profit organization and must follow the laws of those countries in receiving, raising and distributing funds as well as engaging in various activities of their interest.
Non-profit Organizations Management – Areas of Interest
Any non-profit organization like any company is responsible to various people called the stakeholders. These stake holders are the people who administer the organization, volunteer for it, donate to it or receive support from it. In order to achieve the goals of the organization, it is imporant to carry out various activities that come under General Administration and leadership. It is also important to maintain good relationships with the stakeholders. Stakeholder Management includes periodic updates on the activities of the organization, as it pertains to that particular group of stakeholders. In order to raise funds ,the organization must plan fundraising and execute on it through various events. This requires event planning. Howerver events do not just have to be a fundraiser. They can be film festivals, street side plays, candlelight vigils, volunteer dinners and also fundraising events like concerts, donor dinners, stalls in various fairs, call-a-thons or telethons to call donors and raise funds. All this is impossible without a team of motivated, dedicated, inspired and driven volunteers. This makes Volunteer Recruitment, Mentoring and Management one of the most important activities for any leadership team of a non-profit organization. Voluteering is exactly that… volunteering. People come and go and do only when they can. Which means the leadership needs to plan for a sudden change in a volunteer’s availability due to their personal reasons or choices. Volunteers also are only as effective as their knowledge. Its therefore very important to conduct education, training and research and share it with the team of volunteers. Its also important to have periodic meetings, forums where introspective discussions to enable volunteers to bring up their questions, comments, concerns, appreciation and criticisms. The next important group is the donor base and the general public. Awareness events and campaigns to create awareness on a particular cause or activity of the organization are very important to keep the organization current in peoples memory and generate interest and support for the organization, its team and its goals. Efficient management of the Projects of the organization, setting up and mainatining Information Technology solutions to help as tools to manage the activities of the organization, running Campaigns, Marketing events and causes, Publicity and Advertizing in radio, TV, newspapers, nagazines, billboards, online event portals etc are some of the other activities that the leadership team has to plan for and execute with the help of the volunteer base. This also requires Collaboration and Coordination within and outside the organization with other such organizations, private and public enterprises, government agencies and law enforcement. It is therefore also important to learn the legal side of things and what the individual members and the team as a whole can or cannot do. Falling foul of the law enforcement cannot be an option without jeopardizing the reputation, support and existence of the organization. When operating across international borders, it is also important to understand the legal, polical, economic and social factors as they pertain to the goals and interests of the organization. One cannot say trivially that one or more of the above categories are more important than the others. Each is like a pillar, that is important to hold the administration and goals of the organization up. While this is a 30,000 foot view of all the areas that a leadership team has to concern itself , it is not possible to go into detail in each of these areas here. The subsequent sections of this article will drill down into the financial management at a general level and event management – specifically concert management at a more detailed level.
Non-profit Organization – Financial Management
Financial management of an organization requires careful planning to ensure the viability of the organization in the short run and its sustenance and ability to operate in the long run. If a leadership team has a good run this year they must plan for lean times that successive teams may encounter and help by trying to raise and put money aside for that. Financial planning is probably on of the most neglected aspects of a non profit organization due to the facts that :
1. either the team does not have people who are knowledgeable or experienced in the area
2. the team is very passionate about its goals and is predominantly focussed on them.
At the beginning of each calendar year or fiscal year it is important to have a planning meeting outlining the financial commitments, goals and needs of the organization and its recipients. Its also important to take into account, current and immediate future economic conditions , as well as donor pool’s saturation/exhaustion levels. The team should draw up a budget and share various relevant aspects of it with its stakeholders. A periodic budget review meeting helps keep the finances in perspective and allows for fine tuning of the operations and making the goals more realistic for the organization and its stakeholders. Separate workshops and meetings to plan for Grant proposal writing to various foundations, fundraising events and donation campaigns must be setup without interfering with the core activities such as projects, campaigns etc. Some of the types of events that can be planned for fundraising are donation stalls, email outreach, telethons (calling the donors), donation boxes at grocery and other stores, selling items for a token donation, fundraising dinners, film festivals, cultural festivals and concerts.
Once the type of the event is decided upon (or if multiple events are being considered to start with), each such event must have fundraising target, target audience, timeline, resource requirements targets and a core planning team assgined that starts planning well ahead of schedule in parallel even while the rest of the organization maybe busy with another event.
Non-profit Organization Fundraising – Event Management (Concert Organization)
Once the team has decided to organize a concert, it is important to decide on some important questions:
1. Who will be the artist/group ?
2. What kind of a concert ?
Its not important to know these before deciding on the concert as long as the various other factors that determine its success are still flexible… especially time. However the above questions can all be decided all at once.
The next thing is to determine where and when. The question of where, must take into consideration, suitability of the venue for the artists, cost of the venue, availability, sufficient number of seats, accessibility to the audience and the availability of all the technical/non technical resources required on the day of the event, at the location such as lighting and lighting controls, music controls, speakers, feedback speakers, microphones, green rooms etc.
In order to ensure the success of the event scope, budget and time are important factors to manage. Imagine an equilateral triangle and its center being the point of success. Each of the vertices being scope, budget and time. Move any of these out without a corresponding move of the others and you end up with a center that is off from the original point.
After the first meeting by the core planners to decide on the event, it is important to present this to the rest of the team and get a buy-in from all the volunteers and also spell out the targets. It is important to present it in such as way, as to make it a personal goal for each volunteer, to ensure its success while building excitement in them by encouraging them to take up tasks that match their talents and interests. From that point on, setup a time table of periodic meetings in advance, so people know when the team is going to discuss the event and when various activities are going to be done. To start with, the scope can be kept general and narrowed down to an appropriate level as limitations, stumbling blocks etc are encountered. If the opportunity arises to do better than previously planned, such a change may also be considered , as long as it doesnt impact the success of the event. This is also a good time to determine if the event will highlight a specific cause, campaign or project to raise funds for an plan to design and develop posters, pamphlets, presentations or other multimedia for this purpose.
An easy to use database that is also accessible to the planning team, as well as the entire team, with different access control levels is very useful for planning and dissemination of information quickly. Determine early, the contracts that need to be signed, applications that need to be submitted, equipment that needs to be bought or rented and from where, services or experts that need to be engaged. Also determine before hand, the rules of what can or cannot be done at the venue.
Breakdown the budget into funds, that are to be raised from ticket sales vs funds that are to be raised from other avenues such as donations, sponsorships and other optional parts of the event such as silent or vocal auctions, sale of items, sale of food etc. An event like a concert will require funds upfront to reserve the venue, order food, banners etc. and engage the artists. Sufficient funds as investment or seed money must be available to start with.
Sponsorship planning is a vast area that can be discussed at length but briefly, this involves the targets, potential sponsors, types of sponsors, sponsorship levels, a sponsorship spiel, a a dedicated sponsorship team and constant monitoring/planning. When planning for making a case with a pontential sponsor, it is important to think like a salesman. Besides the obvious benefit of giving an opportunity to help a charitable cause, is there anything else that the sponsor may look for or benefit from? For example , prominent advertizing of the sponsor company or its products. It is also important to determine, if the company and products match the principles of the organization and that there are no conflicts of interest.
While the organization itself has a leadership team, it is very beneficial to appoint or elect a coordinator and a seperate treasurer/accountant for this event. Their job would be to oversee all the events leading up to the event and keeping the organization’s leadership informed of any surprises.
Now comes the task of planning the ticketing, breakdown of the seats and ticket prices, when and how many tickets will be released for sale, printing of tickets, distribution and planning the sale points. This also requires meticulous tracking and handing over of the sale proceeds to the treasurer.
The next step is to put in place, an effective marketing and advertizing strategy, considering the target audience, accessibility to them etc. This also is a great opportunity to bring out the creativity of the team members and engage them in interesting activities like recording ads.
However, things don’t always happen as planned. What if the artist’s flight gets cancelled due to a snow storm in the north east? What if the artist cancels due to illness or the equipment in the venue malfunctions? It is important to consider this disaster scenarios among the core planning team without alarming the rest of the volunteers and put in place, the best possible plans. As the activities progress and the date nears, it is also beneficial to take stock of the situation and modify the ticketing, sponsorship and marketing plans.
With a few days ( a week or two) to go before the event, the financial picture becomes more clearer. How many sponsors has the event got? How many tickets have been sold and how many are expected to be sold based on interest expressed by potential buyers? This is a good indicator to determine when to step up advertizing and the various discounts, to introduce to help make the tickets more attractive. If profits cannot occur, atleast a breakeven scenario should. However this doesnt help the cause and so with a week or two to go, the team must make the final push with various advertising campaigns and sale announcements to make the fundraising targets. Sales or discounts can be strategically planned. For example, do not release all the lowest costing tickets in the beginning. Closer to the concert date , introduce discounts on the higher priced tickets. The tickets should be priced such that, a certain percentage of sales will ensure breakeven and anything above and beyond results in good profits.
From very early on, the team must create a draft of the”on the day event planning document” with various activities, roles and people assigned to it. Backups in case some of the people dont show up, must also be looked into. Where will the artists be hosted, who will be assisting the artists, who will take care of refreshments for the artists, when will the food arrive, who will pick up or receive it, who are the ushers, who will man the ticket counters, who will greet the guests, comperes/anchors, speech, any video highlighting the organization, its goals, the causes it supports, and its acheivements followed by a request to the audience to continue to support and donate on the spot.
The importance of ensuring everything ,starts and ends on time as advertized goes a long way in ensuring the success of the event, entertainment and satisfaction among the guest and the ability to clean up, wrap up and hand over the venue to the owners.
All these above items will help in increasing the chances of the success of the event. Following the event, it is a great idea to also have an after party or dinner, where the volunteers get a chance to relax and mingle with the artists. The next few days would be wind down time but it is also the time, when it is very important to quickly wrapt the accounting and budget and inform the organization of the funds raised and ensure they are deposited in the bank. While the event is still fresh in the memory of the donors and patrons, it is also a good time to send out thank you notes or emails. Last but not the least, a post concert meeting to review the concert, its planning and execution should be held to determine what went right, what worked, what went wrong and didnt work and what are the lessons learnt. If all these are captured in a document (it is not necessary to write a whole lot details, but just bullet points) and if it is posted at the organization’s internal website or bulletin board,it is a very useful resource to start with, when planning for the next event, even if the same team of volunteers doesn’t exist anymore.
All in all,with careful planning, the experience of organizing a fundraising event can be a very memorable and exciting event, that brings out the creativity in volunteers and allows them to stretch their boundaries and learn new skills while experiencing the thrill of successfuly raising funds, for the causes that are dear to their hearts.
