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Our Community Our Community Matters • Edition 2 • April 2017 Five roles every not-for-profit needs BY ALEX MCMILLAN, BUZZ AMBASSADOR AND HEAD QUIZMASTER, OUR COMMUNITY Google employs “Geniuses” instead of “BFF” (Volunteer Manager) programmers, and I keep getting emails from a “Director of First Impressions” at my local gym These folks have an uncanny ability to recall (she is genuinely a great receptionist). The Our information about you that you can’t remember Community office boasts a “Chaos Controller” ever sharing with them, and they consistently and a “Thinker-in-Residence”, and one of my ask questions in a way that’s warm and caring friends, a full-time mum, refers to herself as out of all proportion to the amount of time “Household CEO”. It got me thinking about job you’ve spent with them. They might ask you how titles in the not-for-profit world. your move went last weekend, or whether that strange spotty rash you had has cleared up, or “Chief Soothsayer” (Board Member) how much you still miss your pet pig, Fred, years Bonafide fortune tellers make the best after his untimely death in 2004. They answer board members. Their crystal balls swirl with the same dullard question 437 times a day, then experience gleaned from past mistakes, and happily ask, “Can I help you with anything else? their tea leaves are data in disguise. They know Supporters keep coming back for the “belonging” which fundraising waves are coming in, and feeling that these folks create. when to start paddling. They can predict how “Charlotte” (Director of Development) fast the ice caps will melt and incorporate the numbers into the organisation’s risk Particularly apt if your DD’s name is actually management plan. They can foresee the public Charlotte, but I’m referring to the one from outcry that will follow a controversial social the much loved Charlotte’s Web. Unrelentingly media post, and know exactly how to handle it. positive, they respond to all concerns about Always looking ahead, they’re the ones who will unmet fundraising targets with an encouraging, keep your organisation relevant and sustainable “Chin up, chin up!”. Eager to form relationships long into the future. with everyone they encounter, they build { Cover story (continued) Our Community Matters • 2 • networks like orb-weavers build webs. Make sure Contents you treat them nicely, because they’re the ones always telling the public how TERRIFIC and RADIANT your organisation is, saving you from the chopping GREAT GRANT 3 block. OPINION: THE PERSONAL “Head Inquisitor” (Chief Finance Officer) IS POLITICAL 4 The majority of their contact with the rest of the office takes the form of questions: “Does anyone COMMUNITIES IN CONTROL 5 know who charged $500 worth of clipboards to the Visa card?” and “Who spent $3.50 at Bruce’s CONFERENCE WRAP: THE TRUMP EFFECT 7 Convenience last week?” (That was the CEO, who needed a Kit-Kat Chunky to get through the rest BLOGS (AND A VIDEO) WE LOVE 9 of the afternoon after Wednesday’s fundraising strategy meeting). They are renowned for their GRANTS SURVEY RESULTS 10 scrupulousness and inscrutability. BACK TO BASICS: 10 COMPLIANCE TIPS 12 “eThrifter” (IT Officer) The main thing that differentiates a not-for-profit DANNI ROCHE’S LESSONS FOR IT officer from their commercial counterpart is their LEADERSHIP CHALLENGERS 13 ability to make 10-year-old technology function like 2017 technology. Like the hipster in the house down GREAT LEAP FORWARD FOR SOCIAL the street who is always behind on the rent but ENTERPRISE STRATEGY 15 wears the latest specs and shoes, your IT officer has a talent for fashioning fully functioning websites, NEED TO KNOW: NEWS DIGEST 16 databases, CRMs and office networks from the smell of oily rags. Google would be lucky to have CYBERCRIME: THE ENEMY ONLINE 18 them. NEW AON INSURANCE PARTNERSHIP 20 What’s your favourite not-for-profit job title? Tell us by emailing [email protected] and RADICAL GRANTS 21 we’ll share the best responses on our Facebook page. MEASURING WHAT MATTERS: NEW BOOK 22 NFP TREASURERS AWARDS 23 IN BRIEF 24 PULSE POLL RESULTS 27 FIVE REASONS TO JOIN HESTA 28 GOOD JOBS 29 UPSKILL: TRAINING OPPS 32 BOARD VACANCIES 33 COMMUNITY CALENDAR 35 Funding Our Community Matters • 3 • Great Grant: Community Heritage The Community Heritage Grants program, that is accessible to the general public. Funded managed by the National Library of organisations must make their collections Australia, aims to preserve and provide accessible for research, by appointment, via the Internet, or on temporary or permanent access to locally held, nationally significant exhibition. For examples of ineligible projects, cultural heritage collections across see the guidelines online. Australia. Deadline Overview 5pm, Monday May 9. The grants are provided to assist with the Our tip preservation of locally owned but nationally First-time grant recipients will be invited to send significant collections of materials that are one representative to the awards ceremony publicly accessible including artefacts, letters, and a three-day preservation and collection diaries, maps, photographs, and audio visual management training workshop in Canberra on material. October 24–26. The grants program will arrange The types of projects supported include and meet the costs of travel and accommodation • significance assessments of collections for the workshop. • preservation needs assessments of collections More information Visit the Funding Centre (log-in required): • conservation activities and collection www.fundingcentre.com.au/grant/G00022. management • training workshops. Not-for-profit community organisations Facebook such as historical societies, museums, public libraries, genealogical societies, The Funding Centre religious groups, archives, galleries and now has a Facebook page! Indigenous and migrant community groups Want to know what’s can apply for funding of up to $15,000. happening in fundraising? Criteria Like our page, Criteria for collection preservation projects and stay in the know. include level of national significance, project feasibility, value for money, and benefit to the collection. Eligibility Applications will be accepted from not-for-profit incorporated organisations that own or manage a collection of nationally significant material Opinion Our Community Matters • 4 • The personal is political BY DENIS MORIARTY, GROUP MANAGING DIRECTOR, OUR COMMUNITY At the forthcoming Communities in Control I know, because I’ve lived it. I believe that the conference, Andrew Denton will deliver the personal is political, and that insights arise from 2017 Joan Kirner Social Justice Oration, in the experiences of our lives rather than from conversation with Virginia Trioli, on the topic of abstract theories. options at the end of life. I have immense respect for Andrew’s intellectual I couldn’t be more pleased. It’s exactly the kind capacity. I have every expectation that Virginia of spearpoint discourse that the conference is will make sure he covers the tough questions about, and it will feed directly into the Victorian sensitively. And there’ll be questions from the Parliament’s consideration of a Bill on assisted audience – from you. dying later in the year. These are wickedly difficult issues, affecting I’ve already had some pushback, however, us all. Many of us already know what it’s like summed up in this email: “As you have Andrew to negotiate the mazes of palliative care and Denton as a speaker, have you also asked medical futility. When my mother was running someone against euthanasia to speak at the the final gauntlet I wanted to be able to do more, conference?” and to know more. Our Community is trying to It’s a reasonable question, and it deserves an open the issue up to the community so that honest answer. people in this situation aren’t left, as she was, with no good options. Our Community isn’t a government agency like the ABC, or a charity like Greenpeace. We’re a In the end, it’s about values. We want to be at social enterprise – a business, but with values. the forefront of a progressive society – one with We set it up that way specifically because we communities in control. Every year since we wanted to have the freedom to advocate for started the Communities in Control conference those values without fretting about whether we’d back in 2003, we’ve pushed the boundaries of stepped over the line. As a business, all we have civil sector discourse and given a hearing to to worry about is government ministers telling alternative views, trying to reflect contemporary us to stick to our knitting. And all we have to do society in all its colour and diversity. there is point out that it’s our knitting and we can We bring in thought-provoking speakers, like make any flag we like out of it. Our Community Andrew and Virginia, and we challenge them. doesn’t have an ideology, but we’re not neutral. It’s because we’re not afraid to tackle the We’re not trying to ram our opinions down difficult issues that the Communities in Control anybody’s throat, particularly not about movement is such a powerful annual thinkfest. something as sensitive as this. Families who We want to move the debate forward. We’ve find themselves stumbling through the painful asked every Victorian parliamentarian to come last days of life of people they love deeply along to take the community’s pulse. You ought deserve reasoned and sympathetic discourse, to be in the room. not propaganda. Communities in Control 2017 takes place in Melbourne on May 29–30. Communities in Control Our Community Matters • 5 • Communities in Control, May 29–30, Melbourne What makes healthy communities? society, breaking down the toxins and preserving the health of the polity.
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