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october / november / december 2020 fourth quarter Nonprofitvolume 38 • number 4 Advancement Through World Sharing Risk & Your Brain Taking Smart Risks & Making the Best Decisions PLUS: • Fundraising in the Age of COVID • Are You Prepared for a Cybersecurity Incident? • How Can You Boost Board Turnout? • Top 10 Things Donors Want • The Power of Crowdfunding Published by • Is Discrimination Putting You at Legal Risk? • How to Foster Creative Breakthroughs • Making Better Mistakes ... and more contents NONPROFIT WORLD volume 38 • number 4 • 2020 Editor Jill Muehrcke FEATURE STORY Your brain is easily distracted, SOCIETY FOR NONPROFITS DEPARTMENTS President Jason Chmura inattentive, unreliable, and surprisingly forgetful. That’s why it’s 2 editor’s page | The Kettering Board Members vital to understand how your brain Principle of Serendipity Hannah Gregory By Jill Muehrcke Shoestring Creative Group reacts to risk. You need to practice Gardiner, Maine good risk-management strategies so 2 Five Things to Do Next Monday Diane M. Hults Client CFO at Apparatus Solutions that you’ll be prepared for whatever 3 ask the experts Southfield, Michigan the future brings. Take a look at “Risk Is This a Possible Conflict of Richard Mussler-Wright & Your Brain” on page 14. Interest? Idaho Botanical Garden By Don Kramer Boise, Idaho How Can You Boost Board Turnout? Director Emeritus By Andy Robinson Katie Burnham Laverty ARTICLES Temecula, California 4 the board room | On-Boarding – Or 14 Risk & Your Brain: Taking Smart Editorial Advisory Board Members Board Orientation? Welcoming Risks & Making the Best Decisions New Board Members Jason Chmura President, Society for Nonprofits By Melanie Lockwood Herman By Mike Burns Livonia, Michigan Understanding how your brain This process is too crucial Amy Good assesses risk will help you make to approach without careful Dane County Humane Society good decisions. planning. Madison, Wisconsin 6 Tangie Newborn 17 Making Better Mistakes people & technology President, Immense Business Solutions By Gregory Lay Use Data to Cultivate Long-Term Washington, D.C. Use this checklist as a guide to Donor Engagement Amy Sample Ward making magnificent mistakes. By Annabel Maw CEO, NTEN (Nonprofit Technology Network) Keep supporters energized with Portland, Oregon 18 A Better Brand = More Loyal these strategies. Publisher Supporters 8 fundraising forum Society for Nonprofits By Isham Colosetti The Power of Crowdfunding Purpose: Society for Nonprofits is a 501 (c) (3) Is it time to revisit your brand? By Liz Gousse & Matt McCrosson nonprofit organization. ThroughNonprofit World Here’s how to take advantage of and other communications with its members, the 20 Are You Prepared for a Society is dedicated to bringing together those who this huge opportunity. serve the nonprofit world in order to build a strong Cybersecurity Incident? network of professionals throughout the country. By Bryce Austin 10 your ingenious nonprofit You could face catastrophe if Three Expensive & Common NONPROFIT WORLD is published quarterly and digitally at no you don’t have a cybersecurity Nonprofit Conflicts: How to Turn charge to members of the Society for Nonprofits. To become a Your Struggles into Wins member of the Society, write: Society for Nonprofits, P.O. Box playbook in place. 510354, Livonia, Michigan 48151. Telephone: 734-451-3582. By Karen Eber Davis 22 Mind Mapping Is Essential for Membership: $129. 11 volunteer vectors | What Does It No part of this publication may be reproduced without written Leaders Mean to Lead Volunteers? permission. All rights reserved. By Hilary Jane Grosskopf Copyright © Society for Nonprofits ISSN 8755-7614. By Marlene Wilson E-mail: [email protected] Help people see how to reach A pioneer in the volunteer field Web page: nonprofitworld.org your vision with this powerful offers insights and inspiration. tool. 13 relevant reviews | Listening to 25 Are You Risking Legal Action Community Voices because of Discrimination? By Terrence Fernsler You may be inviting lawsuits As we rebuild our communities, without realizing it. let’s ensure all voices are heard. Unsolicited manuscripts and letters to 28 How to Coach People through 30 nonprofit briefs the editor are welcomed. They should be Fundraising in the Age of COVID. addressed to: Stress: Use Reflective Inquiry for How to apologize when you’ve Jill Muehrcke, Editor, Nonprofit World, Best Results said something racist. Robert’s P.O. Box 44173, Madison, WI 53744-4173 By Marcia Reynolds Rules of Order updated for board or [email protected]. To lead people in stressful times, meetings. Does your culture become their coaching partner. facilitate fundraising? Good NONPROFIT WORLD trouble: How nonprofits can is published by the lobby for change. Plus other tips, Society for Nonprofits. research, and publications in the nonprofit sector. october / november / december 2020 nonprofitworld.org | 1 editor’s page The Kettering Principle of Serendipity here’s a helpful insight in the origins of the word Much of Weiner’s book about genius “serendipity.” It was coined by Horace Walpole in focuses on the ancient Greek culture. 1754 when he told a friend about a fable he was How did this one place produce such Treading, The Three Princes of Serendip (Serendip an amazing number of ingenious ideas? is the Perso-Arabic name for Sri Lanka), about men who One key, he found, was that Greece “were always making discoveries, by accident and sagacity, welcomed foreigners, incorporated of things which they were not in quest of.” their customs, and weren’t afraid to borrow, steal, and embellish the best It’s important to note that he mentions “sagacity” as well of other countries. as “accident,” because we often think of serendipity as pure chance. It’s not. It’s a combination of a happy accident and Borrowing from different realms is the wisdom to seize possibilities when they arise. Accidents a classic strategy of creative people. happen often, but not everyone turns them into opportunities. To come up with new approaches, you need to constantly take ideas from your environment and make them your To be struck by serendipity, you need to be keenly aware of own. “Reinvent Yourself” (page 31) offers exercises to help your surroundings, keep your mind open wide – and be a you do so. bit restless. You can’t blaze new trails while reclining in a La-Z-Boy, as Eric Weiner notes in The Geography of Genius. It helps to stay on the lookout for surprising juxtapositions. When you see two unrelated things bumping together in an You need to be moving, engaging with your environment. unusual way, open your eyes and take notice. It’s known as the Kettering principle. The engineer Charles Don’t underestimate the role of coincidence – and what Kettering urged his employees to keep moving. “I have Weiner calls its “close cousins, randomness and chaos” – in never heard of anyone,” he said, “stumbling on something successful creative endeavors. But, at the same time, don’t sitting down.” forget the importance of staying on the move. It’s when you Of course, restless movement itself won’t produce ingenious combine that restless searching, that constant movement, solutions. You need to know yourself and be in touch with with the unpredictability of chance that great ideas arrive. your mind and your body. Sometimes that means adding That’s when you reap the magic of serendipity. purposeful stillness to the mix. “Become a Mind-Body Leader” (page 34) details a centering technique that will ready you for new ways of thinking. “How to Foster Creative Breakthroughs” (page 33) Jill Muehrcke, [email protected] illuminates ways to nurture “divergent thought.” With this type of reasoning, you generate innovative ideas by exploring Five Things to Do Next Monday a vast array of diverse solutions. While “convergent thinking” Here are a few concrete things you can do right now to begin follows logical steps to a conclusion, “divergent thinking” transforming your organization. is free-flowing and non-linear. It arises out of curiosity, playfulness, and an openness to unexpected connections. Decide how to take advantage of 1. crowdfunding with the tips on page 8. It’s out of such brainwork that serendipity happens. Review your cybersecurity plan, using the “A Better Brand = More Loyal Supporters” (page 18) testifies 2. the keys in “Are You Prepared for a Cybersecurity to the importance of challenging assumptions. Every so Incident?” (page 20). often, Isham Colosetti explains, you need to look at your brand through fresh eyes. Your customers are always 3. Begin doing the exercises and include others in changing, and so must you if you’re to satisfy their desires. asking and answering the questions described in “Useful Exercises” (page 24). If you want people in your organization to break new ground, the first step is to create an organizational culture that Pinpoint the main growth problem in your 4. and reframe it as explained in welcomes mistakes, risk-taking, and new perspectives. organization, “Three Expensive & Common Nonprofit Conflicts” “Does Your Culture Facilitate Fundraising?” (page 31) (page 10). You’ll be taking the first step toward sheds light on the need to embrace change. “Risk & Your solving it. Brain” (page 14) explains how to take constructive risks and minimize destructive ones. “Making Better Mistakes” 5. Plan your next meeting with an eye on the (page 17) reframes errors as useful lessons. Indeed, mistakes ideas in “Improve Your Meetings & Your Decision- are often the portal to serendipity at its best. Making”(page 15). 2 | nonprofitworld.org volume 38 • number 4 ask the experts Is This a Possible Conflict of Interest? What should board members do when they think they see conflicts of interest? ? ? ? ? ? I’m working with an all-volunteer nonprofit that has can be considered an “excess benefit,” with serious tax Qa possible conflict of interest. The board president pays a consequences for those who receive the excess or for those member of his family (who is on the board) to mow the who knowingly approve the excess.