After recruiting a board for your institute, you may want to consider adopting written policies in the following areas:

• A conflict of interest policy that identifies when professional or personal interests compete and sets rules for managing potential conflicts, i.e., when to disclose, when to abstain from voting, etc.
• A travel and expense policy that describes the types of expenses that are considered reasonable and necessary for accomplishing the foundation’s charitable mission.
• A document retention policy specifying how long to retain documents and records.
• A privacy policy on how you will treat donor names and addresses.  Charity accreditors like Charity Navigator look to see what level of privacy you give your donors.
• A succession plan in the event your President or CEO is incapacitated in some way.  This is useful for reassuring donors of the longevity of your organization.

Consult an attorney or accountant for more information on these specific policies.

For more management/fundraising tips, visit the Atlas toolkit here.

Here are some fundraising basics to keep in mind when communicating with donors.

If a donors makes a gift:

1. What is the length of time it takes to get a response from the organization?
2. Is the donor thanked?
3. Does the organization fulfill the promises it has made?
4. Is the tone of the communication knowledgeable and passionat?
5. Is the focus of the communication on the donor or beneficiary rather than the organization?

These were the questions asked by Aussie Jonathan Grapsas in this month’s Mal Warwick newsletter in an experiment he ran with 39 Canadian charities. There are some interesting results which prove that if you can at least be prompt with gratitude, you will be miles ahead of the rest!

For more management/fundraising tips, visit the Atlas toolkit here.

Our friends over at Bureaucrash have just come out with foreign language versions of their most popular free market shirts here. So far, they have Spanish, French, Portuguese, Russian, and Swedish.  Chinese and Finnish coming soon!

Bureaucrash is a non-profit organization that uses creative activism to promote freedom and free markets.

With the end of the year quickly approaching, many organizations are gearing up for annual employee reviews.  The most traditional approach seems to be one-on-one reviews administered by direct supervisors, but 360 degree reviews have become popular in recent years.  360 degree reviews involve an employee receiving feedback from direct reports, colleagues, supervisors, as well as conducting a self-assessment. With cheap/free online survey tools like Survey Monkey or Constant Contact to help administer this type of review, it can help give managers a better perception of an individual’s strengths and weaknesses within the organization as well as provide bottom-up feedback to managers.

Yet another option I recently discovered is something called the Performance Preview as described in a recent Wall Street Journal article:

In contrast to one-side-accountable reviews, performance previews are reciprocally accountable discussions about how boss and employee are going to work together even more effectively than they did in the past. Previews weld fates together. The boss’s skin is now in the game.

Basically, performance reviews should be structured to make them as non-adversarial as possible - giving employees a chance to provide feedback as well.

The mission of the Resource Alliance is to build fundraising capacity worldwide.  It is one of the few fundraising resources that keeps an international audience in mind when developing its materials. One of its best partner resources is SOFII.org which showcases fundraising letters and campaigns from around the world.  SOFII stands for the Showcase Of Fundraising Innovation and Inspiration.  The site is still in its test phase and can only be accessed via a user name and password that can be acquired by emailing them.

It’s worth checking out!

One cavaet - Although the Resource Alliance and SOFII are nonpartisan, it is primarily utilized by left-leaning organizations - humanitarian, environmental, etc.  What appeals to these organizations’ donors may not appeal to yours.  You should always consider how to tailor the message and packaging of your appeals to your specific audience.  Best regards!

Atlas has over three hundred institutes at varying degrees of maturity within its network. Not all of them have the time or resources to comprehensively track their presence online, but no excuses!  Here is the hierarchy of tracking your institute’s web presence:

1. Use Google Alerts - super easy and free!
2. Subscribe to a news tracking service. Burrelles in the U.S. or Meltwater internationally offer self-service search engines that help you track your organization’s presence online for a nominal cost.
3. Upgrade your news tracking service. These news tracking organizations also offer higher end services that track and compile information about your organization for you.  This can include analysis of how successful a press release or event was in getting covered.
4. Hire a public relations firm or consultant. This is only for established institutes who have the resources to leverage their news coverage more widely.

Good luck!

Act Now to take full advantage of the U.S. tax law changes implemented under the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008.

Institutes in the United States should promote this opportunity in upcoming newsletters and year-end solicitations.  Donors should take advantage of this conduit for tax-free distributions from their IRAs by donating to Atlas or other charities of their choice before the end of the year.

The new “bailout” or “rescue” Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 includes nearly 300 changes to the Internal Revenue Code, with many targeted to provide taxpayer relief in 2008 and 2009.  To take full advantage of the potential benefits, pay particular attention to the tax changes that impact your 2008 year-end tax planning. You can now make tax-free distributions from your IRA for charitable purposes until December 31, 2009.  In the past, many Atlas donors have taken advantage of this popular charitable contribution option which previously expired on January 1, 2008.  It has just been reinstated under the new law.  The  maximum contribution limit for 2008, and again for 2009, is $100,000.

Atlas hosts and attends a lot of conferences.  We see a lot of PowerPoint presentations…probably too many.  For many of Atlas’s partners, PowerPoint is a necessary tool for non-English speakers, but it shouldn’t be a crutch!  Here are the three main issues Atlas runs into with PowerPoint presentations:

1. Reading directly from your slides!  We want to hear your story in your own words - we promise you’ll do better even if English isn’t your native language.
2. Too many words on a slide. Keep it simple otherwise it’s distracting!
3. Not turning in your PowerPoint before the conference so our tech people can have it ready to go at the appropriate time.

One of my favorite marketing blogs has a post entitled: “Nine Steps to PowerPoint Magic.” Here are his nine tips below - click the link to read his explanations.

1. Don’t use Powerpoint at all.
2. Use your own font.
3. Tell the truth.
4. Pay by the word.
5. Get a remote.
6. Use a microphone.
7. Check to make sure you brought your big idea with you.
8. [Your presentation should be] Too breathtaking to take notes.
9. [Keep it] Short!

Calculating a firm’s working capital ratio can give a firm a better understanding of the company’s ability to weather declining donations during hard economic times.  According to Charity Navigator, 60% of the charities they evaluate have at least 6 months of working capital on hand (working capital ratio of > .5).  This is a good benchmark to strive for as your institute matures.

The working capital ratio indicates if a firm has enough short-term assets to cover its immediate liabilities.  Where does your institute stand?

=	Current Assets
	Current Liabilities

Many Atlas partners both in the United States and abroad are increasingly using the internet to generate support. 

Building an email list of dedicated supporters is increasingly important. Three keys to building this list:

1. Only email relevant, interesting information
2. Don’t email them too often
3. Don’t always ask for money.

The British DMA Email Marketing Blog challenges the consensus on emailing frequency.  As long as you email timely, interesting material, you can probably email more often than you think!  It’s important to track the statistics and segment your donor base accordingly.  Some people will always respond to email while others are less reliable - email accordingly!  Check out the Donor Power Blog’s analysis of this topic here.