5 Questions About Visioneering Wichita (And how CCSR was involved)

As some of you reading this blog may already know, Visioneering Wichita has been selected to receive the 2010 Alliance for Regional Stewardship (ARS) Organizational Champion Award presented by the American Chamber of Commerce Executives (ACCE). 

What some of you may not know, is that back in 2005, when the Center for Community Support and Research was known as the Self-Help Network, we were helping shape and develop the fledgling initiative. So in honor of our partners over at Visioneering Wichita, and their well-deserved award, we present “5 Questions about Visioneering Wichita”

Q1: What exactly is Visioneering Wichita?
VW is a 20 year strategic plan that started in 2004 designed to improve the quality of life, foster economic development, and promote civic leadership in the city of Wichita. This plan was based on input from over 16,000 Wichita residents.

Q2: What are the goals of Visioneering Wichita?

• To promote job growth
• Stop the decline of Wichita per capita income
• Provide for a skilled workforce
• Increase the number of post-secondary students by 3% per year
• Develop the downtown area to promote economic development and to expand the arts/culture of Wichita
• Promote racial diversity, opportunity and harmony
• And more. 

Q3: How was CCSR involved in Visioneering Wichita?
CCSR provided a series of leadership development classes for the Visions Partners – promoting civic engagement and community collaboration. As a result of these classes, participants were able to:

• Better understand the elements of a successful community collaboration
• Identify strengths and challenges in collaboration
• Learn how to use their newfound leadership skills within their local organizations, networks and coalitions
• Develop and action plan for organizing and bringing together groups to assess collaborative strengths and challenges.
• Grow in ability and willingness to participate in future strategic alliances and other community leadership roles.

Q4: Will Visioneering Wichita really work?
The plan is solid, but we need the support of the Wichita citizens, businesses and government. If we all work together and focus our efforts, we can drastically improve our quality of life and meet the VW benchmarks.

Q5: How do I find out more about Visioneering Wichita?
Good place to start – The Plan.  Available to download as a pdf from Visioneering Wichita.
Or just contact info@visioneeringwichita.org.

Congrats again to Visioneering Wichita in receiving this national award!



Photo Courtesy of AnyJazz65

Thoughts on Our Nowegian Visitor

Senior researcher Johan Barstad of the Patient Education Research Center in Moere Og Romsdal, Norway, recently visited the Wichita State University Center for Community Support and Research (CCSR) on Thursday and Friday, June 24-25.  Barstad is interested in CCSR due to its 25+ year experience in promoting and researching self-help groups.

Barstad met with CCSR to discuss previous methods of research, methods of assisting self-help groups and how to integrate self-help groups into professional services.  More specifically, Barstad was gaining input on Norway’s national initiative to incorporate self-help groups into health and human services.  Barstad is a part of a research team in Norway who is trying to better understand the diversity of self-help groups in the country and the relation between self-help services and professional services. 

His two days included meetings with CCSR Director Scott Wituk, the CCSR Research & Evaluation Team and the CCSR Mental Health Consumer Initiatives Team.  Additionally, Barstad met with self-help group researchers and experts: Greg Meissen and Lou Medvene from Wichita State University.  Finally, he visited with three Kansas self-help organizations: Project Independence, Good Grief of Kansas and Victory in the Valley.

Scott Wituk commented on the recent visit.  “What Johan and others in Norway are doing is phenomenal.  They are attempting to bring together the very informal, grassroots self-help groups with the professional helping systems to create new forms of sustained, effective, and low-cost care.  They are attempting to create empowered patients who actively participate in their health care.  Self-help groups can play a role in that.  In many ways, the challenges in the U.S. health care system are not too different.  We thoroughly enjoyed the visit and learned a great deal.  I hope to be working with Johan in the future on a few international self-help projects.”   


Photo courtesy of ElBosco

Spotlight on an Initiative: Compassion Kansas

What is Compassion Kansas?

CCSR is in the last year of its Compassion Kansas initiative, a 3-year, federally funded project designed to enhance Faith-based and Community-based Organizations through grants, workshops and one-on-one capacity building assistance.

Capaci-what now?

Community nonprofits, groups, and coalitions can typically be very effective in targeting the specific needs of their local communities. But these smaller organizations frequently lack the organization needed to thrive.

These organizations are far more successful when they operate with adequate funds, thoughtful planning, a well-trained staff, effective boards, and the ability to respond to challenges.

That’s essentially what capacity-building is – giving organizations the tools to do what they do, better.

Okay, so what capacity-building services does Compassion Kansas offer?

In addition to the financial awards, Compassion Kansas provides:
•    Assistance in developing stronger grant applications
•    Strategic Planning
•    Plans for diversifying funding sources
•    Board development and leadership
•    Staff and volunteer management
•    Networking opportunities
•    Statewide attention to the work of these organizations

These services are provided through workshops, and one-on-one mentoring with a CCSR staff member.

What’s in store for the future of Compassion Kansas?

Compassion is undergoing some changes, but the Center for Community Support & Research is committed to continuing capacity-building efforts across Kansas.

So, dear Kansans in community coalitions, alliances, fledgling nonprofits – what would you like to see in the future as far as capacity building efforts go?

Step Away from the Can of Doing: What a Home Depot Commercial Teaches About Evaluation | Dr. Tara Gregory

I've been mesmerized lately—in that kind of love-hate way—by Home Depot commercials wherein a manly man announcer urges people to shop at Home Depot with statements like "turn your doing dial up to 11" and "set your savings swagger on full tilt" and, most nonsensically, "open up a can of doing." I may not be quoting these perfectly except for the "open up a can of doing" phrase. Open up a can of doing? I'm not even sure what this means. But these commercials irritate me quite a bit—mainly because they fill me with an overwhelming urge to run to Home Depot. For what, I don't know.

And that's where my issue lies. Indiscriminate and unplanned opening of a Can of Doing can be wasteful of time and resources. Owning a house that's over 100 years old, as I do, there probably isn't a big enough Can of Doing to cover what needs to be done. If I really thought through what it would take to make my house what I want it to be and made a plan, my trip to Home Depot might be valuable. But I have to admit that my savings swagger will undoubtedly propel me toward superfluous and relatively easy tasks versus those that might actually make my house more solid and valuable.

So what does this have to do with evaluation? I've been involved in a number of evaluation projects where it seems that people have opened up a can of doing without really knowing why. More specifically, organizations often say they want to do an evaluation, but frequently lack a clear idea of what they want to know.

Evaluation is simply a way of answering the big questions about an organization: "What should we be doing? What do people think of our services?  Are we making a difference for those we serve?"

But organizations can get too focused on just doing something, even when it comes to evaluation. I've had multiple experiences where organizations have a list of questions they want to ask, but no real idea of what it is they want to KNOW. There's a big difference here—questions with a capital Q  and questions with a small q. Big Q questions represent your evaluation goal—what you want or need to know. In reality, there aren't that many big Q questions. They're basically about whether your program is needed, how well it's implemented, and what difference it makes. That's pretty much it. But there are a huge number of possible small q questions for each of these big Q questions. And if you don't identify the big Q first, your small q's can go down unnecessary or misleading paths.

If you open the can of doing before really knowing what needs to be done—if you ask the small q questions before identifying the big Q question—at best you'll waste time and energy. At worst, you'll be led astray by information that doesn't really tell you what you need to know.

What nonprofit organizations really need to hear is: Before you get your evaluation swagger on and open up a can of assessment doing, ask yourself what one or two things you really need to know. And step away from that can of doing unless you've finished this task!

For more on evaluation basics, come to the next Compassion Kansas workshop on May 20 (1 - 5 p.m.) called "Does Your Program Work? How to Use Simple Evaluation Techniques and Tools to Answer this Question."  Contact Angela Gaughan at 316-978-3843 or angela.gaughan@wichita.edu to register. (Registration is still open, even if the website says otherwise)




Photo courtesy of  J. Stephen Conn

Foundation giving down 8.4% in 2009, Foundation Center reports

 “Challenged by a prolonged economic downturn, the nation's grant-making foundations cut their giving by an estimated 8.4 percent in 2009, a new report from the Foundation Center finds. The decline is the steepest since the center began tracking the data in 1975.”

According to the Foundation Growth and Giving Estimates report released by the Foundation Center on April 16, 2010, foundation giving was down approximately 8.4% in 2009. This represents a record decline since the Center began tracking information in 1975, yet it is a significantly lower decrease than one would expect, given the estimated 17% loss in foundation assets in 2009.

Facilitators at CCSR often hear from people who want to start nonprofits that they will “get grants” to fund their operations. While grants certainly can be a part of an organization’s revenue, CCSR often reminds enthusiastic founders that grants should only make up about 20% of their nonprofit’s revenue. The rest should come from members’ support and donations, corporate giving, events and fundraisers, and revenue generated from activities that support the organization’s charitable purpose.

It is also helpful to understand how grant-making organizations work. So here are two pieces of information that will help you understand a little bit more about foundation giving. Let’s call it “Intro to Foundation Funding.”

1. Foundations follow a formula to figure out how much they have available to give. The formula can vary by foundation and is the responsibility of the organization’s board to determine. The formula is usually a percent of an average of a foundation’s revenue over a three- to five-year span. For example, the funds available for grant-making in 2010 could be [x] percent of the average of a fund’s average market value for 2007, 2008, and 2009, which will vary based on earnings in that time. A foundation might have several funds. The [x] is usually a small enough number to ensure that the fund will endure perpetually, such as 5%.This is called asset-averaging. What does that mean? Gains or losses in the value of a foundation’s funds are mitigated by the averaging process. But the 17% loss in assets from 2009 will lower the amount of money foundations are able to give for two to four more years.

2. Most foundations cannot give grants from a fund if the value of that fund has dropped below its historic gift value. Say Betty the Community Supporter gave $100,000 to her Local Community Foundation in 1997. Over time, through wise investing, the Local Community Foundation was able to grow the amount in that fund. But in 2009, the value of this fund dropped to $90,000. Most foundations have rules in place that prevent them from using that $90,000 to give grants. They must wait till the value of the fund returns to $100,000. This will affect the Local Community Foundation’s ability to make grants in 2010.

The Foundation Center reports that several factors lessened the decrease in giving: many grantmakers cut their operating expenses, a few key big grantmakers committed to giving more, and community supporters like Betty continued giving to foundations. This is good. But nonprofits should be aware that foundations may have fewer dollars available in 2010 and over the next couple of years. Communities should be aware that their arts promotion, social service, and youth-supporting nonprofits—among others—may be struggling to secure grants for even 20% of their budget, which may impact their ability to provide services.

With that in mind, individual donors should think about giving a little more to their favorite charitable organization this year, if they can.


Authors:  Amy Delamaide, Sarah Jolley, and Seth Bate

 Photo courtesy of Chet Thomas

Nonprofit Blogs I Read (and you should too!) | Amy Delamaide

Blogs I read

One of the reasons CCSR started blogging is because several of us on staff are readers of blogs. We thought CCSR could add to online content in our areas of expertise. We also admired the Kansas Leadership Center's efforts to blog and contribute to online content.

In an effort to share with readers of the CCSR blog which blogs we go to for ideas and new thinking, here is the first of posts about blogs we read. Mine are in alphabetical order, because that's how I have them organized in my Google reader.


Blogs on NP things I follow:

Bridgespan (all RSS feeds)
The Bridgespan Group is a nonprofit consulting firm out of Boston, New York, and San Francisco. The most recent article from them that I read was on Growing Global NGOs Effectively.  They have a number of articles and case studies available, some for free and some for purchase.

Center for Nonprofit Management
This Center is based in Bucks County, PA, north of Philadelphia. A recent post from them on the differences between hiring a consultant and hiring a facilitator for your planning work makes an interesting distinction, one we often debate at the CCSR. We tend more towards facilitating processes than providing consultation. From a client's perspective, defining which kind of support the organization needs or wants is crucial in finding the right person to support your planning efforts.

Don Griesmann's Nonprofit Blog
I started following this blog on the recommendation of my co-worker Sarah Jolley. His posts tend to be long and informative, with quite a few links in each posts for further reading.

Linksy on Leadership
Through work with the Kansas Leadership Center, I've had the opportunity to learn from Marty Linksy. He shared with me at a training session that he, as a Harvard man, was very familiar with the route from Cambridge to Wellesley College, where I went as an undergrad. His blog on leadership takes concepts developed in his books and applies them to current events.

The Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly (NVSQ)
The quarterly publication of ARNOVA  (The Association for Research on Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action) is a treasure trove of scholarly articles on the NP sector. I subscribe to the RSS feed, but it's possible this is only available to me because of my university access. But go here and see if you can get it too. I usually read the abstracts, then click on the link and download the article to read later.

The Nonprofit QuarterlyNot to be confused with the NVSQ, the Nonprofit Quarterly is a Boston-based publication that actually prints on paper. From what I can tell, most of the articles are available online. It looks like they might have some political biases  I should be aware of. I haven't explored this blog/magazine very much.

Philantopic
I haven't explored this blog too much, because I just started following it. But it looks like it will provide articles and content from the Philanthropy News Digest, which could be useful.

Rosetta Thurman
Written by a young, DC-based African-American woman, this blog presents a perspective of a young professional who benefitted from the work of nonprofits as she was growing up in Cleveland and who now consults with nonprofits seeking social change. This post considers how young professionals in nonprofit jobs can build the brand recognition of both their organization and themselves.

TNT: The Network Thinker
Valdis Krebs does interesting research on and mapping of social networks. This blog doesn't get updated very often, but if you like infographics and find social networks interesting, this is worth a read.

Transformative Concepts
Written by Maaskelah Thomas, a leader in the Wichita community and former CCSR facilitator, this blog has a couple of thoughtful posts on what organizations should look for. This one on whether an organization should hire a grant-writer or a fund development coach makes some good points.

White Courtesy Telephone: News, Opinion and Commentary from Inside the Third Sector I don't have much information about the origins of this blog. I think I started following it on the recommendation of a co-worker. Looks like it has at least 6 contributing writers. This post on "Messing with the Poor" has some good food for thought about nonprofits and poverty prevention or alleviation.

Young Professionals of Wichita
Because I am young, a professional, and from Wichita, I follow the Young Professionals of Wichita. Are you a YP? Does your local YP group blog? Follow it.


Blogs on the arts and NPs:

Nonprofits that support or promote the arts are a particular kind of NP. I have an interest in working with arts organizations, so I follow a few blogs dedicated to these NPs.

The Kansas Arts Commission 
The KAC started blogging pretty recently (their archives go back to September 2009). Their posts are useful to find out about arts-related programming, grants, and capacity-building in Kansas.

Michael Kaiser
On November 19, 2009, I attended a session on the "Arts in Crisis" with Michael Kaiser. He is currently the President of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and he has written about his experience turning around major arts organizations. I follow the blog he writes for the Huffington Post: and the one he writes for Artsmanager. There is a bit of overlap between the two, and I could probably cull one of these. But they are written for slightly different audiences and sometimes that difference adds something to one stream or the other.

What blogs do you read to get the latest on the nonprofit sector? Let us know in the comments below.








Photo Courtesy of Moriza

"So what is it that you DO exactly?" | Amy Delamaide

The task of describing to others the work that CCSR does can be daunting.

My co-worker Kevin Bomhoff tells a story about the time his son asked him what he did. He wanted to be able to tell his friends that his dad was a lawyer, or a doctor, or an engineer. After hearing Kevin's lengthy explanation, his son said, "I think it would be easier if I just tell them you work for the CIA."

When I first started working at CCSR three years ago, it took me about five minutes to describe my job. I would have to include examples. "Well, I work with organizations. They could be coalitions, or nonprofits, or government entities, or something else. It could also be a combination of those things. And I help them figure out what they want to do and where to go. Right now, I’m working with a group of people creating a comprehensive early childhood plan for their community. And I’m also working with a nonprofit run by and for people with mental illness to improve their services."

If I talked to someone with a background in business, I could tell them that what I do is like management consulting, but for nonprofit organizations or government bodies.

If I talked to someone with a background in psychology, I could tell them that what I do is like being a shrink for an organization. I try to ask a series of questions that help the organization come to the own best solutions for their situation.

After a few months of working at CCSR, I realized that my job is to help organizations better serve the mission or people they are designed to serve. This means I work with organizations in a variety of fields--public health, education, social services, and more. While each of these settings is different, I can bring the same set of skills, tools, and questions to bear in each one. I have expertise in the process of getting a group from point A to point B.

CCSR’s Special Projects Assistant is working on materials to describe all the different services CCSR offers. Be on the lookout for these materials soon.

How do you describe the work of CCSR? Post your thoughts in the comments.

Photo Courtesy of Erik Charlton