Tony and Dolly Ellis

 

by Ed  Nicholson

Last week I was in a meeting with a major national non-profit organization.  It's a great organization, that's doing notable work toward its very worthy cause.   It's full of thought leaders at the highest level. 
The representatives meeting with me described a complex national strategy to address the issue at hand.   One that was going to take the buy-in, cooperation, and financial commitment of a wide variety of stakeholders: government representatives, corporate partners, foundations and thousands of individual donors.
When I asked them about their online plans to take this strategy to their stakeholders, I drew a blank.
Their online communications strategy is the exclusive property of their marketing group--whose objectives are to create brand awareness and raise donations.
Not that there's anything wrong with that, but...
They have thought leaders.  They have a strategy.  They have a message.
What would they have to lose by letting some of their thought leaders discuss that strategy online?

photo by PinkMoose--Creative Commons. Flickr

 

By Ed Nicholson

Sorry for the week's hiatus.  I was out talking about social media last week--instead of participating in it. 

At Tyson, we've been involved in hunger relief for nine years.  Well, actually for the first couple of years, we weren't really involved--we just threw money and food at it.  Just like all the other good work "campaigns" we'd ever done before. 
But then an interesting thing happened.  We started visiting foodbanks during donations; getting to know their work.  We went to conferences, and heard a diversity of inspiring speakers.  Our employees started doing hunger relief work in their own communities. 
In the process, we became engaged.  Hunger relief has become an important part of what we're doing as a company.
But sometimes it does complicate the relationship we have with our non-profit partners.
Now that we have some time invested in the issue, we have opinions.  We ask questions.  Sometimes we challenge conventions. Some might see it as interfering where we don't belong.   We're not always right, but we're engaged. 

So here's your chance to  voice an opinion and help us become better partners.  Please comment:   Where do we draw the line between contributing and meddling?  Should we produce food and leave the strategic work to the experts?  If you're a non-profit, does it aggravate you that someone from the outside would presume to tell you how to do your job?  Would it be a better world if ultimately corporations were not even involved in social issues? 
 
You know I love dissent.  So let me have some.

 

By Susan Brockway

Yesterday when I came home from work I was again inundated with envelopes asking for money.  “Won’t you help us send one child to camp?”, “Did you know that your $5 will help purchase an animal to help a family become self supportive?” and many more on a daily and weekly basis that contain the same message; send a check. 
Most people do not know that I actually give a substantial percentage of my income each year to groups and agencies that support missions I feel strongly about. 
However, hundreds of solicitations go in the trash unopened, especially from organizations to which I send regular checks, and I am simply caught in their mass mailing circle like a hamster on a wheel. 
Times are tough.  I know.  I'm president of the board of a local Feeding America food bank, and the demands are overwhelming.  All non-profits are in desperate need of cash. Many will fail.
But fundraising tactics are becoming counterproductive.
Think about this:  What about starting (and maintaining) non-profit relationships with conversation that doesn't involve an "ask."  (I actually had this occur yesterday--pleasant surprise).  Not necessarily asking for money on the first call, but starting with a conversation about this issue, the work of the agency, and sincerely asking for perspective on how we as a society should approach the challenges at hand.   Would that allow you to open your mind and become a partner in the fight?   Would you engage and not tune out? Are there other ways to open the door to honest engagment without wasting trees and online bandwidth?   Let me know what you think.

 

By Ed Nicholson                                         
PHOTO BY EMDOT (CREATIVE COMMONS)

Times are tough in the nonprofit world.  As someone who sits on Tyson's national sponsorship & donations committee, and one who serves on the board of a local nonprofit, I’m fully aware of how nonprofit organizations are being squeezed by increasing demand (especially with those providing social services) and ever-decreasing resources. 

Our company, having shown a $112 million loss for Q1 of fiscal ’09, is continuing to support our hunger relief efforts, primarily through the donation of food.  But cash is tight.  Lots of non-profit support is being dropped, simply because the money is not there.

Our best non-profit partners are just that: partners. They understand that wagons are circled everywhere. They’re not walking away when we can’t write a check.  They’re working with us to explore other assets we might be able bring to the table to help them through their tough times, such as expertise in marketing, communications, logistics, engineering, and HR.  They being creative in offering ROI when we do provide resources (whether cash or in-kind).  They're tightening their own belts.

We have great hope that when this storm is over, we’ll all  be afloat, and the bonds forged in working through tough times together will provide the basis for growing our relationships ever stronger in good times.

What is your non-profit organization doing to differently to remain viable and effective now that times are becoming more challenging?  Comments always welcome.

Tyson Team Member, Jenise Huffman is currently "on loan," working with Millennium Promise, addressing hunger and poverty in Africa.  She sends this report from Rwanda.

 

So I'm back in Africa doing what I love, and I thought I'd tell you a bit about it since some of you asked me to send updates while I'm here...
I'm in Rwanda doing a feasibility study, evaluating the potential for a poultry enterprise for the women of the Millennium Villages and the schools so that the women could have an income and the children could have protein in their diets in a school-meals program.  I'm sure you all know this because I talk about it a lot, but my CEO at Tyson, Dick Bond, generously agreed to donate the technical expertise in poultry rearing to the Millennium Villages project (Millennium Promise's project that I work on in NY) in order to increase the incomes of the farmers and women, as well as adding protein to their diets.   These people currently have NO protein in their diets.  None whatsoever.  So the children are stunted (growth) because protein is required for skeletal growth before the age of 5.  Additionally, protein deficiencies cause all sorts of other problems for both the children and the adults.  Also, many of these people make $0.50 a day.  That will increase dramatically when they have poultry to sell because Rwanda has a huge demand for poultry and very, very little supply.  That causes the market prices to be very high.  An egg costs $0.21 in a grocery store in Kigali (capital city), and so 2 eggs would take the entire day's wages for many people.  As you can see, they would benefit from increased supply of eggs and poultry meat, which sells for $10 a pound.
 
Today I visited a memorial for the genocide of 1994.  Somewhere between 800,000 - 1 million people were killed in just 100 days.  This memorial was a church where Tutsi's were hiding for safety because they thought the Hutu's wouldn't kill them in a church.  The Hutu's killed 10,000 people in that church in 1 day (in a couple hours, actually).  There were only 2 survivors - children who were underneath dead bodies.  After that, the Hutus continued killing the Tutsi's in this district and took 40,000 bodies to that church to be disposed of.  They also threw most bodies in the river here in this district.  Inside the church, which is still riddled with bullet holes, the clothes that all 10,000 people were wearing when they were killed there are laying on the pews (wooden benches).  There's still blood on the table cloth that covers the top of the alter - they killed some people by smashing them repeatedly into the alter.  That was just 14 years ago.  Not a single conversation that I have had with anyone in Rwanda ended without them mentioning the genocide.   Everything is marked as before or after the genocide.  In the district where our Millennium Villages are, there were 80,000 Tutsi's, but in a matter of a few days, all of them were murdered except for about 1,800.  The survivors lost their families and a bit of their soul.  The eyes of the survivors are still so sad and so hollow.  I just don't want to believe that I live in a world where people do this to each other - and worse yet, America knew and did nothing to help them.  That was the biggest failure of the Clinton Administration, in my opinion. 
 
I was told by one of the Millennium Village project employees here today that he knew Hutu husbands who killed their own wives because they were Tutsi, and then they killed their own children because they had some Tutsi blood in them.  He said they did this because the government told them to.  How do governments gain such evil control over people's minds?  Hitler did.  Mao did.  The President of Sudan is doing that right now.
 
The project that I'm working on is going well.  There is much opportunity here in Rwanda.  President Kagame is determined to make a new Rwanda, a reconciled Rwanda.  Rwanda is more developed than any of the other countries I have visited in Sub-Saharan Africa.  That's not to say they are wealthy - most of the people here are still making $1 - $2 a day.  The farmers in our villages, though, are improving their lives and building concrete homes (still only 1 room, but at least they are concrete instead of mud). 
 
The rains are coming.  Rainy season starts in September.  I hope I make it across the border to Uganda before they hit.  The skies have looked ominous the past couple days.
 
Well, it's late here, and I have a lot to do tomorrow, so I need to get some sleep.  I'm not sleeping well because it's so hot in my room without any air conditioning (and not even a fan), and also the staff cleans all night long, sweeping the walkways because dust is always everywhere.  They are quite noisy talking to each other as they work at 3 am.  My walls are about 2 millimeters thick. 
 
I'll be going to Uganda on September 4th to do the same work that I am doing in Rwanda. 
 
Bye for now.  Time to try to sleep.  Wish me luck! 

Our friends at the Capital Area Food Bank of Texas, and their partners Social Media Club Austin and 501Tech Club have finalized details on events for the great HAMup Tweetup.   You can get full details at http://www.austinfoodbank.org/HAM-up/ ,but briefly, here's how it will happen.

Thursday, September 11, there will be a kickoff at Whole Foods Market at 525 Lamar at 5:30, featuring food and live music.  

Saturday, Septmber 13,  events at the food bank will include a product recovery volunteer effort, a "drive through" food drive, and tours of the warehouse.  Go get an inside view of how this great food bank works to alleviate  hunger in the central Texas area.

On Monday, September 8, Tyson will be delivering the truckload of food that YOU made happen through your comments to this post.   Stay tuned for more information about how the 250 comments we got in addition to the needed 350 for the truckload, are going to make an added difference. 

Details about the HAMup here.

 

Vicki Escarra--President and CEO, Feeding America

Starting September 2008, America’s Second Harvest will become Feeding America. This new name best conveys our mission—providing food to Americans living with hunger—and will be supported through expansive public outreach campaigns that will raise awareness of domestic hunger and our work.

Despite a 30-year legacy of fighting hunger, America’s Second Harvest has been confronted with low awareness among the general public, and a broader misunderstanding of domestic hunger. Knowing that true, monumental progress can be made when the public is fully engaged in our cause, we have researched how we can best inspire people. We found that the name America’s Second Harvest was limiting and that a new name was needed to quickly and clearly convey our mission.

Our new name, Feeding America, directly conveys that we are providing access to food for people who need it.  It also communicates the positive power of food to be a catalyst in people’s lives.  In essence, “feeding” serves as a double meaning—both providing food and enriching lives. A careful migration strategy is underway to ensure that all key stakeholders and audiences understand that America’s Second Harvest is now Feeding America.   Be sure to visit us at www.feedingamerica.org
 

Got a message from Billy Shore regarding news about the Share Our  Strength community, including:

Wynton Marsalis agreed to be honored guest and speaker at the Autumn Harvest dinner hosted by Danny Meyer and the Union Square Hospitality Group in NY.

McCormick & Schmick’s committed their restaurants to Share Our Strength’s Great American Dine Out this September, bringing our total participating restaurants to 3045!

Cleveland chef and restaurant owner Michael Symon, who won the Food Network’s “The Next Iron Chef” competition, hosted A Tasteful Pursuit dinner in Cleveland with 8 female chefs from around the country.

The New York Times reported that the number of American children who are under 18 and live below the poverty line increased by almost 9% between 2000 and 2006.

The Edna McConnell Clark Foundation (EMCF) announced that, along with co-investors,  it would be investing $120 million in three nonprofits: Youth Villages,  Nurse-Family Partnership, and Citizen Schools.  The investment is comprised of $39 million from Edna McConnell Clark Foundation and $81 million from 19 co-investors.    It is nearly unprecedented in philanthropic circles to see this amount of capital pooled on behalf of such a select number of nonprofits.  It signals an  important new approach in philanthropy.

 

Vicki Escarra, President and CEO, America's Second Harvest

As we all read in the news, times are difficult for families all across America. The economic climate is forcing men, women, and families to cut back on spending, and often forcing them to sacrifice important essentials-including food. 

I am also a believer in ROI for giving initiatives, and that doing good can and should be a rewarding venture for both companies and their beneficiaries. But to accomplish this, those of us working in non-profits or corporate philanthropy have to do a better job of creating great matches between the two.
 
What makes a great match? If you look around, you can find many examples of giving initiatives that seem to really work. Like an energy company that supports environmental conservation, or a bank that supports financial literacy education, or a food company that helps feed hungry families.
 
In these cases and so many others, the match seems obvious and a good impact on society is sure to result. But effective programs don’t just meet a need, they play to a company’s strengths and allow them to make a meaningful contribution doing what they do best. Aah, now that’s a concept, and one that increases a program’s chances of weathering the ups and downs of the economy or other changing corporate winds, as Ed has pointed out. I’ve never seen a shortage of good causes to support; the reality is companies have to evaluate numerous opportunities to find those things that make the most sense for them -- and their stakeholders -- to invest in.
 
Here are a few thoughts, from my consultant’s perspective, on what makes a strong program and a great match. The best giving initiatives:
• Reflect a company’s mission, vision and values;
• Align with one or more business objectives;
• Match up with its operational locations and presence;
• Resound with stakeholders and the issues they care about;
• Create opportunities for community engagement and dialogue about how to effect positive change by working together;
• Excite employees and offer meaningful opportunities to be involved;
• Communicate credible messages about the company;
• Tell compelling stories about how lives, communities and society are being impacted;
• Establish collaborations with respected partners; and
• Enhance the reputation of everyone involved.
 
To do anything less is, well, to settle for less. Time we did more for the benefit of all.

Posted by Elise Mitchell

Elise Mitchell, APR, Fellow PRSA, is president and CEO of Mitchell Communications Group.  She and her group work closely with Tyson Foods in developing and implementing Tyson's hunger relief strategy and communications.