From today’s Tennessean:

May 8, 2008

Nashvillian whispers hope to Rwandan women

By BEVERLY KEEL

“Without drugs I couldn’t sleep. The marijuana and whiskey helped me to not think about the rapes and the beatings because of prostitution. I am so happy that you’ve come to hear about my life of sorrow….”

The letter was one of many thank-yous the Rev. Becca Stevens read after traveling with six Nashvillians to meet with 42 women in Rwanda, a country in east-central Africa that suffered war and genocide in the mid-1990s.

Stevens, 45, an Episcopal priest, is the founder of Magdalene, a place for women with a history of prostitution and drug addiction to seek shelter and start a new life. To support that work, she formed the nonprofit Thistle Farms, a bath and body products company that provides jobs, education and training to these women.

They hand-make Thistle Farms’ natural products – lotion, room spray, candles, salt scrubs and more. Sales support Magdalene, which currently has 28 residents.

The April trip to Rwanda was the first attempt at establishing a Thistle Farms model in another country.

“Seeing women in traditional African dress with goggles and rubber gloves preparing to make soap was awesome,” Stevens said. “They were so excited when we started the second morning; they had already started cleaning the equipment.

“We went to villages where women waited all day to see us. They were stunning, poised and almost whispered what they needed to tell us about their lives and their need for hope and money to keep going.”

In addition to their soap-making know-how, the Magdalene women brought vegetables and helped plant gardens.

“We went to the market and purchased shovels, seeds and sewing machines in response to some of their requests,” Stevens said.

“Sometimes it’s just a fishing pole some people need; they already know how to fish.”

The priest found faith in this wounded country that was “inspiring and a little intimidating.”

“They were so grateful that somebody in the United States thought of them and came all the way to tell them they loved them,” she said.

Stevens’ group carried letters from former Nashville prostitutes written to Rwandan women who have experienced prostitution, abuse and drug addiction.

“The sisters of Rwanda, these 42 women, wanted to start a model like Thistle Farms,” said Stevens.

“One of the people that had gone to Rwanda to live and help out was from Nashville and had heard about what we did. They approached us just to get recipes and ideas and we said we’d go to help.

“We wanted to make a connection for people that the stuff we’re dealing with locally is a global issue.

“The women we met fell in love with the message and community of Magdalene,” Stevens said.

“The stories are hauntingly familiar. Rwanda is full of people walking around with ghosts, while new life is strapped to the backs of women.

“Hearty crops are blooming next to people so poor they can’t feed their children. It was so much to take in sometimes my legs would shake or my head would bob.”

Tales are chilling

One of the most chilling aspects of her trip was the tone the women used to tell their personal tales of brutality.

“The women who had survived the genocide, when they told their story, they whispered it, like if something is really important, people say it quietly,” she said.

“It was so important to them for us to hear it that you had to lean forward to listen, it was so quiet. That undid me every time.”

Although she couldn’t understand what some of them were saying, “you could read it in the women’s faces. You could see it and hear it in the women who had been raped, beaten and abused, but there was still hope. They believed love was still possible.”

For this priest, that didn’t get lost in the translation.

“I have this renewed call about trying to love the world. I want to love the world, but I need to make sure that happens one person at a time that I encounter.”

Stevens, who has also financed, built and run a school and clinic in Ecuador, hopes this is the first of many overseas trips to help launch Thistle Farms models in other countries.

“We want to take this idea that women in the world are neighbors,” she said.

The connection between women on different continents was expressed in another letter the group received from a woman in Rwanda.

“To my Magdalene sister, I saw the letter you wrote to us. It made me love you knowing that you are now alright, that you are no longer on the streets. That made me think I can make it and make you my friend. What happened to you happened to me in ‘94 (in) the genocide war. My hope is one day I will see you in America or here in Rwanda.”

 

Featured recently in the Chicago Tribune:

How non-profits are using social networking to raise money and awareness
Charities see potential in tapping young Web users to promote their causes online
By Wailin Wong

Tribune reporter

April 30, 2008

Online social networks used to be just gathering places for friends and long-lost acquaintances. Then the marketers arrived, followed by politicians and job recruiters, all looking to tap into a growing mass of young people who are spending much of their time on the Web. Now, non-profit organizations are testing ways to raise money through these networks, betting that the Internet’s viral nature will open fresh avenues for fundraising and marketing.

It’s a big change for non-profits as they shift from direct-mail campaigns and relying on the checkbooks of older givers to the unpredictable whims of Web popularity. Though the transition is nascent, charities see potential in recruiting young activists who already use online networks to broadcast their identities and make connections.

Actress Cynthia Osuji of New York is a case in point. She became interested in a women’s health non-profit when she received a mass e-mail about auditions for a Circle of Health International-sponsored benefit production of Eve Ensler’s “A Memory, A Monologue, A Rant and A Prayer.” The group also was seeking board members to plan the show.

After Osuji, 26, won a spot in the cast and joined the board, she added a copy of the show poster to her MySpace profile. Out-of-town friends who couldn’t attend the show ended up making donations and two “Facebook friends,” casual acquaintances who learned of the benefit through the site, came to the March performance.

Osuji said the show brought her back into community service, an activity she hadn’t pursued since high school. “Violence against women and women in conflict [areas] is something that’s very personal to me,” she said.

Circle of Health International has its own Facebook page, and 26-year-old Matt Bieber clicked on an application called Causes that allowed him to invite more than 100 of his 200-plus contacts to publicize the non-profit on their profile pages. His recruitment effort was akin to distributing virtual bumper stickers with the option to donate through the site. Eleven of his friends added the non-profit to their profiles.

Sean Parker, who helped create Causes, said, “If you can activate a group of people and get some of those people to replicate the process … you’ve got the basis for a movement.”

Outside of general communities like Facebook and MySpace, there are also social networking sites dedicated to philanthropy such as YourCause.com, HopeEquity .org and actor Kevin Bacon’s SixDegrees.org.

Now established institutions like the MacArthur Foundation and the Case Foundation want to know more about the tie between digital life and philanthropy. They are funding studies of online social networks, civic engagement in the Millennial Generation and philanthropy in virtual worlds like Second Life.

“We’re not claiming [online networks are] the panacea for philanthropies,” said Ben Binswanger, the Case Foundation’s chief operating officer. “[But] we think it’s way too early to dismiss it as an Internet fad. … We’re going to keep pushing down this path because we see enough spark here to make it interesting.”

Power to engage
For non-profits, the power of social networks is engagement, not necessarily sheer dollar numbers.

“If you send out a direct-mail piece, you never know if people open it up or not, unless they mail a check back to you,” said Steve Byers, director of development and communications at Kansas-City based WaterPartners International, which promotes safe drinking water. “With the online community, we know which pages they’re clicking on. … They want to provide feedback and interact with the organization in ways that are very exciting and challenging.”

WaterPartners created three fictional characters from Ethiopia, India and Honduras and placed them in a virtual village on Second Life to illustrate the challenges of accessing potable water. The avatars also have profiles on MySpace and Facebook, and shots of their Second Life village are posted on photo-sharing site Flickr. While the amount of money raised so far is tiny, Byers said he could see online marketing and fundraising slowly displacing direct mail.

“I’ve been in fundraising for over 20 years, so this is really kind of a brave new world for me,” he said. “I’ve really had to rethink my whole approach to fundraising through the Internet.”

Clearly, online fundraising is in its infancy. A survey by The Chronicle of Philanthropy showed that online giving for 187 large charities totaled $1.2 billion in 2006, up from $881 million in 2005. But of 147 organizations, 103 said online donations accounted for less than 1 percent of total contributions in 2006.

“There is no really large, significant fundraising happening on social networks, but there’s a sense in the non-profit community that that’s where the prospects come from,” said Michael Hoffman, chief executive of Chicago non-profit consulting firm See3 Communications.
Building relationships
Some non-profits that have a presence on social networking sites have discovered a new relationship with users.

Carie Lewis, the Humane Society’s Internet marketing manager, said she finds herself responding to lots of mundane questions on pet care as a result of maintaining a presence on Facebook, MySpace, YouTube and Flickr. More important, Lewis said she’s discovered supporters outside the organization’s traditional demographic of women in their 50s.

“It was a lot of work, but it really paid off for us,” Lewis said. The Humane Society has raised more than $33,000 on Facebook from users who have set up pages to protest everything from puppy mills to seal clubbing in Namibia. The amount of money raised is small, but convinced Lewis’ bosses that the online efforts have merit.

“Traditionally, I think non-profits focus on high-value donors, and what MySpace provides is an enormous network of people who are able to get involved through volunteering, offline events and donating in smaller amounts,” said Lee Brenner, who oversees activism-related content on MySpace.

wawong@tribune.com

How has your organization used social networking to rasie money and awareness?

This story is about nonprofits working on their pitches to attract donors and was recently published in the Boston Globe:

Bottom-line philanthropy
Nonprofits find help developing pitches aimed at donors used to seeing results
By Sacha Pfeiffer, Globe Staff | April 30, 2008

In a sleek conference room in a downtown Boston office tower, Matthew Kochka, a bearded 27-year-old farmer in flannel and khakis, stood before two dozen crisply dressed business executives, investors, and other white-collar types.

He braced himself.

“I think your presentation was almost 100 percent wrong,” said Dale Bearden, a managing director at Babson Capital Management, an investment management firm. “It didn’t compel me to support your organization.”

Kochka nodded. But the verbal beating wasn’t over.

“You’re going to hate me for this,” continued Bearden, 49, “but you’ve got to listen to yourself on tape. In your initial presentation you said ‘um’ 33 times.”

For the next 15 minutes, Kochka – the manager of ReVision Urban Farm, a Dorchester nonprofit that provides fresh produce and job training for homeless young mothers – fielded a battery of similarly blunt feedback. The scene was a bit like “American Idol,” with PowerPoint presentations subbing for musical performances and executives like Bearden offering the brutally frank critiques.

Kochka’s appearance was a test run for a funding pitch that a half-dozen nonprofits will make tonight to a group of potential donors, including investors, government officials, and foundation executives. Emotional appeals will fall on largely deaf ears, because many of the audience members – some of them relatively young, newly wealthy, and financially sophisticated – pick their charities the way they pick stocks: using facts and data.

Modeled after the financing pitches that start-up companies make to venture capital firms, tonight’s event illustrates a push in the philanthropic community to help nonprofits become more businesslike, understand the language of the private sector, and win the backing of influential, deep-pocketed donors.

“We’re helping them figure out how to better present their work so that people understand the social need they’re trying to solve and how the work they’re doing is doing that effectively,” said Susan Musinsky, codirector of the Social Innovation Forum, the Cambridge program running the event, which will be held at the MIT Faculty Club. “Because the next time they make their presentations to people like this, if their stories are really good, those people might be ready to write them a check.”

Many prospective donors are turned off by pitches that try to tug at their heartstrings. Instead, they want to know if an organization is well-run, financially sound, innovative, and poised to truly make a difference – unlike an older generation of donors who often automatically gave charitable gifts to large, established institutions like museums and universities.

“I know it’s a little cold, but when I make a decision to support a nonprofit, it’s just like an investment for me,” said Bearden. “I know they’re all going to help people, so I want to give my money to someone who will help people three times as efficiently.”

Many philanthropically minded business executives, however, have little time to research worthy charities. The Social Innovation Forum, part of the nonprofit organization Root Cause, which creates partnerships between the nonprofit and private sectors, does that research for them.

Through a competitive selection process, it identifies promising Boston-area nonprofits, gives them free services like management consulting and executive coaching, and introduces them to potential donors.

Each year, six of those nonprofits, dubbed “social innovators,” make a formal, 15-minute funding appeal, complete with PowerPoint presentation and prospectus, to a large group of prospective funders.

Funders can attend only two presentations, so the nonprofits must first give a three-minute pitch aimed at persuading donors to pick their presentation.

Besides ReVision Urban Farm, the nonprofit organizations showcased at this year’s event are CitySprouts, which develops and maintains school gardens; Cradles to Crayons, which collects clothes, toys, and other items for homeless children; Girls’ LEAP, which offers programs and role models for high-risk girls ages 8 to 18; True Colors: Out Youth Theater, an acting troupe for gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender youths; and United Teen Equality Center, an agency for at-risk youth in Lowell.

Bearden’s evaluation of Kochka, the farmer at ReVision Urban Farm, came earlier this month during a practice run in front of a panel of business professionals who judged the presentations on clarity, substance, content, and professional appearance, among other factors.

Afterward, Kochka confided that he “felt nervous the whole time.” But he was grateful for the straight talk, he said.

“In the nonprofit world, we’re very supportive of each other, so we try and make people feel good about the things they do, and criticism is usually said with a dose of sugar,” Kochka said. “So it was really refreshing to have somebody be fully honest with me, especially a person who’s coming from a very professional and effective background.”

Several judges told Kochka that his presentation, which focused on the nutritional virtues of the farm’s vegetables, was off-point. Instead, they advised, it should address the program’s long-term benefits, such as how many people received job training and how that training helped them.

They also pointed out that he had never explicitly asked for their financial support, the main goal of the exercise. And, noting his tendency to fill silences with frequent “ums,” they urged him to break that habit, since silence can drive home critical points.

Jennifer White of Cradles to Crayons fared better with her practice presentation.

The judges praised her ease answering questions, but urged her to be louder and more concise. They recommended mentioning that Bain Consulting advises the group, since the prestigious firm’s name lends credibility. They also suggested she better differentiate Cradles to Crayons from nonprofits that do similar work, like Toys for Tots.

All of that, White said, was welcome feedback.

“It’s really great networking exposure, and the opportunity to tell our story to an audience such as that was huge,” she said. The input, she added, “helps us make sure that we’re making our case clearly.”

Sacha Pfeiffer can be reached at pfeiffer@globe.com.

Articles have been popping up recently examining the impact of the economic downturn on the nonprofit community. The most recent was posted yesterday on msnbc.com. Read the full article below:

Economy takes toll on relief agencies
Charities, food banks report less coming in to help rising number of poor
By Alex Johnson
Reporter
updated 8:53 a.m. CT, Mon., April. 21, 2008
This time last year, Braxter Cundiff had a job and an apartment in Albany, N.Y. Now he relies on the Capital City Rescue Mission for his meals and shelter.

“I thought I could stay in place and hold my own, and it got kind of hard,” he said. “The money I was making, living on my own, to buy food and pay rent – it was kind of real hard.”

Cundiff isn’t alone. In Albany, as in communities across the country, everyday Americans are seeking help with food and shelter in record numbers.

“It started increasing, and it just became overwhelming,” said Maxwell Amsong, a professionally trained chef who oversees food services at the nonprofit Christian mission, which served about 16,000 clients last month, a 23 percent rise over March 2007.

The story is retold over and over: 40 percent more clients for the Salvation Army in Panama City, Fla.; 20 percent more for Urban Ministries of Raleigh, N.C.; almost 200 percent more for the Community Ministries Food Pantry in Boise, Idaho.

It’s a double whammy. At the same time that the sagging economy is producing more mouths for relief agencies to feed, it is also drying up donations to help feed them.

In Raleigh, demand is so high that the Salvation Army’s soup kitchen is in danger of running out of enough food for the day’s meals.

“We were feeding 30 to 40 people a day. Now we’re up to 170 to 180 a day,” said Helen Randolph, who has run the soup kitchen for nearly 20 years. “I used to be able to make a monthly menu, but I can’t do that anymore. I have to make a day-to-day menu.”
Government programs fall short
Food prices have been rising steadily, by 4.4 percent over the past 12 months, according to economic data released last week. Gasoline is 53 cents a gallon steeper than it was a year ago. More Americans are losing their jobs, and those who do have work have seen their average weekly earnings fall for six straight months.

Everyday staples are the biggest culprit in rising food prices – the cost of bread rose by 14.7 percent in the past year, while milk was up by 13.3 percent – but the average food stamp benefit grew by only 4.8 percent, said the Agriculture Department, which administers the program. The average benefit is only $99 a month.

“We find that food stamps don’t stretch your dollar as far as they used to,” said Chris Long, a supervisor with the Department of Social Services in Washington County, Md.

And with summer coming up – when schoolchildren who get free or reduced-price lunches at school won’t get those guaranteed meals – relief agencies say they’re in a critical situation.

“People are going to continue to come in daily asking for food assistance, and the worst thing we want to do is say, ‘I’m sorry, we don’t have any of that,’” said Scott Hoover, volunteer coordinator for the Salvation Army in Panama City, Fla.

But with charitable contributions slowing to a trickle, the resources aren’t coming in.

“2007 seemed to be a typical year for fundraising until the environment changed dramatically at the end of the year with the mortgage crisis,” said Paulette V. Maehara, president of the 28,000-member Association of Fundraising Professionals, which advocates for philanthropy and ethical fundraising.

Participants in the association’s annual survey overwhelmingly chose the economy as the biggest challenge they faced in 2007. No other issue came close.

And “it looks like 2008 could be one of the most challenging years charities have seen in some time,” said Timothy R. Burcham, chairman of the association.
Donations fall off the table
The struggling economy is hammering America’s Second Harvest, the nation’s largest hunger-relief agency, representing more than 200 food banks and food-rescue missions.

Individual contributions fell by 38 percent, from $28.4 million to $17.5 million, from fiscal 2006 to fiscal 2007, according to the nonprofit agency’s financial reports. Grants from foundations fell even more sharply, by 72 percent.

In 2006, America’s Second Harvest ended the year with a $13 million surplus. It ended 2007 with a $20 million deficit. And the figures for fiscal 2008, which ends June 30, are likely to be even worse.

Poor Americans “are in desperate circumstances, struggling to keep a roof over their heads and to keep their children fed,” said Vicki Escarra, president and chief executive of America’s Second Harvest. “The recent spike in food and gasoline prices has only made a terrible situation worse.”

‘We do turn away some people’
Money is tight.

“It’s a difficult economic time right now, and individuals are holding on to a little more of their disposable income,” said Ashley Delamar, operations director for the Salvation Army of Wake County, N.C., who said the shelves were empty at the Raleigh food bank.

In Holyoke, Mass., the Salvation Army’s Christmas kettle drive fell $30,000 short of its goal of raising $150,000 this winter. The agency is planning an all-out “Christmas in July” kettle drive this summer, hoping for enough donations to keep going.

“We do turn away some people because we don’t have the funds to help,” said Capt. Persida Sanclemente of the Holyoke Salvation Army. “Everyone is struggling and everyone is feeling the pinch, so the need becomes greater.”

The Rev. Scott George, founder of the Greater Orlando (Fla.) Food Bank, said he was struck by how many people were showing up who had never used such services before.

“It seems like every day, more people are coming, and the stories are getting more and more desperate,” George said. “You can see it in their eyes.”

For Linda Lera-Randle El, executive director of Straight from the Streets, a homeless outreach group in Las Vegas, there is little to be optimistic about. She said that even as the line of hungry men and women grew longer every day outside her door, fewer dollars were coming in to help feed them.

“Once the economy goes down, the least among us are going to suffer even worse,” Lera-Randle El said. “Not only are we worried about the back door of the people who are already here, but we’re afraid the front doors are going to come off the hinges, as well.”
NBC affiliates KTVB of Boise, Idaho; KVBC of Las Vegas; WESH of Orlando, Fla.; WHAG of Hagerstown, Md.; WJHG of Panama City, Fla.; WNCN of Raleigh, N.C.; WNYT of Albany, N.Y.; WSMV of Nashville, Tenn.; and WWLP of Springfield, Mass., contributed to this report.

Click here to view CNN’s take on the issue.

 Note: A story was published on May 1 in the Tennessean giving this issue a local perspective. You can read it, by clicking here.

What are your thoughts? Has your organization felt the impact of the slowed economy? What have you done to combat these challenges?

RSVP BY FRIDAY, MAY 2NDSuper Session with

Tanya Howe Johnson, CAE – President and CEO

National Committee on Planned Giving

1st Session: – 10:00 am – 11:00 am

“Ten Notes for Fine-Tuning Your Gift Planning Program”

We all know the song, but how well do we sing it? Even the best musicians (and charitable gift planners) need an occasional voice lesson, if only to be reassured that they are still on pitch. These 10 basic notes will help you set the tune for starting, fine-tuning, or simply celebrating a successful gift planning program. This session is a basic overview of some of the fundamental “best practices” or foundations for a solid program.

11:00 – 11:15 Break

Lunch – 11:15 – 12:00 noon

2nd Session: 12:00 noon – 1:00 pm

“Strategic Decisions in Charitable Gift Planning”

In 1989 when the NCPG was created, many fundraisers aspired to become planned giving officers. They sought the pinnacle of their profession – the most specialized knowledge, the wealthiest donors, the top nonprofit salaries. NCPG grew by more than 1,000 new planned giving council members every year and it seemed that there really might be a dedicated planned giving specialist in every charitable organization.

Fifteen years later, philanthropy and fundraising practices have changed. What are these changes, how are they playing out in the current environment, and what do they mean for the future of charitable resource development and NCPG? This presentation will continue the dialogue begun by NCPG’s Strategic Initiatives project.

WHEN – Wednesday, May 7th

REGISTRATION – begins at 9:30 am

WHERE – Belmont Inman Center Health Sciences Building located on Wedgewood Blvd between 15th and 16th Avenues, in the Frist Lecture Hall on the fourth floor.

DIRECTIONS & PARKING – Enter the parking garage underneath the Inman Center from Wedgewood by the road to the left of the building and immediately make a right turn into the garage. Take the elevator to the fourth floor.

COST – $15 for PGC members, $20 guests

RESERVATIONS – Please respond to Christine McGill, christine.mcgill@curreyingram.org by noon on Friday, May 2nd. Reservations are required and cancellations after this date will be billed

For information on membership go to www.ncpg.org

Recently posted on the Tennessean’s Web site:

Local man wins International Goodwill Award

Keri Foy
Reader Submitted

Mike Eisenbraun has been selected as the 2008 recipient of Goodwill Industries International’s Edgar J. Helms Award for Staff for exemplifying Goodwill’s mission and Rev. Helms’ values of unselfish service to people with disabilities or other disadvantaging conditions.

Helms, an ordained minister, social innovator, and the founder of Goodwill, was motivated by spiritual values to improve the lives of those in need. Rev. Helms believed that unselfish service, faith, and a strong work ethic should permeate Goodwill’s mission, fostering self-reliance and success in others through training and employment.

Eisenbraun has worked at Goodwill now for almost 10 years and is currently Goodwill’s director of production. Mike manages 328 employees in Goodwill’s main processing plant. He realizes that running a efficient operation creates more job opportunities for Goodwill clients, but also uses his personal time to improve his employees’ quality of life.

From today’s Tennessean:

Strobel honors top volunteers

• The Oasis Center’s International Teen Outreach Program, recipient of the Volunteer Group Award;
• Cynthia Black, recipient of the Community-Wide Volunteer Award;
• Linda Johnston, recipient of the Direct Services Volunteer Award;
• Bailey Roberts, recipient of the Youth Volunteer Award;
• and Jim Weber and Melony Pugh-Weber, recipients of the Volunteer Innovator Award.
 

4 activists, service group recognized
Four Nashville activists and one service organization were rewarded for their efforts Wednesday night at the 22nd annual Mary Catherine Strobel Volunteer Awards, which lauds Middle Tennesseans for their volunteerism.

The winners, who were chosen from among 12 finalists, were:

Click here for pictures of the event.  For those who attended the event, put on annually by Hands On Nashville, it was a day to feel great about being a part of this special community!

The Tennessean interviews the Safe Haven board of directors president:

Former councilman takes over as family shelter’s board president

By PAM SHERBORNE
For Davidson A.M.

One of the things that impressed Jim Shulman most when he visited Safe Haven Family Shelter during a “Lunch and Learn” was how simple the concept on which the nonprofit agency is based.

Now, as president of the board of directors there, he is eager to help the nonprofit agency, which provides assistance to homeless families.

Shulman, deputy commissioner for the State Department of Health, is very active in the community. He is on the board of the Adventure Science Center, the Nashville Children’s Theatre and the Nashville City Cemetery. He also served for eight years as a Metro councilman, representing District 25.

Bruce Newport, executive director of Safe Haven, at 1234 Third Ave. S., said Shulman’s experience in small business, local and state government will “allow us to take our organization to the next level.”

“With continued public awareness and fundraising, Safe Haven can begin drafting plans for expansion and continued organizational strength,” Newport said. “Jim will be an outstanding board president.”

Board presidents serve a term of one calendar year. Afterwards, they can be re-elected for another year. Newport said most presidents serve two terms.

How did you become involved with Safe Haven?

“I had attended a ‘Lunch and Learn,’ an event they have occasionally to show people what they do. That was nine months ago. I came away thinking that the concept was so simple. They take in homeless families, get the kids back in school, bring some stability to the family and bring them back to their feet. The residents have to work. Safe Haven takes part of their wages and saves it for them. After 60 days, 90 days, whatever it takes, this money helps the families get back to a certain stability.

They also have programs in the shelter, parenting skills, things for the kids.

And, they have a phenomenal success rate. It is in the low 80 percent. What they are doing is working.

So how long afterwards did you become a board member?

“I became a board member not too long afterwards. Then, before I knew it, I was board president.”

What is your role as board president?

“My role, and the board’s role, is to provide help to the staff. This is very much of a working board. I have put up signs for events and sold tickets. I have also gone over there for their Lunch and Learn.

This Safe Haven staff has been working very hard to stabilize the agency. They have been looking for a new focus and wanting to readdress their primary focus. They have a very strong staff.”

Is there a growing need for this type of agency in Nashville?

“Last year, they had about 1,000 families on a waiting list. The need is growing, but unfortunately there is a not a lot out there for homeless families. There is such an age span. They are dealing with kids from newborns to 18 years old. Safe Haven is pretty unique in trying to address this.”

So what will the next year bring?

“We have all kinds of responsibilities. We have a long-range plan to develop. We need to look at the existing programs. We need to keep the organization financially sound and try to find a way to serve more people. We need to start looking for ways to increase the space.”

From today’s Tennessean:

Charities lose billions of dollars to theft, fraud

Nashville groups are among victims

By BOB SMIETANA
Staff Writer

Cassandra Stanfield liked to spend money.

She bought a $600,000 home outside Memphis, along with a Lexus, a Mercedes, and a Cadillac Escalade, $75,000 worth of clothing, and thousands more on jewelry, electronics and fine furnishings.

Prosecutors said Stanfield earned less than $30,000 a year as head cashier at the Regional Medical Center in Memphis but fueled her spending sprees with money intended for the hospital, operated by the Shelby County Healthcare Corp., a not-for-profit charity.

Stanfield’s case is not an isolated one. It illustrates the national problem of embezzlement among U.S. charities, particularly small ones at which trust gets in the way of solid bookkeeping practices. According to one recent study by the Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, a respected trade publication, charities were bilked of $40 billion in 2006.

Janet Greenlee, one of the study’s co-authors, said fraud happens “all the time at charities” but that few of them are willing to admit it.

“They are afraid it’s going on and not being caught,” she said. “Or they know it’s going on and don’t know what to do about it. Or they are afraid that the news will get out.”

Stanfield was sentenced earlier this month to five years in prison and ordered to repay more than $2 million she had embezzled from her employer.

The West Tennessee wo-man matched the profile of other female embezzlers, the study said. Most are women earning less than $50,000 a year who have worked at the agency for less than three years. They usually do not have a criminal record.

“It’s usually someone who is indispensable,” said Greenlee.

That’s something members of the Granbery Elementary School PTA in Nashville found out in 2006, after discovering that volunteer co-president Julie Ann Taylor Buchanan had stolen nearly $150,000.

At Buchanan’s sentencing, Carol Burgess, the group’s former treasurer, described Taylor’s steadfast service.

“Julie was always there,” Burgess said. “You could always count on her.”

Small groups vulnerable

Dennis Dycus, director of the division of municipal audit for the Tennessee state comptroller’s office, said schools-related groups, like the PTA or sports boosters, are particularly vulnerable to fraud because they have few financial controls in place.

Small nonprofits that rely primarily on volunteers often don’t take basic precautions to prevent fraud, such as having two people present whenever cash is counted, or separating duties when handling a checking account. If the same person who writes checks also reconciles the bank account, that leaves the door wide open for fraud, Greenlee said.

William Maxwell, administrative director for the Tennessee Baptist Convention, said many of his organization’s almost 3,000 congregations are too small to hire professional accountants. But they can safeguard funds by using “the rule of two,” where financial duties are always split.

“If it’s a small church with volunteer treasurer,” he said, “we talk about delegation of duties, like having a different person to count the money, a different person to write the checks, and a different person to balance the checkbook.”

Ken Behr, president of the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability, said putting those kinds of simple principles into place can drastically reduce fraud.

“An ounce of prevention goes a long way, he said.

Having hard and fast financial procedures seems foreign to many small nonprofits, which thrive on a culture of trust and friendship. But when it comes to money, trust is a luxury nonprofits can’t afford, Greenlee said.

3 motivating factors

Most people who steal from charities do so because of three factors: opportunity, some kind of personal crisis, and an ability to rationalize their actions.

“It usually starts out with someone who needs a little cash to get through to the end of the month,” Maxwell said, “and it will snowball from there.”

The study in the Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly is the second recent report to suggest that charity fraud is widespread.

The findings were similar to a 2007 study conducted by two researchers at Villanova University in suburban Philadelphia who surveyed chief financial officers at 174 U.S. Catholic dioceses about theft. Seventy-eight dioceses responded and researchers were shocked to learn that 85 percent had experienced fraud at local parishes within the last five years.

Tennessee isn’t immune

The impact on charities and churches in Tennessee is difficult to calculate because no central agency collects comprehensive statistics. But it happens here.

In January 2007, Sherry Dorris, the part-time treasurer for Neely’s Bend Baptist Church in Madison, was sentenced to eight years probation for embezzling more than $97,000 from the church.

In November 2006, Zoya Tanmaya Zakwan, bookkeeper for the First Cumberland Presbyterian Church in Murfreesboro, was indicted for stealing more than $60,000, mainly by using church credit cards for personal purchases.

In February, she pleaded guilty to theft over $1,000, got two years probation and was ordered to pay $73,256 in restitution.

Davidson County Assistant District Attorney Jim Milam said there had been eight cases – two involving about $150,000 each – brought to trial over the last two years in Davidson County.

When auditors discover fraud at large charities, they are required to report it to the state comptrollers office. Anti-fraud experts also say it’s essential to call the police, even if fraud happens at a church. Otherwise, a thief may simply go on to rob another charity.

“We want these cases to be prosecuted so that someone who steals from a charity cannot turn around and victimize another charity without being punished,” Milam said.

He added that almost any charity that experiences fraud is likely to end stronger afterward. “They almost always end up with better financial controls,” he said.

Habitat bounced back

At least one Nashville-area charity found the silver lining after experiencing fraud.

In 2001, an employee of Nashville Habitat for Humanity was charged with embezzling more than $40,000. Kathy L. Dixon pleaded guilty and received a 12-year sentence for theft of property.

Until that time, the charity had run an operation more concerned about the feel-good aspects of its work than the business side of charity, said Chris McCarthy, executive director of Nashville Habitat.

When McCarthy joined Habitat in 2002, she instituted strong financial controls and staff training.

“I wanted to set up policies so that if I was going to give them money, I wanted to be sure it was going to be used well,” McCarthy said. “This is too much hard work to let anyone steal from donations.”

Most folks are familiar with the book, “Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap…and Others Don’t.” Written by Jim Collins, the book became a fixture on The New York Times bestseller list, among others. In this interesting interview conducted by Marcia Stepanek of New York Contribute Magazine, Collins discusses a recent 36-page monograph he wrote on applying the principles of “Good to Great” to the social sector. Here is an excerpt of the interview:

Contribute: What can charities learn about greatness from business?
We have to reject the idea, well intentioned but dead wrong, that the primary path to greatness in the social sectors is simply to become more like a business.Collins: The truth is that most businesses aren’t great, and so we can’t learn about greatness by just looking at what the average business does. Most businesses are just average by definition.So the really critical difference is not between business and nonbusiness. It’s the difference between great and good: there are great social sector enterprises, there are great companies, and there are mediocre social enterprises and there are mediocre companies. The disciplines of greatness are not the disciplines of business. In fact, truly great nonprofits will share more in common with a great corporation than a great corporation will share in common with an average corporation.

You can read the full interview by clicking here. What are your thoughts? Do you think great nonprofits have a lot in common with great corporations?