The following excerpt is from an article that originally appeared in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. Read the full article at http://www.star-telegram.com/local/story/1955239.html

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 Dallas-based Executives in Action lends expertise to nonprofits

Working alongside its managers since December are 10 mostly out-of-work executives dispatched by Executives in Action, a Dallas nonprofit started a year ago and making its first big push into Tarrant County. The executives are refining information technology, facilities management, funding strategies, the endowment plan, and a program that employs residents at a cafe and caterer.

"What a great opportunity to have management plans examined, at no cost to us," said Executive Director Steve Dutton, who met with the facilities team last week. That group includes Kevin Hallett of Flower Mound, a longtime Citigroup IT executive; Norbert White of Keller, who ran carrier alliances at Verizon Business; and Ron Stutes, a retired John Peter Smith Hospital construction executive.

"Fresh eyes," Dutton said during the meeting.

The Samaritan House project exemplifies what husband-and-wife founders Chris Kleinert and Ashlee Hunt Kleinert say they were looking for when they launched Executives in Action.

The Kleinerts -- he's chairman of Dallas' Hunt Investment Group and a 1992 Texas Christian University MBA graduate, and she's an event planner and daughter of Dallas investor Ray Hunt -- were seeing the recession's effects. Many of their friends were losing good jobs, and nonprofits that the Kleinerts support were getting the squeeze.

How to help both? the couple wondered.

"This is not about rescuing a white male executive," Chris Kleinert said. "It's about the social fabric that begins to unravel when somebody, when that head of a family, is out of a job."

For the executives like Hallett, who lost his job at Citigroup two years ago after more than 20 years there, it's a great way to lend a hand, network, take a break from a grueling job search, and even broaden skills.

"I'm learning a lot about facilities that I didn't know," said Hallett, who estimates he spends two days a week on the projects.

Executives in Action pays a $125-per-day honorarium for a three-month commitment of two days a week. It wants to support more projects in Fort Worth, Kleinert said.

Jeremy Gregg, chief of Executives in Action, said the group did a small project last year at SafeHaven of Tarrant County, is discussing a project that would place executives at Boys & Girls Clubs and wants to team with TCU alumni.

"There's a significant number of executives in that area we want to employ and a significant number of nonprofits we want to work with," Kleinert said.

Broadening their outlook

For Samaritan House, the loaner executives came at a good time.

The organization, founded in 1993, housed just 32 people in 2000. Now it has 350 at its south-side campus and another facility. A few years ago, it decided that it wanted to open another campus in Fort Worth and serve 300 to 400 more people.

The goal is to open it in three to five years. Dutton is looking for sites in Fort Worth and, if the financial markets continue to rebound, expects to seek federal tax credits for investors in 2011. One potential site is on West Vickery Boulevard near Bryant Irvin Road.

Looking ahead to the day when HIV is potentially eradicated, Dutton said he wants to remove HIV as a criterion for acceptance into Samaritan House programs.

"The community needs more housing like this; it needs more affordable housing," said Dutton, a former American Airlines executive who came to Samaritan House as director in 1996. "I think the timing is right for us to look beyond our original mission."

The loaner executives have one month left to finish their reports, but that won't necessarily end Executives in Action's commitment.

"We're talking to Samaritan House about a long-term engagement," Gregg said.

The Kleinerts, who put up a $500,000 challenge grant as part of the organization's $1.2 million fundraising goal this year, say the nonprofits get much more work value than is reflected by the small stipends the executives receive. A former retail executive who developed a marketing plan while on loan to Dallas' Contact Crisis Line -- a favorite charity of the Kleinerts' -- was later hired as development director.

"Unbelievable work he did for them," Ashlee Kleinert said. "He added so much value, they went to their board and asked whether there was any way they could hire him."

Leveraging talents

Executives in Action, which shunned publicity last year as it honed its approach, is now inviting sponsors. Marketing companies can sponsor marketing projects; financial companies can sponsor audits. Even one day's stipend is a potential sponsorship, Chris Kleinert said.

"There's a 10-to-1 multiplier," he said. "A gift of $125 is really worth 10 times that, based on the value of the consulting and the work going on."

Executives in Action teamed 107 executives with nonprofits last year. Twenty-five subsequently found jobs, including at least three with the nonprofits where they worked, Gregg said. About half the executives turn down their honorariums, Gregg said.

Last year, Executives in Action had a $250,000 operating budget. With the Kleinerts' challenge grant and a $100,000 challenge grant from another donor, the organization has half this year's fundraising goal in hand and expects to place 200 or more executives this year, Gregg said.

Samaritan House reflects the significant shift in focus made last year, from small jobs to large team projects, he said.

At a Samaritan House meeting last week led by White, recommendations focused on how software used for property management could also be used to automate maintenance schedules. White is also helping the endowment team write policies to safeguard funds.

For White, 58, who lost his job at Verizon 15 months ago, Samaritan House has a personal connection: A former college roommate died of AIDS in the 1980s.

He's looking in telecom and other industries. As an out, he and his wife, an interior designer, are considering opening a design store.

White says he perceives an uptick in opportunities since New Year's, though many are contract opportunities with no benefits and lower pay. White also views his age -- he turned 58 last week -- as a hindrance. Many employers view older workers as overqualified, too expensive and bearing uncertain upside, he said.

The Samaritan House experience has changed him, White said. He's volunteered as a youth mentor and for various groups, but he says he could have done more.

"I really had the time, but I didn't make it a high enough priority," he said. "As I shape my future, I'm going to leave a space in my life to contribute this way. Only losing my job caused me to see it."

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Samaritan House has been selected as one of three finalists in the "House the Homeless" category (3rd page) in an online grant competition. Project 7 will give $15,000 to the organization with the most votes. 

Please support Samaritan House by voting through Jan. 31st at www.project7.com/voting. 

You can only vote once per e-mail address, so invite your friends to go online and vote too.  With your help, Samaritan House will win the vote.  Thanks for your support!

You can read the press release here.

As fundraisers, what can we do to reverse the two-year downward trend in donations that many are projecting? How can we raise our game in a way that challenges the donor community to raise theirs?

Some ideas for resolutions that we should all consider:

• I will treat donors like people instead of checkbooks.
• I will treat volunteers like valuable assets rather than pairs of hands.
• I will not exploit my clients to raise money, but will honor their stories as examples of human triumph more than organizational by-product.
• I will acknowledge that my job is not fundraising, not even friendraising, but life-changing -- starting with my own, then rippling out through donors to affect the lives of those who depend on my organization.
• I will also accept the truth of "No margin, no mission" -- and will run my business as if I owned it.
• I will embrace transparency as the pinnacle of good stewardship, and endeavor to be honest and forthright in all of my communications with active and prospective supporters.
• I will focus on relationships so that the true impact of my work will not be seen until I am gone.
• I will not seek to raise funds from my donors, but from their grandchildren; if I can make such a profound impact on my donors' lives that their own children and grandchildren will be pulled in to my organization, I will have accomplished my task.
• I will not carve off a larger piece of the pie, but will work to inspire a movement to increase the size of the pie for everyone. If one of my initiatives is so effective that it increases a donors' overall commitment to philanthropy, I will have accomplished my task (even if my organization's own receipts do not change).
• I will build at least one collaborative partnership with a peer in another organization -- learning from each other, supporting each other, celebrating each other's successes and inspiring each other.
• I will donate more than I have ever donated before, and will do so joyfully.

Today, let us do all that we can to improve tomorrow.

Happy new year,

Jeremy

Not only is this great cultivation, but it’s viral if you use the Facebook component. Remember: Your job is not to recruit donors, but to turn donors into fundraising ambassadors for your organization.

I missed out on Elvis' domination, and wasn't around to see Beatlemania. I am grateful I was not alive during the disco era, and am still a little angry that I was not around for punk rock's emergence. By the time I was old enough to appreciate music, the world was in throes of 1980s hair rock and piano keyboards... so, I tuned out.

But then the 1990s came, and I fell in love with music for the first time. The indie rock scene was blossoming, and the grunge groups of Seattle were not yet household names. 

It seemed like everyone had their favorite "unpopular" band. Indeed, fame became a curse that drove away the initially rabid fan base of many an otherwise awesome rocker. Some groups tried their best to fight appearing too "commercial," with Pearl Jam even taking the step to boycott playing shows at venues that were in the grips of Ticketmaster.

That world no longer exists. Pearl Jam has now signed with Target to release their latest album -- and people have moved from having their favorite indie rock band to making music an ongoing part of their life. Thanks to the ever-present iPods and smartphones that keep us all constantly plugged in to our catalog of thousands of songs, music has become like air -- necessary to live, but unappreciated. Or, at least, no longer appreciated as a differentiator.

Having a favorite indie rock band no longer makes us unique. So now, rather than bragging to our friends about knowing a band that they don't know, we each have our favorite charity.

Microlending. Social enterprise. Cause branding. Why is it that so many people now know this silly jargon?

Because nonprofits are the new rock bands.

In the online world, we are not people. We are a brand. Our Facebook pages and Twitter accounts become places to promote our values, to align ourselves with complementary brands and to give the appearance that we are, indeed, the person we aspire to be at our highest and best moments.

When we align ourselves with United Way or American Red Cross, that says something about us. But its like saying your favorite band is The Beatles -- who doesn't like them?

However, when I visit your Facebook page and see that you support Charity:Water or The Chiapas Project, I think, "Wow, this person is really cool."

Because good is the new cool.

Think about it. Bill Gates was a total nerd, and everyone hated him when he became the wealthiest man in the world. And then his amazing wife convinced him that they should give it all away, and suddenly he is on the cover of TIME Magazine with U2's Bono.

Congratulations, nonprofiteers. We are all rock stars now. And thanks to people like Robert Egger, we're actually beginning to look the part.

“Our 2010 reception area sponsor is MR. & MRS. BEN E. FACTOR.”

Thanks to EIA member Dreama Gasaway for connecting me to this wonderful resource!

"Effective Capacity Building in Nonprofit Organizations brings some common language to the discussion of capacity building and offers insights and examples of how nonprofits have pursued building up their organizational muscle. The report contributes to the growing national conversation about how to help nonprofits become stronger, more sustainable, and better able to serve their communities. McKinsey & Company prepared the study at the request of VPP. McKinsey also developed a practical assessment tool for this report that nonprofits can use to measure their own organizational capacity. We hope that nonprofits and funders alike find value in this report."

Download the full report here:

http://venturephilanthropypartners.org/learning/reports/capacity/capacity.html