Leading with Vision: Strategizing for Excellence

We are looking forward to seeing you April 22nd-24th in Houston, TX for the 40th Annual AJFCA Conference. Please visit Annual Conference on the AJFCA website for details about the Houston Intercontinental Hotel, where we'll be hosting the conference, travel and local attractions.

Registration materials will be available shortly. In the meantime, please feel free to review the conference timeline (for travel purposes) located on the AJFCA website under, Annual Conference, Calendar of Events.  

2012 Conference Awards

AJFCA and the Conference Awards Judges are thrilled to present the guidelines for the KOVOD, Distinguished Service, Leadership and TrailBlazer awards for this year's conference. This year's KOVOD Award categories, (which are listed below) are focused on bringing out best practices in programming among JFCS agencies through North America. We are eager to receive submissions and learn even more about the creative and innovative work you do within your agencies and for the communities you serve.  

• Creative Use of Volunteers in Client Services
• Effective Use of Social Media
• JF&CS Collaborative Program (submitted by a member agency or agencies)
• Best Practices in Connecting Judaism to Client Programming  

If you have any questions of concerns please contact Megan.

Sustaining Innovation

Sustaining Innovation, eJP, January 4, 2012 by Stephen G. Donshik
Any professional or lay leader of a nonprofit organization is familiar with the perpetual quest for innovation. Responding to the needs of the community in fresh and cutting edge ways is not only a constant challenge, it is often compounded by the additional task of presenting these new ideas to funders or supporters.

Present and prospective donors are always interested in what is unique, innovative and/or creative about a new program and the way it responds to the community's needs. It is no longer enough to provide services. At the same time, there is a price for maintaining a strong commitment to creative approaches. How do voluntary agencies sustain funding for sometimes risky and innovative ideas? How do they continually search for new ways of providing social, health and/or educational services and at the same time sustain the services over time?

At the 2012 AJFCA Annual Conference you will have the opportunity to participate in workshop sessions detailing the creation of innovative programming as well as generating revenue for your agency. 

Nonprofit Capacity Needs More Investment

Nonprofit Capacity Needs More Investment, eJP, December 19, 2011, by Todd Cohen 

Nonprofits face a crisis in their organizational "capacity," and their boards and funders need to step up to help address it. Traditionally expected to do more with less, nonprofits are strained to the limit because of the wounded economy, with many of them at serious risk of failure.

Facing rising demand for services because the economy has hammered their clients, nonprofits also have had to cut their budgets, freeze or cut their staffs, salaries and benefits, and intensified the pressure on staffs already under stress and often headed toward burnout and the exit. Yet instead of actively piloting their organizations through a storm that is setting off alarm bells, nonprofit boards keep hitting the snooze button.  

Cohen believes nonprofit boards and philanthropic funders can take a big step in helping to address the urgent social and global problems nonprofits face.

Several 2012 AJFCA Annual Conference workshops will focus on and explore the role board members and lay leaders play in fundraising and marketing. 

If you would like to join a forum, please email Barbara your name, your agency and the name of the forum(s) you would like to join. Barbara will email you your username and password once you have been entered.    

International Holocaust Remembrance Day - Friday, January 27th  

On January 27th each year, the United Nations (UN) remembers the Holocaust. This day is called the International Day of Commemoration in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust.

The day also commemorates when the Soviet troops liberated the Nazi concentration and death camp Auschwitz-Birkenau in Poland on January 27, 1945. It is hoped that through remembering these events, people will remember the Holocaust and prevent genocide.

We also honor the victims and survivors on Yom Hashoah, on the 27th day of Nisan of the Hebrew calendar (typically during the month of April). This date coincides with the anniversary of the Warsaw ghetto uprising and the liberation of the concentration camps in Western Europe.    

Aryeh Sherman, CEO of Jewish Family & Children's Service of Pittsburgh wrote a piece about International Holocaust Remembrance Day in his agency's January 25th e-newsletter, noting the significance of JFCS agency's regarding holocaust survivors, their clients, and our communities. 

Aryeh wrote, "Sixty-seven years ago this coming Friday, the gates of Auschwitz-Birkenau opened and those who survived are living memorials to those who were lost. As Elie Wiesel once said, remembering has become 'the sacred duty of all people of goodwill.'''   

Yad Vashem's invites member agencies to take an active role in the worldwide outreach efforts for the Shoah Victims' Names Recovery Project on this day of remembrance. Please read their January newsletter to learn more about commemoration events and the 2012 International Poster Competition-Keeping the Memory Alive.   

Three Thank You Templates and You're OUT!

Three Thank You Templates and You're OUT!, eJP, January 20, 2012 by Deborah Kaplan Polivy, Ph.D. 

According to Deborah Kaplan Polivy, "Personal acknowledgements take time, a thought process and some creativity. However, they can be a highly profitable investment in the future of an organization. They help ensure continuous giving and can even lead to that final donation that remains in perpetuity - the endowment."

Nonprofit organizations spend a great deal of time soliciting donations as well as acknowledging gifts. But, with limited resources-time, donors often not only feel but notice that the thank yous they receive from their favorite charity are templates seen year after year.

Whenever possible and especially in cases involving a new donor, an increased donation, or a large donation a personal phone call or letter with a message that indicates a cultivated relationship is a best practice.

Read more about Deborah's thoughts regarding more personal thank you communication sent to donors.

Three things are known about the nonprofit annual report: it takes a ton of time to put together beautifully, few people actually read it, but funders require it. The annual report is one of those pieces of communication and collateral that executive directors and development directors dread putting together because it is such a costly endeavor with relatively little return and short shelf life. It doesn't have to be that way in the age of social. We've socialized constituent communication, websites, fundraising, and events...why not rethink the annual report into a social communication? Several nonprofit organizations have done just that, transforming the paper annual report into a video report, and reinvigorating it in the process.

Video is a natural medium for storytelling, and that's what the annual report should be. 

40+ Social Media Dashboard Tools for Tracking Stuff

40+ Social Media Dashboard Tools for Tracking Stuff, Idealware, Barry Hurd Blog, November 17, 2011, by Barry Hurd blog

As part of Barry Hurd's on-going work developing social media for business units, he's often asked about what types of tools he uses for tracking all that 'social media stuff.'

The basic answer is that he doesn't have one tool (he has dozens, if not hundreds.) The real answer is that he is not tracking social media. He is tracking key performance indicators (KPI). He doesn't care if it is a shipping problem or a viral YouTube video. He simply wants to know how he can track it, manage it, and maximize results. With that said: when Barry thinks about creating a social media dashboard or using a platform to track results... he is looking at several unique business identifiers that define what tool he needs for the job at hand.

• Who is going to use it?
• Who needs to digest the end information?
• Does it need to tie into legacy systems?
• What business metrics does one need to map against online touch points?
• Where and when is this data consumed?
• What is the data one wants and does one need another tool to communicate it?
• What does all this really mean?
• Did one share the information with the right people? 

Barry has a strategic idea . . . now what?