If you have not discovered the Live Chats with The Chronicle of Philanthropy, you will not want to miss checking out some of their informative expert-led discussions on many subjects of interest to nonprofits – from fundraising and marketing to social media and media outreach.

The next topic is: Getting Good News Coverage: How to Persuade Journalists to Cover Your Cause on December 1, 9 a.m. Pacific Time.

For many nonprofits, a good way to get the attention of prospective donors, volunteers, public officials, clients and constituents is by building visibility through the media.

The moderator, Peter Panepento, and experts plan to cover:

• How to get the attention of journalists in a competitive landscape
• The most effective pitches
• The most common errors nonprofit groups make when they approach reporters and editors
• How to build productive relationships with reporters and editors

For the chats you can submit your questions in advance or follow along on with the conversation.

The Chronicle also maintains transcripts of past discussions. A few of my favorites include:

• Creating Effective Marketing Messages with Nancy E. Schwartz, author of the Getting Attention blog
• The Philosophy of Giving with Karen Ansara, co-founder of The Ansara Family Fund, a donor-advised fund at the Boston Foundation, and Anne Ellinger, co-director of Bolder Giving
• Building Meaningful Alliances With Other Nonprofit Groups with Clara Miller and Thomas A. McLaughlin of the Nonprofit Finance Fund and Elizabeth Boone, artistic and executive director of Miami Light Project
• Foundation Giving: What Might the Future Hold? with Bradford K. Smith, president of the Foundation Center
• Shaking Up Journalism and Philanthropy with Alberto Ibargüen, president of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation
• What’s the Payoff? How Charities Can Figure Out How Much Time and Money to Invest in Social Networking with Beth Kanter, social media guru

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Last Friday I attended “Relationship Building: What We Can Learn from Alumni Groups.” Co-sponsored by Development Executives Roundtable (DER) and the Foundation Center in San Francisco, three panelists from Bay Area educational institutions talked about how they cultivated longtime donors through relationship building with program alumni. The insights they shared could apply to many nonprofits seeking to build a stronger funding base and support, especially those with alumni groups or memberships.

Moderated by Kelli Nakayama, a DER board member and grants manager for Children’s Hospital and Research Center Foundation, the panelists represented a diversity of Bay Area organizations:

• Sue Merrill, Annual Giving Manager, University of California San Francisco (UCSF) - a large public educational and research institution
• June Thompson, Executive Director of California Association of Student Councils (CASC) – a student-led nonprofit for youth leadership training with a staff of two
• Patricia Cavagnaro, Director of Development, Immaculate Conception Academy – a 126-year old Catholic high school for girls in the Mission District of San Francisco

10 Tips for Building Relationships

1. Give program alumni, members and other supporters (volunteers, donors) multiple ways to get together because they will want to meet each other and see each other.
2. Send a regular e-newsletter and ask your constituents what articles they want.
3. Tell potential donors where their dollars will go. What will their contributions support? Be specific.
4. Ask beneficiaries of your programs or services to write thank you letters to donors, telling them how their support made a difference in their lives
5. Give beneficiaries multiple ways to “give back.” If you maintain relationships with beneficiaries, such as program alumni, oftentimes they will want to give back in the future.
6. Acknowledge donors to thank them for their generosity. Donor walls are a great way to do that. You can also think of creative ways to build and expand the wall over time (Immaculate Conception Academy came up with an innovative and creative solution).
7. Explore social media as part of your communications strategy, especially if you are building connections among supporters.
8. Manage donor/volunteer/alumni information effectively with constituent databases (Idealware article).
9. Use tools to capture best practices and manage institutional knowledge, especially if your organization relies on a large number of volunteers, peer-to-peer training or high turnover. CASC set up a wiki to support their elaborate transition process for volunteers. For help with wikis, Idealware published a how-to article called “Using Wikis for Internal Documentation.”
10. Thank and acknowledge. Thank and acknowledge.

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Yesterday San Francisco launched RecoverySF.org to highlight the progress of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) in the City and County of San Francisco. The idea is to build transparency so communities can track grants that San Francisco has applied for and won, view official correspondence with federal and state agencies and learn about upcoming public meetings.

While it might appear that the City has received awards of close to $300 million for projects ranging from transportation to work force development, these are only projections. The City must apply for and win the competitive grant awards before the money can be channeled to local projects.

The City promises to post announcements when ARRA funds have been fully awarded and obligated to San Francisco.

California and the federal government have also set up Web sites to track stimulus dollars.

The federal site is: www.recovery.gov.

The state site is recovery.ca.gov

For a complete list of all Recovery Act programs, visit Grants.gov.

See my previous blog post on the Recovery Act for more resources.

Nonprofit Strategies for Tough Times: Economic Stimulus Act FAQ (Philanthropy News Digest blog- PhilanTopic)

Updates:
5/21/09: Recovery.org, run by a private company, might make searching and tracking federal stimulus projects easier to follow than the federal government site Recovery.gov, as recently reported in the Washington Post.

5/22/09: The City of Oakland recently set up www.oaklandstimulus.com for tracking the status of the city’s requests for federal stimulus funds.

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