Waiting Around the Bend

Dan McCormickCEO McCormick Group

May 23, 2013

What’s All This About and Why Should I Care

“We know something's happening, and we're beginning to sense what it is. We're speeding up; our technology is speeding up; our arts and entertainment and the pace of invention and change -- it's all speeding up. And we care. If we don't understand time, we become its victims.”

---from Faster: The Acceleration of Just About Everything by James Gleick

3 Books To Read

Present Shock Douglas Rushkoff

With Charity for All Ken Sterns

Faster, the Acceleration of just about everything James Gleick

The Game Has Changed

YouTube has 800 million distinct views of content each day

Target can predict when its customers are pregnant and nearing the birth of a baby based on the products they purchases

Google can predict the incidence of flu weeks before the Center of Disease Control knows there’s a problem by analyzing search words

There are 400 million tweets per day on Twitter

Facebook reports its 1B + users hits the like button and or leaves a comment 3 Billion times a day

Cell Phones Alone

83% of all Americans have cell phone

36% of households are wireless only (no landline)

73% send and received texts - Teens send 60 text per day

More than 2 trillion SMS were sent in the US in 2012 – 6 billion per day

December 2012 CTIA facts

Our Lives Have Changed

Camera Film Photos

Music CD’s VCR and Video Tapes

Writing Letters Bookstores

Travel Agents Printed Maps

Classified Ads in Newspapers Dial Up Internet Access

Yellow Pages and Address BooksEncyclopedias

Fax Machines Pay Phones

Online Shopping

 39% of adults with household incomes of at least $75K shopped at Ebay in the last 12 months.

69% of US adults shopped at Amazon.com over the past 12 months as opposed to 55% for Walmart, 49% for Target

80% of all auto purchases are initiated online

eBay and Amazon account for 70% of the mobile commerce market place.

Apple ITunes sold 25 Billion tracks in 8 years (28% of all music sales)

SOURCE – Factbrowser.com

Our Business is Changing Too

The Salvation Army has set up a system where people in Columbus, Ohio, can text the word "kettle" to the organization, and the phone carrier adds $5 to the texter's phone bill

American Cancer Society is posting peoples' stories through photos and videos to demonstrate passion for their cause. sharinghope.tv.

Just having a click through for a credit card gift on your wed site is not nearly enough in today's competitive environment

It Really Started in Haiti

Total giving to the Haiti earthquake tragedy in the US was $1.4 billion

Before the earthquake in Haiti, total giving via texting stood at just $1 million.

A few months after the earthquake, donors had given more than $50 million via texting to support Haiti relief efforts. (source Charity Navigator)

Haiti telethon first round raised $35 million

Why Does This Matter

It creates an expectation that you can give quickly, safely and easily

Giving, even $5 on a text message gives the donor a sense of helping and satisfies any guilt and or feeling of a need to give

It makes saying “I have already given” not only easier but true

What Do The Names Below Have in Common?

Network for Good.orgRazoo.com

Firespring.orgJustGive.org

Charity NavigatorVirgin Money Giving

Donation ToCharity WatchSecure GiveEver Ribbon

Funds for Your LifeSimple Give

eTransferCauses

 

What About the Competition

You can set up a new charitable organization and begin raising money instantly

Over the last two decades the charitable sector has grown by more than 155% far outstripping all other

According to a Stanford University Study the IRS approves more than 99.5 percent of all charitable applications

There’s a Dark Side

Following Hurricane Katrina, the FBI estimated that 2400 fake charity Web sites were set up

More than 59,000 charities with the word “Veteran” in their Name – many unscrupulous or complete shams U.S. Navy Veterans Association (USNVA) founded in 2002 raised more than

$100 Million in donations. Less than 1% went to veterans.

Why Does This Matter

The competition is strong and immediate

The process is much quicker to the market place and catches attention

There is a growing expectation of availability to contribute that way

Its cheap and easy

The money raised is not new money its part of the whole philanthropic pie

Online Giving Snapshot

The total number of groups raising money online grew 20% from 2011 to 2012 (88,400 – 106,000)

Average online gift $77

More people give online on Monday and Tuesday but gifts on Thursday and Friday are larger by over $15 per gift

http://philanthropy.com/article/Online-Giving-Grew-Rapidly-in/135992/

Its Not the Technologyit’s the Behavior

It’s the fact that people are changing the way they live, work and give and its changing faster than ever before

As online giving becomes more available the numbers will continue to rise – currently double digit increases each year

Here and Now

There are a lot of change agents out there now

Some will impact our organization significantly

They tend to happen faster than one might think

We need to help our organization become agile at adaption

We need to develop systems and processes that will help us be better positioned

“Everything is Fine”

This is the NPO mantra…..we fool ourselves in thinking that all is well

We tend to downplay downturns

We have an expectation that tried and true methods that were successful in years past will once again somehow, magically work

We have a tendency to “spin” out data and current situation rather than face the fact that we are in a dramatic decline

Look at Us

UWW does an annual survey on community perception of our Local United Ways – less than 5% of UWs subscribe to the data

Even when UWW offers a process on how to get the data and survey done free, local UWs do not get and use the data

Amara’s Law

 “We tend to overestimate the effect of a technology in the short run and underestimate the effect in the long run.” – Roy Amara was a researcher, scientist and past president of the Institute for the Future

“We tend to underestimate the impact of downtrend and overestimate the impact of up trends”

What Should We Do?

Recognize trends and technologies that will impact us earlier

Become “pre-active”….”pro-active” is not fast enough and “reactive” is way too late

Morph our organization agile entities with the capacity to respond quickly and have resilience through change

What Can We Begin To Do

First – do a real and truthful assessment of our current state

Look at trends from the last 2 to 5 years

Believe the results

Look for aberrations that may make the trend line average either worse or better and discount that number

Don’t do it alone

Create a Committee of Futurists

Develop a standing committee of staff and volunteers

Charged with looking at existing and coming trends, technologies and topics

Look outside of your current board Forward thinkers Entrepreneurs Local technology gurus University research types Communications and media people and marketing experts People that think about the future

Futurist Committee

8 to 10 people is plenty

Meet 2 to 4 times a year for a few hours

Establish an agenda that helps them focus on your mission, operations and functions in light of what they know, thinking and believe about the near term future

Don’t expect them to problem solve, just enlighten us about what’s coming around the bend

Tomorrows Matrix

Develop a “matrix” of interaction of current trends and technologies and their impact upon mission and functions

This is a low tech way of vetting new ideas and technologies that are here or on the way and determining the following: Is it going to impact us? If so how? When can we expect to feel the impact? How much is is going to cost to position and get ready for it?

Trend Matrix

Facebook

Twitter

CRM Software

CrowdSourcing Constituent

Relationships

Operations

Mission

Fundraising

Community Change

Using New Components

Its not enough to say you have Facebook, Twitter etc. The real issue is what is your plan for its use

Nicholas Sparks – Author of the Notebook and 16 other NYT best sellers and 9 movies Use of Facebook

1.6M Likes Promotes his books and book signings and events Sells books Raises money for his charitable interest Helps his fans feel closer to him and his family

The Agile Organization

What we are really learning is that the change agents are coming at us faster and faster.

If we are going to have a chance we must help our organizations develop the ability to change…quickly and often

Easier Said Than Done

Create a “culture” of adapting to change

Breakdown legacy habits

Foster an organizational expectation of agility

Educate our board of directors of the critical need to be more agile

“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.” Charles Darwin

Characteristics of an Agile Organization

The Volunteer Leadership has confidence in their CEO The CEO has the confidence and trust of his or her senior

leadership The CEO and the Volunteer Leadership share the same

vision The organization is not surprised by incremental and

significant strategic and tactical changes Innovation is “ALWAYS” mission driven Risk vs. Reward makes sense

Becoming more Agile

There is no personal or political penalty for being innovative

Staff, at all levels, do not fear change or jump to the conclusion that all change is bad

Organizational Life Cycles

Enthusiastic entrepreneurial start up

Growing, strengthening and envisioning possibilities

Maturing into sustainability and well being

Declining from lack of innovation and relevance

Organizational Life Cycle

Time

Succ

ess

Turnaround

Maturing

Growth

Start Up

Dissolution

Decline

StagnateComplace

nt

Sustaining

It Takes Capacity

Smaller organization and those that are at the plateau and beginning decline are usually heavily committed in human and financial resources

Hard to find the time to reconfigure the organization because of the pressures of daily functionality and staying afloat

Financial capacity and human resources are limited Stability of current mission support with options to grow

becomes a rare commodity

Building Capacity

Collaboration

Consolidation of some or all of your business functions

Sharing services and innovation

Merging with like minded organization

“Larger does not mean loss of local!”

Organizational Choices

Stay the course and live out your trend lines

Seek ways to reinvent your organization and hope it works

Become more open and more adaptive resulting in more agility and ready for change

Actively grow capacity quickly through collaboration, consolidation, joint ventures and mergers with sister organizations

Constant and Relentless

We tend to exist in a distracted present, where forces on the periphery are magnified and those immediately before us are ignored. Our ability to create a plan – much less follow through on it – is undermined by our need to be able to improvise our way through any number of external impacts that stand to derail us at any moment. Douglass Russkoff – “Present Shock” 2013

Thank You!