June 2007 Brown Bag Minutes (1st Brown Bag)

In this first Brown Bag, panelist Chuck Bean (Executive Director, Nonprofit Roundtable of Greater Washington) discussed the “Beyond Charity” project undertaken by the Nonprofit Roundtable of Greater Washington in partnership with the World Bank. This project (which resulted in the late 2007 publication of the Beyond Charity report) focused on providing nonprofit leaders in the region with examples and tools to communicate the value of nonprofit organizations.

Nonprofit Montgomery! and
Montgomery County Office of Community Partnerships (OCP)

Brown Bag Lunch #1

“How should we better measure and communicate the value of nonprofits?”

June 19, 2007

Meeting Notes

Welcome and Introduction
Bruce Adams and MaryAnn Holohean welcomed the participants to the First Brown Bag Lunch.

Purpose of monthly “Brown Bags”
To build relationships/partnerships between Montgomery County government and the nonprofit sector.

Brief Introduction to Nonprofit Montgomery!
° A newly organized effort to build the collective strength, visibility and influence of Montgomery County’s nonprofit sector
° Nonprofit Montgomery! seeks to bring collective leadership together across the nonprofit sector in the “new” Montgomery County: encompassing large anchor organizations; mid-size nonprofits; newer nonprofits that are developing from communities both new to Montgomery County or underserved within the county; DC-based nonprofits that are developing new programs within the county for their constituents; and faith-based organizations.
° The goal is to have a wider range of nonprofit leaders “at the table’
° Unlike earlier efforts to bring nonprofits together in the county, Nonprofit Montgomery! is staffed.
° Driven by common issues
° A critical element of the work is supporting the sector in measuring and communicating its value


Speaker
Chuck Bean, Executive Director, The Nonprofit Roundtable of Greater Washington
http://www.nonprofitroundtable.org/

(Interactive discussion throughout the session: notes cover both presentation and discussion)

Three areas of focus:
· Perception of nonprofits
· Why should we better measure and communicate the value of nonprofits?
· How should we better measure and communicate the value of nonprofits?
° Key words – measure and communicate

National Perceptions/descriptions of nonprofit organizations (from a 2006 Independent Sector national survey)
· In comparison with some for-profit corporations, nonprofit organizations were viewed
favorably by the public. However, the public also expects a lot more from nonprofits than from for-profit corporations.
· In an opinion poll on name perception:
° “Nonprofit” was viewed most positively and associated with helping the community, (i.e. there was no profit motive).
° Descriptives like “charities” and “foundations” were perceived more negatively in comparison with “nonprofit,” “philanthropic,” and “charitable.”
· It was determined that the term “nonprofit community” was preferable to “nonprofit sector”. “Sector” was considered jargon and too abstract a concept, whereas “community” was an easily understood and had positive connotations.
· Nonprofit attributes:
° The most valued traits for nonprofits were accountability, effectiveness, commitment and caring.
° In general, nonprofits were viewed, and expected to be, committed and caring.
° The attributes that nonprofits were felt to not possess: accountability, effectiveness,
efficiency, selflessness, and results-oriented. (i.e., those interviewed valued the trait
of nonprofit accountability very highly, but felt that many nonprofits were not accountable)
° Surprisingly, being local was not viewed as an important attribute.
· The nonprofit sector believes that:
° It is clear that nonprofit effectiveness has not been communicated to the public.
° Being considered as caring, but not selfless, is contradictory.

Montgomery County nonprofits by the numbers (based on research by Maryland Association of Nonprofit Organizations and the Urban Institute)
° According to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), there are approximately 5,000 501(c)(3) organizations in Montgomery County.

• This number includes many inactive organizations that are still listed on the IRS roll.

° 1,600 of these nonprofits have budgets of $25,000 and up.

• One of the largest nonprofits (most assets) in the region is located in
  Montgomery County - Howard Hughes Medical Institute.
• 437 of these organizations have budgets over $ 1 million/year.

° Two thirds of the 1,600 are locally serving organizations.

• Therefore there are approximately 1,000 nonprofits serving the nearly one million people living in Montgomery County (this is the same as the national average).

° Do these 1,000 nonprofits have the ability to serve the increasing and very diverse population of Montgomery County?

• There is currently no overall research being done to track trends and to ensure that the needs of all types of residents are being covered. This research would be very expensive.
• However, there is research being carried out in specific areas (e.g., the recent health status research among the Asian American communities within the county, carried out by the Asian Studies and Research Center at the University of Maryland and funded by HHS).
• Does Montgomery County have the “right” nonprofits?

Why should we better measure and communicate the value of nonprofits?
To raise awareness about the role of nonprofits in our lives. Although many of us view nonprofits as the organizations that deliver critical services to our poor and under-resourced neighbors, we often forget that every one of us – at some time in our lives – relies on nonprofits, whether to provide afterschool programs for our children, health and other support programs for our elders, or the League of Women Voters guide we review before casting our ballots.

Nonprofits:
- deliver needed services in the community
- give citizens opportunities to volunteer and youth opportunities for community service
- identify and find solutions for community problems
- develop public policy options for government to consider
- provide a voice for the underrepresented
- advocate for change
- educate the public on important issues
- provide “the commons” where citizens can come together to discuss and debate

· To recognize that the government cannot provide all critical services, and know that there are organizations that can effectively close the gap (i.e. that government and nonprofits can work together to help close the gap with the money provided).
· Private, corporate, public sectors do not speak the same language or have the same values as the nonprofit sector:
· Different ways are needed to communicate what the nonprofit “value added” is to all sectors. Depending on the sector/audience being addressed, there are different presentations for the same program asking for the same support.
· Nonprofits have a difficult time putting together a narrative about what they accomplish.
· The corporate/private sector needs to provide input when resolving these issues.
· Policy makers always want to fund the best program.
° Difficult to show that your program is the best when the County government is
only interested in outputs and not outcomes.

• Outputs asked for by the County have no relationships to outcomes.

"Outputs" = number of units served (most tangible)
"Outcomes" = the difference made to those served (difficult to track)

· Government is chartered to make the services happen; nonprofits feel they have that same charter.
· The real challenge is to develop a candid relationship between the government and nonprofit sectors. Some points of clarification and discussion that are needed include:
° If government feels they should fund critical services and not organizations, how can the organizational costs of delivering a service (i.e., the real cost) be covered?
° A need for a clear definition of terms, goals and priorities.
° Are the nonprofits cognizant of the priorities of the County?
- New organizations are not in the loop and don’t know the plan.

How should we better measure and communicate the value of nonprofits?
· Effectively describe in-kind services, including the $ amount contributed
· The ability to bring in additional funding sources:
° Makes individual nonprofits more competitive on the front end (proposal stage), but there is no follow up by contract monitors. (Contract monitors have different levels of sophistication and experience.)
° Nonprofits must be able to identify and describe all the ways they leverage additional $s for every $ they receive
· National statistics can be used to complement local data or serve as proxies for local data when they are not available
· The Office of Management and Budget takes into account
° the additional funding that the organizations can bring in
° the value of the organizations’ volunteers (translated into dollars)

• Many organizations do not include this in their proposals.

· Costs prevented should be included in the outcomes (e.g., a recent study in North Carolina shows that dispute settlement centers resolved 13,544 cases at a cost to the state of only $118 each, compared to $922 per case had they gone to district court.)

What is the end goal of the monthly “brown bags”?
· Relationship building that leads to better community service
· Bringing people forward who add value to our understanding of the nonprofit sector.
· Help define the fundamental role of government
· Provide opportunities for better nonprofit-government co-visioning (cultural competency – how nonprofits fit in).
· Explore the definition of “nonprofitness”
· Common understanding of the “value” of nonprofits.
· Create a common language among the government and nonprofit sectors (as well as business and philanthropy).

Follow up items
· Contact information to be sent to all participants.

· Corporate Volunteer Council, private businesses, philanthropy and County Council members to be invited to future meetings.
° Representatives from corporate philanthropy , businesses that promote volunteering, and those that currently do neither.

· Ask the question, “What is your perception of nonprofits?”

· Tuesday, July 24, 2007 at Long Branch Community Center from 7-9PM there will be a Funding EXPO where nonprofits will have the opportunity to meet and dialogue with staff from county government and some private foundations, as well as support organizations such as the Foundation Center, which is now offering services at the Rockville library, and infoMontgomery – the countywide database of nonprofit services

· Put together a Nonprofit Expo in the fall (late September or early October) in the Executive Office Building cafeteria to showcase the work of nonprofits from throughout the county
° Most of the OMB analysts and others in government do not know what the individual nonprofits do – we need to learn a lot more about each other
° Ideally, the Nonprofit EXPO would be scheduled to coincide with the annual United Way campaign.

· Participants were encouraged to view Jed Emerson’s views on values at http://www.blendedvalue.org/