Network for Good has a free eBook now available: 8 Online Fundraising Changes You Must Make in 2010. For those of you looking at how to more effectively raise money for general program services through individual donors, this may provide some valuable insight.

You can access the eBook here; some basic demographic information is required prior to download.

Many of you are probably working on some aspect of grant writing and/or fundraising right now. I know I am. So I was really interested in this short article published over at Network for Good on 6 words every nonprofit should avoid. I'm not going to say a lot about it, since it's a pretty self-explanatory piece, except this: all 6 words show up (often) in my most recent grant application.

Damn.

Having read this, I seriously doubt I am going to eliminate using these words, but I will be more cognizant of how I use them and the frequency with which I use them.

I'm also interested in any other words folks thing are horribly overused or misused in our work. Please add them in the Comments if you think of any!

A lot of people have asked me about how social media can be used to benefit SANE and other victim service programs. People feel very intimidated by the process, which is a shame, because I think it's an incredibly approachable and democratic tool. And I think we could harness its broad appeal and reach to allow for not just awareness and fundraising campaigns, but also recruitment efforts. If anyone's using social media to help with recruitment I'd love to hear from you!

For those of you who'd like to explore just how social media can be of use, but aren't sure where to start, I really like this post by Amy Sample Ward. It's the perfect step-by-step intro on how to organize your approach.

BTW, I will be at the LaFASA conference this week talking about sustainability at one of the Thursday morning plenary sessions, so I hope to see some of you there. Please come by and say hello.

[Amy Sample Ward's Version of NPTech]

This month in Free-Range Thinking, Andy Goodman discusses the use of stories and data in garnering support for projects. I mention it because we frequently talk about effectively making the case to hospitals and community foundations, particularly in this economic climate. It's a short article, so I encourage you to check it out (PDF). And if you like what you read, you might want to consider subscribing to the monthly newsletter.

The Chronicle of Philanthropy hosted an online discussion yesterday on using Facebook Causes to promote nonprofits. Sadly, I just heard about it this morning, so I couldn't attend. But it's archived on their site and available for viewing (it's transcripts of the session, not video). For those of you toying with this approach to fundraising, it's worth checking out. Be sure to connect to the links mentioned in the discussion (a few aren't  hyperlinked so you may have to seek them out manually) for great tips on recruiting people to your cause and other valuable info.

Its only 9:15 am and I have already fielded two questions this morning on SANE/SART funding, so I am going to take that as a sign from the blogging gods and get a post up on finding funders.

It must seem like, at times, I'm a paid spokesperson for a couple different sites (oh, how I wish!), but the reality is I simply have a few, well-vetted tools in my arsenal to which I return over and over again for quality information. The Foundation Center is one of those. Happily, they have an on-line course (offered monthly) on finding funders, that might be useful to those of you trying to identify applicable funding sources, but unsure where to go after your initial Google search returns thousands of sites of indeterminate relevance. The next dates for the course are:

• October 14th, 1-2pm ET
• November 5th, 2-3pm ET
• December 1st, 2-3pm ET

If none of those dates work for you, or you simply need the info sooner rather than later, you can also view a recording online.

Did you know that the Foundation Center now has a librarian available to chat with you in real time as you tackle grant writing and fundraising issues? It's a great resource for those of us with immediate gratification issues (e.g. when emailing that question just doesn't get a quick enough response).

Keep in mind that there probably won't be anyone available for live chat at 11:30 the night before your grant is due, so plan accordingly:)

Last week over at Networking for Good, there was a teleconference on storytelling as an online fundraising technique. And while I wouldn't bother with the handouts (read: outline of the call without much additional content), the accompanying checklist is pretty helpful, in that it provides a concise overview of what comprises an effective story. Don't let the online stuff deter you, either--even if you're miles away from just having a website for your program, the checklist (and much of the essential content from the call) may provide some great ideas for a fundraising letter to the community or a talk to civic groups that might donate to your program.

You can listen to the full teleconference here or read transcripts from the event.

Before I get on a plane for Seattle this morning, I wanted to talk briefly about cost-effectiveness analysis (CEA). It's the technique of selecting among competing wants when resources are limited, a position most SANE programs know well. Do we get a shiny new piece of equipment or do we send 5 nurses to SANE training? Do we add 8 more hours a week to our coordinator position or do we start paying call time? We have a lot of competing wants in our world, and often a paucity of resources. Not surprisingly, if you've heard me speak, I often talk about the need to make the tough choices, to prioiritize based on what will ultimately benefit patient care.

One of the ways you can examine how to use your precious resources is through cost-effectiveness analysis. Healthcare often turns to this technique, so it's no surprise that the healthcare literature is where you'll find a lot of helpful guidance on the topic. Of the articles I read on CEA, I found this piece, published in 2000, to be pretty accessible and concise. A Primer on Cost-Effectiveness Analysis was published in Effective Clinical Practice, and it's exactly the kind of introduction I was looking for. It's a fairly bare-bones examination of CEA, great for those of you not overly interested in reading more extensive pieces on the topic.

However, if you are one of those people wonky about business (like me), the National Business Group on Health published a more in-depth look at CEA in 2004: Cost-Effectiveness Analysis: An Employer Decision Support Tool (PDF). This guide provides multiple case studies, abstracts and other resources for implementing CEA.

If you're in a position where you're being asked to make budget decisions or are trying to choose where to focus grant writing or fundraising efforts, CEA could be a very useful tool. Not only does it help you prioritize your expenditures; it can also help you justify them, as well.

Good morning from sunny Anaheim! This morning, I just wanted to put up a quick post on some financial management resources developed by the Nonprofits Assistance Fund. Their site has a couple great tools that might be helpful for some of you looking at your current budgets and shaking your heads--or looking at next year's budget predictions and worrying. Among the items you'll find are:

• A new resource collection, Sustenance in Lean Times
• Assessment of Recession Risk and Preparedness for Nonprofit Organizations (PDF)
  
• Scenario Planning Workshop (for contingency planning)
• An enorormous number of issue-specific topics from Finance 101 to Financial Policies and Procedures

I'm looking forward to working my way through the whole site this week. Let me know if any of them are particularly helpful...