FOUNDATION CENTER VIRTUAL NETWORK DAYS, DAY 2

HOW FOUNDATIONS BEHAVE DURING AN ECONOMIC DOWNTURN

The Foundation Center does a great deal of research on foundations. Steven Lawrence, the Senior Director of Research, discussed the effects of the current economic situation. He said that foundation giving decreased by 1% in real dollars from 2007 to 2008, not as much as expected. Two-thirds of foundations expect to reduce giving in 2009 but one-fifth expect to increase giving. Most funders expect to maintain the number of programs and geographic areas, even dipping into their endowments to do so, but are less likely to add new ones. 100 foundations were affected by the Madoff affair, and two have closed completely.


THE ROLE OF THE CC SUPERVISOR IN PROMOTING CENTER SERVICE AND RESOURCES TO HELP YOUR COMMUNITY

This webinar was presented by the Foundation Center's Director of Marketing and VP for Communications. The Foundation Center is very active in outreach to grantseekers, grantmakers, and policymakers. Tools included the following: e-newsletters, emails, brochures, specials events, Facebook, Twitter, the Foundation Center web site, and ads in non-profit newsletters and web sites. 60% of the Foundation Center's income is from fee-based services: In addition to Foundation Directory Online and the other databases, they will do grantseeking research for a fee for non-profits without the staff to do it themselves. Cooperating Collections are advised to promote the Foundation Center services with flyers, on their web sites, on Twitter, in press releases (the Foundation Center has templates for this), and at computer terminals. A downloadable form is available for patrons who want to opt-in to Foundation Center emails.


THE ONLINE LIBRARIAN: WEB SITES FOR HARD-TO-ANSWER REFERENCE QUESTIONS

This was my favorite webinar. Two librarians who staff the Foundation Center's Ask Us email and chat reference for the public talked about the most common questions they get. These include the following:

How do I get government assistance?

How do I get funding to volunteer abroad?

How do I find out about social entrepreneurship?

How does my group get funded without 501 (c) (3) status?

How much should our new director get paid?

How many nonprofits are there in the U.S?

For the most common questions, there is also an excellent FAQ on the Foundation Center homepage. The librarians use delicious to organize their bookmarks.


BEST TITLES FOR YOUR COLLECTION WHEN FUNDS ARE TIGHT

Jimmy Tom, the Manager of Bibliographic Services, talked about resources the Foundation Center has for collection development. The Foundation Center's library holdings are searchable online and also have a blog and rss feed for keeping track of new acquisitions. Topical resource lists and reference guides that include books, articles and electronic resources are also available. The periodicals Philanthropy Annual and Philanthropy News Digest have book reviews. Two new acquisitions he highlighted were the DVD Ready, Set, Raise: Your Guide To Grassroots Funding, which might be good for a library program, and Prospect Research: A Primer For Growing Nonprofits, which helps the reader analyze the wealth of individual donors.


Handouts, interesting articles, and bibliographies for the conference are available here. There was also a Twitter page, a LinkedIn group, and an Ning group for the conference. All in all, the virtual conference went well, although I would have liked a little more interaction. I had technical difficulties with one webinar, but there should be archived versions available soon.

FOUNDATION CENTER NETWORK DAYS, DAY 1

MIDWEST COOPERATING COLLECTIONS MEET-UP

The first session was a chat with other Midwestern Cooperating Collection supervisors moderated by a librarian from the Cleveland branch of the Foundation Center using Cover It Live. Trends in use of the Cooperating Collection were discussed. Most reported skyrocketing demand and patrons needing more help. Some have reported success in getting funders to work with them and offer "meet the grantmakers" programs at their library, while others said that grantmakers are reluctant to participate due to reduced funds. Hot trends included giving circles and urban gardens. Most supervisors were encouraging patrons finding it hard to obtain 501 (c)(3) status to look into fiscal sponsorship instead, as the requirements are less onerous. It was suggested that these meet-ups be offered on a quarterly basis, which I think would be a good idea.



STATE OF THE FOUNDATION CENTER

The President and Vice President of the Foundation Center discussed what's going on there now and in the future. Did you know there are now Cooperating Collections in Thailand, Mexico, Nigeria and Brazil? The business model of the Foundation Center blends earnings from the databases with grants, so they are doing OK considering the economic climate. In order to continue to be a high-tech, high-touch operation, they are working on a new web platform that combines the databases, training, and Web 2.0 aspects, to come out some time this year. Focus on the Economic Crisis is a new page on the Foundation Center web site that collects research, news, videos, and a map of stimulus funding by state.



BEST PRACTICES FOR BUILDING RELATIONSHIPS WITH NONPROFIT CLIENTELE

Linda Leovic Towery, CC Coordinator for the Public Library of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County, discussed how she works with internal and external customers. With administration and other librarians, she invites them to classes and makes sure to get feedback for annual reports. She also recommends publicizing the resources to elected officials, as they often get requests from non-profits and people in need. Other staff must be trained so that they can assist patrons when the CC Coordinator is not around, and the CC Coordinator should be given the opportunity for outreach in the community.

For patrons, libraries can be intimidating and looking for grants can be scary. Towery built an in-house database of the names and phone numbers or emails of everyone who asks her about the Foundation Collection. She has monthly classes for nonprofits and lunchtime guest speaker programs which she publicizes by sending emails to patrons in her database. Towery reminded us that the Foundation Center wants us to teach people how to use the Foundation Directory Online, not do searches for them. She always asked the patron if they are a 501 (c) (3) nonprofit, and if they want grants to individuals, she lets them know that there are only 6,000 such grants, mostly for research and education, and not a complete list of educational grants by any means.


SOCIAL NETWORKING TOOLS FOR NONPROFITS

The two presenters of this webinar feel that there is no downside for a nonprofit in using Web 2.0 tools, but it's good to try them first to see what works best for you. Instead of thinking of it as "extra work", us Web 2.0 to have a conversation and learn from others, rather than doing things the old-fashioned way: closed, small and proprietary.

--Andrea