The Buffalo News reported about an Arts Council's response to the widespread state budget cuts that have impacted nonprofits everywhere. As the article relates:
Arts programs run through the Cattaraugus County Arts Council at the Allegany State Park received massive cutbacks, putting in jeopardy many of the classes, workshops and exhibits that are made available each year to enthusiasts of all ages.
For Heidi Tschopp and Anne Conroy Baiter, that wasn’t acceptable.
Tschopp, a park and recreation aide, and Baiter, executive director of the arts council, both jumped at an idea Tschopp had seen in Lake Placid—a fundraiser that involves auctioning off specifically designed Adirondack chairs that could be displayed in the park.
The exhibit, “Art and the Adirondack Chair,” features 18 chairs that can be found at nine locations, starting at the administration building in the Quaker rental office. The three styles of chairs (adult, children’s and a new “throne-ish” style called “breakdown” that was built without nails or screws) can be seen at the 65,000-acre state park through Aug. 18. Read more here.
Chairs can viewed at www.myartscouncil.net. How is your nonprofit responding to funding cuts or donation decreases? Share your thoughts here.
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
Sunday, June 21, 2009
Area small businesses back ‘public option’ in health insurance
The Buffalo News featured an article about an informal survey by an advocacy coalition that found small business owners in New York state overwhelmingly support the idea of a “public option” as part of a national health insurance reform effort, and are willing to pay to make “quality, affordable coverage” available.
The survey by New York Small Business United for Health Care reported that 73 percent of the business owners surveyed preferred a proposal with a public, government-run alternative to private insurance, versus 19 percent favoring an expansion of private market options.
The owners said they are willing to pay a portion of their payroll towards supporting such an option, with 64 percent saying they would pay at least 4 percent to 7 percent to “guarantee quality affordable coverage for themselves and employees.” Read more here.
The survey by New York Small Business United for Health Care reported that 73 percent of the business owners surveyed preferred a proposal with a public, government-run alternative to private insurance, versus 19 percent favoring an expansion of private market options.
The owners said they are willing to pay a portion of their payroll towards supporting such an option, with 64 percent saying they would pay at least 4 percent to 7 percent to “guarantee quality affordable coverage for themselves and employees.” Read more here.
Saturday, June 13, 2009
A.P. in Deal to Deliver Nonprofits’ Journalism
The NY Times reported that four nonprofit groups devoted to investigative journalism will have their work distributed by The Associated Press, greatly expanding their potential audience and helping newspapers fill the gap left by their own shrinking resources.
Starting on July 1, the A.P. will deliver work by the Center for Public Integrity, the Investigative Reporting Workshop at American University, the Center for Investigative Reporting, and ProPublica to the 1,500 American newspapers that are A.P. members, which will be free to publish the material.
The A.P. called the arrangement a six-month experiment that could later be broadened to include other investigative nonprofits, and to serve its nonmember clients, which include broadcast and Internet outlets.
“It’s something we’ve talked about for a long time, since part of our mission is to enable our members to share material with each other,” said Sue Cross, a senior vice president of The A.P. She said the development in 2006 of an Internet-based system for members to receive A.P. material made it easier to do that kind of sharing, and to offer new products like the investigative service.
As they sharply reduce their staffs, many newspapers have cut back on investigations or given them up entirely. When there are barely enough reporters to cover the daily news from the local courthouse and the school board, it is harder to justify assigning someone to an in-depth project that might take weeks or months. Read more here.
Starting on July 1, the A.P. will deliver work by the Center for Public Integrity, the Investigative Reporting Workshop at American University, the Center for Investigative Reporting, and ProPublica to the 1,500 American newspapers that are A.P. members, which will be free to publish the material.
The A.P. called the arrangement a six-month experiment that could later be broadened to include other investigative nonprofits, and to serve its nonmember clients, which include broadcast and Internet outlets.
“It’s something we’ve talked about for a long time, since part of our mission is to enable our members to share material with each other,” said Sue Cross, a senior vice president of The A.P. She said the development in 2006 of an Internet-based system for members to receive A.P. material made it easier to do that kind of sharing, and to offer new products like the investigative service.
As they sharply reduce their staffs, many newspapers have cut back on investigations or given them up entirely. When there are barely enough reporters to cover the daily news from the local courthouse and the school board, it is harder to justify assigning someone to an in-depth project that might take weeks or months. Read more here.
Thursday, June 11, 2009
New Statewide Tool for Arts and Cultural Organizations
The New York State Council on the Arts has joined to help launch the New York State Cultural Data Project (New York State CDP), a powerful management tool for arts and cultural organizations. This unique system will, at no cost, allow arts managers and artistic leaders to understand and analyze their organization’s financial performance through easy-to-run reports. By participating in the New York State CDP, you will be part of a successful and growing project that will allow researchers and the arts community as a whole to better articulate and provide evidence for the sector’s assets and needs, as well as its contributions to the state and the country. By completing the online form annually, you will also be able to generate reports to be submitted to grantmakers with the click of a button.
Organizations can participate and benefit from the system regardless of whether they are a recipient of support from any of the participating funders. Additionally, there is a full-time Help Desk/hotline available to guide organizations in entering and understanding the data.
NYSCA is interested in your feedback in terms of how CDP can be most useful to your organization, how NYSCA can best incorporate it into our grantmaking process, and how it can help shape policy and advocacy efforts. Please read the letter from the CDP Taskforce, go online and learn about the system at www.nysculturaldata.org, and, most importantly, attend a free demonstration and discussion (see below). Please direct your feedback either to NYSCA program staff or cdp@nysca.org.
Get the most from the New York State CDP.
Attend a free demonstration and discussion.
Register for a demonstration and discussion by visiting www.nysculturaldata.org and clicking on "Attend a Demonstration and Discussion."
July 20 - 23, 2009, Western New York
Olean
July 20, 9:30 am
Location to be announced
Ellicottville
July 20, 2:00 pm
Holiday Valley Resort,
Creekside Lodge
Buffalo
July 21, 9:30 am
Canisius Amherst Conference Center
Geneseo
July 22, 2:00 pm
Wadsworth Library
Rochester
July 23, 2:00 pm
Location to be announced
Organizations can participate and benefit from the system regardless of whether they are a recipient of support from any of the participating funders. Additionally, there is a full-time Help Desk/hotline available to guide organizations in entering and understanding the data.
NYSCA is interested in your feedback in terms of how CDP can be most useful to your organization, how NYSCA can best incorporate it into our grantmaking process, and how it can help shape policy and advocacy efforts. Please read the letter from the CDP Taskforce, go online and learn about the system at www.nysculturaldata.org, and, most importantly, attend a free demonstration and discussion (see below). Please direct your feedback either to NYSCA program staff or cdp@nysca.org.
Get the most from the New York State CDP.
Attend a free demonstration and discussion.
Register for a demonstration and discussion by visiting www.nysculturaldata.org and clicking on "Attend a Demonstration and Discussion."
July 20 - 23, 2009, Western New York
Olean
July 20, 9:30 am
Location to be announced
Ellicottville
July 20, 2:00 pm
Holiday Valley Resort,
Creekside Lodge
Buffalo
July 21, 9:30 am
Canisius Amherst Conference Center
Geneseo
July 22, 2:00 pm
Wadsworth Library
Rochester
July 23, 2:00 pm
Location to be announced
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
Leadership director is long on experience
The Buffalo News reported on the new executive director, Molly Fitzpatrick, of Leadership Niagara, named by its board of directors. In her new job, Fitzpatrick directs the community leadership nonprofit, which has graduated more than 700 men and women— in county business, labor, education, arts, religious, government and cultural groups— since its inception a quarter-century ago.
Fitzpatrick is backed by two decades of working with leadership and youth education nonprofit organizations in Western New York, beginning as a senior staff member to the American Management Association’s entrepreneurship program and Junior Achievement. She’s the former executive director of Kids Voting New York, which encompassed all of Erie and Niagara counties. During her tenure at Kids Voting, she led the largest community volunteer effort in Western New York and achieved the highest student voter turnout in the nation.
“Molly brings a wealth of experience in executive leadership and community development,” said Leadership Chairwoman Christine S. O’Hara of Niagara University. “We look forward to her leadership and the energy she’ll bring to this dynamic organization in Niagara County.”
Fitzpatrick served on numerous boards of directors in the community including King Urban Life Center and Mount St. Joseph Academy. She’s also been the interim executive director of the Buffalo Alliance for Education and director of marketing and development for Houghton College.
Fitzpatrick volunteered for a few years in AmeriCorps, focusing on literacy and development.
For more than a decade, she partnered with an economic education center in Ryazan, Russia, and connected community leaders in both countries during Russia’s transition to a market economy.
She calls Leadership, “a first-rate program with enormous potential for developing our region,” and adds she’s honored “to work with the movers and shakers of Niagara County.”
Part of Leadership Niagara’s aim is to bring together current and emerging leaders in an annual forum that expands their knowledge of Niagara County. Read more here.
Fitzpatrick is backed by two decades of working with leadership and youth education nonprofit organizations in Western New York, beginning as a senior staff member to the American Management Association’s entrepreneurship program and Junior Achievement. She’s the former executive director of Kids Voting New York, which encompassed all of Erie and Niagara counties. During her tenure at Kids Voting, she led the largest community volunteer effort in Western New York and achieved the highest student voter turnout in the nation.
“Molly brings a wealth of experience in executive leadership and community development,” said Leadership Chairwoman Christine S. O’Hara of Niagara University. “We look forward to her leadership and the energy she’ll bring to this dynamic organization in Niagara County.”
Fitzpatrick served on numerous boards of directors in the community including King Urban Life Center and Mount St. Joseph Academy. She’s also been the interim executive director of the Buffalo Alliance for Education and director of marketing and development for Houghton College.
Fitzpatrick volunteered for a few years in AmeriCorps, focusing on literacy and development.
For more than a decade, she partnered with an economic education center in Ryazan, Russia, and connected community leaders in both countries during Russia’s transition to a market economy.
She calls Leadership, “a first-rate program with enormous potential for developing our region,” and adds she’s honored “to work with the movers and shakers of Niagara County.”
Part of Leadership Niagara’s aim is to bring together current and emerging leaders in an annual forum that expands their knowledge of Niagara County. Read more here.
Thursday, June 4, 2009
Lack of resources is challenge to online fundraising
The Philanthropy Journal reported that while many nonprofits have built their staffs and processes around traditional marketing and fundraising activities, a lack of resources is preventing them from adequately pursuing online activities. This is according to a new study.
About nine in 10 nonprofits, regardless of their size, say their greatest barrier to success is a lack of money, staff or online expertise, says the report from Convio, which provides constituent-relationship-management software to the nonprofit sector.
More than a quarter of nonprofits have no online marketing plan, while almost two in 10 either don't know if they have a plan, or review their plan only every few years.
Groups with less than $20 million in revenue employ one to three staffers who are focused on online programs, while nonprofits with revenue of $100 million or more average seven full-time staff working on online efforts each week.
About nine in 10 nonprofits, regardless of their size, say their greatest barrier to success is a lack of money, staff or online expertise, says the report from Convio, which provides constituent-relationship-management software to the nonprofit sector.
More than a quarter of nonprofits have no online marketing plan, while almost two in 10 either don't know if they have a plan, or review their plan only every few years.
Groups with less than $20 million in revenue employ one to three staffers who are focused on online programs, while nonprofits with revenue of $100 million or more average seven full-time staff working on online efforts each week.
Monday, May 25, 2009
Webcast Your Brain Surgery? Hospitals See Marketing Tool
The NY Times explored the increasing use of online marketing tools in hospitals. As the article relates:
The point of Shila Renee Mullins’s brain surgery was to remove a malignant tumor threatening to paralyze her left side.
But Methodist University Hospital in Memphis also saw an opportunity to promote the hospital to prospective patients.
So, a video Webcast of Ms. Mullins’s awake craniotomy, in which the patient remains conscious and talking while surgeons prod and cut inside her brain, was promoted with infomercials and newspaper advertisements featuring a photograph of a beautiful model, not Ms. Mullins.
This time, Methodist did not use billboards as it has with other operations, deeming this procedure too sensitive. But its marketing department monitors how many people have watched the Webcast (2,212), seen a preview on YouTube (21,555) and requested appointments (3).
“The goal is to further our reputation as well as to educate the community, who will ask their physicians about our care,” said Jill Fazakerly, Methodist’s marketing director.
Faced with economic pressures and patients with abundant choices, hospitals are using unconventional, even audacious, ways of connecting directly with the public. Seeking to attract or educate patients, entice donors, gain recognition and recruit or retain top doctors, hospitals are using Twitter from operating rooms, showing surgery on YouTube and having patients blog about their procedures.
They consider the methods inexpensive ways to stand out in an era of reality TV and voluminous medical information available online.
Some ethicists and physicians say the practices raise questions about patient privacy and could paint overly-rosy medical pictures, leaving the hospitals and patients vulnerable if things go awry.
Jeffrey P. Kahn, a University of Minnesota bioethicist, sees “value in demystifying medical care,” but said this “creates an aura of sophistication and high-tech ability” that may not represent “quality of care at a hospital.”
“Do we really want to treat health care like other consumer goods?” he asked.
Tony Cotrupi, a health care marketing consultant, said hospitals “have come to marketing dragging and kicking, but because things are so competitive they have to.” Patients “used to go like sheep wherever the doctor sent us,” he said, and spent “more time researching what kind of toaster to buy.”
“But now, you have the curious consumer,” Mr. Cotrupi said, “and hospitals are doing all they can to open up the kimono.”
Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit uses Twitter from the operating room.
Bill Ferris, the hospital’s Web services manager, said that during an operation to remove a man’s kidney tumor, the surgeon, Dr. Craig Rogers, worried that the unexpectedly large tumor would require total kidney removal.
“Gosh, this is big,” Dr. Rogers said. “Could I have picked a harder case for this?” So an observing chief resident tweeted: “Dr. Rogers is saying because the tumor is large he may have to do a radical (total) nephrectomy.”
Then, “some bleeding needed to be controlled,” but “we just tweeted right through it,” Mr. Ferris said. Other Twitter-casts included a hysterectomy and a craniotomy, during which the hospital posted video on YouTube and photos, and the surgeon would “literally scrub out for an hour and twitter.” Hospitals say patients give consent and are not compensated.
Mr. Ferris said: “One concern is what happens if something goes wrong — you’re making this public in a very real-time way. Our general plan is we would gently take a break from the twittering if the situation became very dire. You don’t necessarily want to be tweeting that somebody might be dying on the table, and God forbid the patient’s family learns about it that way.”
Methodist Hospital records an identical surgery on another patient, so if “something unforeseen happens and you need the camera to cut away from the surgery, you can fall back on your previous surgery,” Ms. Fazakerly said.
E. Haavi Morreim, an ethicist at the University of Tennessee College of Medicine, said “If you don’t show the bad along with the good, people can end up misinformed or with excessively optimistic expectations.”
More than 250 hospitals now use YouTube, Facebook, Twitter or blogs, said Ed Bennett, Web strategy director for the University of Maryland Medical System. Read more here.
The point of Shila Renee Mullins’s brain surgery was to remove a malignant tumor threatening to paralyze her left side.
But Methodist University Hospital in Memphis also saw an opportunity to promote the hospital to prospective patients.
So, a video Webcast of Ms. Mullins’s awake craniotomy, in which the patient remains conscious and talking while surgeons prod and cut inside her brain, was promoted with infomercials and newspaper advertisements featuring a photograph of a beautiful model, not Ms. Mullins.
This time, Methodist did not use billboards as it has with other operations, deeming this procedure too sensitive. But its marketing department monitors how many people have watched the Webcast (2,212), seen a preview on YouTube (21,555) and requested appointments (3).
“The goal is to further our reputation as well as to educate the community, who will ask their physicians about our care,” said Jill Fazakerly, Methodist’s marketing director.
Faced with economic pressures and patients with abundant choices, hospitals are using unconventional, even audacious, ways of connecting directly with the public. Seeking to attract or educate patients, entice donors, gain recognition and recruit or retain top doctors, hospitals are using Twitter from operating rooms, showing surgery on YouTube and having patients blog about their procedures.
They consider the methods inexpensive ways to stand out in an era of reality TV and voluminous medical information available online.
Some ethicists and physicians say the practices raise questions about patient privacy and could paint overly-rosy medical pictures, leaving the hospitals and patients vulnerable if things go awry.
Jeffrey P. Kahn, a University of Minnesota bioethicist, sees “value in demystifying medical care,” but said this “creates an aura of sophistication and high-tech ability” that may not represent “quality of care at a hospital.”
“Do we really want to treat health care like other consumer goods?” he asked.
Tony Cotrupi, a health care marketing consultant, said hospitals “have come to marketing dragging and kicking, but because things are so competitive they have to.” Patients “used to go like sheep wherever the doctor sent us,” he said, and spent “more time researching what kind of toaster to buy.”
“But now, you have the curious consumer,” Mr. Cotrupi said, “and hospitals are doing all they can to open up the kimono.”
Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit uses Twitter from the operating room.
Bill Ferris, the hospital’s Web services manager, said that during an operation to remove a man’s kidney tumor, the surgeon, Dr. Craig Rogers, worried that the unexpectedly large tumor would require total kidney removal.
“Gosh, this is big,” Dr. Rogers said. “Could I have picked a harder case for this?” So an observing chief resident tweeted: “Dr. Rogers is saying because the tumor is large he may have to do a radical (total) nephrectomy.”
Then, “some bleeding needed to be controlled,” but “we just tweeted right through it,” Mr. Ferris said. Other Twitter-casts included a hysterectomy and a craniotomy, during which the hospital posted video on YouTube and photos, and the surgeon would “literally scrub out for an hour and twitter.” Hospitals say patients give consent and are not compensated.
Mr. Ferris said: “One concern is what happens if something goes wrong — you’re making this public in a very real-time way. Our general plan is we would gently take a break from the twittering if the situation became very dire. You don’t necessarily want to be tweeting that somebody might be dying on the table, and God forbid the patient’s family learns about it that way.”
Methodist Hospital records an identical surgery on another patient, so if “something unforeseen happens and you need the camera to cut away from the surgery, you can fall back on your previous surgery,” Ms. Fazakerly said.
E. Haavi Morreim, an ethicist at the University of Tennessee College of Medicine, said “If you don’t show the bad along with the good, people can end up misinformed or with excessively optimistic expectations.”
More than 250 hospitals now use YouTube, Facebook, Twitter or blogs, said Ed Bennett, Web strategy director for the University of Maryland Medical System. Read more here.
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