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
Thursday, June 11, 2009
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.
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
WNY Ready to Welcome Yahoo! Data Center
From Business First Buffalo - May 19th, 2009
Gov. David Paterson announced Tuesday that the New York Power Authority has approved a proposal designed to develop a regional data center operated by Yahoo! Inc. in Western New York.
State officials said if the proposal is accepted by the company, Yahoo! would invest at least $150 million for the construction of a new East Coast Regional Datacenter and create 125 new high-tech jobs in Western New York.
The project was initially discussed a few weeks ago by U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer who said the company was considering a site, still to be determined, in Western New York for such a facility.
According to the governor's office, Yahoo!’s new facility is expected to be located in either Niagara or Genesee counties. The company has indicated the average wage and benefits of the new data center jobs will be approximately $65,000.
Click here to see Senator Schumer discussing the state of negotiations with Yahoo to build a new data center in Western New York and detail his conversation with Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz.
Gov. David Paterson announced Tuesday that the New York Power Authority has approved a proposal designed to develop a regional data center operated by Yahoo! Inc. in Western New York.
State officials said if the proposal is accepted by the company, Yahoo! would invest at least $150 million for the construction of a new East Coast Regional Datacenter and create 125 new high-tech jobs in Western New York.
The project was initially discussed a few weeks ago by U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer who said the company was considering a site, still to be determined, in Western New York for such a facility.
According to the governor's office, Yahoo!’s new facility is expected to be located in either Niagara or Genesee counties. The company has indicated the average wage and benefits of the new data center jobs will be approximately $65,000.
Click here to see Senator Schumer discussing the state of negotiations with Yahoo to build a new data center in Western New York and detail his conversation with Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz.
Sunday, May 17, 2009
Free Training Opportunity for Nonprofit Board Members
The State Board Training Consortium (SBTC) is a collaborative effort between five state agencies to improve governance of state–funded non-profits by providing a comprehensive series of trainings to board members of these organizations. SBTC trainings are conducted by the New York Council of Nonprofit, Inc. (formerly the Council of Community Services of New York State Inc.). NYCON offers 12 different trainings tailored to meet the unique needs of board members. Topics covered include: duties and responsibilities of board members; legal obligations; fiscal accountability; nonprofit accounting basics; human resource issues; quality assurance; board recruitment and retention; strategic planning; and ethics.
SBTC is pleased to announce that NYCON will offer the following workshops in Buffalo on June 11th & 12th, 2009
SBTC is pleased to announce that NYCON will offer the following workshops in Buffalo on June 11th & 12th, 2009
June 11th - Buffalo
- The New Form 990: A Focus on Board Governance 9:00am – 12:00pm
- Developing a Fiscally Accountable Nonprofit Board 1:00pm – 4:00pm
- Duties & Responsibilities of Nonprofit Boards 5:30pm – 8:30pm
June 12th – Buffalo
- Nonprofit Board Member Responsibilities for Governance of Medicaid-Supported Programs 9:00am – 12:00pm
- Recruiting, Developing & Retaining a Motivated Board of Directors 1:00pm – 4:00pm
- Fund Development for Nonprofit Boards 5:30pm – 8:30pm
Buffalo Location:
Holiday Inn
1881 Niagara Falls Blvd
Amherst, NY 14228
To register: Please visit http://www.nycon.org/ and click on the “State Board Training” logo on the homepage.
Questions? Please contact the New York Council of Nonprofits, Inc. at (800) 515-5012 ext. 126 or email jmontalvo@ccsnys.org
$10M fund to help entrepreneurs create new companies
A recent article offers some food for thought concerning a group of foundations partnering together to support new ways to respond to the present economy:
The New Economy Initiative for Southeast Michigan and the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation are expected to announce Monday afternoon that they have formed a partnership to be based at TechTown to help spur entrepreneurship and create 400 new companies each year in Southeast Michigan.
On Thursday, the board of directors at the NEI, made up of 10 private, mostly Michigan-based foundations, approved the initiative and more than $9 million in funding to begin several economic development programs.
It is expected that TechTown, the technology park and business incubator affiliated with Wayne State University, will receive about $4.5 million of NEI’s second-round funding over three years to scale up its entrepreneurial support projects.
Shorebank, a Chicago-based bank that focuses on community development and has a branch in Detroit, will receive about $1.5 million to provide seed funding for new companies, and minority auto suppliers will receive about $3 million.
“Our programming is definitely coming to Detroit,” said Joy Torchia, director of communications for the Kansas City, Mo.-based Kauffman Foundation. “We’re coming because NEI has asked us to help with their initiative.”
With an endowment of nearly $2.1 billion, according to its Web site, the Kauffman Foundation is one of the 30 largest foundations in the U.S. and regarded as the world’s largest foundation devoted to entrepreneurship. It will become an 11th member in the New Economy Initiative, contributing expertise in entrepreneurial training. “Over the next three years, we are setting out to establish…new companies, and to do so we will utilize every resource — Wayne State, the Henry Ford Health System, Wayne County, the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor Spark, Michigan State and Automation Alley,” Randal Charlton, TechTown’s executive director, said on Friday.
“The details have yet to be worked out, but the building blocks are in place and the work starts tomorrow.”
Launched in 2007, the New Economy Initiative is funded by contributions from 10 local and national foundations: Detroit-based Community Foundation for Southeast Michigan, Southfield-based Max M. and Marjorie S. Fisher Foundation, New York-based Ford Foundation, Detroit-based Hudson-Webber Foundation, Battle Creek-based W.K. Kellogg Foundation, Miami-based John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, Troy-based Kresge Foundation, McGregor Fund in Detroit, Flint-based Charles Stewart Mott Foundation and Skillman Foundation in Detroit.
“I am absolutely delighted to see the Kauffman Foundation bringing their program on urban development to Detroit,” said Tom Anderson, a senior vice president at Troy-based Automation Alley, who was on a conference call Thursday afternoon when the NEI spelled out details to local economic development officials, including Mike Finney, president and CEO of Ann Arbor Spark and Turkia Mullin, Wayne County’s assistant county executive and chief development officer.
“It’s a wonderful thing NEI is doing, deciding to make this significant commitment of resources to transform the community through entrepreneurial resources,” said Finney. “It’s great they are basing it at TechTown. It puts it absolutely at ground zero."
The New Economy Initiative for Southeast Michigan and the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation are expected to announce Monday afternoon that they have formed a partnership to be based at TechTown to help spur entrepreneurship and create 400 new companies each year in Southeast Michigan.
On Thursday, the board of directors at the NEI, made up of 10 private, mostly Michigan-based foundations, approved the initiative and more than $9 million in funding to begin several economic development programs.
It is expected that TechTown, the technology park and business incubator affiliated with Wayne State University, will receive about $4.5 million of NEI’s second-round funding over three years to scale up its entrepreneurial support projects.
Shorebank, a Chicago-based bank that focuses on community development and has a branch in Detroit, will receive about $1.5 million to provide seed funding for new companies, and minority auto suppliers will receive about $3 million.
“Our programming is definitely coming to Detroit,” said Joy Torchia, director of communications for the Kansas City, Mo.-based Kauffman Foundation. “We’re coming because NEI has asked us to help with their initiative.”
With an endowment of nearly $2.1 billion, according to its Web site, the Kauffman Foundation is one of the 30 largest foundations in the U.S. and regarded as the world’s largest foundation devoted to entrepreneurship. It will become an 11th member in the New Economy Initiative, contributing expertise in entrepreneurial training. “Over the next three years, we are setting out to establish…new companies, and to do so we will utilize every resource — Wayne State, the Henry Ford Health System, Wayne County, the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor Spark, Michigan State and Automation Alley,” Randal Charlton, TechTown’s executive director, said on Friday.
“The details have yet to be worked out, but the building blocks are in place and the work starts tomorrow.”
Launched in 2007, the New Economy Initiative is funded by contributions from 10 local and national foundations: Detroit-based Community Foundation for Southeast Michigan, Southfield-based Max M. and Marjorie S. Fisher Foundation, New York-based Ford Foundation, Detroit-based Hudson-Webber Foundation, Battle Creek-based W.K. Kellogg Foundation, Miami-based John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, Troy-based Kresge Foundation, McGregor Fund in Detroit, Flint-based Charles Stewart Mott Foundation and Skillman Foundation in Detroit.
“I am absolutely delighted to see the Kauffman Foundation bringing their program on urban development to Detroit,” said Tom Anderson, a senior vice president at Troy-based Automation Alley, who was on a conference call Thursday afternoon when the NEI spelled out details to local economic development officials, including Mike Finney, president and CEO of Ann Arbor Spark and Turkia Mullin, Wayne County’s assistant county executive and chief development officer.
“It’s a wonderful thing NEI is doing, deciding to make this significant commitment of resources to transform the community through entrepreneurial resources,” said Finney. “It’s great they are basing it at TechTown. It puts it absolutely at ground zero."
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
