Community 2.0

I just had a call from the Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs. They are convening a group of young nonprofit practitioners who are engaged in all these different activities to promote young people in the nonprofits sector - Community Capital Alliance, Twin Cities Young Nonprofit Professionals Network, LEAD, Minnesota Council of Nonprofits, Emerging Practitioners in Philanthropy, etc. They have asked me to join the group - called Community 2.0 - on behalf of our giving circle. How exciting! We're already famous. I'm attending their first meeting tomorrow and I'll let you know what happens.

Names by Sean

Here is the list that went to Doof (and a few more):

Twin Cities Giving Circle (TCGC)
Metropolitan Philanthropic Team
PhilanthroPals
Twin Cities Munificent Citizens Posse
Intergalactic Charitable Giving Squadron 100%
Charitable Civilian Crew (CCC)
Benevolent Society of Friends
Twin Cities Altruist Force

Or you can just cut and paste any of those words together and make your own.

I personally like Metropolitan Altruist Posse (MAP).

Or I could be persuaded to vote for Twin Cities Benevolent Citizens Assemblage.

REVISED: Questions for nomination

I think we should keep the questions for the nominations process short and sweet to encourage everyone to participate (we can change this process when we grow and learn more about what works and doesn't work). Here are my suggestions:

1) Organization name

2) Organization mission

3) How does this organization contribute to building a vibrant Twin Cities that respects both people and the environment?

4) Why do you think this organization deserves funding (including any personal connection to the organization)?

Online Nominations Through SurveyMonkey

We can use survey monkey for the nomination process. A basic membership is free and would allow us to repeatedly create 15 question surveys and allows up to 100 responses per survey. We could also use it for the voting process. I would be happy to create and manage the nomination surveys and voting surveys.

You can find more info on SurveyMonkey here:

http://www.surveymonkey.com/Default.aspx

Four Steps to Finding the Right Name

From Network for Good's Nonprofit Marketing newsletter:

Selecting the right name for your organization, campaign or program can go a long way toward differentiating you from other nonprofits, making an emotional connection with your audience, and finding a fresh way into the hearts and minds of your audience. Here are four steps to finding the right name:

1. Competitive Analysis: Begin your naming project with a thorough analysis in order to help quantify the tone and strength of other nonprofit names.

2. Positioning: The next step is to define your positioning. Your positioning is not your mission statement; more specifically, it's how your supporters view your organization (and your mission) relative to the position of other nonprofits. The more specific and nuanced your positioning is, the more effective the name will be. All great nonprofit names work in concert with the positioning of the organizations they speak for.

3. Name Development: Name development begins by applying the positioning strategy to figure out what you want your new name to do for your marketing and fundraising efforts.

4. Creative/Testing: Finally, before deciding on a name, you should test your final choices in the context of a mock fundraising appeals. For example, email yourself an old fundraising letter with the new campaign name; print out a mock advertisement with the new name. Where appropriate, pick up the phone and test the new name with a donor, volunteer, and board member.
When complete, final names and a well defined positioning strategy should be the outcome of your process.

Minnesota Council on Foundations research

The Minnesota Council on Foundations just released a whole slew of info on giving circles. Could be useful.

http://www.mcf.org/givingcircles/

I'll also post in the sidebar for future generations' use.

Giving in September?

I was thinking about the giving circle and how we've been working so hard on it but haven't actually GIVEN anything yet.

What do you guys think about going through the process - just the six of us - in August and September. For this first round, we could all nominate organizations (or whoever wants to could) and then we could go through the noms process and try it out. That would help us learn what things should go into the bylaws and whatnot.

And for this first round, we could just write out individual checks.