Good day and thank you for joining this webinar pledge the service divine nine chapters and nonprofit partnerships my name is Eddie Francis thank you very much for logging on I am the program director and community outreach director for the purposeful philanthropy foundation program director of the pledge to serve initiative and joining
Me is Alina Lee Frances she is the founder and the board chair of the purposeful philanthropy foundation by the way I’m also a board member of purposeful philanthropy the mission of the purposeful philanthropy foundation is to promote intentional charitable giving as a catalyst for sustainable community betterment it was founded in
2016 by none other than holy moly Frances PhD who the members a to Phi Beta Sorority Incorporated by the way I’m a member of Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity incorporated and part of play a part of purposeful philanthropy is the pledge to serve initiative place to serve houses to efforts one of them is
The blackberry Success Program that’s an on-campus presentation that educates the divine nine college members about servant leadership the other is pledged to serve it is for lack of a better term it is a TED talk style event for alumni members of the divine nine there are
Three things that we are going to talk about in this webinar one would be understanding the entities understanding the chapter understanding the nonprofit understanding how those relationships go and the second thing would be how that partnership can develop between the chapter and the nonprofit partner if the
Third thing would be best practices and for the chapter and nonprofit fundraising tips that we want to add so why are we doing this Halina and i we have been active in chapters and we have also worked with the nonprofit partners now let me just
You know say this in terms that a lot of people we have heard in the Divine Hind say it they will often refer to the nonprofit organization that’s attached in chapter as the nonprofit arm the fundraising arm of the chapter we’re going to talk about that terminology in
Just a little bit but for the purposes of this webinar we would refer to and we can explain why we would refer to a 501c3 or nonprofit organization at your chapters form as a non-profit partner and with that we you know looking at the mission of the purposeful philanthropy
Foundation we look at divine iron organizations as engines for servant leadership and we think is a very important point to think about as far as the relationship is concerned between the chapter and the nonprofit organization that a chapter might have formed the last reason we’re doing this in our experiences working with chapters
Working also with nonprofits by the way I should mention that both Philemon and I have been on nonprofit boards that is even before the purposeful philanthropy foundation Halima herself is nonprofit somewhat of a nonprofit expert she has worked with quite a few and so the last
Thing that we have thought about that a lot of chapters really should be aware of the legal and financial ramifications for both the chapter and the nonprofit organization one very important note here while we are very proud to have this webinar and to bring this perspective to you purposeful
Philanthropy does not represent legal or fiscal representations so we’ll get to that also in a little bit but just understand that we are not necessarily doing this as financial advisors we’re not doing this as legal advisors either so this is a simplest way when we talked about doing this and we talked about
Some of the conversations we’ve had and let me be clear that we’re not just talking about issues that we’ve heard in alpha not just say – but we have friends and other organizations we recently had a friend of ours approached us about about helping tighten up some issues in his fraternity
With his chapter I spoke to a woman from another sorority who talked about some issues with her chapter and the nonprofit connected to that chapter and so when we thought about this what what one of the things that we thought about was well let’s look at the line how does
This happen so you have an idea for a chapter let’s say that you decide that you were in another part of a city or you’re in a city where there’s no chapter of your organization and you want that chapter to happen so where do you go you go to your fraternity or
Sorority and what is the function of that chapter to help build membership and maintain the brand of your organization of your fraternity or sorority but if you have an idea for a non-profit and most people get a 501 C 3 if you have an idea for that 501 C 3
Where do you go well you don’t go to your eternity or do you go to the state or the federal government or you go to both because you get your EIN your employee ID number and then what is your what is your your objective from there
You want to build the board you want to build a volunteer staff and then hey who knows if you are nonprofit is big enough maybe do get a paid staff and from there you serve the community in whatever way you want the nonprofit to serve the community
You have chapter documents where do you send those chapter documents you send those chapter documents to your fraternity or sorority you have nonprofit documents where your to whom are you responsible with those documents your you’re responsible to the nonprofit board you’re not you’re responsible also to the state or the federal government
And so that is why when we hear people refer to a nonprofit as the fundraising arm of a chapter that is language that you have to be very careful about because in a way it kind of suggests that the nom it answers to the chapter we’re gonna
Get into that in just a little bit but here’s that here’s an interesting fYI when you look at the tag tax designations for most divine eye fraternities and sororities the tax designation is 501 C 7 organizations that or quote social and recreational clubs end quote
Phi Beta Sigma by the way is a 501 C 10 a domestic fraternal society and Association does not divert you does not devote as net earnings to charitable fraternal or other specified purposes but not to provide life sickness or accident benefits to its members a mega-size 5 as the Omega Phi Development
Corporation from what I saw is a 501 C 3 which is classified community service clubs clubbing Community Improvement capacity building so this information is accessible publicly you can go to projects that ProPublica dot org slash nonprofits if you if you want to see this information
One other note that I want to make about this a couple of years ago Gregory Park so a lot of people know for his work and researching black Greeks a few years ago he wrote a piece in which he wrote about the financial assets of each organization and a lot of people
Got hot under the collar because they thought that he was exposing some private information from every organization actually no he was able to access public information so if you want to access that kind of information about any organization that has one of these tax designations you can go to a website
Like ProPublica you can also go to GuideStar which is another website that serves nonprofit entities I also have everyone this is Halima and I also want to add to this that as you look at the entities and kind of gaining an understanding of the differences and the relationships
Many of our divine nine organizations have affiliate organizations so in looking at the chapter the affiliate the the national organization or global or entity from fraternities or sororities the nonprofit is different from the affiliate organizations as well and and having this conversation is it’s really important to delineate the differences
Between the chapter the affiliate organizations as well as a nonprofit partner so just I wanted to include that and and also kind of add that to the conversation as well as we’re looking at the shop so it’s very important to again iterate and we cannot reiterate this
Enough and this is language that we have both heard not only in our own organizations but we’ve heard it in passing people talking about the relationships between their chapters and their nonprofits where people say well I don’t understand the people with the with the 501c3 they never bring the
Financials of the chapter meeting the nonprofit does not answer to the chapter it does not answer to the fraternity of the sorority I actually had the privilege of attending at the last Alpha Convention at our last National Convention in Baltimore we had a great session at the convention about edgy you
Know to educate brothers about this relationship and as it turns out what we have done and what I have seen other fraternities and sororities do we’ve started all assigning legal counsel to the nonprofit’s that are attached to our organizations in addition to the fraternities or the sororities so the
Fraternity or sorority has general counsel and then the nonprofit the the National Foundation also has general counsel and people on a chapter level duck they don’t necessarily all know that especially someone who might be just coming back into the fold after being inactive for a while they may not necessarily understand that that
Relationship either and I think it’s very good when you get an opportunity as a chapter for those who are on the board of the nonprofit I think it’s a good opportunity to take some time to allow your brothers or your sword roars to explain this relationship how the
Relationship works and give them the time to really sort that out so when they don’t necessarily want to show the financials or do the bidding of the chapter they’re not being feisty they’re not being cooperative what they’re doing is they’re being compliant more than anything else with the state or federal
Law governing documents should reflect that the nonprofit does not answer to the chapter per se so for those who may be starting a non-profit or for chapters or chapter members who may be interested in starting a non-profit you you create nonprofit bylaws so in many cases or in
Some cases they’re their bylaws that say that this nonprofit is a non-profit arm of X Y Z chapter of X Y Z organization well that and we’re going to get into the implications of those abstaining those types of relationships and alignments but the bylaws of the organization which are essentially the
Governing documents of the nonprofit as they would be governing documents over the chapter as well as the national organization or national body your your bylaws should not actually include just for the sake of protecting all parties involved you should be aware of how you structure your bylaws through to reflect
The relationship or or to reflect that the difference between the two organizations so let’s take a look at a scenario and this is a common scenario the nonprofit decides to do the annual gala and what happens is that that nonprofit the chapter Educational Foundation they put their name on it now
Here’s what we always hear this is not limited to one organization we hear this all the time the chapter wants to do the gala but in order to get the facility got a 501c3 unique the 501c3 do it so what happens is that the foundation decides to put their name on the annual
Gala right now the the gala starts out great you you have a great a great time the music is great yet the bartender right now the bartender is somebody’s boy and and you know he’s more than happy to help him by the way he may be licensed but I was
About to say you might want to get like a licensed bartender and and if you’re someone who’s experienced with nonprofits this is probably kind of a duh thing to you but if you’re not experienced with a non-profit this is not a duh thing this is actually a scenario we went through at our
Convention and there was some guys in the room who they had questions about this the bartender he just wants everybody to have a good time he’s mr. pocket over pours and then after the gala unfortunately someone has an accident right and let’s just say that
I’m not trying to make light of a tragic event let’s so let’s say that in this accident somebody walks away they’re fine and so the problem is is that the people who become liable for this the nonprofit anyone associated with it including the board the leadership and
If you decide to write the chapter into the Constitution and bylaws of that nonprofit the chapter gets pulled in now if the chapters name is on this event even though the nonprofit is the one that put their name on the the paperwork the actual paperwork well now that you’ve put blank blank blank
For eternity so we were to incorporate it on the event on the Flyers on upon publicity then you pull the chapter in and unfortunately you wind up pulling the fraternity the sorority in so in that event everybody basically becomes liable except for maybe the few brothers
Or surahs who did not show up for the event you know they might be the beat the only people who were who were spared the the expense of this whole thing and having to deal with unfortunate events that happened so this just reiterates the point that the entity that becomes
Responsible for what happens is the foundation itself so when you take a look at these entities that’s how it goes with these entities they are in fact two different entities and they should be treated as such now as far as people from the nonprofit and halima jump in on this one
As far as a nonprofit making a report to the chapter just to give an overview of progress or maybe updates how should that park or how can it go so that is done in a clean fashion so I think for the nonprofit to make a presentation or
A report to the chapter you know certainly having space on the chapters agenda side to have a report from the representative whether it be a spoken or written report but identifying that person who is speaking as speaking on behalf of the foundation get providing a
Report and you know to keep it clean I always I generally like for those types of reports to be written correspondence rather than someone sitting in the chapter meeting which I mean sometimes that does happen because you do sometimes have short representation but at the chapter meeting so you have
Nonprofit for representation at the chapter meeting but again having a documented in the minutes having a documented in the agenda the flow of the meeting that this person is speaking on behalf of the nonprofit organization or the foundation or or nonprofit entity however you framed it so when we talked about suggested best
Practices here are some things that we thought about again you know as people have been active in chapters alumni chapters and also having served on profit boards the first thing that we thought about was for a chapter consult with him with an attorney and a CPA who specializes in nonprofits and or I
Should say for the nonprofit concern with an attorney and a CPA both of whom specialize in profits and I want to add to this that this is really important because nonprofit law changes pretty frequently and then that could be tax law that can be that can or tax code and
And that can also be let the legal side of it as well and then when you’re looking at someone who specializes in nonprofits making sure that they understand the nonprofit regulations according to your state so the state of formation and having someone who is up-to-date and current on that knowledge
Because tax codes they change pretty frequently and a lot of times what they’re there are scenarios that I’ve that I’ve seen and heard of where someone formed a non-profit 20 years ago they have gone 15 years without filing their 990s or filing their state tax their franchise tax and they are not
Aware that there are 501c3 has been revoked or that they are in trouble in terms of the state with with those with those filing requirements so having someone a who having an attorney and CPA who can specialize and give you counsel or give you insight it’s not advice on a
Regular basis it’s a practice and then having someone on your nonprofit board who was monitoring those types of things it’s also a good practice and I think this really harkens a good point about when it comes down to managing the nonprofit the chapter should really give serious consideration
To the brothers of the sword Wars who are either going to have the initiative to learn about nonprofits or the ones who really want to do it make sure that they understand that the nonprofit needs to be run like a non-profit and not like a chapter and so the second thing that
We thought about was separate chapter and nonprofit operations for example again recruit brothers or surahs who are not the chapters would non chapter leadership positions to lead the nonprofit and and that’s that’s very important I really don’t think you that the chapter president should be the nonprofit executive director of the
Nonprofit president not a good idea recruit board members who are not members of the organization even a different gender this really really helps keep things honest in the nonprofit that way when some some terminology starts getting thrown around or when people start to treat the nonprofit like a chapter you have that
Outside voice who says wait a minute hold on I respect you but this is a non-profit you asked me to join a non-profit board you did not ask me to join your chapter so that really helps keep things on the up and up and that’s what you want you want people who are
Going to help you stay compliant and also record and also recognize that the nonprofit has its own governance structure so just because the chapter recommended a person to the nonprofit board does not mean that the nonprofit board has to accept that recommendations are very true so understand that you
Know a quarter and it depends on how your nonprofit bylaws are structured as well so understand that they are two different organizations two different entities the chapter to make a recommendation the chapter can go to someone in the nonprofit but recognize that the nonprofit has its own governance structure of accepting or declining
Those recommendations and requests also assess the needs of the community and adjust to write the mission according to those needs recruit chapter members whose values and interests align with the needs of the community or align with the mission of the nonprofit Coast chapter members aren’t referring to the
Nonprofit as a partner of the chapter we can’t stress this enough please get fundraising arm of the chapter out of your vocabulary please get it out of your vocabulary because he just gives the image that the nonprofit somehow serves the chapter so refer to brothers and sisters who work with a
Nonprofit as volunteers if they are not board members also conduct periodic information sessions or trainings to help the chapter members understand the relationship between the chapter and the nonprofit and the biggest thing I’m a marketing guy differentiate brandy if the nonprofit’s name refers directly to the fraternity of the sorority of the
Chapter consider changing it or filing for a DBA doing business as this is a common practice I mean most the check most chapters have done this and they have either changed the name or they have done a DBA one of the chapters that I belong to they decided to go with the
DBA and it’s worked out very well so on published on publicity materials the DBA name is the one that appears the also you know making completely separate the logo the website the social media platforms for the nonprofit stationery letterhead business cards if you decide to go that route as machs post on a
Separate post office boxes yes those are all good ideas to differentiate yeah sometimes when I talk to chapters about this and and they they say well do I need to totally dissolve the nonprofit because we’ve been operating for 20 years as the so the such-and-such chapter foundation
No you don’t have to dissolve the nonprofit and do a total restructure but the DBA is a really good solution that I’ve seen work really well for people and in managing a branding piece or the identity piece we’re going to talk about fundraising in a minute but this also
Helps with this also has fundraising implications so if you if your chapter is pursuing grant funding oftentimes grant funders mini grant funders will not fund clubs fraternities sororities regional organizations they won’t fund those so if you have a not if you have established an opera and I and I say the
Word established rather than you have a non-profit because you you don’t have a non-price now you don’t you don’t possess you life it is not your nonprofit so if you only your members of your chapter have established a non-profit then the name is really important in terms of the fundraising
Piece because of the the policy that many funders have that they will not fund for tunnel organizations so shifting the name adopting a DBA will oftentimes help you to address that barrier so here are a couple of examples that I thought about when I was in charge of publicity for my chapter and
Then I was also helping out I was volunteering for our partner organization so from the chapter side we had North Texas giving day come up and when we when I took a picture of this brother and posted it on our Facebook page you know notice that I positioned
Brother Butler here as supporting the onward and upward empowerment Foundation and and that was something that I gave a lot of thought to when I wanted to promote the foundations involved in North Texas giving day now on the North Texas on the onward and upward in partner foundation side what I would do
Is I would refer to the brothers as supporters of the onward and upward empower foundation or I will refer to them as volunteers if they were involved so we know this is something that everybody really really wants to know about and so we weren’t gonna just leave
You with you know do the right thing I y’all gonna get in trouble we didn’t want to just leave you with that we comply protocol protocol No so we wanted to leave you with something because Halima is name was a pretty skilled fundraiser and so we thought
About some really good stuff that we could leave with you and the first one is this dedicate time to creating a fundable narrative that really comes more from the PR side my my background and and that is a narrative less Halima pointed out a couple of minutes ago that
Makes people want to support you that compels them to learn want to learn more about your nonprofit have a professional who understands nonprofits create marketing materials that can be used for fundraising appeals so the hot the hotness graphic designer of the chapter who’s used to doing the parties that
Might not be the person you might want to ask to volunteer as the nonprofit marketing person because it is two totally different mentalities search corporate social responsibility grants especially banks that’s one thing we found that banks at a certain point of the year banks tend to have money that
They have got to give away and sometimes they even have trouble giving it away so search corporate social responsibility grants with all kinds of organizations all kinds just think of just any big corporation you can think of any big company you can think of just go to
Their website and see if they have a social corporate a corporate social responsibility program and the biggest thing is make sure that the mission your nonprofit in their mission aligns as well don’t don’t if they’re if they’re saying and they want to feed the homeless and y’all don’t do anything as far as
Feeding the homeless then don’t don’t start trying to create a whole homeless thing for your nonprofit it wasn’t there before and you don’t have the manpower to to manage that is called mission drift by the way ask chapter members to donate to the nonprofit regularly why not you know I
There was one nonprofit I saw where they were asking people to pay dues you know well make it a monthly donation or something like that participate in online giving day as you just saw with one of the chapters I was with we participated in North Texas giving day
I’m in New Orleans right now so we have NOLA giving day down here network with other nonprofits in the community to trade tips I cannot even begin to tell you how valuable a tip this is if you want to unlock fundraising for your nonprofit get out there mix it up with
People attend trainings and professional development opportunities at least once per quarter and the other thing is you have organizations in your community like United Way or have a no city year and other organizations like that go to the galas assign someone in the nonprofit or assign someone in the
Chapter as a volunteer of the nonprofit to attend one of these galas or one of these training sessions but I can’t be I can’t begin to tell you how valuable it is and a lot a lot of us in in the divine nine we don’t we don’t mix it up
Enough with people in our communities on this level in my humble opinion and I know it depends on what market you in but but definitely get out there and then also you have with something else this particular point and it’s really important understanding the the mission
And the population that you serve on the north from a nonprofit perspective so there people who run a non-profit in general and they they’re not really well versed in the issue that they’re addressing that may and and that can be resolved by being a part of some of these greater
Kind of coalition’s that are in the community so if your nonprofit if the nonprofit that you have formed or you sit on the board of that is aligned with or partners with your your chapter does work in education then the nonprofit there should be some sort of nonprofit
Representative in the regional or the city or the state or local coalition meetings that deal with education because they they have approaches they have best practices there’s a whole world on that side that is not solely just you know we we want to help the kids so really being involved in
Networking with other nonprofits in the communities to to trade tips insight resources all of that is something I can’t stress enough so let’s say that you do the online giving day and you have a good day always thank donors and keep in touch and yes if the donors come
From the chapter thank them thank you but I’ll you know if you’re gonna thank anybody if you’re gonna thank anybody and least thank the brothers on the soros we’ve been good enough to support the nonprofit but for people you don’t know get the contact information from them including the volunteers and start
Building a database um you know I’m gonna make I’m gonna make Halima proud of me because she’s the one who’s really taught me stuff about fundraising but by keeping this database by sending quarterly updates newsletters by keeping people informed of the good work of the nonprofit what you’re doing is you’re
Inviting dollars back so that is a huge source of fundraising so this is I’ve heard this question so many times I’ve heard it brought up so many times before I met Halima and I didn’t really know much anything I was one of the people said well glass alone governments don’t get
Some government grants we are glad you asked about government grants or any other type of grass alena take it away radio ads the years let’s say go come to our workshop we learn about government grants but money out there like it’s just free money and
Just as tax exemption is not free oh it is it has some set of requirements that go along with this so to grant and you know with grants keep in mind as you were pursuing grant funding for government grants than any other level of grant the management and reporting
Requirements do you have the bandwidth to report on what you have achieved the numbers are you measuring data grants now more and more are data-driven their impact driven so they at some point you’re going to have to report on those with government grants oftentimes the reporting can be as frequent as as
Monthly it can be quarterly and usually it’s through some type of electronic portal and all those other things so reporting and management of the grant reporting not only be programmatic activities but also the financial expenditures of the grant is important when you’re looking at grants consider
How is the funding under first to you is it going to be reimbursement based or is it gonna be an outright disbursement because that has implications for your cash flow issue also recognize that with grant funding the turnaround on the short end or the the quick turnaround
Time tends to be about three months so you said you submit a grant application in some cases you know you have a relationship with a funder they’re great they’re awesome they were expecting your application to make a turnaround in a month and have a check back to you but
More often than not and three months or longer so just keep that in mind with your financial and then the associated costs of grant management for many particularly with government grants there are insurance requirements there are audit requirements sometimes so those they have fees with them and there is a
Management cost that goes along with that day you can’t always write into the graph so sometimes those costs you have to pick up that cost by itself typically a grant a government grant will allow you a 10% kind of management cost so 10% of the funds that you receive for the
Grant can be used for administrative costs so you know the the other fees that you have the other administrative costs that you may have they may not be covered by those government grants and like most nonprofits for most nonprofits one of the biggest needs is unrestricted funding so funding that’s not tied
Directly to the actual program cost so keep those things in mind as you are pursuing grant funding as you are developing budgets for grant funding it’s not free money it is usually very much so monitored and regulated so with your fundraising please keep those things in mind and another thing that I
Forgot to mention earlier about managing the relationship and also with some of the fundraising a good way a good practice that I’ve seen some chapters have or some nonprofits have and managing a relationship with chapter partners is developing a memorandum of understanding with your with the chapter with your supporting chapter or a
Partnership our chapter so having that Memorandum of Understanding or MOU that outlines not only the terms of the relationship but also the timing that’s associated with it because you may decide as the nonprofit at some point in time that you want to kind of go off on your own and pursue some other
Partnerships so that is another strategy that I’ve seen some nonprofits implement in terms of managing so we thank you very much for taking a time to join us for the webinar there are a couple of things that we would love for you to do first of all go to
Purposeful philanthropy or to learn more about the purposeful philanthropy foundation also like purposeful philanthropy on Facebook and as I mentioned at the beginning one of the program’s of the purposeful philanthropy foundation as part of the pledge to serve initiative is the Black Creek Success Program we are definitely trying
To gear up to book dates in the fall of 2019 to go visit campuses and so if you would love to bring the Black Creek Success Program which is a program about servant leadership you see the images right there on the screen the top image is a presentation that I did at the
University of North Alabama the bottom image is from the great students at Wiley College in Texas and so if you would like to bring the Black Creek Success Program to campus you can learn more about the Black Codes Success Program also by going to purpose social purposeful philanthropy org and you can
Make a donation if you would like to donate to bring the black berry Success Program or to at least help fund the black great success program because we do not charge the colleges and universities for the travel we don’t charge them for lodging and that sort of
Thing so we try to do this for the counselors universities and minimal costs and so if you like to help out then by all means visit purposeful philanthropy org learn about the Black Creek Success Program and request the program or make a donation or if your grad chapter or maybe if your local
National pan-hellenic Council would like to bring the program to your area then you can do that as well you can fund the trip so again thanks a lot for joining us for the webinar and we hope to talk to you again soon
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