Kivi's Nonprofit Communications Blog

Independent Sector has just released Principles for Good Governance and Ethical Practice, after three years of discussion on the best ways to encourage self-governance and self-regulation in the nonprofit sector. If you receive any foundation funding, you can bet that those funders will insist you adopt these practices and work toward their full implementation.

Several of the 33 principles included in the guide relate directly to your communications and marketing work. I’ve copied those below and added my comments in parentheses. You’ll note that several of these are similar to the principles I highlighted earlier this month from the NC Center for Nonprofits, which other state associations also advocate.

“7. A charitable organization should make information about its operations, including its governance, finances, programs and activities, widely available to the public. Charitable organizations also should consider making information available on the methods they use to evaluate the outcomes of their work and sharing the results of those evaluations.”

(The report specifically mentions nonprofit annual reports and nonprofit websites as two ways to implement this principle.)

“11. The board of a charitable organization should include members with the diverse background (including, but not limited to, ethnic, racial and gender perspectives), experience, and organizational and financial skills necessary to advance the organization’s mission.

(The report mentions that many nonprofits strive to include someone on their board with “public relations and marketing” experience.)

“27. Solicitation materials and other communications addressed to donors and the public must clearly identify the organization and be accurate and truthful.”

(I found this statement particularly interesting: “Descriptions of program activities and the financial condition of the organization must be current and accurate, and any references to past activities or events should be dated appropriately.” Too many nonprofits rely on really old accomplishments in their fundraising and outreach materials and this clearly discourages that kind of behavior.)

“28. Contributions must be used for purposes consistent with the donor’s intent, whether as described in the relevant solicitation materials or as specifically directed by the donor.”

(I also found this one interesting, because many nonprofit communicators focus on one particular project in their materials, but funds raised with those materials are often put into the general operating fund. You’ll need to carefully word your solicitations and supporting materials to comply with this one.)

“29. A charitable organization must provide donors with specific acknowledgments of charitable contributions, in accordance with IRS requirements, as well as information to facilitate the donors’ compliance with tax law requirements.”

(Yes! Someone is finally requiring a thank-you note to donors! The report also adds: “Regular updates to donors on the
activities they support is another way to build trust and loyalty.” Right on.)

“33. A charitable organization should respect the privacy of individual donors and, except where disclosure is required by law, should not sell or otherwise make available the names and contact information of its donors without providing them an opportunity at least once a year to opt out of the use of their names.”

(This is why nonprofits should be using an automated email delivery service — my favorite is iContact — and not Outlook or other personal email programs, to send email newsletters and blasts.)

As I continue to write about best practices on this blog, I’ll try to remember to link them back to these principles where relevant, so you can use them to help justify your work to the higher-ups.

One of the easiest ways that nonprofit communicators can go green in their operations is to use recycled paper all the time — in your office equipment and office supplies like folders and when you buy print. Long gone are the excuses about paper quality and, for the most part, price (or at least they should be, if you shop around a bit.)

There’s just one small problem. Lots of nonprofits like to include “Printed on Recycled Paper” on their documents to promote their environmentally sensitive behavior when they, in fact, have no idea what that phrase really means and aren’t actually using 100% recycled paper. Let me explain.

According to the Federal Trade Commission’s Guides for the Use of Environmental Marketing Claims, which were published a decade ago, if you claim that your document is “Printed on Recycled Paper,” you are saying that it is printed on paper containing 100% recycled fiber. However lots of the office and printing papers on the market today only contain 30% recycled fiber. If you are using those papers, you should say, “Printed on Paper with 30% Recycled Fiber” or something along those lines.

I personally buy and highly recommend Staples® 100% Recycled Copy Paper, so I can include “Printed on Recycled Paper” in my documents without further details. To be technically correct about this particular paper, I could say, “Printed on 100% Post-Consumer Recycled Paper,” which is even better from an environmental perspective.

When something is called “recycled,” that material can come from two sources: Pre-Consumer, which is manufacturing scraps, and Post-Consumer, which is all the paper that we put in the recycling bin at home and work. Manufacturers commonly recycle their own discards for economic reasons, so that recovered paper isn’t as important for consumers like us to focus on as the post-consumer material. The post-consumer material is the paper that we are trying to keep out landfills and incinerators and want to be made into new products; therefore, we should look for post-consumer content when we buy recycled products.

When you are buying office paper or talking to your printer about paper choices, ask for the total recycled content and the highest amount of post-consumer content that you can, too. If price is a concern, look for paper that is 100% recycled, with 30% post-consumer content. Interested in learning more about environmental paper choices? Check out the Conservatree website.

This post is my contribution to Blog Action Day.

The North Carolina Center for Nonprofits (one of the leading state nonprofit associations) has just published Principles and Practices for Nonprofit Excellence: A Self-Help Tool for Organizational Effectiveness. Several other state associations have similar guides for their members.

You’ll find several communications and marketing best practices included in the NC guide and most others:

– “Fundraising communications should include clear, accurate, and honest information about the organization, its activities, and the intended use of funds.” (from the Fundraising Section)

–”A nonprofit should regularly communicate with donors regarding its activities and should make such information available through multiple outlets.” (from the Fundraising Section)

–”E-mail accounts for staff and staff usage that comply with CAN-SPAM regulations for broadcast emails.” (from Information and Technology section)

–”A nonprofit should share the results of its evaluation with all interested stakeholders.” (from Evaluation of Results section)

–”Information provided to policymakers, the media, and the general public becomes a matter of public record. Therefore, a nonprofit should ensure that the information is timely and accurate and that the social and political context of the information is clear in order to avoid misunderstanding or manipulation of the message.” (from Civic Engagement and Public Policy section)

–”In serving the public trust, a nonprofit should produce an annual report that contains information regarding activities and financial and programmatic performance and results. The annual report should include:
-an explanation of the organization’s mission, activities, and results;
-an explanation of how individuals can access its programs and services;
-overall financial information, including income and expense statement, balance sheet, and functional expense allocation; and
-a list of board members, staff, and donors.” (from Transparency and Accountability section)
–”Nonprofits should have crisis communication plans that can be implemented expeditiously by staff and/or board members.” (from Transparency and Accountability section)

Yesterday I replied to the arguments made by people who want to reprint blog posts or RSS feeds in full, often without proper credit.

Let me be clear: I have no problem with others excerpting or discussing my posts – I wholeheartedly encourage that. That’s part of the natural beauty of the blogosphere. My problem is with people who reprint the entire post and pass it off as their content, without my permission and without proper attribution and links, or who use my content without my permission to improve their own standing with their readers or with the search engines.

So what’s the right way to republish an RSS feed or blog post? I suggest four guidelines:

1) If you want to reprint an entire post on your site with the purpose of populating your domain with good articles or sharing an interesting or useful article with your readers, simply ask permission first and always include a link back to the original post when permission is granted. If you need good content and don’t want to ask permission, go to a free articles directory; don’t poach articles from blogs.

2) If you want to discuss or respond to a post in an original post of your own, feel free to cut and paste snippets here and there, or to summarize the post in your own words, and always include a link back to the original post. This is extremely common and encouraged in the blogosphere. You can find examples of how others have used my posts in this way at Philanthropy Journal’s Give and Take, which I approve of 100%.

3) If you want to excerpt a post without any original writing of your own, feel free to use the first paragraph (or a small amount of teaser text — usually not more than 50-100 words) and then include a link back to the full, original post. Again, this is extremely common and generally encouraged.

4) If you want to use RSS to automatically add content to your site, like many news aggregator sites do, set up your pages to take only headlines or a limited number of characters or words from the top of the article. And yes, always include a link back to the original post! This is what Ogilvy PR does with my feed and the feeds of many others in our sector.

I’m not suggesting we stifle conversation. I am suggesting that if you want an online presence, you do the work of content creation yourself and not rip off your digital neighbors.

Do these guidelines make sense to you? Leave a comment and let me know.

An article from this blog was recently reprinted in an email newsletter and on a website without my permission and without a link back to this blog. The same thing has happened recently to a handful of blogging colleagues. Is that fair use or content theft? When and how is it OK to reprint information from blogs in your own newsletters, blogs, and websites?

The Arguments For and Against Copying Full Posts

Note: I am not talking about excerpting small sections of posts for discussion purposes; I’m talking about reprinting the entire piece as content on a website, etc.

Some will argue that content distributed in the blogosphere is different than material printed in other forms, like printed books or even websites. People who wouldn’t normally copy and reprint articles from those sources will copy and paste off of blogs willy-nilly. They seem to justify this behavior in one of two ways.

Their Argument: It’s the nature of the blogosphere. Blogs are the Wild West and anything goes. The normal rules of engagement don’t apply. Blogging is all about the decentralization and free-wheeling distribution of information and republishing posts is simply part of the culture.

My Response: In addition to being decentralized and free-wheeling, blogging is also highly personal. The journal format demands a first-person writing style. When you copy my content, you are getting more than words – you are also getting some of the personality that comes along with it. When you reprint full blog posts without permission and pass them off as original content for your newsletter or website, without ample credit and links back, it’s a form of identity theft. Instead of using my credit score, you are using my reputation.

Their Argument: If you use RSS, you want people to republish your posts. RSS means Real Simple Syndication. If you use it to distribute content from your blog, as nearly all bloggers do, that means you want people to have a real simple way to publish your content in other venues, just like all those national columnists who write articles that are then published in hundreds of newspapers across the U.S.

My Response: This line of reasoning is absurd. The method I choose to distribute articles to my readers, whether it be print newsletters, private email, RSS, FedEx, or carrier pigeon, does not affect my copyright. I wrote it; I own it. End of story. And let’s not forget, those syndicated columnists are paid for their work, and the more popular their columns are, the more they get paid.

To answer the question I posed at the top, reprinting entire posts without permission and proper attribution and links is content theft and a copyright violation. It’s a way to add quality content to your site without working or paying for it, but it’s also lazy and, I believe, illegal.

So what’s the right way to reuse someone’s blog post?

Coming Tomorrow: The Right Ways to Republish RSS and Reprint Blog Posts (Part 2)

I’ve played around with lots of different photo galleries, both free and for a fee, for both clients and for my personal blog, where I keep my far-flung family happy with lots of kid photos. I’ve decided that I like Shozam the best (formerly Web Gallery Wizard) and here’s why.

It gives me complete control over how the photos appear and offers several nice templates for the photo galleries. Some of them are a little cheesy, but most are tasteful templates that can work well with many website designs. It’s got a step-by-step process (Steps #1 - 6) that’s really easy to follow, so you don’t get lost in the process of moving your photos from your camera to the web. I don’t have to do anything to my photos before placing them into the program. It takes care of all the sizing, rotating, creating thumbnails, etc. Adding captions is simple and you can also add audio and video clips.

I also like that it comes in several different versions, allowing me to pick the version with the number of tools I needed, and not pay for the ones I don’t. I bought the advanced version for $99.99, and it’s the mid-range version. The Lite version (the most basic version) is $24.95. Naturally, I recommend that you start with the free trial. It will let you test drive the various options before you spend the cash, which is always nice. It took me awhile before I coughed up the money, but after trying several of the free or cheap solutions and being really unhappy in the end, I’m glad I spend the bucks to get the product that works for me.
If you know of a program that does all that Shozam does for the same price or less, let me know by leaving a comment.

When does a nonprofit need a model release? This is a frequent question from nonprofit communicators. Before I answer, let me share this true story (I swear, it really is true).

A nonprofit hosts a fundraiser that includes a dance band. The newsletter editor wants to include a photo of the band in the newsletter. A board member, who is also an attorney, reviews the newsletter and insists that the newsletter editor must get a model release from the band members before using the photo. Newsletter editor does her best, but can only get in touch with half of the band members before the print deadline. Rather than pull the photo or blow off the board member, she blurs the faces of the band members she can’t reach and prints the newsletter. In other words, her newsletter includes a photo in which it appears that half of the band is “innocent until proven guilty” on Cops.

I would not have believed this story had she not shown me a copy of the actual newsletter.

This is completely ridiculous and an excellent example of board members stepping in where they do not belong. Not only is this micromanagement by a board member, which is generally frowned upon, but the legal advice was a bunch of hooey. But I digress.

Why all the confusion about model releases? Because the whole issue of model releases falls into a gray area of First Amendment law. There are no hard and fast rules — every answer to a model release question is subject to any number of caveats. Here’s one right now: I am not an attorney. But as this example shows, even attorneys practicing criminal or family law will often get it wrong. If you feel you need a completely solid answer for your specific case, hire a First Amendment lawyer. If you are looking for the general rules of the game that can apply to nearly all nonprofit situations, read on.

If you are publishing a photo for information or educational purposes, not commercial purposes like product advertising, you can typically print it without a model release. The majority of nonprofit publications fall into this category. Model releases are all about the use of the photo, not the fact that it was taken. Do you think newspaper photographers get model releases from criminals on perp walks or the paparazzi chasing Hollywood actresses ask for model releases? Of course not. And they are selling the photos to magazine publishers and the publishers are selling magazines to you. Money is changing hands and yet no model release is legally required because these are considered informational or educational purposes, as would most nonprofit publications.

You are also fine without a release if the person is truly unrecognizable. You are usually fine if you are not hiding the fact that you are taking photos and you are in a public place and are not breaking any laws. You are also fine in private locations as long as you have the owner’s or event sponsor’s permission.

That’s the basic law. But that doesn’t mean following these rules, and therefore neglecting to get a model release in most nonprofit situations, is necessarily the smartest choice politically or professionally.

So what’s a nonprofit to do? Use your common sense.

For example, I wouldn’t give a second thought to a photo of a band playing at a party. They are probably thrilled with the extra exposure — until you blur half of the band members’ faces. That’s what I’d be mad about if I were in the band. Forget the model release in this case.

What about participants in your various programs? To be on the safe side, I would try to get a signed model release. It doesn’t have to be a huge ordeal.

Here is some sample legalese for a release from Hurwit & Associates, a law firm serving nonprofits, and here is the much scaled-down version used by the National Science Teachers Association. To make it easy on yourself, you can put something like this at the top of a sheet of paper and leave lots of rows below it where people can sign. I just put something like this together for a client who wants to do “man on the street” interviews to chronicle public opinion on their issue. Remember, you only need the release if you actually use the photo (and remember, legally, you probably don’t really need it then). You can go back later and get permission once you know what photos you want to use, but that only works if you can identify everyone in the photo weeks or months later.

If you make participants sign other kinds of applications or waivers, simply add this language to those forms. It’s my understanding that big events like conferences are considered public and since there is no expectation of privacy, you don’t really need a release from the hundreds of people at your event. If you were really concerned about it, you could include the release as part of your registration form or ask people to sign it when they pick up their registration materials.

I managed the photography and publications for a conference of about 1,000 people for several years. We didn’t get model releases, even though we posted hundreds of photos online and used last year’s photos in the current year’s conference marketing materials. I sorted through every photo to take out any that were clearly unflattering (eyes half-closed, food sticking out of the mouth, hands appearing to touch places they didn’t belong). We put a note on the website that said we would take down any photo if a person in the photo asked in writing. In four years of following this practice, we never once received a request to remove a photo. A few people complained about the photographer getting in their way at the event, but that was it, and those people complained about lots of things. People loved seeing the photos from the event afterwards and those who appeared in the marketing materials were flattered.

What about kids? This is the only place where I say without question, always get a signed release by the guardian for children under 18. When children are involved, you enter into a whole new realm of law and best practices.

Want more? These are the two best (in other words, clear and pragmatic) explanations I’ve found online:

Frequently Asked Questions about Releases from the American Society of Media Photographers
A Very Brief Model Release Primer from a professional photographer’s blog

I’m always harping on clients to add photographs to their publications and I always hear, “But we don’t have any good photos!”

So buy them online!

You can get high-quality, royalty-free stock photography for a few dollars per image (less if you want only web resolution). Lots of images available online were shot with advertising in mind, so they will often include areas that are perfect places for you to drop in some text.

I buy 95% of the images I use for clients and for my own websites and publications (including the images in the last few blog posts) from two sources:

iStockPhoto.com is my favorite, because their search engine is excellent. If you type in “black” for example, it will guess what you meant and then let you specify whether you meant “black as in descriptive color” or “black as in African descent.” It’s very easy to narrow your search to the photos you really want.

If I can’t find it on iStockPhoto.com, then I try BigStockPhotos.com. The search engine there isn’t as sophisticated and there is some overlap with other photography sites, but I have found great photos there that I didn’t see elsewhere.

At both sites, the more credits you purchase at once, the cheaper they are. I’ve been ripping through them for various clients, so I’m purchasing in the hundreds at both sites and I always spend them faster than I think I will. If you are trying these sites for the first time, I recommend getting 55 credits for $60 at iStockPhoto.com and 27 credits for $40 at BigStockPhotos.com. You can also find illustrations at iStockPhoto.com (no more cheesy clipart!). Web resolution photos cost 1-2 credits; high-resolution can be up to 15 credits depending on the size of the photo (for most print purposes, they’ll be in the 4-5 credit range.)

If you need city- or state-specific shots, try the convention and visitor’s bureau for the area. In most cases, you can register at their websites for free, agree that you’ll only use the photos to promote the location or an event there, and you can download high-quality photos at no charge.

A couple of times each year, when neither of these cheap site offers what I want, I get out my wallet and head over to Getty Images or Corbis. The photos cost more like $50 - $300 and there are more use restrictions, but you’ll find some incredibly beautiful and visually stunning photography and illustrations.

So what’s the downside to stock photography? The main problem is that others can use the same photo, so there’s a slim chance that someone else in your field or location will use the same photo you did. All the sites tell you how many times the photos have been downloaded, so if that’s a concern for you, pick images with few downloads.

And, no, the photos in my blog header are not stock. Those are my real kids and cats.