Ways to Measure Nonprofit

"One of the greatest mistakes is to judge policies and programs by their intentions rather than their results." -Milton Friedman

In Katie Paine's Measure What Matters, she discusses measuring for nonprofits. I believe measuring in this area of PR is one of the most important because resources are so limited and competition is high. Nonprofits don't necessarily have the reputation to be competitive, but especially in this economy today, donations are harder to find; we compete for dollars, time and volunteers. Nonprofits do not want to waste their time and money on unsuccessful programs and they want to use what works best to help them raise funds and gain memberships, making measurement crucial.

This past summer at my internship at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Cleveland, I worked primarily in development with memberships. Because of this, I particularly liked Paine sharing how to measure membership with the data that is already available. She says to look at:

• Attendance figures
• Old awareness or attitude studies
• Number of new members or donors acquired
• Numbers of volunteers added
• Return from direct-mail campaigns, door-to-door solicitations, and fundraising events
• What a donor is worth over a lifetime

These are all things I personally saw MOCA track this past summer, and even I had a hand in measuring, such as attendance at events. These are all things that can be easily acquired and analyzed providing great information, a great place to start a measurement program for any nonprofit! 

Semester Break Woes

For the past five days, I've been enjoying ONU's Thanksgiving break. I know everyone is excited because being on semesters means more breaks, but I'm a little sad semesters made this break shorter than it normally would be as we are used to a week-long break at this time. But a break from classes was enjoyable nonetheless.

This break was not as restful as previous ones because on quarters, we would not have work because the quarter would have ended and we would just have finished finals. I had to worry about writing papers and completing assignments as opposed to spending relaxing days with the family.

And then to top it off, I had to head back to Ada for what will be the most intense three weeks of class yet. On quarters, these three weeks were the beginning of a new quarter, with introductions to classes, a little material to cover and a quiz before break. I think it will be tough to get into the holiday spirit with finals! Hopefully these next busy weeks won't make me a Grinch!

Friday, Friday!

Yesterday marked my first official Black Friday. Never in the past have I gone shopping at extremely early hours, but this year I worked for my summer job as a Brand Rep at Justice, the girl's clothing store. I know it's an important day for the economy and this year marked new records in sales with about $11.4 billion in sales according to PR Newswire. Black Friday really got me thinking, how much does public relations factor into a company's success on infamous this day?

As a consumer, what I do on Black Friday depends upon my relationship with the company and how they advertise this day. Let's take two of my favorite stores as examples, Target and Kohl's.

To me, Target's commercials for Black Friday are hilarious. I love the blonde woman training for the day in her crazy red jumpsuit. I love how Target recognizes the hype this day brings and almost makes fun of it in a way. I appreciate the humor and the recognition of the intensity consumers bring to this day.

Kohl's this year took Rebecca Black's Friday and turned it into "Black Friday". I found this humorous for about two seconds and then found it super annoying. If you are going to take something pop culture related and turn it into an ad, it has to have wit and be completed very thoughtfully. This could have been a great idea, but I think it faltered in execution, especially because I think middle aged women are a public for Kohl's and they might not recognize this reference. I know my mother didn't and she loves Kohl's.

Companies must recognize their audience and tailor their ads and campaigns to them. Black Friday is no exception to this rule!

The Reason for the Season

While researching for a project in my social media class, I found an article from January about companies giving their time and efforts to help those in need. These PR agencies or advertising companies came up with some innovate ways to raise money and awareness for nonprofits. With the season of giving right around the corner, I thought revisiting this article would be a great way to lift our holiday spirits! Here's my favorite project:

Cohn & Wolfe helped Project Kaisei (a nonprofit working to rid the ocean of plastic in the North Pacific Grye) raise money by creating a card inspired by an eco sculpture made from over 500 plastic bottles and tweet-activated lights. When someone would tweet a trigger word--like recycle, plastic, ocean, etc.-a light would be activated. Cohn & Wolfe pledged to donate $1 to Kaisei each time a trigger word was retweeted, up to $5,000 in donations.

This "Holiday Twitterball" generated more than one million tweets of the trigger words and 337 retweets, donating all $5,000 to Project Kaisei. I can't wait to see what firms decide to give to others this year!

Love thy neighbor!

In chapter nine of Measure What Matters, Katie Paine shares a chart of community influencers and how positive relationships with these will impact or benefit your organization. Target audiences are crucial to campaigns, and having positive relationships with these audiences in your community is incredibly valuable. Here's who you should get to know:

• Elected officials. These guys have the power to help you gain permission to expand or grow. A negative relationship here could withhold that permission.
• Official wannabes and candidates. Can take your issue and make a campaign with it.
• Customers. They provide revenue!
• Noncustomers. They can be potential customers or employees.
• NGOs. These influence the elected officials and local media.
• Town staff. These people will be able to help with paperwork and approvals through the city.
• Local radio and TV reporters. Primary news source--so your message can become news.
• Local print reporters. This is read by influentials and getting your message into this medium can help influence opinions.
• Senior citizens. These citizens can provide votes or volunteers for your cause.
• Students. These citizens are also votes and volunteers, but can be future employees and customers as well.
• Academics. Professors will be opinion leaders and a source of students for interns. Academia can also provide research.
• Merchants. Could also be potential customers!
• Opinion leaders. These leaders provide influential opinions and votes.
• Other influentials. These are recommenders for your organization to your publics.

All of these community influencers are great sources for your organization. Network, network, network!

The Fan Section

My roommate Jill has been dating a soccer player, Greg, for over two years now. This year, she's convinced me to tag along to his soccer games. I never really liked soccer before. This is probably because I've never played and I just didn't understand the game. I enjoy watching the world cup on television and I've been to a Columbus Crew game, which I also enjoyed. But now that I've gone to several games, ONU soccer has become something I look forward to.

Jill and I have gone to most of the home games this year and games that were in the Cleveland area (I'm from there so we visited home too). This past weekend, Jill, two of our roommates and myself ventured back to Cleveland for a round of the NCAA tournament at Case Western Reserve University. I was extremely excited to go home because I was missing it a little bit, but I was also getting excited to cheer on our polar bears. And what a great fan section we were!

On Saturday, the bears beat Rose, a school from Indiana, 2-0. The next night, the bears won again 2-0 against Case, making it into the "sweet 16". This Friday, we're off to Ohio Wesleyan for the next round of the tournament, where they will take on Ohio Wesleyan. We can't wait! 

Measuring Events

When Katie Paine discusses measuring sponsorships and events in chapter seven of Measure What Matters, I found this information to be very interesting and helpful. Planning events is something I've had experience with on campus and at my internship this past summer. Knowing seven steps to measure events helps determine the impact of events. Here are her seven steps:

Step 1. Define your objectives. You objective could be to sell products, launch new products, drive affinity between customers and the brand or to reach new markets and customers. No matter what your objective is, you need to define it in order to properly measure your event or sponsorship.

Step 2. Determine your measurable criteria of success. After the objective is selected, defining specific criteria of success is important. This will differ depending on the type of event you are evaluating, but the metrics you use will change based on your criteria.

Step 3. Decide upon your benchmarks. You need to be able to compare your event to another. This is your benchmark. Choosing your benchmark will be what you compare your event to and help you measure your event. 

Step 4. Select a measurement tool. Surveys are a great measurement tool, especially if you can do one before and after the event. This will provide great measurable information. 

Step 5. Define your specific metrics. The specific metrics you choose will be based upon your goals. It depends upon if you want to change people's opinions about you or if you want to sell something.

Step 6. Choose a measurement tool. There are multiple types of tools including counting, survey, sales tracking, web analytic and content tools. Based on your objectives and what you want to measure will determine which ones of these you will use.

Step 7. Analyze you results and use them to make your events more effective. After analyzing and learning from your results, you can implement changes and keep your strengths going strong. You also need to step back and look at the big picture of the event, not just comparing and analyzing each part. 

Student Day!

This Friday I had the pleasure of attending my first event hosted by Cleveland PRSA, Student Day 2011. Being at Ohio Northern and affiliated with Central Ohio PRSA, I've always attended their events. But because I'm originally from Cleveland, this year I decided to become more involved with Cleveland PRSA.

The day began bright and early at 8 a.m. with breakfast. We then jumped right into 45 minute sessions of panels and speakers. Topics revolved around landing internships, networking, how to use social media to advance your professional life and much more.

My favorite session was Interviewing, Networking and More with Laurie Mitchell. She's been in the recruiting business for years, and really knows how to stand out to be the best candidate for a job. Being a senior and on the job hunt this year, I really appreciated her straight-forward and blunt tips. Don't worry, I took great notes!

After four sessions, a break and snack, I got to have my resume reviewed. I had my resume reviewed by a professional at PRSSA National Conference. After making changes based off her suggestions, I couldn't wait to see how my updated resume would be reviewed. And to my pleasure, this professional thought it was great! I was very pleased.

The day ended at 1 p.m. and I left feeling very confident and excited about my field. I can't wait to join it (and Cleveland PRSA) in May!

There's no place like home

I love being a student at Ohio Northern. When I was a freshman, I never wanted to go home on the weekends. Breaks were nice because I had a rest from school work and could recharge my batteries, but I rarely went home more than that. Now that I'm a senior, I've come to appreciate my visits home.

This fall, I've returned to Cleveland multiple times. I've been home for my sister's wedding, fall break and I've come home a couple of times with my roommates for ONU soccer games against local teams. I come home to a warm, welcoming house, delicious home cooked meals and the best company I could ask for.

Now that my sister is married and moved out, I come home to a little less full of a house than I'm used to. Don't be fooled, it's still quite full. My parents, grandmother and older brother are all here to keep me company, along with the love of my life and 16 year-old puppy, Jazzmin. I love to see them all and spend time with each but I also love to go out as a family. I now know how much home means to me and appreciate it more each time I return.

The Job Hunt

For the longest time I didn't want to be called a "senior". I used to even be afraid to say the dreaded s-word, but now as I'm the majority through my second last semester, I'm finally accepting that the end is near. My biggest concern about being a senior was the job hunt. I know the economy isn't the best currently and I witnessed some of my really successful friends having a tough time getting a job. I knew this would be a process and as I've started this hunt, I've learned a few great things already:

1. Update that resume. Being involved in so many things has given me a lot of great things for my resume, but what I've learned is to record everything and make it as measurable as possible. I've planned and hosted events, but putting numbers to these activities is much better. I wish I had started this earlier but I am definitely trying my best and updating it all as I go.


2. Follow organizations. Like organizations on Facebook, keep up with their sites and follow them on Twitter. This helps you get to know the organization and find what organization could be a right fit for you. The organization could share job opportunities, and some even have a sign-up for job notification emails. Plus, if you keep following the organization, you'll look very knowledgable during the interview!


3. Network. Professionals and students in your network are great resources in finding jobs and job opportunities. I've met a lot of great alumni who tell me to forward my resume to them and they will send it out. Other students send me opportunities they find as well. Networking could also help push your resume to the top in certain cases. Sometimes it is all about who you know!

Hopefully I'll learn more as I get closer to finding a job. Maybe it isn't so scary!

Perfecting the Measurement Program

In Katie Paine's Measure What Matters, she discusses the seven steps to take to perfect the measurement program. Measurement can be scary to some companies because it is consuming in money and time, and some companies just don't know how to do it. Here's seven steps to make that process a little easier:

Step 1: Define your goals and objectives. A company must have a desired outcome, with a deadline, budget and target audience. Having these goals and objectives in sales, message or position, or public safety or education should be related back to strategic corporate goals. Once you figure out what you actually want to measure, it makes the process much easier!

Step 2: Define your environment, your audiences, and your role in influencing them. After examining each audience, you can determine how a good relationship will benefit the organization and how a bad relationship will threaten it. Defining these three things will reinforce your goals and objectives.

Step 3: Define your investment. Finding how much you have to invest in measurement, with cost and staff, will help define your program. Knowing what the opportunity cost is and how effective your measurement is will help you allocate resources to the best places.

Step 4: Determine your benchmarks. Measurement is comparative. It's important to determine benchmarks and compare your company to a few close competitors, as well as comparing it to itself with past performance.

Step 5: Define your key performance indicators. Each objective may need a different way to be measured. It's important to know if you want to measure visibility or awareness.

Step 6: Select the right measurement tool and vendors and collect data. Data can be measured through content analysis, primary research or web analytics. Finding the right tool is important to collect the right data.

Step 7: Turn data into action. Measurement is a continuous process and should help you improve as you go. Setting up a reporting schedule will help you constantly track what you are doing.

With love that is ever steadfast

My favorite tradition as a Delta Zeta at Ohio Northern is Big-Little. As a new member, you compile a list of 15 girls that you would like to be your big. This list is given to the New Member Educator, and she pairs up new members with sisters. Sometimes decisions come easy when selecting a big and sometimes it doesn't, but it always seems that big-little pairs are perfect no matter what.

The bigs, trying to be as secret as possible, send notes, gifts and crafts to their littles. This drives the littles crazy, but it all seems worth it after a couple of weeks when they finally find out who is theirs. When the ceremony is complete, littles are showered with even more gifts and the picture taking commences. This can be a long process because some DZ families are very large! Mine has 13 active sisters currently and we're not even the biggest!

This tradition has been memory filled each year. Becoming a little and finally being able to call my big mine was amazing. Getting a little my sophomore was such a delight, and becoming a grand-big the next year made it all feel complete. This year, I was blessed to have another addition to our family, my great grand-little.

This truly is a great tradition and the bonds created between bigs and littles is unlike any other. To me, my big was, and still is, the best role model I could ask for. She constantly encouraged me to succeed in school, other organizations and virtually everything else! She helped me grow into who I am today. My little possess all the qualities of a great Delta Zeta. She is my confidant and my pal, always being there when I wanted to watch a Disney-Pixar movie or take some time to relax. She also provides a tremendous amount of support. These two are some of the closest sisters I have and I know they will be a part of my life forever.