Last week, Andrea (Austin American-Statesman), Sandra (Austin Business Journal) and I attended a meeting organized by Erica Ekwurzel of KDK-Harman Foundation and attended by other foundation representatives and Border Media.

Erica’s goal was to get us talking about what we could do as a team to get more information out about nonprofits, foundations, and the needs in Austin in general. What a fantastic idea! A few things have stuck with me from that meeting.

1. The first is that foundations don’t seem to really want media attention. Apparently they want to focus on the need and the cause, and not their magnanimous support of the nonprofits that address those needs. I can understand this… to a degree. The problem is, not many organizations are as knowledgeable as foundations about what the needs are and which nonprofits have the biggest impact.

When I go to a nonprofit to talk about, say, high school drop-out rates, they only have part of the information. They have data relevant to their work, but it’s not necessarily data that’s actionable by the rest of the community. Foundations should have this data – or at least be able to tell me where to go. Foundations, we need you to return our calls!

2. The second – and really, most amazing – thing I heard about was the power of Spanish-language radio and the incredible giving power of Central Texas Spanish speakers. Border Media, which runs three Spanish-language radio stations, really knows how to tap into its audience and get them to take an action, whether that’s attending the 7,000-attendee Feria Para Aprender or donating almost $200,000 to Dell Children’s Hospital … in 2 days. And that’s one person at a time, not huge grants from major corporations.

Attention fundraisers and development professionals: Get some help – I suggest Juan Tornoe, Sebastian Puente, and Mando Rayo from Cultural Strategies - and call up Jerry and Todd at Border Media to get in touch with Austin Spanish-speaking donors. Andale!

3. Andrea and Sandra are busting their ass to cover as much nonprofit news as they can. Let me tell you, people who don’t already know this: Those “short and simple” stories you see in the papers every week take real work to put together. I don’t blame nonprofits, but… they don’t always have the time or talent to make a reporter’s job easier, you know. Most of them can put out a fantastic press release, but a good reporter wants to go beyond what the PR people put out there. And that takes some homework, some phone calls, some emails… and usually all three to multiple people.

Did I mention there were more than 6,000 nonprofits in Central Texas, all vying for Andrea’s and Sandra’s attention?

I should also mention that KDK-Harman leads the way in a lot of respects, but what I’m seeing is a very transparent, highly collaborative and innovative organization that others in the nonprofit community should emulate. Thanks again, Erica, for a very informative meeting.

PS: I hope to be back with GivingCity soon, so I can help out Andrea and Sandra…

We’re experimenting with some great photography by Joel Salcido of John Thornton, the founder and chairman of Texas Tribune, the soon-to-launch, nonprofit, news website. He’s our cover story this month, and we’re thrilled to have snagged an interview with this super-busy guy.

GivingCity Austin Issue 4 to come soon. Facebook fans will get the message first, so if you haven’t yet, please visit our page and fan us now. (Did I just say that?) Or just sign up to get the email here.

Today the Austin Affiliate of Susan G. Komen for the Cure revealed some alarming breast cancer statistics for Central Texas.

The stats are the results of the 2009 Community Profile report, comprised of breast cancer data and survey information compiled over a two year period from Bastrop, Caldwell, Hays, Travis and Williamson Counties. Komen conducts the study every two years, but has never really publicizes the results, and instead uses them mostly to build its strategy for services. (Download the entire report here.)

The results, however, are disturbing:

1. African-American women have the highest breast cancer mortality rate in Austin’s five-county region.

2. Hispanic women lag behind other ethnic groups in seeking mammogram screenings.

3. A greater percentage of women living in rural areas are diagnosed with breast cancer because of late diagnosis in part due to higher poverty rates, lack of access to healthcare and no health insurance coverage.

4. According to the Texas Cancer Registry, approximately 900 women in the five county region will be diagnosed with breast cancer this year, and of those women, an estimated 159 may lose their battle with the disease

The point is that these are not women with incurable breast cancer, rather these are women (and it’s mostly women) who are being diagnosed at such a late stage that it leaves them few options. They are being diagnosed at such a late stage because they don’t have access to mammograms.

This from the 2009 CommunityProfile:

The challenges facing the Austin Affiliate are simply that demand has outstripped services.  The current economic times resulted in less money for grantees during the 2009/2010 cycle and as a result, several services were cut back:  the mobile mammography unit had to cut over 20 locations out of its schedule; more and more women are calling the office needing free screenings; many have lost their insurance and are in treatment. Everyday expenses have become more difficult for many, but especially for women battling breast cancer.  Many of the Affiliate grantees have been advised to start looking for additional funding for their programs as economic times remain unpredictable at best.  Williamson County is faced with a shortage of surgeons willing to see uninsured patients and the list grows as that population grows.  

The good news is, you can help.

Did you know that 75% of your donation to the Austin Komen affiliate stays in Central Texas and goes directly to pay for education, support and free or affordable mammograms in these five counties?

If you’d like to have an impact on whether your neighbors are being diagnosed early enough, make a donation to Komen Austin here. And/or enter this year’s Race for the Cure, Sunday, November 1 at the Domain.

Information about free and affordable mammograms in Central Texas.

I attended teacher training for Sunday school at my church today. I had no idea there were such advanced and complicated curricula! What ever happened to rote memorization of Bible verses and horrifying stories of beatings for sin? For this program, we’re going to have to make sure students are engaged and empowered. As opposed to restless and slightly terrified.

See, I grew up going to Catholic church but spent my first two years in a private Baptist school. Can you tell?

In catechism it didn’t seem like the teachers really cared if were were “engaged” or not. They just wanted to get through the hour without one of us realizing we were being held against our wills in the church basement and there was nothing they could do to stop us if all us kids just walked out. (Daydreaming about this was the only way I could make it through.)

I think my parents figured out we weren’t the catechism types, so we wound up sitting with them for the whole mass and trying to focus on depressing things so we wouldn’t bust out laughing at… well, anything really. There were four of us kids, and all it took was for one of us to turn and make a funny face at another one of us, and it was over.

Hmmm. Now that I think about it, I can say I probably spent equal amount of church time in catechism, the chapel, and the car. Later, like in high school, I got into it more. But from 0 to about 13 years old, I spent the entire time in church wishing I were somewhere else.

My goal, then, as a Sunday school teacher, is to make sure none of my Kindergartners wishes they were somewhere else. How hard could it be?

I’ll never forget that quote I read somewhere from someone in the Austin fundraising community. The person was referring to the fact that in a down economy, prospects seem to doubt a nonprofit’s needs less.

A number of organizations – United Way, Greenlights, RGK Center, I Live Here, I Give Here – are conducting surveys to find out just how badly local nonprofits are hurting; but if they’re trying to make a case to increase giving, I have to wonder how effective they’ll be.

After all, one of the big reasons donations are down must be that people just have less to give right now, and you can plead your case all day long but if there’s no money in the bank, you probably won’t get a donation. That applies to individuals and corporations, too.

But what else might motivate Central Texans to give? Will more data do it? More bad news?

How about a return to the tried-and-true method of requests through personal relationships? Or crafting and communicating compelling stories? Or focusing on awareness campaigns, volunteer requests…. any other ways people can help besides money?

If the surveys reveal that most Central Texans nonprofits have seen a significant drop in donations compared to this time last year, I predict the initial reaction to this information by the general public may be a resounding, “Duh.”

So I hope these organizations will take advantage of the data to create a campaign that says something like this:

“Look, we hear you. You’re broke. You’re obviously not able to make the donations this year. But the needs in this community are greater than ever. Is there another way you’d like to help? We have a few suggestions….”

Austin may have fallen in the ranks of big cities that volunteer, but it should be proud of the people who do step up – especially those who do so in creative new ways.

David Neff, Aaron Bramley and Rich Vazquez deserve lots of credit for the immense amount of work they put into Lights.Camera.Help. The first-ever nonprofit film festival was innovative in a lot of ways: It was a fundraiser, it was free to nonprofits, and it honored some great and budding filmmakers whose work puts a spotlight on good causes.

. There are many online “film fests” that link to videos-for-causes, but there’s something about seeing these films in person with a group of strangers that you can’t get online. That setting not only allows you to connect with the film, it allows the audience members to connect with each other. It also makes everyone who sees those films accountable for the knowledge they gain. Everyone at the screenings and wrap party for LCH can and should take an action – we know you were there, we know you saw the film.

Not that that was their intent – to lecture and lean on you. But thanks to LCH, there are more witnesses to the needs featured in these films.

Goodwill Industries of Central Texas is one of the largest Goodwill’s in the world, and there’s a reason for that, says Gerald Davis, president of Austin’s Goodwill. “Austin donors are some of the most generous in the country.”

But recent donations to Goodwill are down 11 percent. Unfortunately, this drop hits at a time when demand for Goodwill’s services is up 57 percent.

Are Austinites donating less stuff this year? Maybe. But there might be another factor – those donation bins in parking lots around the city. Unfortunately, the stuff you put in some bins around the city is not necessarily going to the charities listed on the bins. A number of bins are placed by for-profit resellers who have entered into agreements with charities to share a small percentage of sales in exchange for allowing them to use their name on the bin. Some of the resellers aren’t even located in Texas.

It’s a practice for which the Texas Legislature passed SB 776, which requires disclosure of such agreements to be written on the bin. It also imposes a fine of up to $2,000 for each violation. The law goes into effect on September 1, 2009.

“This is part of the problem,” says Davis. “Austin’s great because rather than throw out their stuff, they look to donate it. But it has to be convenient. So in trying to fulfill our mission, we’re also trying to fight these bins.”

The lesson is the same as with all donations to nonprofits: Make sure you know how your donation is being used.

To locate a genuine drop-off point for your unwanted clothes and household items, look at this map.

I don’t read them, for the most part. Here’s why:

They are structured and written as if I have all the time in the world to read them.
They are an email attachment I don’t want to open.
They include quotes that are obviously made up.
And some of them don’t actually pertain to any real news at all.

Now, the last thing the world needs is another blogger complaining about press releases. We blogger types actually need this information. We want you to send it to us. It’s just… I’m kind of busy. Super busy, actually. So what would be great is if you could give me the info in bits. Don’t make me read a sentence if I don’t have to. I’m not lazy, really, it’s just that I have so much to read.

A lot of you know this. There’s a team of public relations people out there – PetersGroup folks, for example – who are just so on the ball. They know exactly what you need, they deliver great information, they hook you up with a great interview… all the stuff that makes me open their emails as soon as I receive them.

Then there are others who seem to think I’m some kind of sucker. Not all corporations can be “the leading” whatever in whatever field. And the run-on sentence leads, in which you describe the entire history of your organization before you tell me what it is you’re writing about today, those can go.

And just, in general, a press release that’s written as if you don’t really want me to know what the company is really about… that’s not intrigue, people, that’s annoying.

And the other thing is, I know some of these bogus press releases don’t come from you. They come from your client who insists – pays you – to issue a press release on these non-stories. Fine, I can understand those releases once in a while.

But there’s no mystery to all this, I think. Don’t worry about following a particular style or making it sound like something it’s not. Just tip me off to a good story in a quick and casual way. In the body of an email. With photos and captions, if you have them. That would be great.

Thanks, and keep them coming.

Technorati Profile

GENaustin’s fundraising event enjoyed a full house at the MACC last Friday, thanks to its headliner, Kerry Tate.  Tate is the founder of big-time Austin PR firm, TateAustinHahn.

I Twittered from the event because Tate was throwing out some real gems (see below). But the big takeaway was her “Ann Richards and 5 Things Story,” which she’s probably told before but which was pretty fresh to me. I’ll paraphrase the story here (thereby removing most of the charm, but here it is):

Years ago Tate saw Richards at Las Manitas. They were just acquaintencances at the time, but Richards charismatically demanded (as only Richards could) that Tate sit at her table. In the course of their short, one-sided conversation, Richards said, “Kerry, you need to tell me five things about yourself that you stand for and that make you who you are,” or something to that effect. “And whenever someone asks you to do something, you make sure it aligns with at least four of those five things, and if it doesn’t you say no.”

Tate, nervous and kind of awe-struck, told her she didn’t have those five things. “Well, why not?” demanded Richards. To deflect, Tate asked Richards for her five things, and Richards pulled an envelope  and a pen out of her purse, wrote them down, and handed it to Tate.

“Now Kerry, you need to go home and think about your list of five things. Because if don’t live your list, you’re going to be living somebody else’s.”

“Don’t live someone else’s list.” The “list” in Tate’s world, is her personal brand, and it’s something she said she bears in mind whenever establishing a client’s brand, too. Tate urged us to go out and make out own list. And I will, as soon as I think I could stay awake for the whole exercise.

I hadn’t expected Tate to be such a charming storyteller, but then again, it makes sense that she is. As one of Austin’s best known PR professionals, storytelling has got to be one of her skills. What interested me about Tate was her new venture, Civic Interest. Apparently, that’s what lots of other people were there for, too. Tate described it as a place where people with a civic interest can figure out what to do next. Hmmm. All I know is, they got David Balch, former executive director of United Way Capital Area. I sat next to him at the last Hispanic Quality of Life Initiative forum on the arts, but it wasn’t the right place to ask about it. So it’s still a mystery to me what it’s all about, but I would love to know more .

GENaustin

In the meantime, one of GENaustin’s high school employees certainly held her own. She’s part of the nonprofit’s ClubGEN program, which trains high school girls to be mentors to middle school girls, because who else is a middle school girl going to listen to? She told us about what a great program ClubGEN is, how much fun she has connecting with the other girls, and how great an experience it has been to take on a leadership role. Wish I’d had someone like her when I was in middle school…

If you’re concerned about girls and their problems with body image, self esteem, popularity, teen pregnancy, and other related challenges, GENaustin needs your support. Find out more here.

More of Tate’s gems (from my Tweets):

“Run toward trouble. The opportunities right now are where there’s turmoil, where there’s change.”

“Delight, humor, wonder, authenticity, believability” – When you know your own brand, you have these things.

“PR is doing something good and making sure you get caught.”

“PR is where we spend a lot of time and someone else’s money to tell their story.”