Episode 107: Why Goals Need to Be Measurable: How to Make the Intangible, Tangible
Funders need to know if they cut you a 6-figure check, they will be able to determine if your nonprofit made an impact or not. They use the measures you set as the barometer for accomplishing your goals. Learn how craft measurable goals that help you tell your Success Story.
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🔦 NONPROFIT SPOTLIGHT 🙌🏿
Garuda Promotional Products Pt. 3
👉🏿https://www.garudapromo.com/
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🚀 RESOURCES TO HELP YOU RUN A SUCCESSFUL NONPROFIT
How to Validate Your Nonprofit Idea https://drive.google.com/file/d/12yQwlLA06icKeeFMWO2q_Pu0MEXlWc/view?usp=drive_link
90 Days to a Profitable Nonprofit https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ofgeHJ2CTVS0t8STMiNqfveaVpWfaK7o/view?usp=sharing
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Learn more about my success with helping nonprofits
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Podcast Transcript
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to On Air with Amber Wynn, where nonprofit leaders learn to fuse passion and commitment with proven business strategies to create long-term funding impact and sustainability. And now here's your host and resident, Philanthrepreneur Amber Wynn.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Welcome to On Air. It's Your Girl. I'm back in the house, and today we're carrying on the conversation. I started last episode talking about the funder's perspective episode. We talked about program descriptions and what a funder was looking for. We're going to continue that conversation somewhat. Today's topic is covering why goals need to be measurable and how to make the intangible tangible. One of the things that I focus on, and this is me wearing my funders hat, is making goals measurable. It is one of the most challenging areas that I work on with nonprofit founders because as people in the community we're solving for big problems. And so there's a challenge in understanding, well, how do I quantify that in particular, in indirect services. What I will tell you, having been in youth development, the entirety of my career, my nonprofit career, is you really don't see the real impact.
(01:28):
So like 10 years in youth development, you're working with youth five to 18 or whatever, you're planting the seeds. So there's certain things that we can say, yeah, here's a quick win, but generally speaking, you don't see the impact until like 10 years later. So what do you do and how do you make those short-term wins measurable because a funder, I mean, if they understood the work that we did, they would understand you're not going to really see it until 10 years, but they have to write reports. They have to report back to their board and to the IRS and people who are giving money. What is my money doing in the community? And so that's why as a founder and executive director and the leader of your nonprofit business, you have to be able to make your goals measurable. When we come back, we're going to talk about how to make the intangible tangible.
(02:27):
Most founders don't realize that they're more applicants than there is money. This fact impacts a nonprofit's vulnerability. Nonprofit founders should administer research on their competitors, determine if their community is oversaturated, and identify their competitive advantage before they start a nonprofit. Check out how to validate your nonprofit idea, a step-by-step guide on how to administer the research. You need to validate your idea before spending hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars only to struggle to fund it. Get your copy today. Welcome back. You're on air with Amber Wynn, and today we're talking about why goals even need to be measurable. Listen, so many people start their nonprofits without really understanding what they're getting into. Some of them start because they have passion and commitment in their community and they're filling that need where that gap exists. Other people start nonprofits because they think it's an easy way to get that free money.
(03:22):
First of all, let me go ahead and tell you grant money is not free. Money not. It comes with attachments, and those attachments are linked to you delivering on your promises. I have people say, oh, I want to get a grant to get a building. Doesn't really work like that. The grant is to make an impact in the organization, and that building is a part of the way that you're going to deliver on that. But what are you saying to a funder? You're not saying, please give me 1.2 million for a building. You're not in that grant. You're saying, please give me $1.2 million so that I can serve the 25,000 people who are going to come through my doors, and as a result of them coming through the doors, I have a place to house my programs. But the impact is that you're going to see a 30% increase in job placement, or I need this building because it's going to be a safe haven for the youth who are in foster care.
(04:29):
They're going to have a place that they can always come to. So as a result, you're going to see a 25% reduction in sex workers because we're going to use this building to train youth in skills and non-traditional careers, and therefore, that will not be the life that they have to live. So it's important to understand that goals says to a funder what is going to happen as a result of them writing that check? So there's a difference between goals and objectives. Your goals are what are you going to do? What are you going to accomplish? What will your successes be as a result? How will a funder be able to determine that their investment had a good return on it? That's the what. That is the goal. My goal is to reduce homelessness. My goal is to reduce sex trafficking my goal. But how do you measure whether or not you hit that goal, right?
(05:43):
Well, how would I measure that, Amber? Well, look at what is, and then look at what you can realistically say as a result of your intervention or your prevention happens. For example, I have a client and she's like, all right, well, my goal is to reduce sex trafficking, but how can I, that's a huge thing. How can I say that I reduce sex trafficking? Well, when we talk about tangible versus intangible, you can say that you're going to go into the school district and you're going to provide education and awareness on how sex traffickers are able to even get access to these young girls. So if you're saying, okay, we want to start with the group homes where the most vulnerable exists. So you say to a funder, we want to hit 15 group homes and two school districts because that's how a predator is able to access our youth.
(06:51):
So the goal is to increase awareness by 20% because in that awareness now our young youth are not going to be victims. So in the long run, if we get to cover all of the school districts in those areas where we see an increase in sex trafficking, we can say our goal is to reduce sex trafficking by increasing knowledge and awareness of how they work. The more our youth understand that you got to be careful of the people who are in your space because they may be the ones introducing you to these predators. Or you've got to be aware that if someone's telling you that they love you and that you're beautiful, it's not that you're not, but they have ulterior motives. How will if they tell you, don't tell your mom if they tell you, oh, go bring your friends. If they try and give you money for clothes and things of that nature, that could be a sign that this person is a predator.
(07:51):
So by increasing the awareness of how they work, then you then decrease the prevalence of sex traffickers. How do you make that tangible? We are going to increase the knowledge by 20%. Well, how do I know it's 20%? Well, because you don't have anybody doing that right now. And if you're doing it once a week for a whole year, then that's the standard. That's the baseline. So you've increased it by 20% because it didn't exist before and I used 20% because that's the industry standard, right? 5% is nothing, 10%, you're barely moving the needle. 20%, 25% is an acceptable amount when you're upsetting goals, right? People want to say, oh, a hundred percent.
(08:44):
That's ambitious, right? I would never recommend, even if you know that you can, I would never recommend 100% because if it's 100%, then what are they going to fund you for next? You've taken care of everything. So you want to create the opportunity to continue generating revenue. So 20, 25% is pretty standard. If you have a good track record, 30, 40, 50%, really ambitious, but you don't want to over promise and under deliver. You want to promise medium. People say, oh yeah, promise low, deliver high. No, no, no, no. You want to promise medium because it's safe, right? It's not overpromising to your funder and not delivering, but it's not overpromising so that there's not enough reason for you to ask for more money. So you want to look at what it is that you're doing and how you can assign a percentage to demonstrate that there's an increase or something or a decrease.
(09:49):
For example, when you talk about graduation rates, you want to say, we're going to deliver workshops once a week for 15 weeks, and we're going to decrease dropout rates by 20%. How are you going to do that? By providing our youth with access to knowledge. That is what you're really measuring. You're measuring the intervention or the prevention that you're doing that is then going to impact whatever that big social problem is. If we teach youth to be more comfortable with math and critical thinking skills and things that you need in the STEM profession, it's then going to impact their success in high school and in college. So by virtue of just making this shift right here, then it's going to impact that big social issue, which is women and minorities in stem. Can we say that we're going to by 100% increase the number of women in stem?
(11:00):
No. We can say that we can increase access to STEM majors and attitude in a way, and then that then will impact the women in stem. So when we say make the intangible tangible, I'm saying assign a percentage on how you're going to increase something, knowledge, skill, access, and that is what you're measuring. So the funder doesn't expect you to be able to ins sex trafficking, but you can say, if you increase knowledge by 20% and we keep doing this year over year, then we will have more youth who are aware of the ploys of the predators and their practices, and as a result, that will reduce sex trafficking over time. So I hope that that makes sense because that is what a funder is looking for. They want to know how when they give you this money, there's going to be an impact and how they will be able to measure it.
(11:59):
And here's the other thing. It's really, really important from a grant writer's perspective. If you don't hit that goal, sometimes it's good because now it says you can say to your funder, this is what we attempted to do, but in the process of delivering this program, this is what we discovered. This is what was a barrier. This is what prevented us from accomplishing this goal. So we need to pivot a little bit. Remove this barrier. You can give us more money to remove this barrier. And then it puts us back on track for accomplishing that original goal. So it's not always bad news. Sometimes in the delivery of your program, you discover things that you didn't know before that prevents you from accomplishing your goals. You just need to be able to explain it and to give a solution for how to remove that barrier.
(12:53):
So why goals need to be measurable, because funders need to know when they invest their money in your organization for a program that they're going to see a return and they need to be able to measure whether or not you were successful. So that's why your goals have to have some type of measurement assigned to it. Alright? If you're not sure how to do that, you need to dive deep. And I have the roadmap. I have the step-by-step way of doing it. I talk you through it just like I'm doing on this podcast in my course 90 days to a profitable nonprofit. You get all of that. Not only that, but you have the opportunity to hit pause, replay, you get templates, you have all that you need to understand what it is that a funder's looking for and how to give it to them.
(13:49):
So let's pause for a minute so I can explain to you what all you get in the 90 days to a profitable nonprofit. Are you struggling to fund your programs? Can't get a grant to save your life. Most consultants will share the what of how to start a nonprofit or how to fundraise. They may even share the why, but they don't share the how because that's where they make their money. Now, I'm not hating. I'm a businesswoman too, but I've been where you are trying to make the world a better place, struggling to keep the doors open up to the wee hours of the night writing grants and doing whatever needed to be done. And because I've walked in your shoes, I'm not here to make you spend your will, waste your time or your hard earned money. We ain't got time for that. The world needs you.
(14:40):
I'm here to show you how to transform that pit. You keep dumping your hard earned money into a profitable nonprofit. I take my 30 years of nonprofit experience as a founder, executive director, program developer, grant writer in funder, giving out over $7 million annually in grants, and I save you literally thousands of dollars in hundreds of hours. I walk you through setting up your nonprofit organization so that you can be generating enough revenue to cover your monthly expenses in just 90 days. How would that feel? Not paying bills from your personal bank account. I share my insider secret tips, tricks of the trade and provide you with a step-by-step roadmap on how to turn your bootstrap organization into a profitable nonprofit. Within six months. You could be generating enough revenue to pay your salary or fully fund your programs. The choice is yours, but you have to get the blueprint.
(15:39):
And it took me three years to develop it, but it's here and it's going to change your life. Join my other successful clients who were just like you full of passion and determination, but they had no idea all that it takes to run and fund a successful nonprofit. Now they're winning grants and drawing a salary and they know what it is that they're supposed to be doing to run a successful nonprofit. They're no longer making it up as they go. They have the roadmap and they're clear about next steps. And I want that for you too. So what do you get in this course? You'll walk away with knowledge, products, processes, and systems, not just a bunch of promises, but exactly what you need to turn your organization into a profitable nonprofit. I promise you don't need grants. What you need is a solid infrastructure, and this course is going to give you all of that and more.
(16:35):
And what's more it comes with the money back guarantee. So go ahead, click the link below to register for this course. Welcome back to On Air with Amber Wynn. I am your girl resident, Philanthrepreneur. And now it's time for Ask Amber. It's the time of the episode where you get to ask your pressing questions and I get to share my expertise. This question comes from Damien who's in Fountain Valley, and Damien says, I received a notice saying my tax exempt status from the state has been suspended. Is this a scam? Tax exempt status is issued by the IRS on the federal level, right? So Damien, it may not be a scam because in the process of starting your nonprofit, and you may not have known this because you paid somebody to incorporate your organization, there's a two step process. The first step was that you had to register with your state and the state issued you your articles of incorporation. And basically what they were doing was saying, we have authorized you to set up your business as a nonprofit entity. So the first thing you had to get from them was the articles of incorporation saying that you were going to form your business as a nonprofit. So they issued you those articles of incorporation.
(18:06):
You were also issued a tax exempt status from the state. So they needed to know are they going to tax you on the state level? But if you were issued articles of incorporation as a nonprofit, then the answer is no. So it is possible that your tax exempt status has been suspended on the state level because as a nonprofit business, there are agencies that are authorized to revoke your tax exempt status. If you are not operating your nonprofit as it has been prescribed on the state level, you have the Secretary of State and the State Franchise Tax Board. If you have not submitted your statement of information, which is required every other year, then they can revoke your tax exempt status, right? So there's agencies on every level, the federal level, the state level, and the local level who are authorized to approve or revoke your tax exempt status.
(19:12):
So I say all that to say, maybe not. It may not be a scam if you haven't submitted the forms that you are required to submit to your state on annual and biannual levels. It is possible. So what I'm going to suggest is that you go to the Secretary of State and the State Franchise Tax Board, put in your tax ID number and look to see. They will let you know right away if your tax exempt status has been suspended and what you need to do to reinstate it. That was such a good question. So many people who start their nonprofits or inherit nonprofits don't realize that they are bound by authorizing agencies on multiple levels. And if they aren't submitting and filing the paperwork that says, I am operating as a nonprofit, your tax exempt status can indeed be revoked. So not just Damien, but all of you guys need to go check that out.
(20:15):
If you're not sure what those potential authorized agencies are, go to my website. I have something called the compliance checklist that you can check to see which agencies you should be filing with and when you should be filing with so that you don't get your tax exempt status revoked. Alright, so now is the time. It's called Shine on Nonprofit, where I share not only conversations with amazing nonprofits who are doing the damn thing in the community, but also agencies, individuals, companies, consultants, who are supporting the most amazing individuals on the planet, which are you? My nonprofit founders and executive directors. We are on week three of our conversation with Swire Ho, who is the owner and operator of Garuda products. These are products that you can use not only for donor cultivation, but if you're having silent auctions, you can create beautiful baskets with merch. You can send them to your collaborators, you can use them as giveaways for your employees. You can come up with all sorts of ways to generate money, put them on your website. When we talk about merch, you can create merchandise as of funding stream to help you generate revenue. So this individual is in the community supporting nonprofits. So let's finish our conversation, our part three conversation with Swire Ho of Garuda products.
Speaker 3 (22:09):
One of the most frequent asked question from nonprofits for me is we are not sure how many people we might have for our events or for our fundraising. Are there things that you could do so when the order comes in, you produce them? So since the pandemic, the popup store has been a much better use strategy because you could set up a store with the item that you want to include for your donor. So now what you have to do is instead of a physical place where people have to go in to your event to buy the merchandise, you can have it actually available if you want worldwide. Then people who align with your message can actually support you. They purchase it and then the item will get produced and send it to people across the country or even around the world.
Speaker 2 (23:01):
Oh, nice. So we saw an increase in virtual fundraisers during the pandemic because we couldn't come together in person. But what you're saying is there's an opportunity to leverage that, number one, so that you don't over order. But then number two, it gives people the opportunity to peruse all of the type of products that may specifically speak to them.
Speaker 3 (23:27):
Yeah, so maybe you really connect it with your local audience, but you have to think sometimes a little bit larger. There are also certain type of ideal audience. That's why you have to define your audience so you know where to find them. So if you're really located, maybe there's a big group of people that support you out of state where you don't have a physical presence. Now with the online store, they can actually buy your merchandise. I tell my nonprofit clients that, think of it like a rock band, right? You go to a concert, you could buy a T-shirt. But there are also a lot of people who could not attend the concert, who would love to buy the merch. Similar situation, people who might be aligned with your mission and really want to support what you do. This is a chance where you can actually reach out to them. And with the right strategy and promotion in place, you can actually grow your brand a lot faster that way.
Speaker 2 (24:49):
And we're back. We're on air with Amber Wynn. And this episode has been exciting. I think because it's important to understand the funder's perspective, why goals need to be measurable. We talked a little bit about how to make the intangible tangible. And of course, if you're not sure if my conversation was too short, because we only have 30 minutes together each week, be sure to visit my website. Not only do I have resources to help walk you through some of these, if you go to my website, you'll see I have a free bundle of Amber Winds must have. And in those resources, some of those will help you to deliver, I'm sorry, to create measurable goals and objectives, but also you can check out my course 90 Days to a Profitable nonprofit, which teaches you how to run a nonprofit. And it covers some of those things.
(25:49):
It's been my pleasure to spend 30 minutes with you to today in your space, talking about why goals are important, how to create measurable goals, and I'm looking forward to spending more time with you next week. So if you found any value in today's episode, be sure to hit like to subscribe and to share this content with other people in the community. We only can make it if we have other people in our space supporting us, holding us up, lifting us up. So sharing is free. Share the information that you think might help another one of your colleagues in the nonprofit sector. And then I'll say what I say every week is to be sure to take care of yourself, like you take care of your community because y'all be doing it. Y'all take care of your community sometimes at the sacrifice of your own self. So take care of you, like you take care of your community, and I'll see you next week.
Speaker 1 (26:48):
Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed this episode, subscribe and leave a review on iTunes. Head over to www.amberwynn.net/podcast for the links and resources mentioned in today's podcast. See you next time.
