SuddesGroup

Surviving the Recession

February 27, 2009 | Nick Fellers

This month’s Inc. Magazine column (Surviving the Recession) from Norm Brodsky is required reading for any organization struggling right now due to the economy. Brodsky is a veteran entrepreneur who offers some fundamental advice.

Some gems from the article:

• Know your math: How much do you need? It’s not enough to say, “We’re losing money.” You can’t respond until you figure out exactly what that means. It’s simple and yet most orgs can’t tell me exactly how much they need.

• “It’s a terrible idea to cut back your sales efforts in a recession.”

• “You can’t borrow your way out of debt.”

• At the end of the recession, the winners will be those who have taken advantage of their most important resources—imagination and creativity.”

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1,000 Push Ups

January 27, 2009 | Tom Suddes

I’m up at Notre Dame doing my ‘boxing coach’ thing. Hard to believe it’s my 40th year of involvement with the Bengal Bouts.

This year marks the 79th Annual Tournament, which has grown to 225+ boxers and 4 nights of fights, with all the proceeds ($75,000+) going to the Holy Cross Missions in Bangladesh. (To view a short take on the program, see Strong Bodies Fight, put together by our Captain, Mark Weber.)

33 days of PRACTICE (TRAINING). 2-3 hours a day. And, half of the participants will fight one match, 3 rounds… 4½ minutes!!! Even the finalists end up fighting only 19+ minutes! [You better love to train...and realize it's for a greater cause.]

We set a goal of 10,000 PUSH-UPS, which means 300+ pushups every day leading to the tournament.

Last Friday, we did 1,000 PUSH-UPS in 41 minutes. (Sequence was 60, 50, 50, then 40, 39, 38, etc. to 1 + 10 + 10).

At the end, most can’t lift their arms over their heads. But, as you can imagine, huge adrenaline rush.

GOALS. MATH. CHUNKS. (Swoosh… Just Do It!)

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Trends v. Fundamentals in Nonprofit Funding

November 26, 2008 | Nick Fellers

We’re asked to talk about ‘trends in philanthropy’ or ‘trends in fundraising’ which troubles me because the social sector needs more discussion about fundamentals – not trends. If you ask me to talk about ‘trends’ I will use this as a lens to highlight the lack of fundamentals – think of it as me spinning the conversation – it’s all good.

Every business in and sector lives and breaths by fundamentals, first.

• A clear vision/direction (illustrated a clear MESSAGE).
• A clear revenue MODEL.
• A clear PLAN including an understanding of the MATH (impact math and income math) to get there (e.g. goals, levels, etc.)

As I’m writing this to compare and contrast trends and fundamentals I realize most of the trends (that get discussed) are really fads because too often they’re ‘the next big thing’ and don’t have staying power. These could include:

• Earned Income (Social Enterprise)
• Lance Armstrong’s bracelets
• 5K races
• Social Networking Funding (The Obama effect)

Maybe if they were backed on a case-by-case basis with fundamentals they would be true trends and not fads.

Example - Earned Income: I went to a Social Enterprise Alliance gathering four years ago. What I witnessed were some orgs starting earned income ventures without attention to fundamentals, no clear plan and no willingness to do the math to see that they were losing $50 on every widget they produced. On top of that, one speaker cautioned, “It’s hard enough to start a business with people that have their lives together let alone those that don’t.” Four years later 16 out of 17 orgs I interviewed abandoned the earned income stream – each for the lack the fundamentals outlined above.

The reason most small businesses fail is because they don’t have a grasp on fundamentals. Nonprofits often don’t ‘fail’ in the same sense that for-profit businesses do [running out of money]. Instead, they limp along for years longer, subsidized by passion, volunteerism and employees on the fast-track to burnout (human capital model)… this unique resource model is often a masking agent for a lack of fundamentals.

If you’re a board member, a senior staff person or development officer you can do a great service to your organization, your team and your cause by leading a discussion on the fundamentals… by leading a discussion to clarify the direction or purpose of the organization, by clarifying the model and by working through the math. This discussion is simple, not easy.

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Simple Progression at a Board Retreat

November 15, 2008 | Tom Suddes

I spent the morning yesterday facilitating a Board Retreat for an incredibly impactful organization.

I wanted to share with you 3 big takeaways, as well as the ‘SIMPLE’ PROGRESSION of how they can raise significantly more money (INCOME) to affect their IMPACT.

• Takeaway #1: Moving from a WHO model to a WHY model. A very smart community leader pointed out that they had historically been “fundraising with a WHO mentality”. (Legendary, old-time community leaders that helped found the program were able to basically pick up the phone and call in funding support. They’re all gone now.)

  He made this point as we were refining the MESSAGE and reinforcing the PURPOSE and the REASON for their existence. In other words, the WHY model.

• Takeaway #2: DO THE MATH. It was amazing to watch as the morning progressed and we were able to specifically define the investment required to rebuild/impact one life ($340!). Then, we took a $124M ‘investment requirement’ and, by DOING THE MATH, figured out that the public sector would actually do $107M and the ‘number’ from the PRIVATE SECTOR was $17M!

  We then did a simple, powerful Pyramid/Funding Plan to determine that the $17M would come from 29 investors.

• Takeaway #3: TIME TO THINK. The leadership was convinced that they needed to move beyond a normal ‘Board Meeting’ and have a session where they could actually take the TIME TO THINK. I believe both the Board and the staff were re-energized around the Impact, Mission and Purpose; and, we RE-DESIGNED the model and methodology to FUND THE VISION.

If you’d like to see it, I’ve included the SIMPLE PROGRESSION (pictured above, download here) that we used as a framework to generate more money. It corresponds with our also very simple ROADMAP.

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You Can’t Outgrow Losses

February 9, 2006 | Nick Fellers

I picked up a new book by business turnaround expert Gary Sutton called Corporate Canaries: Avoid Business Disasters with a Coal Minder’s Secret’s. It’s one of those brutal, simple truth reads where the author points out simple logic in a profound way.

Sutton says this book is all about avoiding disasters but I think it’s more about identifying the factors that can have the most dramatic effect on an organization’s finances.

First chapter: ‘You can’t outgrow losses’. To me, this is saying DO THE MATH (and address that issue FIRST). If you’re losing money on sales then more sales is not the answer. So, the For Impact corollary would be that if you’re losing money on fundraising activities - then more of them is not the answer. Seems simple … right?

“Fix profits first. Then add business … And going for more volume with bad margins only makes you die faster.”

More special events … more direct mail … more grant proposals is not the answer. (See … No More)

Fix profits (cost of fundraising) first: SALES (project-related gifts from individuals/corporations/foundations - major gifts). ABANDON special events, direct mail, phonathons, etc. THEN grow your sales operation …. First step to a major TURNAROUND.

This book is a quick and worthy read to help you AVOID disasters (watch the canary warning system) or make a quick TURNAROUND.

I also love chapter four: ‘Any Decision Beats No Decision’ … but that’s another nugget.

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1,000 Push-ups

January 25, 2006 | Tom Suddes

I’m up at Notre Dame for annual “mini-sabbatical” to coach the boxers. We work out every day from about 3:30 to 6:30. Last Friday we did 1,000 push-ups (along with 1,000 sit-ups and 1,000 jumping jacks) in a little over an hour.

HOW??? Same way you accomplish any GOAL: You break it down into manageable objectives, and just DO IT.

You ask HOW I DID THE MATH.

• I wanted to do about 250 push-ups every 15 minutes.
• Basically, if you do 44 PUSH-UPS, 43 PUSH-UPS, 42 PUSH-UPS … and on down to ONE PUSH-UP … it gets you 990 PUSH-UPS. That’s what we did.
• We started out with two sets of 83 PUSH-UPS in honor of our long-time trainer’s Zimmy’s birthday.

Note: Our goal, as always, is to do 10,000 push-ups during our training session. This year we’re doing it over 30 days. The obvious MATH equals 333 push-ups a day, which we do during practice.

Special, Special Note: As I told the boxers last Friday, none of us would be able to wash our hair that night … because we wouldn’t be able to lift our arms up above our shoulders. I gave them a little tip from past experience: Squirt the shampoo on the shower wall and rub your head against it.

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