According to The Associated Press, Denver-based broadcast station KBDI-TV is planning a nonprofit investigative news operation with a Web site and on-air program. KBDI-TV said this week it will launch the project when it raises an initial $400,000 in funding.
An actual target launch date for the program has yet to be announced. Wick Rowland, KBDI’s president and CEO, says the project will ask for tax-deductible donations from community members, corporations and foundations—similar to the donor base for public television.
The operation will be called Colorado Public News. The editor-in-chief is Ann Imse, who was a reporter for the now-closed Rocky Mountain News.
Rowland says the venture is in response to “the reduction of significant investigative journalism” nationally and locally.
by Julia Alvarez, Research Associate at JVA
Two JVA team members were in attendance last Thursday afternoon at the Colorado Nonprofit Association’s Fall Conference in downtown Denver, where the luncheon panel focused on nonprofit program evaluation.
Representatives from the evaluation departments of the Colorado Health Foundation, The Colorado Trust and the Gay and Lesbian Fund for Colorado spoke about a growing emphasis in the foundation world on outcomes-based evaluations. This type of evaluation focuses on progress being made and social change being affected by programming, rather than solely on numerical outputs. Representatives from these prominent regional foundations encouraged potential grantees to think about three things before requesting funding:
How will we plan our program?
How will we execute our program?
How will we demonstrate that we are making a difference? (more…)
According to a recent article in Philanthropy Journal, nonprofits can raise more money if donors are asked for gifts in person by people they know.
A study commissioned by Campbell & Company and conducted by the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University found that donors to secular charities who were approached for a gift face-to-face by an acquaintance gave an average of $987, or 19 percent more than those contacted by an acquaintance through mail, email or phone. (more…)
According to a recent article in the The Chronicle of Philanthropy, many nonprofit organizations are probably violating laws in some states because they are collecting donations through online fundraising without letting state authorities know.
The article goes on to say that as many as 90 percent of all nonprofit groups may not have complied with state registration laws, according to Tony Martignetti, a planned-giving adviser in New York and author of Charity Registration: State-by-State Guidelines for Compliance. (more…)
Keeping your program relevant through assessment
Tags: Blue Avocado, Jan Masaoka, JVA Consulting, needs assessment, program assessment, www.blueavocado.org
In a blog recently posted at www.blueavocado.org, Jan Masaoka compares stale programs in the nonprofit sector to an old fruitcake that you just can’t bring yourself to throw away. Like a fruitcake around the holidays, you may keep a struggling program around because of sentimental value. Nonprofit staff and board members often form an emotional connection to a program, so nonprofit leaders then fail to discontinue those programs. Masaoka’s story mainly focuses on the reasons that leaders don’t take action in this scenario. It’s also worthwhile to examine how programs end up in a souring state and how to avoid this in the future. Assessment is an effective tool to examine these questions, and it can serve as a guide when deciding the direction of a program.
Before making a definitive decision on a stale program’s fate, you have to ask why the program became stale in the first place. External factors may affect the status of a program. For example, the community your program serves may be experiencing a shift in its demographic profile. If that’s the case, then the needs of the community should be reassessed. (more…)