tax

Research is Essential to Fundraising in the Era of Tax Reform

January 18, 2018
, , Community Studies, Financial Services

The Melior Group is pleased to share this special guest blog post written by:
Michele A. Schiavoni, APR, M.S.
Schiavoni Consulting, LLC
Marketing, Communications & Fundraising Counsel
[email protected] 

Nonprofits throughout the nation begin a new era in 2018, in part because of the tax law changes going into effect this month.  Respected sources including Giving USA Foundation and the Lilly Family Foundation project that the overall impact to the nonprofit sector could be a staggering $13 billion loss in individual donations.

Although I do not think the changes in charitable giving are sound public policy, the nonprofit sector has to adapt to survive and thrive.  The unintended consequences of the tax changes have yet to be experienced and when the full impact is felt, we may see corrective action in the future.  But for now, nonprofits have to pivot.  These changes do provide a unique opportunity for worthy, mission-based organizations to take inventory of how they communicate their value to their philanthropic investors.  Research tells us that tax incentives are NOT the prime motivator for individual giving.  Donors tell us they give to causes that align with their passion, and savvy donors are more focused than ever on measurable outcomes.  To remain successful, you must ensure your donors see your organization’s work as essential in a competitive philanthropic marketplace.

Qualitative and quantitative research is essential to position your mission-based organization for success in a post-tax reform era.  Why?  The changes in tax law only tell part of the story. There is a cluster of compelling reasons for fundraisers to bring a new sense of rigor to their strategic planning.  The reality is, prior to the tax law change, the nonprofit sector in America was already evolving; funders have become increasingly attentive to donor’s expectations around accountability.

Nonprofits should take a brand strategy tip from the for-profit sector.  Research is required in order to truly understand how your donors experience your organization.  The closer you align with your donors and prospects, the more opportunity you have for enhancing loyalty and sustaining philanthropic investment.  Consider qualitative research to gain new understanding for how your donors experience and react to your brand.

Engaging professionals to conduct qualitative research such as interviews with your donors, either one-on-one or in focus groups, will provide extensive insights into how your mission is perceived.  This input is essential to fashioning an effective case for support.  The closer you align your organization with your most valued donors, the more effectively you can sustain loyalty and gain the added advantage of growing your donor base.  If you are an educational institution focused on increasing alumni giving, don’t launch new social media campaigns and direct mail strategies UNTIL you have invested in listening to your alumni.  You need to know: what prompts alumni to give; when are the best times for them to convene; what do they want to hear more about from their alma mater?

A second and equally important step is to ensure that your organization’s operating plan measures impact.  The days of counting attendance at events to gauge success are behind us.  Today’s donors want to see the social impact of their investment and this requires a new commitment to measurement and research.  Donors care less and less about transactions and more and more about transformation.  There is no escaping the reality that your nonprofit’s outcomes must be supported by research-based metrics.   Your donors need to understand what you are improving and whose lives are changing because of what you do.  Community impact studies play a critical role in telling that story.   This applies accords the board from arts organizations to shelters.

Research is an essential next step in your nonprofit’s sustainability.   Your efforts will uncover more effective strategies for engaging prospective donors and sustaining relationships with loyal donors.  To thrive in this new era, you must invest in research.

Interested in discussing a research project for your nonprofit?  The Melior Group can help.  Contact Linda McAleer at [email protected] or  215-545-0054 x104.

survey

Tips from the Pros for Survey Writing

January 4, 2018
, , The Art of Research

With the advent of easy-to-use survey software, it’s no wonder so many organizations choose to meet their survey needs internally.  Yet all too often, individuals who are great at marketing or sales find themselves thrust into the market research role with only the vaguest idea of where to begin.

The truth is, it’s harder than it looks if you want objective information that will help you answer important questions.

With that in mind, here are 7 general strategies that Melior consultants consider when designing surveys that will yield insightful and impactful information.

  1. Knowledge for the sake of knowledge is a luxury most businesses can’t afford – keep your true decision-making needs in mind. Stay true to your business goals and make sure the information you collect will be useful.  “Nice to know” questions cost time and money most businesses can’t afford.
  2. Don’t ask questions if you’re not willing to learn from the answers – keeping an open mind will help you to uncover the “aha” moment.
  3. Respect the time of your respondents – attention spans are short and getting shorter, so keep your questions on point.
  4. Speak the language of your target respondent – don’t expect them to understand your vernacular.
  5. Ask about one item at a time – compound questions are at best confusing, and at worst, useless. If I ask you whether you prefer blue suede sneakers or red high heels, how will I know if your answer is driven by comfort, style, or color preference?
  6. Keep sales and research separate – disguising a sales pitch as market research is a lose/lose scenario, gaining you neither sales nor sound market information.
  7. Close the loop with participants – respondents (especially if they are customers) like to know the time they invested in your survey made a difference, so share a few key findings, lessons learned or actions you took as a result of their participation. It will make them (and others) all the more likely to participate the next time around.

The Melior Group can help you with survey projects that require deep experience and/or creative thinking, arms-length interactions, complex information or even an outside “messenger” to safely navigate the in-house political landscape and deliver difficult news.  Don’t hesitate to give us a call – we are here for you!

Contact Sue Levine at [email protected] or 215-545-0054 x107.

Melior sign

Blast From The Past: The Things This Sign Has Seen

December 14, 2017
, The View From Walnut St.

As part of The Melior Group celebrating its 35th year in business, throughout 2017-2018 our blog will be featuring throwback posts to explore the company’s earlier days, such as this one with pictures highlighting our 1980s technology and fashions! (Ah, shoulder pads)

Today we’re featuring the first Melior Group sign, a brass plaque which was bolted to the outside of the blue door of our office on 316 S. 16th Street.  This was The Melior Group’s first office after moving out of founder Linda McAleer’s home.  We loved working in this office for over 20 years, and this sign saw it all – daily mail deliveries of paper surveys (now mostly replaced by online surveys), our first taste of the Internet (remember DSL and Ask Jeeves??), our annual Halloween parties and our neighbor’s small children who (gasp) have now graduated college.  We left this office in 2009 and now the building has been converted back to a residential home – we hope they are as happy as we were!

This sign says The Melior Group does “market research” which is true – but now we do so much more, which is why our current sign says “market research consulting”… as we’ve truly become a strategic consultancy that not only provides data, but also the informative insights that help our clients take action.

Still, we keep this old sign in a place of honor in our entryway – welcoming visitors to our office, just as it did for so many years!

Federations

How Federations can make the “bets” that really count for their communities

November 30, 2017
, , , , , , Community Studies

In a recent eJewish Philanthropy post, Rabbi Elie Kaunfer crafts a compelling case for “making a big bet” when investing in the Jewish community.  He notes the transformative effects of “big bets” such as Birthright, PJ Library and OneTable (helping young Jews share Shabbat dinners).

Most Federations, however, don’t have the luxury of making one “big bet.”  Instead, they face myriad competing demands to support programs and services of undeniable value to both their local and global Jewish communities.  How, then, do Federations decide which funding priorities to “bet” on – the ones that will pay off, by eliciting donor support and making their communities flourish?

One key for Federations to creating an effective funding strategy is understanding the priorities of their community – that is, identifying the programs and issues their community believes Federation should support.  In our work with various Jewish communities, we have seen significant, often surprising, differences in what communities identify as their desired funding priorities for their Federation, including:

  • Education
  • Support for Israel and global Jewry
  • Safety/security-related issues
  • Social issues (e.g., supports for vulnerable populations including the elderly, Holocaust survivors, people with disabilities, etc.)

Knowing what a community wants its Federation to fund and aligning the allocation process with those priorities can help maximize the impact of Federation’s investments.  By incorporating the community’s voice, Federations invest more than just the dollars they’ve raised… they invest community aspirations, which is more likely to translate to greater community satisfaction, participation and financial support.  Therefore, it is likely that this “bet” will literally pay off for Federation – with increased growth in the value of individual charitable donations and number of donors.

If you aren’t sure what your community’s funding priorities are, contact us.  We can help you find out.

Contact Sue Levine at [email protected] or 215-545-0054 x107.

Anniversary

Happy Anniversary To Us!

November 9, 2017
, , The View From Walnut St.

It is with pride and honor that I celebrate The Melior Group’s 35th year in business.  Some time in 1982 in the living room of my home, I had the dream that marketing research could be beneficial to organizations offering services, not just organizations providing products.  With a few people willing to dream with me, we developed the research approach we called Measurement of Perceived Value (or MPV) and assisted public utilities with examining and understanding the value customers placed on the components of their gas and electric service – first, learning what comprised service and then measuring the utilities’ ability to satisfy the things that mattered to customers:  that the lights went on with the switch, that a courteous and knowledgeable person addressed a problem when the customer called, that employees fixed downed poles.

Since then, Melior has been a thought leader and strategic research firm, contributing information, intelligence and insight to clients in higher education, in healthcare, and in the not-for-profit space (among others).  Our marketing director asked me to write about what I am most proud of about The Melior Group… among the many:

  • The amazing team of professionals here, who work collaboratively, are thoughtful for and on behalf of their clients, respect each other’s ideas
  • Those who took the risk with me in 1982 (Michael Halbert, Linda Knoll, Jeffrey Lowenhar) – and, more than anyone, Maitlon Russell – our EVP, the visionary, strategic thinker and coiner of “conventional wisdom is not wisdom… we need to know what consumers value and why”
  • The success of our clients, who recognize the value of strategic thinking and the contribution of research-based insights to planning for their future
  • Being one of the first research firms to work with hospitals as they entered in to the foray of marketing… and continuing to work with some of the best hospitals and health systems in the U.S. today
  • Entering new markets where old ideas may prevail, but client organizations are excited to try new approaches (such as with our community studies for faith-based organizations)
  • Working with education clients to build programs to assure all who want to have access to post-secondary education

The 35th anniversary gemstone is Emerald.  So I’ll close with this… adjectives to define an Emerald that describe today’s Melior are:  brilliant, bright, sparkling and vivid.  Pretty appropriate for a strategic research firm.

To contact Linda McAleer, please e-mail [email protected] or call 215-545-0054 x104

Melior sign

Blast From The Past: Melior’s Early Days

October 12, 2017
, , The View From Walnut St.

On November 1, The Melior Group will be celebrating its 35th year in business!  In anticipation of this celebration, we thought it would be fun to share some pictures from our early days.  While the newest technology and latest fashions may have changed since what is featured in these photographs, some things haven’t changed:  our belief in having a great team of people, working hard and smart, serving our clients and seeking solutions to their problems.  We look forward to continuing this work in the years ahead!

Melior's 35th anniversaryThis photo features our first “laptop” or portable computer. The keyboard attached to the CPU and then you carried it like a suitcase!

 

 

Liz Cohen

The Melior Group Team Profile: Liz Cohen

September 28, 2017
, The View From Walnut St.

A few years ago our President, Linda McAleer, was selected to be featured in the Philadelphia Business Journal as part of their ongoing CEO File series – and we created a throwback blog post to share some highlights about her leadership and personality.

Inspired, we decided to create a Melior Team Profile for everyone on our staff. By asking and answering these questions, we hope you’ll get to know us a bit more, both personally and professionally.  Last month we featured Vice President Susan Levine.

This month, we’re taking the time to get to know Vice President Liz Cohen, who shares some fun facts about herself:

  • Essential business philosophy:  There is no substitute for excellence
  • Best decision: Marrying my husband and having our kids
  • Word that best describes you: Curious
  • First choice for a new career: Sociologist
  • The most important lesson you’ve learned: First impressions can be very misleading

To learn more about Liz, check out her full bio here.

jewish community studies

What does “being Jewish” mean… not just now, but for the future?

September 14, 2017
, , , Community Studies

The Melior Group works with Jewish organizations, including Federations and Day Schools, to help them better meet the current and emerging needs of the communities in which they operate.  Our approach includes developing community surveys, which usually contain attitudinal questions about Jewish identity.  Agreement with one such statement, “It is important that future generations of my family consider themselves Jewish,” is always high; generally, over 95% “agree,” and over two-thirds “agree strongly.”

Until recently, I have interpreted the nearly unanimous response this way:  in saying that they want their progeny to be Jewish, community members demonstrate their commitment to Jewish sustainability, and therefore – at least in some way – to the institutions and organizations which are essential to Jewish communal life.    A very smart colleague, however, has challenged me to look at this a little bit differently.

If I were to travel back in time to talk to my great-grandparents in Eastern Europe, I have no doubt that they, too, would strongly agree that “It is important that future generations of my family consider themselves Jewish.”  But, if they were to meet me today, would they feel that their hopes had been met?  In some ways, I have followed in their footsteps: for one thing, I would answer that attitudinal question the same way they would have.  I am a member of a synagogue, I’ve been to Israel and my family lights candles on Shabbat.  And yet…my daughters play soccer on Saturday, attend secular schools and love our annual lobster dinner.

Would my fore-fathers and -mothers claim victory, or even connect our Jewish practice to theirs?  I am not very confident that they would.

I’ve come to realize that while agreement with the statement “It is important that future generations of my family consider themselves Jewish” is high across the board, the expectations contained in that statement vary widely. This has implications for Jewish communal institutions, which both serve, and are sustained by, their communities. 

And this is why Melior’s work is so valuable; we can help individual communities learn about what it means to “be Jewish” there.  Our research asks questions and seeks answers that can help shape what “being Jewish” means in relation to Jewish communal organizations, such as:  What are the common denominators, the essential kernels of being Jewish?  How can Jewish communal institutions support and encourage participation among everyone who identifies as Jewish, in the spirit of inclusion and no judgement?  What can be done to nurture Jewish identity, while acknowledging and accepting that moving the needle toward greater involvement may or may not happen?

Through an exploration of how Jews within a given community define “being Jewish”, and their hopes for what future generations will believe and carry forward, Jewish community leaders can better serve their communities now and in the future, and leverage the widespread hope that Judaism – in its evolving shapes and forms – will live on.  

Interested in discussing a Jewish community studies project?  Contact Elizabeth Cohen at [email protected]/215-545-0054 ext. 103 or Sue Levine at [email protected] or 215-545-0054 x107.

jewish community studies

If You Ask, We Answer: Part 3 – Jewish Community Studies

August 31, 2017
, , , , , , , Community Studies, The Art of Research

Continuing our series about the common questions that our clients ask us:  our first post focused on the higher education sector.  This was followed by our post on the healthcare sector.  We now turn our attention to the world of Jewish community studies.

For 35 years and counting, The Melior Group has been in the business of answering questions for our clients.  And, while the techniques and methods we use to answer those questions have changed over time, many of the questions have not.

So when it comes to our clients in the Jewish community – Federations, synagogues, Day Schools and social services organizations – what kinds of questions is Melior answering, and how are our clients using the information?

At the most fundamental level, our clients want to know how they can make their Jewish communities more vibrant and their members more engaged.

Jewish communities these days often find themselves struggling to be relevant to their members.  While the needs of some in the community may be well-served by traditional communal institutions, new strategies and approaches are needed to combat decline and ensure long-term survival.

By using a consumer behavior approach to understanding community needs, interests, behaviors and attitudes, our work provides new insights into what makes these communities “tick”, and how best to leverage those insights to build stronger communities.  Community leaders want to know…

  • What does our community “look like” – demographically, attitudinally, spiritually, emotionally and even philanthropically?
  • What’s working and what’s not – programmatically and institutionally?
  • Where are the gaps? What do we need to do better?
  • How well do community members understand what we do? How can we better engage those at the margins of the community?
  • Where is the community headed?

The answers we provide have been used by our clients in a variety of ways, allowing them to:

  • Make informed policy decisions
  • Set priorities
  • Launch, grow, and sunset programs
  • Determine funding allocations based on credible data, not instinct
  • Bolster community planning efforts
  • Amplify development efforts

Though our findings can sometimes surprise, they provide a starting point for community soul-searching and ultimately, strengthening.

In addition to the questions we ask, our rigorous approach to figuring out who we need to reach in order to gather the information clients need, and determining the best methodology for gathering information, is central to our work.

Our research can help Jewish communities, their agencies and institutions, explore all of these issues and more.  Give us a call or send us an email and let us know how we can help.

For more information, contact Sue Levine at [email protected] or 215-545-0054 x107.

Susan Levine

The Melior Group Team Profile: Susan Levine

August 17, 2017
, The View From Walnut St.

A few years ago our President, Linda McAleer, was selected to be featured in the Philadelphia Business Journal as part of its ongoing CEO File series – and we created a throwback blog post to share some highlights about her leadership and personality.

Inspired, we decided to create a Melior Team Profile for everyone on our staff. By asking and answering these questions, we hope you’ll get to know us a bit more, both personally and professionally.

First up, Vice President Susan Levine shares some fun facts about herself:

  • Essential business philosophy:  Everything has a shelf life
  • Best decision: Marrying my husband and building a family
  • Word that best describes you: Determined
  • First choice for a new career: Clean out specialist
  • The most important lesson you’ve learned: Time is not fungible (even though I keep trying to make it so)

To learn more about Susan, check out her full bio here.

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