Best of the Web : February 2014

Best of the Web: February 2014

The Idealware “Best of the Web” is a monthly roundup of the top nonprofit resources from the Idealware blog, our Facebook page, and our Twitter feed to help you make the right technology decisions. Please forward it along to anyone you think might benefit from it. 

How To Handle Your Nonprofit's Technology When Staff Members Leave (The Databank)No matter how many people are at your organization, staff members coming and going is unavoidable. Thankfully, many of the technology headaches associated with it are avoidable. Some basic planning and essential information can go a long way in lessening the impact turnover can have on your tech infrastructure.

Career Reflections: My Biggest Data Fail (NTEN)Going over budget, having heightened expectations, and doing insufficient research are all easy traps to fall into when performing a major system overhaul. Friend of Idealware Peter Campbell wants you to learn from his mistakes in this excerpt from NTEN’sCollected Voices: Data-Informed Nonprofits.

Rethinking the Printed Newsletter: Did You Jump to Email Too Soon? (Nonprofit.About.com)When a communications channel works--when it makes a connection between a nonprofit and its audience--it doesn’t become less effective overnight. When social media came around, people predicted the end of email; when email came around, people predicted the end of pen and paper. You can still get great results from direct mail campaigns, and envelopes still play a big role in many nonprofits' fundraising strategies.

Your Headlines Suck. Here’s What You Can Do About It (Convince & Convert)When it comes to headlines, there are plenty of tricks you can employ to get people clicking, but the article, blog post, or picture has to deliver on the promise of its title or you run the risk of losing a click down the road. This article looks at ways to walk the line between clever headlines and blatant click bait.

Take Advantage of the Gchat Extras (New Organizing Institute)In many offices, Google's chat tool, Gchat, has taken the place of the water cooler. If you love it because you can stay social while keeping a quiet workspace, let the New Organizing Institute show you a few extra features that can extend its usefulness.

Checklist: How to Choose a Design Agency (Capulet Communications)There are a lot of moving pieces to keep track of when embarking upon a website project. Between complex technical issues like migrating your content to a different CMS, and more personal issues like keeping your team on budget and on time, you shouldn’t hastily assume that your designer will be a good fit for your needs. Having a checklist of qualities to go over when considering different design agencies can help--and in this post, the Capulet Communications team does the work for you.

Thanking Your Donors: Q&A (Idealware)Thanking your donors can, quite literally, be an afterthought. In this blog post, our own fundraising champion Andrea Berry talks about why you can never say thank you too much, and how a little extra attention can lead to bigger returns in future campaigns.

18 Ways to Improve Your Facebook News Feed Performance (Social Media Examiner)Many articles have claimed that Facebook is trying make paid content more appealing by limiting the number of views pages organizations get. The good news is, good content will still get your fans talking no matter what Facebook does. This article outlines a few things that have worked for others that you might consider experimenting with to boost your Facebook reach without reaching into your wallet.

What's On Your Phone, Elizabeth Pope? (Arts Management and Technology Laboratory)A familiar name around here, our own Director of Research and Operations spoke to Arts Management and Technology Laboratory about her favorite iPhone apps for Idealware and for home. In her own words, "There are lots of productivity (and time-wasting) apps out there, but your phone should be a source of pleasure and fun, not just work!"

Bring Unicorns Back to Our World: The Problem with Outcomes (Blue Avocado)Measuring your outcomes is important, but the definition of what exactly constitutes an “outcome” can get so blurry that it loses its meaning. This article takes a humorous look at how it feels to be a nonprofit stuck in the constant cycle of showing impact.

Would you like to suggest a link for Best of the Web? Email it toinfo@idealware.org. 

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The Met Council Scandal & NY’s nonprofit nightmare

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Shocking: William Rapfogel, ousted head of the well-respected Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty, after his arrest on Tuesday.

Photo: William Farrington

‘Breathtaking” is the word that the state comptroller, Thomas DiNapoli, used to describe the scheme of grand larceny that has now formally been laid against William Rapfogel, who — until he was fired in August — was executive director of the Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty. Breathtaking it certainly is.

What makes it so is not only the scale and the duration of the alleged thievery, though that is something. Rapfogel, who has yet to enter a plea, is accused of padding insurance contracts over 20 years to the tune of $5 million, of which he allegedly took more than $1 million. Investigators say they found $400,000 in cash stashed in Rapfogel’s homes.

On top of that is the scandal of the entanglement of a major charity and the government. The Met Council wheedles government money by the millions, from the state and the city, and uses that money, at least in part, to get more money from the state and city. The governments get the money by forcing it from our already-strapped taxpayers.

I’ve covered Rapfogel on and off for something like 20 years. I met him in the 1990s, when he was starting as head of the Met Council and I was editing the Jewish Forward. His main theme was an often underappreciated fact, that as much as 15 percent to 20 percent of the Jewish community in this city is poor and needs help.

That’s all the more reason for the authorities to open up this case all the way, no matter who gets snared.

And to keep in mind the saying that the scandal isn’t only in what’s illegal but also in what’s legal. If ever there were a case that calls for an aggressive and independent prosecution, it would be this in all its angles.

Including the Met Council’s dealings with Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver. This is the most explosive element. Not only was Rapfogel a personal friend of the speaker, but his wife, Judy, has for years been Silver’s chief of staff. And Silver has, over the years, steered millions of dollars to the Met Council.

It’s not my purpose here to make accusations against either the speaker or Judy Rapfogel; no one has suggested that either has broken the law. A spokesman for Silver has said that Judy Rapfogel was unaware of the $400,000 allegedly stashed in her homes and the crimes her husband is accused of committing.

It would be hard to overstate, though, the importance of the authorities making their own efforts to confirm that. Spouses can keep secrets from one another, no doubt. But a lot of New York taxpayers will find it hard to imagine that their own spouses could stash $400,000 in their homes without them stumbling upon it.

More broadly, let the authorities open up the whole question of taxpayer money going to nonprofits.

It seems to be the modus operandi of our time. Legislators don’t need to take bribes; they can divert taxpayers’ money to charities to which the taxpayers wouldn’t give voluntarily, then siphon money out of the charities.

Ex- state Sen. Efrain Gonzalez got seven years for bilking a charity, the West Bronx Neighorhood Association, that had received money from a nonprofit to which he’d steered state money. Ex-City Councilman Larry Seabrook is also in prison for a scam involving steering to charities taxpayer money that made its way back to him.

In June, former state Sen. Pedro Espada Jr., was sent away for five years, after being convicted of misusing hundreds of thousands of dollars from the Bronx nonprofit Soundview Health Network. In May, ex-Sen. Shirley Huntley was sentenced to prison for looting $88,000 from a taxpayer-funded charity. Brooklyn Assemblyman William Boyland Jr. is facing trial for misusing public money meant for a nonprofit.

So we’re way past the “three is a trend” milepost.

Gov. Cuomo has set up a Moreland Act Commission to look at public corruption. While the commission gears up on the big picture, let Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, who oversees charities and whose officers arrested Rapfogel, press the investigation at the Met Council wherever it might lead — no matter how breathtaking.

LINK: http://nypost.com/2013/09/25/the-met-council-scandal-nys-nonprofit-nightmare/