The resignation comes just days after it became public that the IRS targeted the applications for tax exempt status of Tea Party and other 501(c)(4) conservative-sounding organizations.

“Americans have a right to be angry about it, and I’m angry about it,” President Barack Obama said during a news conference. “It should not matter what political stripe you’re from. The fact of the matter is the IRS has to operate with absolute integrity.”

Via an interagency memo, Miller told IRS staff: “This has been an incredibly difficult time for the IRS, given the events of the past few days, and there is a strong and immediate need to restore public trust in the nation’s tax agency. I believe the service will benefit from having a new acting commissioner.”

He is slated to testify tomorrow on Capitol Hill before the House Ways and Means Committee.

Miscommunication and ineffective management oversight within the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) caused almost 300 organizations to be caught up in a regulatory purgatory.

The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA)’s audit of the IRS process of handling tax-exempt applications for a handful of 501(c)(4) organizations found that a third of the organizations had the phrases “Tea Party,” “Patriots,” or “9/12” in the name. None of the 298 organizations were denied but 28 withdrew the applications while 108 were approved, as of Dec. 17, 2012. More than half (160) had their cases open from six months to as more than three years.

Released in May less than a week after IRS Exempt Organizations (EO) Director Lois Lerner apologized for the agency “targeting” conservative organizations’ applications, the TIGTA audit made nine recommendations to improve the process. Among the recommendations, some of which already have started to be implemented, were to better document reasons why applications are chosen for review, develop a process to track requests for assistance, and develop and publish guidance and training for employees as well as request that social welfare activity guidance be developed by the Department of Treasury.

The 55-page audit was prompted after concern by Congressional representatives about the treatment of organizations applying for tax-exempt status. The report focused on allegations that the IRS targeted specific groups applying for tax-exempt status, delayed the processing of their applications, and requested unnecessary information.

The audit determined that the IRS Determinations Unit in the Cincinnati, Ohio office used inappropriate criteria to identify applications from organizations with the words “Tea Party,” “Patriots” and “9/12” in their names. Applications also were identified with “evidence of significant political campaign intervention” that were not forwarded to the specialists. In the majority of the 298 cases, the audit agreed that applications included indications of “significant political campaign intervention,” while 91 (or 31 percent) did not but had complete documentation.

In June 2011, Lerner “immediately directed that the criteria be changed” after being briefed about it, and in July 2011, they were changed to focus on the potential “political, lobbying, or advocacy activities” of the organizations. Still, potential political cases experienced significant processing delays, the audit found.

No work was completed on the majority of the applications for 13 months due to delays in getting assistance from the EO function at IRS Headquarters, according to the audit. The team of specialists stopped processing cases in October 2010 without closing any of the 40 cases started. The Determinations Unit program manager thought the cases were being processed waited for assistance from the Technical Unit instead of continuing to process the cases but written guidance was not received until 13 months later, in November 2011.

Despite the flap, the number of 501(c)(4)s approved by the IRS increased 2010, 2011 and 2012, although the percentage of applications approved dropped from 88 percent in 2011 to 84 percent in 2012, according to IRS statistics.

Those roles bring you into contact with the dedicated people who run programs, the nonprofit’s board of directors, foundation staff and trustees, volunteers, and those served by the nonprofit.

“Grant writer” is an insufficient label for what you do. Being skilled in writing clear, concise prose that can be understood by and appeal to anyone with an interest in the topic at hand comes high on the list of roles at which you must excel. But, there is much more involved in the process, sometimes requiring a chameleon’s natural ability to adapt to a variety of situations. Let’s take a look at the many roles you will be called on to play.

A good grant writer is a skilled journalist. In fact, journalists can easily transition into grant writers, the skills sets being nearly identical. Rarely when asked to prepare a grant proposal will you have at your disposal all the information you really need. Ferreting out the “who, what, when, where, why, and how” of a program is your first responsibility.

Beware a grant writing assignment where you are told that “the program is the same every year — just freshen up the text from last year.” Sure, it’s much easier to freshen up and reshape an existing proposal and call it a day. To do justice to your organization you need to go deeper. It’s unusual for a program to run exactly the same way year to year. If you describe past practice in a grant proposal, that becomes the standard against which future results are judged. It creates a nightmare when a report is due.

Be sure to question any statistics used in past proposals. When were they compiled? Using the most recent statistics and research is just as important to describing the clients you serve (income levels, ethnic breakdown, etc.) as it is for the predicted results of your program. Don’t let old information create incorrect assumptions that will make it impossible for your program to appear successful when you report on the grant’s impact.

Once you’ve gathered information from staff, another role frequently comes into play: translator. Both nonprofit program workers and funders have a fondness for special jargon. As the translator, you will make both groups intelligible to each other. Appropriate the funder’s jargon only enough to demonstrate that you understand its priorities and requirements. And, completely avoid your nonprofit’s jargon. The last thing you want to do is make the funder feel puzzled. Writing in plain, straightforward English will eliminate the jargon. Do a great job of it and neither group will realize they speak different languages.

The most readable grant proposals illustrate programs with narrative stories, which is why you must also be a storyteller. Who doesn’t like a story? Stories make your programs come alive by relating what you do to real people. Moving stories can come from anyone on your staff. Don’t forget to talk to some of the people served by your organization. First-hand accounts of how you have changed a life illustrate the importance of what you do like no other method.

As you gather information, you assume another role: researcher. Research is the often under-utilized step in the grant process, and it’s the most important. Funders’ most common complaint is that grant seekers have not spent time learning about application requirements and programmatic interests. Leave out this step and your proposal is sunk.

You will gather your prospect list by delving into foundation databases and reviewing which funds similar organizations, and reading closely funders’ websites. You need to go deeper to be successful. Here are some questions:

• Who are the people connected with each foundation?
• What are their personal interests?
• Do they have any connections with your organization?
• Does anyone on your board know any of the foundation’s trustees?

Distributing lists of the trustees of prospective foundation funders to your board is an important step, but don’t forget to research your own board. You might discover valuable connections they don’t realize can be useful. Universities they attended, clubs they belong to, and schools their children attend can all be important links to people making decisions at foundations and corporations.

Being a grant writer often requires you to also be a diplomat. Board members, volunteers, and program staff will sometimes bring you names of funding prospects — some good, more often, not. You want their involvement and don’t want to discourage them in any way. It is your job to assess which are strong prospects and let them know, in the nicest possible way, that you have stronger prospects to pursue. Try making it a “teachable moment,” and help them understand the difference between an ability to give and a proclivity to give.

It doesn’t hurt if you can also be a mathematician or financial analyst. Even if you are lucky enough to have finance staff to prepare the program and operating budgets, it remains your job to make sure the numbers add up. They must add up literally, of course, but also add up in relation to what you have written in the proposal. That math should include:

• Is everything in the budget covered in the narrative (and vice versa)?
• Do the names of the budget categories use readily understandable terms and avoid in-house jargon?
• Does one large number (in income or expense) stand out and need explanation? Plain language is just as, if not more, important in the budget than in the proposal narrative.

Playing all of these roles prepares you for your most important one: advocate for your organization. This role brings together all the other parts you have played. Armed with thorough knowledge about your nonprofit and its programs, possessed with moving stories of the difference your nonprofit has made in people’s lives, and equipped with detailed information about the funder and the people associated with it, you are ready to raise significant funds to make the world a better place.

Playing the many roles of a grant writer doesn’t require costumes, mastery of an accent, or wigs and makeup, but just as an actor prepares for each role, so too will the professional grant writer invest time in preparing for each role by gaining the skills needed for each and devote all of his or her energies to fulfilling the many roles required.  NPT

Waddy Thompson is the author of The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Fundraising and is the executive director of the InterSchool Orchestras of New York City.

Everyone’s looking for investment advice. Charities and donors are no different. Some of the nation’s largest nonprofits are complex businesses, generating income from donations but also via fundraising events, program service revenue or membership fees, as well as investment income.

The trifecta of poor interest rates, an increasingly crowded market and old financial instruments such as gift annuities has “hit virtually everyone’s annuity program,” said Simon Barnes, executive vice president of development, marketing and research for American Bible Society (ABS) in New York City. The challenge for a small annuity is the cost to administer, including communication, accounting and other back-office operations. “It’s an expensive proposition,” he said.

The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society is among the nation’s largest charities when it comes to generating revenue through fundraising events. The White Plains, N.Y.-based charity had total revenue of more than $283 million last year, with almost $155 million from fundraising events. Investment income made up a fraction of total revenue, just shy of $11 million, but it was nearly double the 2011 total of almost $6 million.

The implementation of new asset allocations and the strong market recovery at that time drove the majority of the increase in investment returns, said J.R. Miller, vice president, finance. LLS has used a consultant since the early 1990s, helping the committee select managers, monitor performance and decide on an appropriate asset allocation.

Going to a smaller governing structure — from 100 members on the national board to fewer than 30 — changed the board’s composition, with more sophistication and knowledge about investments. The move also changed the composition of the investment committee. The committee is made up of four board members and two people who are not on the board but have backgrounds in investments, Miller said.

A new investment consultant was hired in April 2008. “Partly because we don’t have the expertise on staff or willingness to hire a chief investment officer, we prefer to have an individual consultant who does not have any conflicts of interest recommending any funds that they might be benefiting from, as an organization or themselves,” said Miller.

“As we built our portfolio, members of the board felt preservation of capital was the main driver for the philosophy of the portfolio. So for quite a long time, it was really a conservative allocation with about 75 percent in fixed income, even through the decline,” said Miller. At the same time, consultants also said it’s risky to be so heavily weighted in bonds for capital preservation, he said.

Miller credits the new consultants, as well as the new skill sets of investment committee members, that “took us to a different place, in terms of investing more in hedge fund of funds, absolute return funds, and getting out of the bonds.” LLS had been invested nearly 75 percent in fixed income at the end of fiscal year 2009 (June), and during the following year reallocated 20 percent of its fixed income portfolio into absolute return (fund of hedge funds) and 5 percent into real return strategies.

The society’s federal Form 990 shows the change in asset allocation, with $115 million in the gross sale of assets in 2010, compared with less than $60 million in 2011. The net gain was less than $1 million in 2010, compared with $7.85 million.

The sales were more than just general maintenance, as LLS liquidated many of its individual bonds and fixed income securities, Miller said, opting for a PIMCO fund for bonds, and also replaced one of its hedge funds. “We probably turned over most of the portfolio,” he said. Other assets were listed at a market value of almost $47 million in 2010, and in 2011 it was better than $51.55 million.

The investment committee reviews asset allocations at its spring meeting, where it determines the allocation. “That asset allocation drives our decision, how much we need in large cap, international, absolute return hedge funds, fixed income — that drives our decision from that standpoint,” said Miller.

During quarterly meetings, the committee examines the performance of managers and whether any should be replaced or put on a watch list, which could mean changes to asset allocations. For instance, this year the committee determined it had a hole in asset allocation in terms of inflation strategy, so it carved out 6 percent of its portfolio, hired a manager and added a Treasury Inflation Protected Securities (TIPS) fund. “We have a mixture of funds from that perceptive,” said Miller. The committee also added an emerging markets portion to its portfolio.

Other nonprofits have shifted investments to address short-term needs, such as creating a reserve fund. NPR (National Public Radio) liquidated about $50 million last year that had been invested with a 10-year horizon to create an operational reserve that would be invested over a much shorter timeframe. With the shorter timeframe comes less risk — as well as less return — but the funds created a safety blanket for operational purposes, as well as an innovation fund to tap into beyond daily operations and access money for investment, said CFO Debbie Cowan.

NPR has been focusing on digital transformation in recent years, including some “hefty investments,” she said. The long-term investment portfolio had about $85 million and even after the liquidation is back to about $40 million, she said.

Charitable Gift Annuities (CGAs) are a nice alternative for donors who are looking at very low interest rates from their bank when their Certificates of Deposit (CD) mature, according to Robert Wahlers, senior director of development and gift planning, Meridian Health Affiliate Foundations in Neptune, N.J. CD rates are running less than 1 percent for a 1-year CD at most banks while depending on a donor’s age, they could qualify for a rate of between 4.5 percent for a 62-year-old and 9 percent for a 92-year-old with a CGA, he said.

“In a low interest-rate environment, the discount rate is also typically low. When the discount rate is low, it causes the charitable deduction for funding a gift annuity to be low,” said Wahlers, with rates set by the American Council on Gift Annuities (ACGA). “For donors who are both seeking more income and a large income tax deduction, a charitable remainder trust might be a better option. It is important to understand the goals and objectives of the donor, preferably in collaboration with the donor’s advisors, before selecting a charitable giving vehicle,” he said.

Mary Jane Bobyock, director of nonprofit advice at SEI, in Oaks, Pa., said many clients and prospects are setting aside anywhere from one to three years of spending for long-term vehicles without having to worry about near-term distributions.

“Very often, clients and prospects we’re talking to the last couple of quarters are looking to increasing yield, worried about the fixed income environment,” said Bobyock.

It’s a matter of being a little more liquid, allowing the endowment to have less fixed income exposure, Bobyock said, and feeling more comfortable going to more high yield, like emerging market debt and alternative investments that may provide opportunity for higher yield over the longer term.

SEI’s 2012 Nonprofit Research Management Panel cited market volatility (85 percent), liquidity/spending needs (83 percent) and inflation protection (79 percent) as the most common investment strategies that charities see as having high or extremely high impact. Almost two-thirds of participants in the survey said that to combat market volatility, they increased portfolio diversification via new asset classes while 38 percent said they increased their allocation to inflation protection products.

The financial crisis in 2008 changed the way some nonprofits think about their endowments and the purpose of their endowments, said Wesley French. “Nonprofits are taking that question of what’s the purpose of the endowment, and simplifying the asset allocation modeling,” said French, a co-founder of Atlanta, Ga.-based investor advisory firm French Wolf & Farr. He also serves on the boards of the Atlanta History Center, Agnes Scott College and The Wesley Woods Foundation.

Charities are saying they need a certain amount of assets that are growth, some that hedge against deflation or a significant downdraft in the economy, and some to hedge against inflation. “That possibility is picking up not insignificantly in the future,” he said, in addition to charities worrying about excess liquidity.

Bobyock said they’re seeing an increase in inflation hedge type assets. “Things like commodities are now second, whereas before fund of hedge funds were,” she said, in addition to increases in hard assets like timber and farmland as endowments think about inflationary hedges.  NPT

The report, titled Top 10 Stakeholder Issues, examines how 2013 is shaping up to be an extension of the populist movements the country saw in both 2011 and 2012. As increasingly emboldened funders and grassroots activists work to channel their discontent about issues such as climate change and money in politics, the San Francisco, Calif.-based nonprofit identified these activists as key stakeholders in the marketplace.

“The issues we identified will impact all business sectors, but most directly consumer brands, because stakeholders expect and demand more from them due to their market power,” said Future 500 COO Erik Wohlgemuth.

The 10 issues identified are broad in scope but are unified by one common theme: They all involve heavy grassroots pressure using digital media. Wohlgemuth believes that both corporations and nonprofits can form strategic partnerships that will solve the problems.

“With all the top 10 issues, we see great potential for forward thinking executives within companies and NGOs to align around workable solutions,” he said.

The top 10 issues are:

End Corporate Climate Silence: Although the climate change debate appeared to move to the background in the run-up to the 2012 presidential election, the topic came back full force following a year of extreme weather that included the devastating Superstorm Sandy. As a result, Future 500 expects the so-called “climate litmus test” for corporate sustainability to make a return.

“In the battle for public opinion, expect the message framing to be waged via digital media,” the report reads, noting that activists are more adept in this medium than corporations.

Fracking Energy Independence vs. Clean Water and Food: Another environmental issue, hydraulic fracturing (fracking) is a process that allows access to oil and natural gas reserves. Activists fear fracking and other drilling operations are far outpacing regulations, and are making the campaign to ban the practice a top priority.

EPA Regulations: Future 500 predicts that mainstream groups will join grassroots activists in calling for tougher environmental regulations as more ideological groups look for stronger legislative and decisive corporate action.

Infrastructure Disruption: Emboldened by last year’s perceived delaying of the Keystone XL pipeline, activists are seeking to delay what they consider to be more “extreme energy projects,” such as off-shore drilling in the Arctic. The report predicts that organizations such as the Sierra Club, whose board recently greenlighted civil disobedience as a tactic for the first time, will keep such battles in the headlines throughout 2013.

GMOs, Are You in There?: Activists have targeted brands that use genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in their products, and this trend will continue in 2013. GMOs are usually contained in food products and are considered unsafe by activists, who want products that contain them to be labeled.

Digital Freedom: According to Future 500, this is the main campaign of the digital generation. Key opinion leaders include the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and Access Now, and are also aided by grassroots coordinators such as Change.org.

Supply Chain Transparency: Acti­vist campaigns have been pressuring industry to set more sustainable procurement standards. Recent campaigns involving apparel manufacture and palm oil, among other things, indicate that there are many nonprofits focused on supply chain issues. Notable corporate campaign groups include Greenpeace and the Rainforest Network, while corporations such as Nike and Disney have also proved to be allies on this issue.

Obesity and Sugar: The United States is known for having an obesity problem, and the amount of sugar and processed ingredients in food and drinks has been blamed for this health problem. Childhood obesity is a big focus of activist campaigns, and people across the ideological spectrum are mobilizing to encourage healthier habits.

Money in Politics: The influence of money in political campaigns has long been an issue, but it reached a breaking point after the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission which has led to countless Super PACs flooding seemingly unlimited amounts of money in campaigns. It is anticipated that NGOs and investors on both the left and right will continue to demand greater transparency in their political giving, both domestically and abroad.

Economic Power: Occupy Wall Street and the Tea Party made headlines for their outrage over so-called “crony capitalism.” Future 500 notes that while the issues has “simmered,” it has the potential to re-ignite.

Future 500 was founded in 1995 and is focused on building “alliances between adversarial stakeholders” to solve sustainability issues that fall under four broad categories: Energy & Climate, Water & Agriculture, Materials Stewardship, and Technological Empowerment.

You can learn more about the issues and read the Stakeholders Report at  www.future500.org  NPT

Giles’ remarks stoked what had already become a social media firestorm begun by a Charity Chicks UK blogger who criticized the conference’s 9:1 ratio of male to female speakers and questioned the dominance of speakers employed by for-profit agencies.

Shortly after the first blog post and ensuing social media pile-on, conference co-organizer Adrian Sar­geant, Ph.D., canceled the event. Sargeant declined to comment on the incident. Pegram did not respond to requests for comment.

Recent studies show that women holding leadership positions at nonprofits in the United States is close to 70 percent, according to Dwight Burlingame, Ph.D., director of academic programs and professor of Philanthropic Studies at the Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy in Indianapolis.

Smaller organizations employ more women and larger organizations — those with budgets of $50 million and more — have only 17 percent women in leadership positions. In organizations with budgets of $1 million and less, women comprise 50 percent of the leadership positions, according to Burlingame.

The power of social media

“Without social media, the incident in the UK would not have happened,” said Burlingame. “It seemed like he (Pegram) was blindsided by crowdsourcing,” said Janice Gow Pettey, vice pres­ident for resource development at The Asia Foundation, headquartered in San Francisco, Calif. “I suspect that Twitter was not the right medium for com­muni­cating and mak­ing informed com­­ments or decisions.”

Rachel Mosher-Williams, independent consultant and former vice president of conferences and partnerships at the Council on Foundations in Washington, D.C., doesn’t see Twitter as the problem so much as knowing when to move from Twitter to other media.

“Social media allows criticism to rise quickly and makes it more difficult to quash,” said Mosher-Williams. “It can also show when there is an issue that’s getting some heat. That’s when it’s up to the organization to consider moving the conversation to another venue — a conference call or a face-to-face event — to enrich the discussion, rather than let it die down.”

Using social media to address complex issues of diversity and balance might have been to blame, said Bur­lingame, but “fundamentally, social me­dia is a very good thing.”

“Social media will keep us all honest to a much greater degree than what we’ve had in the past, but it isn’t where a full discourse can take place. We need other mediums where we can engage — at conferences and in journals,” said Burlingame.

U.S. nonprofit conferences

Criticism of the UK fundraising summit’s speaker lineup raised the issue of speaker diversity at nonprofit conferences in this country. “The conferences that I’ve attended — and I haven’t looked at these systematically — have been fairly balanced,” said Burlingame, who uses a checklist when the Center on Philanthropy is planning a symposium or conference.

“The first question we ask is ‘who’s on the platform’ and examine whether we have a balanced representation of wom­en, race, and more recently, whether we have youth engaged,” he said.

An Association of Fundraising Professionals (AFP) project launched in 2010, added Burlingame, “catches situations like the one that occurred in the UK. Of course, there are the notable slip-ups, and the UK fundraising summit comes under this.”

Rex Otey, program chair for this year’s AFP NC Philanthropy Conference, is more optimistic. He and the planning committee of two men and two women looked at the numbers from last year’s conference. “To my delight, we had a solid balance of race and gender. In fact, there were 25 percent more women-led sessions than men,” said Otey. This year’s conference will be a “healthy mix” of consultants and practitioners that reflects the demographics of North Carolina fundraisers.

The UK fundraising summit’s lack of diversity would not have happened had there been diversity on the planning committee, Burlingame asserted. “If you don’t have diversity on the planning committee, then you sit around and ask who’s been working on this topic, and you think of your own circle. But if you have a diverse group on the program planning committee, they’re not going to let you get away with it.”

As AFP international chair in 2005-06, veteran fundraiser Alphonce J. Brown Jr., put together a strategic planning committee that reflected a broad diversity of gender, sexual orientation, race and ethnicity. As a result of being inclusive, the committee’s strategic plan passed AFP’s membership without discussion, Brown recalled.

“At one time, the sector was not open to diversity because the field was consumed by Caucasian males, but basically that’s been reversed,” said Brown who believes that there needs to be a systematic inquiry concerning diversity.

“Whether you count or assess, how on earth can you have a conversation about it (diversity) without doing a matrix to know whether progress is being made? There has to be an honest conversation about the organization and its goals regarding inclusivity,” he said.

“There is a danger in doing it [counting] without knowing why or using it as a driving criteria for selecting speakers,” said Kelly Hannum, director of global research insights at the Center for Creative Leadership (CCL), a nonprofit headquartered in Greensboro, N.C. “Having only certain types of people in the ‘expert’ seat limits the role models people are exposed to which, in turn, can limit how people see their opportunities in the sector,” she said.

Mosher-Williams doesn’t believe that counting is the right approach. “Counting doesn’t lead to meaningful diversity. It just leads to tokenism. The speakers should reflect the audience and the audiences being served by the nonprofit organizations.”

The American Society of Association Executives (ASAE) has a deliberate process to ensure diversity and inclusiveness that relies on culture rather than on classification.

“It’s top of mind to be looking for different people, ‘different’ in a positive sense, because they’re bringing different backgrounds, different experiences and different approaches. That’s what keeps the content fresh and engaging,” said Mark Milroy, vice president of learning at ASAE, which posts on its website its commitment to creating and influencing a model of inclusive behaviors and setting a tone and culture that embrace diversity.

Selecting keynote speakers is less of a formal process, explained Milroy. The selection is “more about our way of thinking. We are constantly challenging ourselves to think about diversity and inclusion.”

ASAE relies a lot on speaker recommendations from its members, said Milroy. “We work with a number of sources to help us identify speakers. We talk to our volunteer committees and encourage underrepresented groups to submit session proposals.”

One national membership organization is breaking free of the traditional approach of soliciting speaker proposals that are vetted and selected by a committee or staff.

“Rather than an internal group of people deciding what are the best topics for the conference, it occurred to us that there are a lot of people with great ideas out there who should get a chance to submit ideas and see what the ‘crowd’ likes best,” said Bruce Trachtenberg, executive director of The Communications Network, a membership association headquartered in New York City. For the first time it is using a crowdsourcing approach to select breakout session speakers for its fall 2013 conference. Posted on its website and Facebook page, tweeted and emailed, the Network asks, “Got a session idea? Send it in. Then we’ll let the crowd choose.”

The Network will post all eligible entries on its website and invite people to vote. The 12 proposals that get the most votes will appear on the session agenda in New Orleans.

“There’s a certain amount of risk involved, but it’s very exciting. It’s in tune with what’s going on today with communications becoming more participatory,” said Trachtenberg.

“People are part of and share information with multiple networks these days,” said Trachtenberg. “Using an open call and an open vote may bring people to the conference who are not well known. Referring to James Surowiecki’s The Wisdom of the Crowds, Trachtenberg is confident that “the crowd will get it right every time.”

Trachtenberg believes the session speakers will be as diverse as the membership. Even so, the Network brings a few plenary session speakers who represent a range of backgrounds, ethnic representation, gender and political stripes, such as last year’s plenary speakers Native American author Sherman Alexie and world-renowned game designer Jane McGonigal.

Former CCL senior executive now independent consultant Barbara Demarest agreed that “it’s just good marketing” to know your audience and their expectations.

“Having a panel that meets your audience’s expectations in terms of diversity is important. But it would be a real shame to think that the only people who can teach me something are people who look like me.”

Getting input from everywhere is vital. “The nonprofit sector serves a broad range of people and faces complex challenges that require a diversity of thought,” said Hannum. “Increasingly nonprofit leaders will need to reflect a greater diversity of thought and experience in ways it currently does not.”  NPT

“We did this through all our development staff,” said Nicole Kagan, NJSO’s vice president of development. “Each had a different vantage point of their elevator speech. Everyone brings something else to the table no matter where they are,” she said.

People typically are surprised to see themselves on camera, whether it was how they carried themselves or if they realized how much they fiddle with their fingers or sit on their hands or cross their legs. “It’s a great experience to become self-aware of how you present yourself to others. There are things each one of us has that we might not realize,” said Kagan.

“We really did a lot of internal work to raise the level of everyone’s skill set and it paid off,” said Kagan.

The NJSO culminated a four-year capital campaign this past June, raising $35.8 million, some 12 percent more than its original $32 million goal, despite the worst economy since the Great Depression.

“It was an integrated campaign. We called it the comprehensive campaign because it was a mixture of endowment and operating support,” said Kagan. The original feasibility study recommended raising $32 million, with $25 million going to operating support and $7 million toward the endowment support. When NJSO came out of the campaign, it turned out to be more for operating support, with about $4.7 million toward the endowment and the remainder for annual operating funds.

The campaign kicked off in January 2008 and the economy started its descent a year later. NJSO “accelerated our touch points with donors,” said Kagan. A major gifts officer was added to the staff with a specific focus on raising the visibility of planned giving to grow the endowment. “We refocused the way donors were treated. Everyone had a responsibility to steward donors, from the CEO to folks in the ticket office,” she said. “We tried hard to embrace a certain culture of philanthropy at that time.”

Many organizations that implemented campaigns after 2008 cited flexibility as key to their success in completing campaigns. Groups often questioned whether it was still a good time to be asking for money. Several board members at Texas Tech questioned whether it was the right time, given that people were worried about their life savings, said Kelly Overley, vice chancellor for institutional advancement and chief operating officer of the Texas Tech Foundation in Lubbock, Texas.

After discussions with the board, management and chancellor, Overley said they decided to continue with some small changes in the messaging. That included being empathetic in solicitations and also being open to a pledge versus a gift if someone felt more stable coming back a few months later.

“It wasn’t a good time for a lot of people,” said Overley. It was vital to be elastic with pledges or pledge payments. “In this profession, you have to be flexible,” she said.

Institutions in a campaign either prolonged their timeline for the most part or if they were about to start their campaign, some delayed it. It was quiet in 2009 and into early 2010, returning in 2011 and definitely by 2012, according to Sevil Miyhander, corporate vice president and managing director at CCS, a New York City-based consultancy. “We’re seeing a lot more confidence, toward moving aggressively forward, even on endowment campaigns, which were probably least likely to be started during the recession,” she said.

“Another thing we saw that changed during the recession was the length of time that donors would take to consider a decision,” said Miyhander. The decision-making period was lengthened and is now shortening, coming back to pre-recession levels. “Individuals took longer to make decisions, and they did in some cases, there was a reluctance to make multi-year pledges, almost a soft multi-year pledge,” she said.

Organizations are most concerned about the right number, and then helping to start cultivate potential leadership, ease them into campaigns and educate lead­ership among the board about their potential role, Miyhander said.

“For sure, it added time to our campaign, perhaps two fiscal years. The original template, we would’ve been done by now,” said Roger Milici, Jr., associate vice president for development, who joined Fordham University in New York City in 2009 from Tufts University. The timing of the recession probably added as much as two years to Fordham’s “Ever Upward” campaign, which kicked off in December 2008. The school still brought in a record $70 million during Fiscal Year 2009, and is within striking distance this year of its $500-million goal. The campaign included a $100-million campaign for Fordham’s School of Law to construct a new building and boost the annual fund, professorships and scholarships.

Counting began in July 2004 and the campaign launched publicly in March 2009, having raised $266 million to that point.

“This was only our second campaign. We don’t have operational maturity in a lot of areas,” he said. The first campaign raised $250 million during the 1990s. Fordham was at $480 million earlier this year, anticipating reaching its $500-million goal by the end of the calendar year.

As the campaign winds down, the institution will go through a new strategic planning exercise, Milici said, with some objectives that haven’t been funded to be carried forward, primarily bricks-and-mortar projects.

The goal for capital projects was aggressive, about $170 million for a series of bricks-and-mortar projects, with almost $104 million raised for other projects. Mirroring national trends, Milici said, there was more interest in giving for financial aid, with Fordham raising $33 million more than its $70-million goal.

Fordham received gifts from approximately 65,000 donors, with an estimated one-third of the $480 million to date from trustees, according to Milici.

When the recession hit, one NJSO donor canceled a gift and discussions internally questioned whether it was the right time to be asking for donations given the cratering economy. “We decided to go forward,” Kagan said after that many of their closest donors would be ready, but also if you’re not talking to your donors, someone else will be talking to them.

NJSO boosted its cultivation and stewardship activities, Kagan said, such as increasing the number of backstage meet-and-greets between donors and artists. “We upped all kinds of activities because we knew that people in NJSO were part of the family, with them through ups and downs. When you’re in the family, remember those who stood by you. We forged forward,” she said, announcing the public phase in September 2010.

The symphony was originally looking at three years to close pledge payments. When the recession hit they realized that people might need more flexibility on their pledge payment schedule. Still, a large percentage of gifts to the campaign were paid off in three years. Flexibility in pledge payment schedules was something that happened during the back end of the campaign, according to Kagan, and there also were some people who shifted to a planned gift instead of cash.

What might have helped pay off those pledges was what NJSO internally coined the “Recession Sensitive Challenge” for donors of $250,000 and more. Two lead gifts of $2.5 million went toward the $5-million challenge, which matched cash that was going to the campaign on an annual basis, thus driving annual cash toward the campaign. They matched a third of the cash paid against a donor’s pledge on an annual basis. For instance, if a donor who made a $500,000 pledge to the campaign and paid $100,000 annually, that first year’s $100,000 donation generated $33,000 in additional revenue.

“It incentivized people to pay as much of their gift in cash assets (stocks or cash) versus a deferred gift or pledge toward a planned gift that might be counted but might be realized later,” Kagan said.

Texas Tech’s $1-billion campaign reached its goal by the end of December 2012. Since the fiscal year ends in August, Overley said they didn’t want to just stop counting mid-year. The school will continue to make a big push through Aug. 31, with a plan to start a scholarship or mini-campaign afterward. “It was a really good time to celebrate our success, look at maybe focusing on just scholarships, or something,” she said.

“Athletics is the front door to any university, that public persona, like it or not,” said Overley, echoing what her chancellor says all the time.

A boon to the Texas Tech campaign was that the Red Raiders football team enjoyed a stellar 2008 season. The university raised $25 million in six weeks for an expansion of the east side of the football stadium.

In hopeful anticipation of a victory over rival University of Texas, Overley said they had prepared an email solicitation that was ready to be sent as soon as the game clock struck 0:00. The solicitation was sent to every active email address on file (about 250,000), and helped to raise some $200,000 in online donations within 24 hours.

“For us, it was a big game,” Overley said. While it’s notable talking about athletics when it comes to fundraising, it’s still a very small piece of the pie in terms of the campaign. The $1 billion raised was from more than 120,000 donors making 340,000 gifts, with an average gift of almost $3,000.

Overley stressed keeping staff motivated. “It’s a marathon, not a sprint,” she said. Texas Tech had its third president since the campaign started, which she used as an opportunity to get out and meet donors.

“You’ve got to keep your development officers motivated. It’s a long time. Sometimes that light is nowhere to be seen,” said Overley. At Texas Tech, motivation might include a chili cook-off, snow cone day, or for some top producers, four seats in the president’s suite for a George Strait concert. “It’s doesn’t really cost you anything but it makes them feel good. It makes them feel better. Thank you letters from the chancellor, things that are small but they matter,” she said.

The silent phase launched in 2005 and had raised $600 million up to 2010. The plan was to reach $1 billion in 2014.

“We thought it was going to take us two years, especially when the economy had such a terrible time,” Overley said.

NJSO’s campaign was completed with a pool of only 49 gifts, most of which were from individuals. Only three corporations and two foundations’ charitable funds were among them.

NJSO has somewhat of a history of starting campaigns that got derailed for any number of good reasons, or didn’t reach its target, Kagan said. “It was very important at this time, with a new CEO, trying to right-size the organization, that we found a goal that was achievable, and that we hit it,” she said. “The last successful campaign, we had a hard time people giving us the same number. It was important to raise credibility for this organization and the broader patron community,” Kagan said.

“The success of this campaign really shows in the way that the organization talks about itself, I believe it’s a culture-changing campaign,” Catherine Levin, vice president of marketing and external affairs at NJSO. “It was successful, beyond success at time when might have been a lot of doubt whether it would be successful,” she said.

Norwich University in Northfield, Vermont exceed its goals, too. “We continue to see a sharpening point of the spear,” said David Whaley, vice president, development alumni relations at Norwich University in Northfield, Vermont. The $20.2 million goal was exceeded, raising more than $24 million by the end of 2012, the fifth consecutive campaign that exceeded its goal since “Norwich 2000,” which launched in 1984.

There were about 4,500 donors in the most recent campaign but a third of the amount raised ($8 million) came from eight individuals. When $82 million was raised during the Norwich Forever! campaign, 200 people made up probably $75 million of the total, according to Whaley.

It’s a very small number and it keeps getting smaller while gifts are getting larger at the top of the pyramid, he said. Of the roughly 20,000 Norwich alumni, Whaley said they will focus on their top 500 or so donors and about 300 donors will make or break the campaign. He expects about 80 percent of the funds raised to come from those donors.

There were 4,500 donors to this campaign. “$4 million is a mega gift for us. $4 million is at the top whereas $4 million at Harvard is probably the normal course of business,” he said.

Whaley noted that Norwich University had a few donors who had to extend pledges due to the recession and some donations of $5,000 or $10,000 could not be fulfilled. “It was nothing out of the ordinary. We were very fortunate to get these commitments, between the tech bubble (2001) until we felt the effect of 2008 and 2009, we were already done,” he said.

Norwich has been actively fundraising since the early 1970s. “Now we’re mature but for a long time, we thought that service to our country was a way of giving back,” said Whaley. Donors and alumni were not asked for more than $5 to $100 for the annual fund. That changed during the 1980s, with an increased emphasis during the 1990s, and that’s starting to pay off, he said.

“It is (perpetual). We do our campaigning, fundraising based on reunion cycles. We just never stop. Every reunion class knows when it’s their turn. They’re asked to make a five-year commitment to the university,” said Whaley. “It helps us get away from constant annual fund requests,” he said.

“It’s worked well for our culture.”

Norwich has raised some $170 million in five campaigns since the 1980s, including $82 million during “Bearing The Torch” from 2002-2009 and $15 million for its 175th anniversary from 1991 to 1994.

Norwich was founded in 1819 and will celebrate its bicentennial in 2019, with planning already under way to do a traditional seven-year campaign, including a two-year silent phase.

Whaley has met with the board, which has adopted a preliminary testing goal for what could be a $100-million campaign, and will spend the next 18 months meeting with the school’s top 75 donors. It could be announced by fall 2014.

With about 3,500 active donors, NJSO’s campaign aimed to raise more donors and stretch gifts, to be part of making it successful. “As we move forward, other initiatives that would tie into broadening and growing that donor base. You see a lot of that with performing arts organization, hand in hand with the patron/development model, how to bring more people into concert hall. We continue to widen that net of prospects,” Kagan said.

“As development, staff people, we are journeyman through our organizations. People who donate and support the organization have 25- or 30- or even 45-year histories with the organization. Sometimes organizations should exhibit a little more patience, I think, because people that love your organization are with you for the long haul,” said Kagan.

Whaley has plans to ensure donor recognition is improved at Norwich. “We need to do a better job of recognition. We tend not to do a good job of recognition, thanking for gifts. We do an adequate job,” he said, adding that he’s hired two people do that in a timely way.

Norwich also plans to increase from six to nine development staff. One new position will focus on planned and major gifts while the other two new posts will be full-time research. The duo will focus on traditional prospect research but also stay current with online social networks, like LinkedIn and Facebook, which often can be more current than traditional databases.

“Three years ago, we didn’t have anyone full-time monitoring Facebook or LinkedIn. Someone would look at it, but it was part of their collaborative duties,” said Whaley. It’s used as customer service, as a way to respond to people, but it’s also added to the bottom line, helping the university in researching prospects if not direct fundraising yet.

“You could say it’s going to help us raise money,” said Whaley but it hasn’t yet raised much directly.  NPT

The money will go to 100 cities to become more resistant to disasters, natural and otherwise. Dubbed the 100 Resilient Cities Centennial Challenge, the initiative is an “effort to build urban resilience around the world,” said foundation President Judith Rodin, Ph.D., via a statement.

“We knew we wanted to mark our Centennial in a meaningful way,” said Associate Director of Communications Carey Meyers. “One hundred years ago, only 1 in 10 people lived in cities. Today nearly half do, and by 2050 that figure is expected to be 75 percent. At the start of the Rockefeller Foundation’s second century, we see urban resilience as an idea whose time has come.”

Though the Rockefeller Foundation, with offices in New York City, Thailand, Kenya and Italy, will make $100 million available to 100 cities, “the financial input will not be $1 million per city but rather will vary by city,” based on need and capability, said Meyers. The funds will be used to hire a chief resilience officer (CRO) and create a resilience plan.

Winning cities and their CROs will be members of the 100 Resilient Cities Network and will share knowledge and best practices on how to avoid and cope with disaster. “We’re looking for the 100 Resilient Cities Network to take on a life of its own as a global resource for building urban resilience well beyond 2015,” said Meyers.

The Rockefeller Foundation will begin accepting applications from cities around the world in August at 100resilientcities.org. Applicants will submit a description of how their city plans to approach resilience and how “multiple stakeholder groups” such as city leadership, the nonprofit sector and private businesses will work together, according to Meyers. One-third of the winners will be announced at the end of 2013, one-third in 2014, and the remaining third in 2015.

A good resilience plan, said Meyers, has five characteristics: robust feedback loops “that sense and allow new options to be introduced quickly as conditions change;” flexibility; limited failure; redundant systems and spare capacity; and the ability to re-establish functionality quickly and avoid long-term disruptions. “Ultimately, each of the 100 cities will need to determine its own needs for building urban resilience and develop a unique plan to address them, and The Rockefeller Foundation will provide technical support and resources to make that possible,” she said.

According to Meyers, no city currently has a CRO, which she called an innovative aspect of the initiative. “A Chief Resilience Officer will be a senior city official who can ensure that resilience-building is a priority within the highest levels of city while also engaging all critical actors in a city, incorporating their views and needs into resilience planning, particularly the needs of vulnerable citizens,” she said.

After reports of an apology from Lois Lerner, director of the IRS Exempt Organizations Division, about IRS employees targeting tax-exempt applications of conservative groups, lawmakers from both sides of the aisle have demanded more information.

Miller at one time was in charge of the Exempt Organizations Division.

The Committee on Ways and Means has been investigating since June 2011 whether the IRS discriminated against taxpayers based on political opinions. “The American public expects the Internal Revenue Service to be apolitical in its enforcement of our tax laws. News that the agency admits its targeted American taxpayers based on politics is both astounding and appalling,” Ways and Means Chairman Dave Camp (R-Mich.) said in announcing the hearing.

Rep. Charles Boustany, Jr. (R-La.), chairman of the Subcommittee on Oversight, fired off a letter to Miller on Friday explaining that the Committee on Ways and Means “has been pursuing an active investigation into the IRS’s targeting of conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status.” He requested all communications containing the words “tea party” “patriot” or “conservative” as well as “all names and titles of all individuals involved in this discrimination,” no later than tomorrow.

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) issued similar remarks yesterday, also promising a full investigation by the committee. “I want to review the Inspector General’s report first, but the IRS should be prepared for a full investigation into this matter by the Senate Finance Committee,” he said.

President Barack Obama during a press conference on Monday condemned the actions. “If, in fact, IRS personnel engaged in the kind of practices that have been reported on and were intentionally targeting conservative groups, then that is outrageous, and there is no place for it, and they have to be held fully accountable, because the IRS as an independent agency requires absolute integrity and people have to have confidence that they are applying the laws in a non-partisan way. You should feel that way regardless of party,” he said.

Attributing Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) briefings given to key committees this week, Senate Finance Committee Ranking Member Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) released a timeline of events. As early as March 2010, an IRS manager in Cincinnati, Ohio, asked employees to begin searching for 501(c) tax exemption applications using the terms Tea Party, Patriot and 9/12 as criteria, and later issues including “government spending,” “government debt” or “taxes,” among others.

The timeline indicates that Lerner was briefed in June 2011 about criteria being used by employees while former IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman testified in March 2012 that there is no targeting of conservative groups but was briefed in May 2012 by TIGTA about targeting by the IRS of Tea Party applications for 501(c)(4) status. Schulman stepped down in November after his five-year term as IRS commissioner.

“The IRS’s proper role in approving, and subsequently regulating, exempt organizations is not determining the worthiness of their cause, but their compliance with the law,” Diana Aviv, president and CEO of Independent Sector, said.

“We believe that the IRS, due in large part to the post-Watergate reforms that increased the agency’s independence and insulated it from partisan politics, is the most appropriate agency for oversight of the tax-exempt sector. To ensure that the IRS continues doing its work in an independent and nonpartisan fashion, we call on the administration to respond to the inspector general’s report in a timely manner with an action plan to ensure the problems identified are not allowed to take place in the future,” said Aviv.

“The primary concern is that this generates a lot of confusion about nonprofits in general,” Tim Delaney, president and CEO of the National Council of Nonprofits. People are reading media reports about political activity and not distinguishing between 501(c)(3)s (charities), which are not allowed to engage in political activity, and 501(c)(4)s (social welfare organizations), which are allowed. “The bulk of what we understand the concerns are 501(c)(4) organizations,” said Delaney. “The real problem initially and broadly is the mass confusion, lumping in all nonprofits,” he said.

Another concern is that an underfunded and under-resourced IRS will have to divert staff to address hearings and investigations at a time when nonprofits already are dealing with massive backlogs in the application process, said Delaney.

Several years ago, nonprofit news organizations seeking tax-exempt nonprofit status, like San Francisco Press and the Investigative News Network, were seeing their applications taking well over a year to complete. At the time, it appeared the IRS was grappling with whether a regular news organization qualified as an education organization for tax-exempt, 501(c)(3) status. San Francisco Press eventually was awarded its tax-exemption in September 2012 after 32 months.

Nonprofit news organizations raised other issues in which the IRS identified a category of applications for tax-exemption that were not routine in nature, according to Marcus Owens, an attorney with Caplin & Drysdale in Washington, D.C. The issue was “whether they were educational or commercial newspapers in disguise,” he said.

Owens, who ran the IRS’ Exempt Organizations Division from 1990 to 2000, hopes the TIGTA’s report will determine whether it was 501(c)3 or 501(c)4 organizations that were involved in the IRS inquiries.

“It wouldn’t surprise me if there were some 501c3s,” said Owens, who had an application from an organization that was apolitical but perhaps could be perceived as progressive, which received a lengthy questionnaire from the IRS. So the inquiry was broader than just any organizations with tea party in their name, he said.

Owens took issue with the idea that the IRS “targeted” organizations. “It suggests perhaps an intentional reaching out or finding particular groups. What the IRS is dealing with are applications that were voluntarily filed. It wasn’t going out and looking for organizations – that’s a separate conversation,” he said.

“As far as processing applications, it’s appropriate to identify those that require a more sophisticated level of analysis,” Owens said, adding that some 60,000 applications flow through the IRS’ Cincinnati, Ohio, office annually. The vast majority of those will be little leagues or parent-teach associations and the like but about 1,000 or fewer likely do require some more information and examination to ensure tax-exemption would be valid.

For instance, Owens is in the midst of working on the tax-exemption of a new entity, created from the acquisition of a privately owned hospital by a tax-exempt hospital.

Nagarajan, chairman and CEO of the Tysons Corner, Va., software company, said the first step to better donor engagement is to define three to five priorities. “If you can’t count them on the fingers of one hand, you’re doing too much,” said Nagarajan.

Once you have your goals, you need some key performance indicators (KPI) to measure engagement. Nagarajan advocated that a score, which he called a composite engagement score (CES), be given to each donor. The CES is a score from one to 100, spread across the various KPIs you’ve chosen for your priorities. If you believe volunteerism is the most important part of engagement at your organization, maybe you’ll give volunteerism a total of 50 possible points out of 100. The second component could be event attendance, with 35 possible points, and revenue donated could be out of 15 points.

Next, it is necessary to scale these points. Each KPI will have a sliding scale. “A lot of people look at money as outright dollars,” said Nagarajan. “To someone off the street, $100 is $100, but to someone like Bill Gates, $100 is a lot less valuable. Level setting numbers in a relevant way is helpful. It’s important to select things important to your goal and relevant to how you’ll execute them.”

If your strategy is evolving, change your goals and KPI weights. Maybe the first year, you’re focused on limiting attrition in your database, but in the second, you want to expand your donor base. If someone with a score of 75 in the first year is still doing the same things in the second year, you’ll need to re-evaluate their score and the weight of your KPI. That person will not be as engaged with your organization’s new goals.

Once you’ve determined your priorities and their performance indicators, you’ll have to decide where to keep your supporters’ engagement scores. “If you have a powerful database, use that,” said Nagarajan. But an Excel spreadsheet can also work if your database does not support things like user-defined fields. If you do the calculations outside of the database, said Nagarajan, you should bring the final tallies back in if possible to give your gift officers access.

Education of staff is very important; they need to know what the scores mean to identify prospects. “When you define priorities and KPIs and score communities, some people might bubble up that you didn’t know about,” said Nagarajan. “The score is about finding people whose scores are increasing and decreasing and driving those scores up.”

A CES is useful in different ways than looking at past gifts, said Nagarajan. “The score is predictive. Revenue is about everything you’ve already done. Engagement scoring is forward-looking because it’s about stuff you’re trying to do.”

Nagarajan used a case study of a large professional association to illustrate how to use engagement scores effectively. The number one KPI for that organization was volunteer hours. “People who are engaged have been engaging with the organization because of the richness of the community,” said Nagarajan.

The second is continuity of volunteerism. The longer someone has been involved, said Nagarajan, the more impactful to that particular organization they are because they’re developing a personal brand and constituents and other members trust the volunteer. The third is the number of volunteer opportunities a person might have. “The possibility of being engaged is a good indicator of the ability to pull someone in,” said Nagarajan. “By bubbling those people up with a higher engagement score, they were acknowledging that.”

Nagarajan cautioned that a CES is an internal metric only; it should not be shared with supporters. “People might think they’re valued less, and that doesn’t make them feel good,” he said. Lastly, the key to effective engagement scoring is not so much frequency, but consistency. Look at and adjust engagement scores on a dedicated, disciplined schedule for maximum impact.

The Games for Change Awards are just one part of the G4C Festival, which will take place this year June 17 to 19 in New York City and is meant to put a spotlight on the world of socially responsible games. The finalists for this year’s awards were selected by a blue ribbon jury. Games are awarded on June 18 at New World Stages. Awards are given in the following categories: Most Significant Impact; Most Innovative; Best Gameplay; and Game of the Year. The criteria for each award is as follows:

• Most Significant Impact: Winning game best exemplifies impact for a specific social issue with proven actions/outcomes.
• Most Innovative: Winning game best exemplifies the use of creativity and technical experimentation in a manner that may pave new ways for “games for change.” Aspects may include: unique game design, new technology, or reach to new audiences.
• Best Gameplay: Winning game best exemplifies highly compelling and engaging game play that aligns with and reinforces social issue goals. Winning game is also polished in design, functionality, and thematic execution.
• Game of the Year: The most prestigious award, recognizing the game that best exemplifies excellence across all three dimensions: Impact, Innovation, and Gameplay.

As described on G4C’s website, the nominated games “represent an extremely unique mix of games—from a game with no graphics at all to another that incorporates biofeedback from the player—on platforms from mobile to Facebook.” Developers were asked to submit their games for consideration to the blue ribbon jury over the last few months.

Below is a list of some of the games nominated for this year’s awards:

Most Significant Impact:

• “Blindside” – Developed by Epicycle
• “Data Dealer” – Developed by Cuteacute Media OG
• “Eskom Energy Planner” – Developed by Formula D Interactive
• “The Republia Times” – Developed by Lucas Pope

Most Innovative:

• “Jewish Time Jump – New York” – Developed by ConverJent
• “Nevermind” – Developed by Team Nevermind

Best Gameplay:

• “Quandary” – Developed by Learning Games Network
• “Reach for the Sun” – Developed by Filament Games
• “The Republia Times” – Developed by Lucas Pope

The G4C Festival is the largest gaming event in New York City and the leading international event uniting game creators with others interested in accessing and furthering the positive social impact of games. Those interested in attending should visit www.gamesforchange.org/festival2013. You can follow the proceedings on Twitter using #G4C13