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CIPS Connections
Widely Respected Leader in Non-Profit Sector
and Passionate Conservationist Shares His Views
This week, Stephen Ibaraki, I.S.P., has an
exclusive interview with Patrick W. Olenick. Community is central to his life's
work. He has provided over 20 years
professional support in the not-for-profit sector. His work experience, passion
for conservation, and commitment to the not-for-profit sector provides a creative
mix to support the mission of Ecotrust Canada where Patrick serves as Director
of Development (www.ecotrustcan.org). He has proven major gift fundraising
experience across a varied spectrum of organizations and a demonstrated ability
to lead, inspire, manage and motivate senior volunteers, and professional and
unionized staff in complex work environments. His senior strategic management
skills have proved to be indispensable in budgeting, planning, and implementation
of effective fundraising and not-for-profit management. Patrick’s extensive background includes:
Senior Campaign Counsel, Nature Conservancy of Canada
(www.natureconservancy.ca); Vice President External Relations, Vancouver
Aquarium Marine Science Centre (www.vanaqua.org); Chief Executive Officer,
Vancouver Aquarium Conservation Foundation; Director of External Relations,
Lester B. Pearson United World College of the Pacific (www.pearsoncollege.ca);
Head of Development, Vancouver Art Gallery (www.vanartgallery.bc.ca); Manager
of Fundraising and Alumni Relations, Capilano College Foundation
(www.capcollege.bc.ca/about/foundation); Director of Administration, Canadian
Institute of the Arts for Young Audiences (www.vancouverchildrensfestival.com). Discussion: Q: Patrick, as a widely acknowledged
authority and leader in the non-profit sector, we are very fortunate to have
you with us for this interview and thank you for taking the time! A: It’s my pleasure. My development
(fundraising and friendraising) career focus is with medium sized non-profits
in Canada. This is the sector where I’ve made my mistakes and learned from
them. Q: Conservation and the non-profit sector
is your passion however, you also have a strong computing background. How have you
been able to combine the two areas? A: My computer background started in 1980.
At that time I knew very little about computers but was fascinated by the
potential to support one aspect of the work I was doing at the time. I never
was one to think “I can’t do that”. So, with Computerland of Vancouver, I set
out to design a PC network to help the Vancouver Children’s Festival sell
tickets over the phone to the Greater Vancouver Regional District school system
and the lower mainland general public. For any private corporation to have a PC
network was a rarity in those days and totally unheard of in the non-profit
sector. Government was just beginning to explore the possibility in a serious
manner. Large corporations were still dependant upon mainframes. With a hefty government grant in hand, I
set out to create the system. We ended up with a Northstar Horizon computer
with a CPM operating system and 64K of RAM (WOW), 2 Hazeltine 1500 monitors and
a 10 MB Morrow hard drive, as big as the top of a regular coffee table. The
cost of the hard drive alone would equip today’s office in a state-of-the-art
PC network system. I learned to program in Basic. By the spring of 1981 we
could sell tickets over the phone, print out invoices for the school sales,
enter payments and print tickets and vouchers. We also packed the system up and
moved it to the Festival outdoor site at Vanier Park for the duration of the
performance week to sell and manage tickets onsite. For individual sales, I
could accept VISA, M/C and AMEX and print tickets. It was a thrill to be able
to electronically manage the ticket inventories for up to 300 different shows
over 7 days with as many different seating capacities and arrangements. Yes, I
could even sell reserved seat tickets! The system also provided by-the-moment
seat inventories for any of the 300 shows and the ability to produce valuable
management reports. It was truly a marvel. And I didn’t have ANY computer
experience prior to designing and implementing this project. And the ticket selling
was handled manually prior to 1981. That initial investment in technology saved
our organization tens of thousands of dollars over the years. It also provided
an interesting career opportunity. I conducted many a tour of our system with
various government and private sector people, green with envy. This giant step
into technology in the early days kept us on the leading edge of office
technology. Our staff developed skills far in advance of the computing office
environment. It was also the halcyon days of ample government funding to
support our growth in that area. The original ticket software concept was
eventually adapted by Ticketmaster in Vancouver to sell tickets to the
Vancouver Children’s Festival. They were an amazing corporate partner/sponsor and
would go that extra mile to make things work for our audience. After many
upgrades and advances in systems the original hardware ended up in our backroom
storage facility. Someone walked away with it one night. I felt like a really
close friend had passed away when that happened. So began my professional relationship with
the computer. I understood intuitively how such technology could make-work
easier and provide for a very significant increase in workload and
productivity. Importantly, I learned how an improperly
designed and implemented system could make life a living hell. What worked in
one situation didn’t necessarily work within the context of another
organization or department across the next desk (yes desk, remember we are
talking non-profit). Fundraising as a recognized profession, has
only been around for a little more than a decade. I’ve been fundraising for
more than 20 years. As a development (fundraising) professional I have used
technology to help non-profit organizations create sustainable and successful
fundraising processes. I lived the reality of how such an investment can return
riches in so many different business forms. Q: Where do you see the use of computers
evolving in the non-profit sector? A: Affordable, networked and remotely
accessible fundraising databases. Key word is affordable (by non-profit
standards). We aren’t there yet. Many non-profits still use custom databases
designed by someone with little, or more often than not, no experience in
fundraising. Many don’t have any kind of electronic database. Most are based on
a stripped down accounting or contact management tool. Fundraising is not
accounting. Nor is it sales. Tools designed to support these kinds of functions
are a very poor substitute. In my experience they work against any significant
and sustained fundraising effort. Many can’t even produce a simple report
showing a donor’s gift history without spending many manual hours reviewing the
questionable data. Frustration with trying to make the software work causes
most shops to revert back to a combination of manual paper and electronic
spreadsheets. This is time taken away from fundraising. A good fundraising database is essential
for effective and sustainable fundraising. Period. The best commercial products
are incredibly expensive for most non-profits across North America and around
the world. Combined with the annual maintenance contract, the whole annual
fundraising budget, more often than not, would be consumed in one fell swoop.
And smaller organizations don’t have an IT department to support database
management or for that matter, a budget that provides for a dedicated data
entry position. The $30,000 initial price tag for an excellent database is more
than a full-time position for most resource-constrained non-profits. Q: What was the catalyst for your
conservation passion? A: When I was the Vice President of
External Relations for Lester B. Pearson College of the Pacific, I joined a
group of students on a field trip to the world famous Race Rocks (www.racerocks.com) just off Pedder Bay on
the southern point of Vancouver Island, British Columbia. The group represented
some of the world’s brightest 17-year-old students from some of our poorest
third world countries. I got goose bumps as I watched these young adults
experience the true and very foreign wonderment of a rich and bio-diverse ocean
environment. I saw the ocean for the first time through their eyes. I was truly
ashamed for taking our natural riches for granted. In an instant, they changed
my life. I am forever grateful for that opportunity to share such a precious
and private moment with them. My most cherished possession is a framed
photograph of some of those students, given to me as a remembrance when I moved
on to my next challenge. Surrounding the photograph are the signatures and best
wishes of the 200 students in attendance the year I left. It hangs in a place
of prominence in my office. Pearson College continues to grace my soul. Q: Describe your current position and what
it entails. What objectives do you hope to achieve? A: Ecotrust Canada’s mission is to promote the
emergence of a conservation
economy—one that sustains itself on “principled income” earned from
activities that restore rather than deplete natural capital—in the coastal
temperate rainforests of British Columbia. We envision a region in which the
economy results in social and ecological improvement rather than degradation.
We are a private, nonprofit organization that works with conservation
entrepreneurs, local communities, First Nations, government, scientists,
industry, and fellow conservationists. One of
Canada’s foremost thinkers on the role of corporations and non-profit organizations
in promoting social change has described Ecotrust
Canada as being “at the vanguard of civil society organizations in North
America…. Unlike many more conventional environmental organizations, Ecotrust
operates with the critical understanding that ecosystems, cultural systems and
economic systems are intertwined and mutually dependent. The organization has
forged a powerful vision and practical mechanisms for reversing the destructive
slide of the last century, creating instead real possibilities for a future of
cultural and ecological sustainability. Because they work so closely and
respectfully with native communities, they have earned the trust of these
communities in ways that no other NGOs (or governments) have been able to.” Transforming an
economy that has long been based on industrial scale resource extraction is not
an easy task. Our strategy is to act as a catalyst and broker to create the
institutions and alternatives needed to envision, inform, and finance the
conservation economy; support the conservation entrepreneurs that can give it
expression; and conserve and restore the landscapes and waterways needed to
provide benchmarks of health. Jane Jacobs, revered urban planner and one of
the most provocative thinkers of our age, has agitated in her book, The
Nature of Economies, for what she calls “enduring prosperity.” In a letter
of support for an Ecotrust Canada project, Jacobs wrote, “ Ecotrust Canada can
be relied upon to surmount the difficulties and carry the project to fruition,
as it already has done with other innovative and difficult projects. As an
organization, it is intellectually and emotionally clear in its purposes; its
people are practical and experienced….Ecotrust Canada enjoys wide support from
members of the public familiar with its work and excellent capabilities. The
match between its purpose and the (project) is almost miraculously apt.” Together
with our sister organization, Ecotrust, based in Portland, Oregon, we cover the
majority of the Pacific Coast region of North America, from Northern California
to the northern tip of Alaska. This bioregional approach allows us to find
solutions that work for natural systems and go beyond political or economic
boundaries. Ecotrust
Canada balances three values—social equity, ecological integrity and economic
opportunity—in all our activities. These activities include mapping programs
which provide training and technical assistance to First Nations and other
communities; land-use planning and forest management programs to help
communities harvest resources sustainably from the land; economic development
programs which offer technical assistance and business planning to
entrepreneurs and communities; and policy programs to advocate reform of forest
and marine tenure systems and the protected areas network in British Columbia. Ecotrust
Canada’s information services and planning program was initiated in 1995 to
support effective First Nations and community participation in land-use
decision making, in effect to champion what we call “information democracy”
after a century in which local participation in resource decision making was
essentially non-existent. Since launching our program, several of our First
Nations partners have translated their traditional knowledge of resource use
into maps that have then been used to effectively negotiate with governments
and industry to exclude ecologically and socially unsustainable development
within their territories. But
information is not sufficient in itself. Our economic development programs
offer business services, marketing assistance, credit and environmental
expertise to small businesses in rural communities who are active in natural
resource use, tourism, and value-added production. Ecotrust Canada's vehicle
for carrying out this work is our Natural Capital Fund, which provides small
business loans. Targeting both start-up and established businesses, loans
ranging from $1,000 to $350,000 are offered to conservation-based or
value-added businesses that are unable to access traditional financing. Over nine
years, we have developed an effective, stepped approach to being a force for
change in coastal BC. The first step is to understand our land and sea through
research and mapping; then to devise land-use, forest management and economic
development plans to sustainably harvest our natural capital; and finally to
facilitate the creation of enterprises, through business planning and
financing, which can be the new actors in a conservation economy. Much has been
said about “sustainable development,” but globally there are woefully few
examples of sustainable development that is tangible, community-based and
produces real results. Ecotrust Canada’s work is, and does. Since our
founding in 1994, Ecotrust Canada has evolved and grown considerably. We’ve
developed an effective stepped approach to transforming the B.C. coastal
economy from industrial smokestacks and liquidation of forest, fish and mineral
resources to one that is conservation-based. At a “wave tops level” my work integrates
with volunteer Board members. I build and strengthen relationships between
individuals and the organization I work with. I create processes to support,
monitor and track the personal interactions that occur over a period of time. I
also work with the Board to expand networking opportunities to help tell our
story and identify and engage appropriate individuals. Today, from the moment
an appropriate donor prospect is identified to cultivate, to the actual receipt
of a significant gift takes from 18-24 months and sometimes longer. The mission
and vision of an organization must reflect the core values and beliefs of the
individual. In essence, the organization becomes a vehicle by which the
individual can expand his/her values. This can happen in many ways. The most
usual result of this very personal, complex and time intensive process is a
significant gift of money or other capital to the organization. If the
stewardship of the individual is handled correctly, the gift is large and will
come with no strings attached or very few. I was hired a little more than a year ago
to implement such a professional process at Ecotrust Canada. We have an
excellent track record of raising significant funds from a handful of mostly
American foundations. Being so dependent upon a single source of revenue makes
us vulnerable in the event any one of our stakeholders changed their funding
interests and withdrew their support. My responsibility is to create and
implement processes to identify, recruit and engage individual donor prospects
while sustaining and even increasing our foundation revenues (current budget is
a little over $4,000,000 CDN). The longer-term goal is to strategically steward
these individuals over time to increase their interest in and support of our
mission. By December 2005 our goal is to raise a significant amount from this
select group and have strategic access to 11 key sectors critical to our
mission. Our ability to tell our story increases substantially through this
important network. Our ability to secure funds is diversified. My first year was dedicated to implementing
a fundraising database to support fundraising & moves management. A good
portion of my time was spent understanding what makes Ecotrust Canada special
and unique. The database and processes need to reflect this uniqueness in order
to be successful and sustaining. Template database conversions and
implementations do not work. I’ve undone more than my share of these
template-consultant installations (they obviously never listened to the people
employing them to do this work as they knew better). At the same time we needed
to strengthen the processes to sustain and expand beyond our handful of tried
and true sources of foundation revenue. This meant hiring a full-time grant
writer and creating an organizational wide process to support a complex and
demanding grant reporting capability. Accountability to our donors is critical
for ongoing and significant fundraising success. Prior to my arrival, there was
no tool to make this functionality possible. Our database is being used daily
by fundraising staff. I am the primary tech support for the database as in
house expertise does not yet exist (not unusually for non-profits). The
database continues to consume the majority of my time. It needs to work well as
we begin the next phase of our work. Bad databases are the downfall of any
fundraising effort. I’m just now beginning to work with my
volunteer Board of Directors. My primary tools will be the database and our
recently created Development Committee of the Board. Our goal is to engage 11
key sectors important to our mission by recruiting key leaders and decision
makers to our Committee. In turn, they will help us expand their sector by
engaging their peers. We are currently recruiting the best Chair to help us
build our fundraising/friendraising committee. Recruiting the most influential
individual will ensure our success. This recruitment process consumes a lot of
my CEO’s and Chairman of the Board’s time – and they have my profound gratitude
for their involvement, dedication and willingness to learn. By December 2005 we
will have a collection of more than 100 individuals we can steward toward
sustained and increased support of specific program or project areas. Q: Provide some valuable lessons you have
learned from each position that would be beneficial to the audience. A: Rather than deal with 7 positions
individually, here are my top 18 lessons, in no particular order: 1. Q: Provide your top ten tips for effective fundraising. Sure, again in no particular order: A: 1) A clearly articulated vision for the
future; an ability to articulate the vision and mission of your organization
passionately and in your own words Q: With your extensive senior management background, provide your top ten tips for effective leadership. A: 1) Give back to your community - your
time, money and advice Q: What are the top essentials skills and processes for effective strategic management? A: I look for a CEO who knows where he/she wants to take an organization. They should be out telling that story on a regular basis and be responsible for inspiring staff to accept that vision as their own. The CEO cannot be bogged down in the minutia of everyday administration. That skill set needs to be accounted for in another person. Imagination and three-dimensional thinking is paramount. If you don’t have the particular skill set necessary to articulate and implement your plans, bring in a consultant. Better still, build a strong and effective governing Board of Directors who can provide these services and know where to get the best. You also need a management structure to implement changes and measure progress. These managers have proven strategic management skills. You need to continually measure progress or lack of progress and have clearly articulated consequences if responsibilities go by the wayside. Progress needs to be reported on a regular basis and reviewed at appropriate times (Are we still on course? Has a material change occurred that affects our ability to deliver our mission?) Q: Can you share with us, a humorous story? A: 1) In September 1974 Pearson College opened its doors to the brightest young adults from more than 50 countries. One of those original students was. He recounted his story of getting to Canada and the College. You must remember that he was from a very poor region in Africa and had no comprehension of the world outside his own small village. His family had none of the modern conveniences of the time and didn’t know such things existed. Travel to the next village a few miles away was a huge adventure and very few even accomplished that in their lifetime. Orchestrating his departure was a miracle. Upon landing in Toronto, after traveling through several countries and time zones, he was utterly overwhelmed and amazed at the world around him. He had landed in a dream world beyond his comprehension. A volunteer met him at the passenger gangway to make sure he made his connection to Vancouver. He began to apologize to the volunteer for being such an inconvenience. He politely asked to be pointed in the right direction to the school and he would gladly walk the rest of the way so they won’t have to spend any more money on him. The volunteer assured him it was his pleasure to help and got him on the connecting flight to Vancouver. Now imagine how this young man must have felt, what his state of being was. He had never seen a plane (eating a fabulous feast thousands of feet in the air), had never see such tall buildings and marvels of a city! And everything was so clean and new. When he landed in Vancouver he was extremely jet-lagged, didn’t understand this effect and was in an altered mental state. He was awestruck by the expanse of Canada. When he walked off the plane he heard God’s voice calling his name. He truly believed he had died and was in heaven. There was no other explanation his mind could grasp. It was only the public address system paging him to meet the volunteer greeters at the baggage claim. He completed his schooling in North America and returned to Pearson College to teach and raise his own family. True story. Q: What are your three most surprising experiences? A: 1) Asking people for money and getting paid to do it. 2) In 1991, I successfully completed the Accelerated Computer Systems Management program at Capilano College (a 2-year program compressed into 9 months) and to this day I consider it one of my top personal accomplishments 3) The realization that my life and work experiences are valuable and sought after. Q: You have designed and implemented many different solutions. Share with us four case studies and the lessons you have learned from each one. A: Case 1: Writing a policy and procedure manual. Lesson Learned: Don’t assume anything. Case 2: Installing hardware in a brand new office. Lesson Learned: Make sure there is power hooked up to the new outlet. Case 3: Designing a new software program from scratch only to learn that the solution already existed. Lesson Learned: Build into my daily schedule time to read the professional materials I subscribe to. Case 4: Integrating my President’s personal Outlook Contact folder with Raiser’s Edge database. Lesson Learned: Test the database to make sure it’s bullet proof before putting it in the hands of your President (he okayed the tens of thousands of dollars to purchase & implement the solution on my word) because they will find that bug the first time they go to use the software - guaranteed. Q: What are the most compelling issues facing non-profit IT and business professionals today and in the future? How can they be resolved? My points refer to my experience in the small to medium sized non-profit. A: 1) The inability of many non-profits to invest in the best tools and resources to succeed in fundraising. This results in fundraising staff burnout at an alarming rate. Average length of time a senior fundraiser stays with a non-profit is 18-24 months. It’s a terrible domino effect as it takes that long to cultivate a significant gift and it stops any momentum to sustain fundraising and friendraising. The granting world is focused on funding projects or programs and not interested in funding the infrastructure to administer the project/program work. Electric and phone bills are not very exciting. Few non-profit (large or small) organizations have a revenue generating capability to provide this core funding. Hundreds of thousands of non-profit FTE hours are wasted on trying to create projects and programs to sustain their operations, time and effort that should be used to accomplish their mission. Most of these “projects” take the organization off course. SOLUTION: granting agencies must provide multi-year core funding to non-profits. No business can survive long without such core funding. It’s a pretty basic principle that gets ignored in the non-profit sector. And non-profits are just that – non-profit. 2) Shortage of appropriate volunteers to support Board recruitment. SOLUTION: Corporations (some currently do) can make allowances for and recognize employee contributions of volunteer involvement in non-profits. Secondment of senior executives to a non-profit would be very valuable (a very few do today). 3) Shortage of skilled administrators and managers. SOLUTION: Word needs to get out about career opportunities in the non-profit sector. Universities and colleges need to design programs to support the education of interested individuals. Recruiters need to be out there telling the story of the significant role non-profits play in society. 4) Shortage of skilled CEOs. SOLUTION: Core funding needs to be sufficient to attract and keep a skilled CEO. Most non-profits cannot compete. 5) Shortage of proven senior development professionals. SOLUTION: The profession has only recently been formerly recognized. More academic support is needed to equip professionals for the complex job. Access needs to be expanded to the few certification programs currently available; i.e. scholarships and bursaries. Recruitment can be made easier by showcasing compelling career stories in appropriate career recruitment materials used by high school counselors. Existing development professionals need to tell their career story in front of high school audiences. 6) Access to research resources. Only the biggest institutions can afford topnotch research to support prospective donor identification and cultivation. This is a huge stumbling block for small development shops. There is limited information to be gleamed from public sources and the effort to find this information is incredibly time-consuming. SOLUTION: Creation of a website with the best free sites to support data gathering. It would be a small but important step. Canada is far behind the USA where the selection of research tools and services are quite extensive but US based information. Q: List the 10 best resources for non-profit technology and business professionals. A: 1) Charity Village (Canada) -
www.charityvillage.com Q: What kind of computer setup do you have? A: Toshiba Satellite Pro notebook, Pentium 4, Windows 2000 Professional, 2.0GHz Our database, Raiser’s Edge 7.61 SQL, defines our workstations in the office http://www.blackbaud.com/support/hwspecs/re7.pdf Q: If you were doing this interview, what questions would you ask of someone in your position and what would be your answers? A: Q1: How do you give back to your
community? I made provisions in my will for: My volunteer Board involvement: I mentor individuals just starting their careers in the fundraising profession. I am always available to provide feedback and advice on non-profit fundraising when asked to do so by other non-profit organizations. I also willingly share my insights and experiences with Raiser’s Edge, one of the best fundraising databases on the market. Q2: How do you follow your “bliss”? Q4: What’s the last professional conference
you attended? Do you find them useful? Q: Do you have any more comments to add? A: I just want to thank you for providing such a unique opportunity to share my work and perspectives with your audience. If anyone wishes more information on my work or profession, please email me at patricko@ecotrustcan.org Q: Patrick, thank you again for your time, and consideration in doing this interview. A: You’re most welcome.
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