Pro Bono Junkie's Blog

THE PRO BONO ADVENTURES OF ARMIN: WEEK 6

2012-05-11T21:30:44Z

This week I had the chance to talk to Yoann, President and Co-Founder of the Pro Bono Lab in France. He shared a great example of how professional pro bono services can be implemented in other countries. Drawing on Taproot and the Hands on Network for inspiration, Yoann and Antoine (also a Co-Founder) started the Pro Bono Lab in 2011. After an initial learning phase in the US they introduced pro bono services in France by holding an innovation workshop. The workshop helped them figure out which of the things they had learned in the US could translate to the French pro bono environment. They came up with some surprising innovations. Not only did they choose to focus on the marathon model, but they also shortened the Service Grant cycle to 3 months - a more realistic time span for pro bono consultants in France.
The most interesting innovation though, is their "Diagnostic Pro Bono" method. In short, a pro bono consultant discovers a nonprofit and analyzes the organization's mission and vision, finances and competitive environment. This assessment is then used to develop a strategy and list out potential projects that match the organization's particular needs. The analysis and the proposal are then discussed with staff members as well as at least one board member of the nonprofit, a Pro Bono Lab representative, and a group of pro bono consultants. In the end they come up with a customized tool box to address the nonprofit's challenges.
Another great experience this week was attending the project manager orientation session, which is yet another step in the Service Grant cycle. Project Managers (PMs) together with Account Directors (ADs) manage the projects, the pro bono consultants and their interaction with the grantee. The session showed keys to make a pro bono project a success like ownership, frank and frequent communication among all stakeholders and a clear definition of roles. The latter actually helped me to understand the difference between PMs and ADs. While the ADs take a more strategic position during the project, the PMs get involved with the day to day business.

Armin Pialek is the first Fellow in a pilot joint venture between Taproot and the BMW Foundation. He is working to first bring pro bono to Germany, and then to replicate the model to engage Fellows to develop pro bono with Taproot and the BMW Foundation around the globe.

SIX WEEKS TO BECOME A PRO BONO MANAGER - WEEK FOUR

2012-05-09T14:25:41Z

This is the fourth week in Taproot University's "Six Weeks to Become a Pro Bono Manager" course. Over these six weeks we are going to walk you through the keys to the success of a pro bono manager. This guide is based on Taproot's experience managing over 1,500 pro bono projects and developing many of the leading pro bono programs for our corporate partners from the Gap Inc. to Deloitte to Capital One. By the end you will have the basics down and will be able to proactively manage projects to get the right results.

In the first three lessons you learned how to get a project done, how to ensure that the nonprofit client can implement and sustain the deliverables and meet client expectations. This week we focus on ensuring the interactions between the pro bono consultants and the client are strong and yield a high level of satisfaction from both parties.

BEDSIDE MANNER

Being an effective pro bono manager means balancing outcomes with the quality of the experience as well as balancing the satisfaction of the client with the pro bono team. As opposed to traditional paid engagements, the pro bono team members' satisfaction is especially important as it is part of the implicit 'payment' they receive. However, there must be a balance between focus on client versus pro bono project team satisfaction, as well as overall satisfaction.

COMMON OBSTACLES

There are three main obstacles you will encounter as a pro bono manager working to ensure high quality interaction between the client and pro bono consultants:

Disproportionate emphasis - On a pro bono engagement, there are two ways that emphasis may be inappropriately placed on satisfaction. The first is focusing more on the pro bono team members' satisfaction than the deliverable's impact. The second is focusing only on the pro bono team members' experiential satisfaction and not that of the client. Both have potential to undermine the success of a project.
Unarticulated expectations - Disappointment stems from a gap between someone's expectations and their experiences. Without understanding each stakeholder's expectations, it is difficult to ensure a high level of satisfaction.
Unclear roles and responsibilities - Team members' dissatisfaction with each other often stems from frustration and miscommunication about roles and responsibilities on a project. This includes perceptions that a team member is overstepping his/her authority (and therefore undermining someone else's), or that team members are not fulfilling the assumed responsibilities of their respective roles. These examples apply to both the pro bono consulting team and the client team.

TOOLS TO USE

As a pro bono manager, you have four main tools to use to address these challenges proactively:

Align everyone around impact first - While a pro bono project always has several desired short- and long-term outcomes, including those related to participant satisfaction and experiential benefit, the underlying focus must always be on client impact. A helpful best practice is to incorporate a statement to this effect in initial service agreement, aligning both parties to the ultimate priority in addition to acknowledging the scope of work and other project elements.
Mutually acknowledge elements of satisfaction - The client team and pro bono project team members should be aware of each other's desires and expectations for the pro bono engagement. What are the pro bono team members' motivations for being involved in pro bono service? How do both teams prefer to communicate, and with what turnaround time? The client and pro bono project teams should articulate and acknowledge these and other expectations, standards, and work preferences upfront. By doing so, the combined team is able to correct unrealistic expectations, norm across differences, and pay more deliberate attention to meeting all reasonable expectations. This helps ensure that expectations, and the experience as a whole, are crafted thoughtfully.
Build interaction into project work plan - While working virtually is increasingly accessible, particularly on a pro bono basis (e.g. for a previously unknown client, with a new team, with fewer accountability and trust mechanisms in place, etc.), it is important to build opportunities for interaction into the work plan. What meetings and desired work plan outcomes are best accomplished in person? What trust and relationship-building activities can be enhanced by face-to-face interaction? Additionally, every participant's responsibilities should be clearly spelled out so every interaction is based on a common understanding.
Celebration, thanks and recognition - Since pro bono projects do not include monetary payment, it is essential that the pro bono team members enjoy some form of thanks and recognition. Just like a hands-on volunteer activity is often rewarded with a thank you card or celebration, the pro bono project's completion should include recognition for the participants' time and work.

REFLECTION QUESTIONS

Questions to consider this week:

Can you recall a time you had someone do work for you that met your expectations but you still left the engagement not feeling satisfied (e.g. consultant, doctor, mother-in-law, etc.)? Why was the successful outcome not enough?
How do you recruit pro bono consultants for a project? What benefits are you selling? How well are those aligned with what you can deliver?
How might a pro bono consultant want you to celebrate the completion of the project? How might it be different from what a volunteer or donor needs?

Next week we focus on the most important lesson - how to ensure your project has an impact on the success of the nonprofit client.

THE PRO BONO ADVENTURES OF ARMIN: WEEK 5

2012-05-04T21:25:01Z

Travelling most of this week with a broken notebook, I finally found the time to go through my notes and a have a closer look at Taproot's pro bono service toolkit. What I found most interesting are the 8 different models pro bono service. Of those the two most popular models are the Standardized Team Projects and the Marathon Models.
In the Standardized Team Projects individuals form a team. Each team member is given specific roles and responsibilities. Then each project is scoped and structured around a standard deliverable based on the needs of the nonprofit partner.
The Marathon Model condenses nonprofit service. A company pools human capital on a pro bono project within a short, predetermined timeframe (12 to 24 hours) to deliver a mass volume of deliverables. As this model is increasingly requested in the US, a new model is being discussed. The so called Scope-a-thon is basically structured in the same way as the Marathon. The prominent difference is that it does not aim to provide a solution to a specific need but rather to identify what that specific need is. The need is the starting point of all the 8 models of pro bono service. Think of it as analogous to a hospital - you wouldn't give treatment to a patient before diagnosing them. Finding the right diagnosis is crucial in defining the right cure.

Celebrating 10 Years of Taproot

2012-05-03T15:28:12Z

From the left: Aaron Hurst, Sylvia Reynolds, Caroline Barlerin, Bill Draper, Reid Hoffman

Last month, Taproot celebrated the 10th Anniversary of its flagship San Francisco office. It was an emotional night, with special guests including one of our seed funders, Bill Draper, Co-Chairman of the Draper Richards Kaplan Foundation and Reid Hoffman, Co-Founder and Executive Chairman of LinkedIn and Partner, Greylock Partners.

Reid shared why LinkedIn has partnered with Taproot, stating, "We are working with Taproot because we completely believe in bringing talent together to make projects scale and work effectively; the questions of expertise, knowledge of a particular problem domain, knowledge of management, and so on, are all necessary for achieving scale in the social sector."

Also in attendance were 150 of Taproot's supporters, nonprofit clients, and pro bono consultants. The highlight of the evening may have been the proclamation from the Mayor's Office, declaring it Taproot Foundation Day on April 19, 2012 in San Francisco, though it's hard to decide.

Joel Bashevkin, Taproot Executive Director, Bay Area

In the words of Taproot Board Chair Sylvia Reynolds, former Chief Marketing Officer, Wells Fargo:

"It all started with a small and crazy idea, but we really nurtured that seed; that seen became our turnip and that turnip became Taproot. It could not have happened without all of you, critical to making ten years of accomplishments and more important, the ten years of difference in our communities."

Some of the highlights from the last 10 years include:

Over 2,000 Service Grants completed, providing services valued at over $100 million to hundreds of nonprofits nationwide.
Nearly 12,000 pro bono consultants engaged through our Service Grant Program to date, with an active pool of over 4,000.
$1.6 billion in skilled volunteering pledged to the Billion + Change Campaign

Upon toasting to a decade of pro bono service in the Bay Area, Bill Draper stated, "Among all of the wonderful organizations we have enthusiastically supported, I can think of none more effective, more impactful, or more important than the organization that we are here to celebrate tonight.... Ten years old and the best is yet to come!"

SIX WEEKS TO BECOME A PRO BONO MANAGER - WEEK THREE

2012-05-02T13:04:03Z

Missed last week? Catch up here

By the end of this week, you will be half way to having the basics of pro bono management under your belt. This is the third week in Taproot University's "Six Weeks to Become a Pro Bono Manager" course. Over these six weeks we are going to walk you through the keys to the success of a pro bono manager. This guide is based on Taproot's experience managing over 1,500 pro bono projects and developing many of the leading pro bono programs for our corporate partners from the Gap Inc. to Deloitte to Capital One. By the end you will have the basics down and will be able to proactively manage projects to get the right results.

In the first two lessons you learned how to get a project done and to ensure that the nonprofit client can implement and sustain the deliverables. This week we take a close look at the art of setting and meeting client expectations. This is one of the trickiest parts of any consulting project - paid or pro bono. Pay close attention!

MEETING AND EXCEEDING CLIENT EXPECTATIONS

As with other consulting engagements, a key component in defining a project's success is meeting the client's expectations. With pro bono service, this takes on a new level of complexity. In addition to keeping client expectations in check so they are not unrealistically grand, truly valuable pro bono projects start by overcoming inappropriately low expectations held by both the client and pro bono team members. As a result, quality controls must be put in place to ensure high-quality expectations are clear, appropriate and obtainable.

Your job is to make sure the adage "you get what you pay for" is never used to describe your work.

COMMON OBSTACLES

There are three main obstacles you will encounter as a pro bono manager working to get meet or exceed client expectations:

Unarticulated, unaligned expectations - While the client and the pro bono teams may refer to a project's desired output by the same name (e.g. "new website"), specific definitions and expectations can often differ if they are not mutually articulated and agreed upon. This is particularly true if the level of technical understanding differs between the client and the pro bono teams. Additionally, expectations regarding working interactions between teams throughout the engagement are more important than on traditional paid consulting engagements, since satisfaction is part of the implicit "payment" pro bono team members receive for their service.
Expectations of low-quality - It can be easy to set low expectations on a pro bono project, however, this approach sells both the client and the pro bono team members short. Both sides should expect the same level of quality as on a paid engagement, unfortunately, both tend to enter a pro bono project with lowered standards. Clients assume since they are getting the project for 'free' they do not have the right to expect the same level of quality. As a result, client organizations do not stand up for the quality of work they are entitled and accept sub-par work. Similarly, the pro bono team may expect a lower-quality project is adequate because it is better than nothing. This too will negatively affect a project by inviting a lower level of commitment to the project and producing a less valuable deliverable.
Pro bono team skill suitability - Since pro bono and paid engagements must be of the same quality level, the relevant expertise and experience of the team must also be comparable. The quality will suffer if the necessary skill level is not present.

TOOLS TO USE

As a pro bono manager, you have four main tools to use to address these challenges proactively:

Mutually acknowledge the scope of work - At the project's start, a mutually agreed upon project scope must be created and included in a service agreement. It should articulate expectations including what the final deliverable entails, how it is intended to be used, as well as the work, information and time requirements necessary to create it.
Screen pro bono team members for fit and experience - The pro bono team's composition must be comparable to that of a paid project team. This means designing the team structure with the same roles by screening every member of a pro bono team to ensure all necessary competencies and experiences are present. As with most paid consulting engagements, the pro bono project team should include a project manager in addition to content specialists.
Mutually acknowledge client needs - To ensure the deliverable is designed for maximum impact, the pro bono project team and the client should understand the client's direct needs. The pro bono project team should create a requirements brief or memorandum of understanding after conducting an initial discovery phase, then the client should review, share, revise, and sign off on it. This way, the scope of work is always based on an accurate and defensible understanding of client's specific needs. For example, on a website project, this could include the organization's target audience/users, brand attributes, technical requirements, and desired short and long-term outcomes.
Adhere to consistent standards - Every aspect of a pro bono project's quality must be on par with that of a paid project; from expectation setting, preparation and relationship management, to time management and delivery. This applies both to the pro bono project team and the client organization, as they must dedicate the same quality of work to this project as they do to program delivery. By adhering to the same standards of excellence, a pro bono engagement can meet even the highest expectations.

REFLECTION QUESTIONS

Questions to consider this week:

What biases do you have about the nonprofit sector and the nonprofit professionals you are serving? How does that impact the expectations you set inadvertently?
What would you like your nonprofit client(s) to expect from your team? How can you not only express this to them but also demonstrate it?
How can you create a safe environment for the client(s) to give you direct and constructive feedback?

Even if expectations are met, that doesn't guarantee that the client or pro bono consultants walk away reporting high satisfaction with the project. Bedside manner matters in medicine and in pro bono consulting. Next week, the fourth in this course, focuses on how to manage pro bono projects to drive high satisfaction with the group's interactions.

The Pro Bono Adventures of Armin: Week 4

2012-04-27T22:57:41Z

Continuing my world tour of pro bono I spoke to Alejandro and Eduardo of AED Costa Rica. They have thoroughly assessed the pro bono environment in Costa Rica for almost 2 years and are about to launch a national pro bono online platform. The platform is designed as a fully automated tool matching unskilled volunteers with nonprofits and social projects. In addition, a more manual tool will match skilled volunteers with nonprofits in need of their expertise. This specification best fits the Costa Rican pro bono environment that is heavily focused on unskilled hands-on volunteering whilst still introducing the concept and the tool to do skilled pro bono. In turn it has the potential to massively increase the impact that each volunteer can have.

From Eric, who is a committee member of the Pro Bono Lab in France, I heard about other pro bono service in the USA that I have not come across so far. The number and diversity of players in the American pro bono market is astonishing, showing a high degree of maturity of the US pro bono environment. Furthermore, he drew my attention to the concept of "Dollars for Doers". In those programs, companies match the volunteer hours of their employees in a nonprofit with financial donation to that nonprofit. A great way of providing incentives for employees to do pro bono.

Armin Pialek is the first Fellow in a pilot joint venture between Taproot and the BMW Foundation. He is working to first bring pro bono to Germany, and then to replicate the model to engage Fellows to develop pro bono with Taproot and the BMW Foundation around the globe.

SIX WEEKS TO BECOME A PRO BONO MANAGER - WEEK TWO

2012-04-25T14:12:07Z

Welcome back to Taproot University for the second week in the "Six Weeks to Become a Pro Bono Manager" course. Over these six weeks we are going to walk you through the keys to the success of a pro bono manager. This guide is based Taproot's experience managing over 1,500 pro bono projects and developing many of the leading pro bono programs for our corporate partners from the Gap Inc. to Deloitte to Capital One. By the end you will have the basics down and will be able to proactively manage projects to get the right results.

In the last lesson, we reviewed the keys to making sure a project is completed and you reflected on how to put the tools outlined to work for your next project. While completing a project is the foundation for all effective pro bono work, a significant amount of pro bono work that is completed is never implemented by the nonprofit client. And even if it is, it isn't sustained (e.g. the web site that quickly falls into disrepair).

This week we review the keys to delivering a project that is not implemented and sustainable. How do you make sure the project you create is really going to be used by the nonprofit so it can have its intended impact

IMPLEMENTED AND SUSTAINED DELIVERABLES

The final deliverable will only have a significant impact if the client can implement and sustain it. A completed deliverable the client cannot use will seriously compromise both client and pro bono team satisfaction and fail to meet the client's original need.

COMMON OBSTACLES

There are three main obstacles you will encounter as a pro bono manager working to get a project done on time:

1) Nonprofit fit and readiness - For a client to get value from a pro bono project and its deliverables, the benefits of the project have to outweigh its costs. With pro bono service, the cost is the amount of time and resources a client has to invest. Two factors prevent projects from being successful for this reason: fit and readiness.

Fit: When the focus of a project does not directly address a high-priority need for the client, it is not worth either team's time. The deliverable should strategically address pressing issues.
Readiness: To get the most out of a pro bono engagement, the client organization needs to work effectively with a team of consultants, specifically as it relates to the specific project type. Common challenges include limited staff bandwidth, an unclear decision-making process, and/or lack of internal employee support and commitment to the project's completion.

2) Gap in technical knowledge - The pro bono team's technical expertise is critical to complete the deliverable, but its implementation and sustainability is largely dependent on the existence or transfer of some technical knowledge to the client. Because of staffing and resource constraints, the client organization may not have the necessary technical expertise. This can greatly undermine the likelihood of a deliverable being implemented and sustained and therefore having impact on the organization.

3) Limited resources - Many public interest organizations have limited financial resources. This may impact the organization's available budget for implementing and maintaining the deliverable.

TOOLS TO USE

As a pro bono manager, you have four main tools to use to address these challenges proactively:

1) Conduct a nonprofit assessment in advance - For pro bono service to be beneficial, it must be the right project at the right time. Before deciding to engage in a project, the pro bono team's point person and client organization lead should have a conversation to assess the proposed project's fit with the client's needs and their readiness to work with a pro bono team. Use this time to review the project's scope, discuss the client's anticipated time commitment, inquire about organizational decision-making practices, and so on. If any challenges are identified during this conversation, the project work plan should be adjusted to allow the client extra time to address specific impediments.

2) Plan for any deliverable constraints - A deliverable needs to be designed to work within a client's limitations. For example, if a client receiving a pro bono brochure design has a limited budget to cover printing costs, the design should accommodate the budget. If the pro bono team produces a design that uses multiple colors, is intended for glossy paper, involves a lot of pages, etc., it will be a challenge for the organization to implement the brochure as the cost would be high. Instead, the project scope (that is articulated and agreed to at the beginning of the project) should include a detailed definition of the completed deliverable so maintenance needs are understood from the outset. In this example, a pre-determined brochure length, style, and budget should be discussed.

3) Provide training and delegate ownership - Training should always be built into the final stages of a pro bono project. 'Owners' of implementation, that is individuals in charge of transferring skills related to the deliverable, should be identified at the project's outset. By identifying a client team member as the 'owner' of implementation and maintenance, and incorporating training into a specific pro bono team member's responsibilities, the team will ensure proper team-client expertise transfer. When the deliverable is completed, the trainer should create a manual or presentation and conduct a training session with the client 'owner'.

If there are other critical stakeholders, they should also receive training. This should be done by 'training the trainer' - equipping the client 'owner' to replicate necessary training for other relevant stakeholders. For example, a pro bono branding project creating key messages for an organization must include training the client 'owner' in charge of communications on how to start incorporating the messaging into the organization's communications. It should also enable that person to provide similar training to the organization's board of directors, executive director, and other necessary stakeholders in order for the messages to be implemented effectively

REFLECTION QUESTIONS

Questions to consider this week:

Think of a project you have done (in any setting) and how the scope of the project was set. What as the impact of the way you set the scope on the rest of the project?
For pro bono projects you offer or seek to offer, create a list of the likely hard costs associated with implementing the deliverables. Create a recommendation for each on how those costs should be covered
Identify someone in your organization who is an expert in training. Ask them to partner with you to design the training phase of your project(s).

In week three we will explore the keys to setting and delivering on expectations. Success, after all, is relative to the expectations set.

Redesigning the Social Sector

2012-04-24T14:11:44Z

Next month, Ci Yuan is convening leaders from across the U.S. social sector to take a critical look at the assumptions we all use to ground our work. This will both generate a report for the Chinese government and social sector but also, hopefully, spark some dialogue about how we may need to change here in the U.S.

There are major assumptions we take for granted about the role of nonprofit sector and our government. We assume that the government shouldn't be the only provider of social services but also that they can outsource programs to nonprofits. We allow nonprofits to advocate for policy but not for politicians. We exempt nonprofits from paying taxes if their revenue is mission related and make it relatively easy to get and maintain nonprofit status.

Read more on Huffington Post and join the conversation by completing a short online survey.

Taproot Foundation Day

2012-04-23T18:47:44Z

Hear ye, Hear ye!

BE IT RESOLVED that April 19th, 2012 has been hereby proclaimed as Taproot Foundation Day in San Francisco!

During an exciting and emotional Tenth Anniversary event last week, Mayor Lee of San Francisco gave Taproot the tremendous honor of an official proclamation. The proclamation provides some highlights and accomplishments over the last 10 years, including:

"Taproot Foundation has engaged 3,500 Bay Area pro bono consultants to deliver $30 million in pro bono service to 500 Bay Area nonprofit organizations; as a national movement, Taproot and its pro bono consultants have provided $100 million in pro bono service"

"Taproot Foundation bridges sectors, bringing together nonprofit organizations, private foundations, corporations and business professionals to create an innovative, global pro bono movement"

"Taproot is launching its newest program, "Powered by Pro Bono," which shares their best practices from the last 10 years so that organizations can reliably and independently scope, secure and manage pro bono services, which are necessary to solicit, obtain, and make strong use of resources in our communities"

We, at Taproot would like to take this opportunity to thank all of our friends, supporters, and fellow pro bono junkies for all that you have done to make Taproot and the pro bono movement into what it is today. We can't wait to MAKE IT MATTER for another 10 years!

The Pro Bono Adventures of Armin: Week 3

2012-04-20T21:49:52Z

This week I went on a pro bono tour that took me around the world. In awareness of my ecological footprint, though, I decided to stay in the Taproot office in NYC and only travel to the countries via Skype. Using Taproot's network of international Pro Bono Junkies, I tried to identify the key elements of a successful pro bono fellowship program, while assessing the potential challenges of scaling it globally. Some highlights:

From Ikuma - Pro Bono Junkie and founder of Service Grant Tokyo - I learned that it needs a lot of endurance. Also I learned about an interesting growth strategy. Service Grant Tokyo (beyond its two offices in Tokyo and Osaka) is partnering with different municipalities by training staff of "volunteer centers" to manage their own pro bono projects. This way operational costs are kept down while the idea is scaled.

From Michael, of For Good Advice in Denmark, I learned about his network-based NGO that consults NGOs and Social Entrepreneurs to boost their impact. He focuses on how to incorporate business perspectives into social goals, thus creating a self-sustainable model for pro bono initiatives.

Next week the journey takes me to Singapore, Sweden, China and France. I am excited to get a glimpse on their experiences too, and I find myself wondering whether there are patterns emerging in the pro bono efforts across national boundaries. One pattern I have identified already: all Pro Bono Junkies I have met so far, regardless of where there were, had a huge drive to make it matter.

A Day of Learning in the Citi

2012-04-18T13:08:34Z

Today, over 50 highly talented Citi employees are spending the day using their expertise to help ten nonprofit organizations address critical capacity building projects. It is the first, of hopefully many, Citi Skills Marathons. We have been working with the Citi Foundation and Citi Women for the last few months to orchestrate the event and are excited to see it come to life.

The Citi Skills Marathon is using a relatively new model for doing nonprofit capacity building - the marathon. The idea is to find bite-size opportunities to impact nonprofits - pairing nonprofits with teams of Citi employees with specific subject matter expertise in areas like HR, marketing, strategic planning, etc. to spend one day together focused on addressing one discrete element of organizational need. We carefully designed the projects to be specifically scoped to add value in a one-day setting, which can sometimes be easier for the nonprofits and the employee volunteers. In addition, having all of these different projects with other nonprofits and employees happening together on the same day sends a powerful message about collective power in fostering positive community impact.

This pilot is a great step forward for Citi Foundation's 'More than Philanthropy' approach, which puts "the strength of Citi's business resources and people to work to help improve communities", and is also a tremendous learning opportunity for Citi and for other companies looking to harness the professional talents of their staff to make a difference.

The collaboration between the Citi Foundation and one of their leading internal affinity groups, Citi Women, also makes this project worth noting. Citi Women is Citi's company-wide effort to foster the ongoing development and advancement of women leaders from recruitment to senior management and this opportunity to contribute to some of Citi's New York City community partners is a great demonstration of the depth of that partnership.

It is wonderful to see a company take on not only making an impact but also trying something new in the hope that it will inform their long term work in the community and also and inform other companies. It is no surprise that when Citi offered peer companies the opportunity to observe the day, ten signed up and are attending the Citi Skills Marathon today.

Congratulations to all of today's Citi Skills Marathon participants! We look forward to hearing more about the outcomes of the great work.

National Arts Advocacy Day

2012-04-17T21:24:58Z

In these times of economic challenges, it easy to prioritize basic human services over culture. As a result, the arts community has been hit incredibly hard. We at Taproot believe culture is critical to our communities, arts education is core to our children, and that the arts improve our daily lives. It is not a nice-to-have but a must-have.

Every year we work with dozens of nonprofits across the country to connect them with business talent to help them survive and thrive. It is some of the most rewarding work we do in the community.

Be sure to take a moment today and tell someone about how important arts and culture is to you, your community and the nation. Better yet, donate your time and talents to an arts organization in your community and let them know how much you value the work they do.

When Pro Bono Transforms the Volunteer and the Community in Need

2012-04-16T16:21:39Z

Imagine that your community needs help. You've been hit by a tornado or an earthquake or a flood. And you need the assistance of dedicated volunteers to come to your rescue. You need volunteers with the skills to reach you quickly and use decisive leadership to provide support at an unstable time. Now imagine that the volunteers that come to your aid are actually in need of healing themselves. Through their service to your community, they find a sense of purpose - a renewed meaning for their skills and experiences. We think that's a pretty powerful opportunity for pro bono.

Meet Team Rubicon. Formed in January 2010, TR unites the skills and experiences of military veterans with medical professionals to rapidly deploy emergency response teams into crisis situations. What started as a way to ensure medical care could quickly reach those impacted by disaster has evolved to a means for veterans transitioning from service to find a renewed purpose for their knowledge and talent.

Immediately after a natural disaster, many communities face challenges that confront troops in Iraq and Afghanistan every day: unstable populations, limited resources, and horrific sights. Veterans can deliver aid to these communities using the same abilities that they needed during their service - skills like emergency treatment, risk assessment and mitigation, teamwork and decisive leadership. And when you match trained medical professionals and media specialists to the teams of veterans, you get a pro bono disaster-response trifecta. This means TR can reach victims that are often outside the scope of where other aid organizations will venture. And in less time.

Team Rubicon is currently expanding their domestic disaster-relief structure substantially, expanding from three domestic regions to ten regions in the coming year. After successful relief work in Vermont after Hurricane Irene (the Governor of Vermont has officially declared March 31^st as Team Rubicon Run as One day in recognition of their support) and in the Midwest and South after several deadly tornados, TR has identified a specific opportunity to develop a network of veterans that can respond to disaster events in their home region.

While much of the management and mission-coordination work requires very specific skill sets, the volunteers also focus on general skills-based and hands-on tasks - like clearing debris, moving sand bags, and rebuilding damaged property - to restore communities and provide participating veterans opportunities for continued service. Their strategic use of volunteers and Service Enterprise structure (more on the SE concept here) will enable them to engage more volunteers and rapidly deliver aid while requiring minimal movement of people and supplies.

Pro bono has a place in the conference room of every nonprofit in the country (and trust us, TR is using pro bono resources for their organizational needs, too). But the pro bono that TR makes possible through their domestic and international missions couldn't be happening any further from the safety of office walls. And for the veterans that are signed up and ready to help when the need strikes, that may be just what they are looking for: pro bono without PowerPoints. We think that's a pretty cool thing.

LEARN MORE ABOUT TEAM RUBICON >

Pro Bono Adventures of Armin: Week 2

2012-04-13T18:21:00Z

The second week at Taproot gave me the opportunity to have a detailed look at the American Pro Bono market. What I found most interesting is that there seems to be an astonishing contradiction: on the one hand there is general agreement among corporate grant makers and nonprofits alike that the value of the skills of the American workforce is immense. Therefore, the potential worth of pro bono services is huge. Nonprofits are also in great need of these skills. On the other hand, efforts of grant makers to provide pro bono, as well as efforts of nonprofits to seek it, are much lower, revealing an inconsistency.

Another insight was about how the recent economic downturn has affected the third sector and the need for pro bono. More than ever, people are in need of the services provided by nonprofits. At the same time, budgets in the third sector are under pressure. As a strategy to guarantee that services are still provided under these tough conditions, many nonprofits replace employees by skilled volunteers. From this angle, it would seem that efforts of nonprofits to seek pro bono have increased, narrowing the above-described gap between theory and practice.

Participating in one of the pro bono consultant orientation sessions held at Taproot, I learned that the estimated value of one hour of skilled volunteering or pro bono is worth 120$. This is still a rather conservative approximation compared to what nonprofits would have to pay for an equivalent service on the market. This is impressive evidence for how much impact pro bono can have.

Six Weeks to Become a Pro Bono Manager - Week One

2012-04-11T16:59:47Z

With the growth of pro bono programs at companies, consulting firms, intermediaries and graduate schools there is an associated growth in the need for a new occupation - pro bono managers. These are talented professionals who connect talent with need and help ensure impact.

Over the next six weeks we are going to walk you through the keys to the success of a pro bono manager. This guide based Taproot's experience managing over 1,500 pro bono projects and developing many of the leading pro bono programs for our corporate partners from the Gap Inc. to Deloitte to Capital One. By the end you will have the basics down and will be able to proactively manage projects to get the right results.

This week we will focus on what is perhaps the toughest challenge of a pro bono manager - completing a project and doing it in a timely manner. The key? Treating the pro bono client the same as a paying client.

GETTING TO COMPLETION

Completing a pro bono engagement in a timely manner is important for the pro bono team and the client, as since in lieu of payment, the 'budget' allocated for a pro bono project is the participant's time. If a project takes longer than intended, either in duration or total number of hours dedicated, there is a high risk of losing pro bono team members, undermining the quality of the project, or simply not completing the project.

Time is also a limited resource for the client organization. While the client is not paying cash for the project, they are providing their staff member's time, another scarce resource. A project that takes longer than originally projected also means delayed implementation and value for the client - or, if the project cannot be completed or is finished too late to be implemented, it will be of no use to the client organization.

COMMON OBSTACLES

There are three main obstacles you will encounter as a pro bono manager working to get a project done on time:

1) Scope creep - While it usually stems from good intentions, an expanded or straying scope often leads to a project running overtime, failing to meet the original need of the client organization, or providing deliverables (ie. tools, strategies, or documents) the client is not prepared to implement.

Both the pro bono team and the client team can drive scope creep.

2) Team turnover - Project tardiness is commonly caused by losing a team member, either on the pro bono or client team. Without payment, the traditional driver of commitment and accountability, a pro bono project's timeliness is easily derailed by team turnover.

3) Prioritization - Whether team members are engaging in pro bono service as part of their workday or as an extracurricular activity, pro bono projects are often marginalized by not receiving the same level of priority and time allocation as paid projects.

TOOLS TO USE

As a pro bono manager, you have four main tools to use to address these challenges proactively:

1) Stick to an approved timeline - Establish a clear scope for the project, including a detailed timeline. The client and pro bono project team should sign off this document before work begins. The timeline should be realistic given the availability of the pro bono and client team members. Deadlines should accurately reflect a realistic pace for both teams.

2) Take a formal approach to timeliness - Both parties should be clear they must work together to keep the project on track as timeliness is critical. This means adhering to the set scope and not adding elements that require more time without formally revising the timeline, as well as having both parties agree and commit to the modification - just as you would formally adjust the budget and contract for a paying client.

3) Establish roles and responsibilities - At the outset, establish clearly articulated roles and responsibilities and the decision-making structure for the pro bono and client teams. In addition to helping solidify accountability and commitment to the project, this also aids in filling vacant roles and expertise if turnover occurs.

4) Identify fixed milestones - With the client, identify a minimum of three key fixed milestones over the course of the project (e.g. completing focus groups or the first draft) to be used as reference points during the project to gauge how it is progressing and what, if any, adjustments need to be made to the timeline to stay on track. Based on when these milestones are reached, the pro bono and client teams should have a clear, shared sense of when the next milestones and ultimate completion will occur.

REFLECTION QUESTIONS

Questions to consider this week:

u Think of a project you have led (in any setting) and reflect on where there were challenges in staying on track. What did you do to get back on track? Which of the tools mentioned here did you employ? How could using the others have helped?
u What is the next/first pro bono project you will be overseeing? How can you put these basic tools to use from the start?

Next week you will build on this learning to understand the keys to being a pro bono manager who can ensure that the work you do for the nonprofit is implementable and sustainable for the client.