Smaller Private Foundations More Generous Than Larger Peers in 2011

Report - Foundations under $10m in assets increased giving by 21%

     The general public tends to know a lot about the activities of the big foundations–MacArthur, Gates, Ford–because most reporting focuses on the largest ones. But what about small to midsize private foundations?
     On Tuesday, Foundation Source released preliminary findings on the grant-making behavior of 719 private foundations with assets of less than $50 million. It said small to midsize foundations represent 98% of the approximately 80,000 U.S. private foundations in existence, the vast majority of which are between $250,000 and $5 million.
     The research was based on actual data, rather than on surveys or estimates, the organization said in a statement. Following are initial findings on these private foundations’ 2011 giving behavior:
•Small to midsize private foundations generally gave more than twice their 5% minimum distribution requirement, and the smallest foundations gave away significantly more.
•Private foundations with assets of less than $10 million increased their giving by 20.6% over 2010. At the same time, their counterparts in the $10 million to $50 million range reduced their giving by 7.8%.
•Giving priorities shifted in 2011, with foundations giving 40.6% more to arts and culture than in 2010, while reducing funding to education by 3.1% and to science and technology by 52.4%.
     Foundation Source said these findings contradict the traditional perception that private foundations limit their giving to the 5% minimum distribution requirement dictated by the federal tax code. In fact, small and midsize foundations appear to be more philanthropic than their larger peers, distributing a larger percentage of their endowments each year.
“Small to midsize private foundations are the silent majority in the philanthropic sector,” H. King McGlaughon, chief executive of Foundation Source, said in the statement. “These donors are comfortable granting larger percentages of the corpus, because many are still financially productive and are pumping new assets into the foundation each year.”
     Foundation Source said the new findings were a “first look” at its Private Foundation Index 2011, which is scheduled to come out later this year. The full study will provide information on small to midsize foundations’ investment management and grant-making activity.

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By Michael S. Fischer

Get ready for another major change from The Facebook.  Business / Fan Pages about to be modified to look much like your profile page.  Good for our personal profile, not so sure about the Page change.  Lots of hidden info vs the existing format???

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Google+ Users Spend 3 Minutes Per Month There (Facebook user average is 405 min)

     With its users only spending an average of three minutes per month on the site, Google+ is a “virtual ghost town” compared to Facebook and other social networking sites. That’s how the Wall Street Journal characterizes Google’s social network while reporting new usage stats from comScore.
     According to comScore, Google+ users averaged only three minutes on the site during January, a pittance compared to Facebook’s average of 405 minutes per visitor. Tumblr and Pinterest both saw 89 minutes per user on average, while LinkedIn clocked in at 17 minutes per user and Twitter at 21 minutes. ComScore’s data covers desktop activity only, not mobile — an area where both Facebook and Twitter are said to have significant activity. The Twitter number only accounts for Twitter.com usage, ignoring usage via clients like Tweetdeck, the official Twitter client and many others.

     Time-on-site is undoubtedly a better metric to use than pure user counts when comparing social networks. During Google’s latest earnings call, CEO Larry Page said Google+ has 90 million users, which would be about 10 percent of Facebook’s active userbase. But Google won’t talk about how many “active” users are on Google+, and recently changed its account creation process so that all new users have Google+ accounts by default.
     There have been some positive reports recently about Google+ usage, but it seems there are an equal number of unflattering reports. Even some Google+ users — both individuals and brands — that are seeing big gains in followers/circlers are doubting the quality of those followers.
In its defense, Google’s Bradley Horowitz tells the WSJ that Google+ isn’t just a destination site like other social networks — its features are increasingly being baked in across Google products and services.
Mr. Horowitz declined to share data about how much time people spend on Google+ but said “we’re growing by every metric we care about.” A Google spokeswoman said comScore’s data is “dramatically lower” than Google’s internal data.
And one important aspect that the WSJ didn’t address is the relationship between Google+ and search. With the launch of Search Plus Your World last month, Google is showing more Google+ content than ever in its main search results. 
     One brand manager whose organization is active on Google+ — along with Facebook, Twitter and other social networks — recently told me that, for his organization, Google+ is all about SEO. For many, that’s reason enough to be active on Google+, even if actual usage lags far behind other social networks.

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Feb 28, 2012 Matt McGee 

Is Resume Posting To Job Boards Worth It?

 If you're newly unemployed, your first stop -- after the nearest bar, that is -- was probably your laptop, where you logged on to a big online job site. But are the likes of Careerbuilder, Job.com and Dice really worth much time when seeking a new position? 
The answer is "yes". Read on...
Are There Jobs Available?
More than ever with the continuing upswing in the economy, companies are searching career websites to locate job candidates to fill new job openings in their businesses.
And while there are currently millions of jobs listed on all the top career websites, many companies report they are searching the job boards for candidates without posting their upcoming jobs -- due to a fear of an onslaught of unqualified applications.
That makes this the BEST time to put your resume on all major career websites reported to be searched by 1.5 million employers, recruiters and hiring managers daily.
According to a poll by the Society for Human Resource Management, 88% of human resource professionals now rely on the Internet to fill open positions in their organizations.
How long does it take?
Researching which websites to post to and then filling out all of their forms will take a fair amount of time. If you don't want to spend 60 hours filling out forms and researching websites, you can turn to a service called Resume Rabbit, which will instantly post your resume on over 85 top career websites and niche job boards for you. 
Check out Resume Rabbit now.
This website is easy to use, takes only 5 minutes to complete, saves you tons of time and instantly posts your resume on all the best websites like Job.com, CareerBuilder, Net-Temps, Dice & more.
Why post to all the career websites?
The answer is: To be in the right places at the right times! Especially now.
While many companies search the largest career websites, increasingly employers and recruiters are cutting costs by searching the lesser expensive mid-sized career websites.
This means that the hiring managers and jobs are dispersed amongst a large number of career websites. And in this market, the window of opportunity for a job is a little smaller than usual, so it's important that you're where the jobs are when they're available.
Can I Post My Resume Confidentially?
You can still post your resume online while remaining anonymous if you use Resume Rabbit by selecting "Post My Resume Confidentially" during their registration process. In this case they will select the confidentiality option on career websites offering that feature. For career websites that do not offer a confidentiality feature, they will replace your personally identifiable information and current company name with something non-descript.
Does It Really Work?
It's a fact that most hiring managers use the internet to find their candidates. Of course, when there are more jobs available in the market, your chances are better of finding a job faster.
However, even when the job market is weak it's even more important that you give yourself a competitive advantage over others competing for the same jobs, by making sure your resume is "findable" on ALL top career websites.
Here are a couple of comments about being on all the career websites from users of Resume Rabbit:
A customer service representative in Missouri named Jim used Resume Rabbit to post his resume and commented, "I signed up on a Tuesday and by Thursday the job offers started pouring in. By Friday, I had a job set up!" 
-- Ronnie, a sales representative in Texas reports,
"I got the account on Sunday evening and by Monday morning I was already getting phone calls from recruiters. That was fast and easy. There are so many job websites out there it would have taken weeks."
Since 1999 Resume Rabbit has performed over 1 million resume postings for some very happy customers who feel the service can't be beat. If you want to try Resume Rabbit it can be found by going to this link.
Whether you fill out the forms yourself or elect to have a service like Resume Rabbit do it for you, being on all the major career websites is a good idea. It's a competitive job market right now. If you know how to play the numbers you can beat the odds and succeed. Post your resume to as many career websites as possible and visit them often!

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Staff Writer, The Career News

Clean Your Google Search History Before New Privacy Policy Takes Effect

On March 1st, Google will implement its new,  privacy policy, which will affect data Google has collected on you prior to March 1st as well as data it collects on you in the future. Until now, your Google Web History (your Google searches and sites visited) was cordoned off from Google's other products. This protection was especially important because search data can reveal particularly sensitive information about you, including facts about your location, interests, age, sexual orientation, religion, health concerns, and more. If you want to keep Google from combining your Web History with the data they have gathered about you in their other products, such as YouTube or Google Plus, you may want to remove all items from your Web History and stop your Web History from being recorded in the future.
Here's how:
1. Sign into your Google account.

2. Go to https://www.google.com/history

3. Click "remove all Web History."

4. Click "ok."
Note that removing your Web History also pauses it. Web History will remain off until you enable it again.
Note that disabling Web History in your Google account will not prevent Google from gathering and storing this information and using it for internal purposes. It also does not change the fact that any information gathered and stored by Google could be sought by law enforcement.
With Web History enabled, Google will keep these records indefinitely; with it disabled, they will be partially anonymized after 18 months, and certain kinds of uses, including sending you customized search results, will be prevented. If you want to do more to reduce the records Google keeps, the advice in EFF's Six Tips to Protect Your Search Privacy white paper remains relevant.
If you have several Google accounts, you will need to do this for each of them.

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by J Roycrof

Google Defensive After Fresh Privacy Breach

     Google has been scrambling to give internet users more power to block advertisers from tracking their online behavior, as it seeks to limit the damage from the latest privacy scandal to dent its corporate image.
     As part of the effort, it will adhere to “do not track” requests from individuals when serving up adverts from its own DoubleClick network, said a person familiar with the plans, a move that would make it the first big online advertising company to limit itself voluntarily in this way.
     Google’s race to regain the high ground came after its latest admission to a devastating privacy glitch. The slip-up was uncovered by a researcher at Stanford University, who discovered that the company had secretly overridden a block in Apple’s Safari browser that was meant to bar illicit tracking by advertisers.
     Google had circumvented the default setting in Safari that is meant to prevent advertisers from planting “cookies” in the browser, according to Jonathan Mayer, a graduate student at the university. Cookies are short pieces of code that gather information about the websites users visit and report the information back to the companies that planted them.
     The search company quickly admitted to the unapproved data collection, but described its action as inadvertent and the byproduct of an effort to let Safari users connect to services like its Google+ social network while browsing other pages on the web.
     “We didn’t anticipate that this would happen, and we have now started removing these advertising cookies from Safari browsers,” Google said.
     The claim that it had collected information by mistake echoed its defense two years ago after cars used to photograph streets for its Street View service were found to have collected information from personal WiFi networks. That led to investigations by privacy agencies around the world.

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By Richard Waters in San Francisco

Culture of Connectivity

             Make Your Business Even More Mobile in 2012.
  Does your marketing plan have the building blocks for mobile marketing strategy?

With a large percentage of American’s and others actively using mobile devices in their business and personal daily planning, mobile now needs to be a critical part of your online marketing activities.

Mobile web sites, mobile apps (Apple & Android), SMS text messaging for phones and tablets all need to be considered.  How to plan, measure and manage all these parts for phones and tablets is a must.

Tablets are becoming more popular and used devices.  Are tablet’s included in your planning strategy?

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BUSINESS ACUMEN: THE UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE OF BUSINESS

“Taking the pulse of your business”

What does your doctor do when you go in for a visit?  He checks your weight, blood pressure, temperature, and pulse.  In the same way you should check the pulse of your business by staying on top of the building blocks of money-making.

When it comes right down to it, business is very simple.  Every business is the same inside.  There are universal laws of business that apply whether you are one-person business or a very big business.  Successful business leaders know them.  They have what is called “business acumen” the ability to understand the building blocks of how a business makes money.

The best business people, whether they are running a small or large business, think the same way.  They know their cash situation, They know which items are profitable and which are not.  They understand the importance of keeping their products moving, inventory turnover, and they know their customers.

You have to know the total picture of how your company is doing by answering the following questions.

ü  What have your company’s sales during the year? Are your sales growing, declining or flat?

ü  Is your company growing profitably?

ü  What is your company’s profit margin?  Is your profit margin growing, declining or flat?

ü  What is your company’s return on assets? R = Profit Margin X Velocity(Sales/Tangible assets)

ü  How does this compare with your competitors?  Other industries?

ü  Do you know your company’s inventory velocity? Inventory turnover.

ü  Is your company’s cash generation increasing or decreasing?

ü  Is your company gaining or losing against competition?

ü  What are the external realities of your particular business? This is not an easy question to answer and requires some market research on your part.

If you can answer these questions for your company, you are speaking the “universal language of business”.

In short, you need to know your sales, profit margin, inventory turn, return on assets, cash position, and be in touch with your customers.

With this information you can set clear priorities and action plans.  That what successful business leaders do.  You need to set no more than five priorities to retain customers and achieve your money-making goals.  A business priority defines the most important action that needs to be taken at a certain point in time like:

• Doing business on the internet.
• Controlling prices.
• Reducing expenses
• Improving customer satisfaction
• Improving velocity
• Improving profit margin
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  JWB Interest, LLC  2012 All Rights Reserved

PR for Small Business: Use the Web to Reach People Directly

Traditionally, PR has meant getting good press. Indeed, any business or product launch usually aims to get media coverage. Working with media to tell your story is still important, but the Internet is transforming our idea of what PR can do. The reason: the Web now gives business owners the power to reach their audiences directly.

Here are three ways business owners can use the Web to “go direct”:

Target niche media, not mass mediaEntrepreneurs may dream of having their product on Oprah, but in 2010, small is the new big. A Twitter-based job-hunting service found that an article in The New York Times drove only a few dozen readers to the company’s website, while a story in a relatively unknown blog resulted in 10,000 visitors. Think of blogs and niche websites as today’s new trade media—they can reach the relatively defined universe of buyers critical to your business.

Listen and respondSocial networks like Facebook and Twitter are a great place to engage and listen to customers. Review sites like Angie’s List and Yelp serve as online “neighborhoods” where anyone can post a good (or bad) review of your company. It’s wise to monitor these services—even better to become a member and make sure people are getting the whole story.

Be your own publisherAs fewer people consume traditional media, companies must take more responsibility for telling their story. A press release used to be a document given only to the press. Today, news releases can be found on Google and in online newsrooms. A company can use a variety of platforms—a blog, a channel on YouTube—to publish whatever it wants about its product and services. A Facebook page, for instance, can house “how to” guides, videos, photos and articles, while allowing you to post messages to followers.

Today’s Web-centric PR means that companies have not just an opportunity but an obligation to communicate with their customers online. Is your PR strategy Internet-ready?

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By: Brian Posnanski
JWB Interest, LLC  2012 All Rights Reserved

CUSTOMER SERVICE

Guidelines and rules must be replaced by the flexibility to handle problems quickly.

Slogans don’t guarantee good customer service.  Whatever your slogan or motto, as customers we expect extraordinary customer service.  We want to experience customer service beyond our expectations.

Some organizations have come to the realization that to differentiate themselves from the competition, extraordinary customer service must become the norm.  That means having articulate, well-trained employees who are congenial and empowered to make customer-service decisions.

The goal of customer service should be to “WOW” customers, not make them feel that they are contestants on “Survivor” or some other televised game show.

Shape up your customer service!

Here are ways your company can improve its customer service:

Empower employees to handle customer disputes on their own without management intervention.  This involves training and a “mind-set” that acknowledges the importance of converting regular customers into loyal customers.

Meet daily with your employees to discuss issues with customers and invite input from the staff on how each should have been handled.  Do “case studies” as a group to determine how to handle certain situations.  Nordstrom’s employee handbook states: “Our No. 1 goal is to provide outstanding customer service. Use good judgment in all situations.”  Empowerment and flexibility are making sure customer’s expectations are met and exceeded.

Survey customers to determine their satisfaction with purchasing and return policies of the company.

Benchmark your customer service against competition by shopping them.

Use common sense: Treat customers the way you would want to be treated.

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The Psychology of Winning

Three types of people in the game of life:

1 -  Spectators …that watch life happen

2 – Losers …people who put themselves down

3 – Winners… set goals and achieve them.

Winning is taking the talent or potential you were born with, and have since developed, and using it fully toward a goal or purpose that makes you happy.

Your attitude toward your potential is the key.

You always want to play to win regardless of how lofty your goals are.

Ten Qualities of a Total Winner.

1.  Positive self awareness and eager to learn.  Winners are honest with themselves. And they show empathy towards others and adapt to the stresses in life.

2. Positive self-esteem is one of the most important and basic qualities of a winning person.  It is a deep down feeling of your own self worth.

3. Positive self-control means taking full responsibility for determining your actions.  The philosophy that life is a “do-it-yourself” program, making decisions, not procrastinating.

4. Positive self-motivation is a force that moves us to action.  People who want to change the “status quo” and move in the direction of goals.

5.  Positive self-expectancy – Winners expect to win. They have the desire to win, self-control to make it happen, and are prepared to win.

6.  Positive self-image determines personality and behavior.  People do not behave in accordance with reality but rather with the perception of reality.

7.  Positive self-direction is a game plan for life.  Winners are goal and role oriented.  They are self-directed on the road to fulfillment. Goals are targets you are shooting for.

8.  Positive self-discipline are the daily actions you take that will help you achieve your goals. This alone can make or brake a habit.

9.  Positive self-dimension is looking beyond yourself and gaining the respect of others.  Winners create other winners without exploiting them.

10. Positive self-projection is being naturally open and friendly.  Projecting confidence.  First impressions are powerful and create lasting attitudes.

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By: Dennis Waitley
JWB Interest, LLC  2012 All Rights Reserved

Understand the Lure and Limits of Advertising

Advertising can be a valuable marketing tool for any small business.  But don’t assume that creating and placing an ad will immediately translate into more sales.

Successful advertising requires a lot of research into the various options available—print, broadcast, Web,direct mail, etc.—and whether their potential results are worth the investment.  In other words, people may see your ad, but will they respond to it?  And are they the audience you want to reach in the first place?

Before you spend your hard-earned money on advertising, you’ll want to understand what to realistically expect from them. Only then should you draw up a plan for moving ahead.

Ads can do the following:

• Attract new customers, prospects and leads.

• Encourage existing customers to spend more on your product or service.

• Build credibility, establish and maintain your “brand” or unique business identity, and enhance your reputation.

• Inform or remind customers and prospects of the benefits your business has to offer.

• Promote your business to customers, investors or others and slowly build sales.

But here’s what advertising probably cannot do:

• Create an instant customer base.

• Solve your cash flow or profit problems by producing an immediate sales windfall.

• Cure poor or indifferent customer service.

• Create benefits that don’t really exist or sell products and services that nobody wants.

In short, advertising won’t guarantee quick sales for your product or service by itself, but it will get you noticed, if you do it right. That means you must know, as precisely as possible, the demographics of your target audience and craft a precise message about your product or service that will touch them. You must give customers a compelling reason to call, visit your Web site or stop by your business.

Other considerations include what your ad looks like, and the context in which it appears.  Attempts to be clever may back fire, while something too simple may be overlooked.  How often your ad appears is also important.  Depending on your goals, a one-time placement may not be enough.  When your ad appears many times in many places, there’s a better chance your prospective customers see it.  Just make sure the cost of multiple placements fits your advertising budget.

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BOOM! 7 Choices for Blowing the Doors Off Business as Usual

Are you part of the solution or part of the problem? Do you have the courage to think BIG and act BOLD? Are you part of something, fully engaged in what you are doing? Do you want to make a mark on the world? You are on earth for a purpose, a purpose that gives meaning to your life and to the lives of those you touch. Successful people don’t let unfortunate circumstances or limitations drag them down, and they don’t let negative people influence how they are going to act.
Your most powerful attribute is the freedom of choose! “The difference between ordinary people and extraordinary people is choice. The freedom of choice is yours alone to leverage or not, no one can grant it to you, and no one can take it away from you.”
You are not a product of your conditions; you are a product of your decisions.

Want to create more freedom in your life? Then follow these seven choices you have in your life.
1. Be a player, not a bystander. Do whatever it takes to make positive things happen in your life. Players get joy and meaning through their contributions. Players have a powerful bond and loyalty to their team, and players strive to win and make a difference. Players are value-driven people who refuse to compromise their values in order to fit in.
2. Be accountable It’s not they, but you that are responsible for how your life turns out. Being accountable means not making excuses or complaining, and blaming others for what happens to us. Making excuses weakens our influence and lowers our self-confidence.
3. Choose service over self-interest. Me-first rarely delivers the desired outcome. When your contribution takes the form of service to others, your work suddenly starts to come alive and meaningful. But service is more than helping others, being of service is the greatest gift you can give yourself.
4. Focus forward. Your future isn’t in the rearview mirror. The most important thing about you today is not where you’ve been; it’s where you are going. You need to focus your attention toward what you want to happen in the future in your job, your relationships, your organization, and your life. Where you focus your energy and attention determines what you see, and what you see has a dramatic effect on your attitude, your demeanor, and your effectiveness.
5. Play to your genius. Your work is a statement about you. Life is what happens to you when you’re busy making other plans. The work you do, in fact, everything you do, is a statement about who you are. So begin by changing your perceptions about your work. Look for meaning and value beyond the task itself. All work has meaning. All work can make a difference. Ultimate motivation requires that we have in our minds a noble description of what we do! Why not choose to make it a masterpiece?
6. Get it done. Success is the reward for those who make a difference. Great companies elevate and protect people who champion a culture of results. MVP’s get it done. They don’t make their bosses do their thinking for them, they don’t make coworkers carry the load. They always look for something new to bring to the table. Create vitality, energy, and “buzz”.
7. Risk more gain more. The world isn’t changed by those who are unwilling to take a risk. Dream big, not to escape life, but to keep life from escaping you. If life is the only game in town, then why aren’t you playing like there’s no tomorrow? Be a game changer. They get all the attention.

“Your life is not a dress rehearsal. Your life is now.” Do something that makes a difference in your life. Choosing to follow these seven choices can make difference in your life. Start today. 

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By: Kevin and Jackie Freiberg
JWB Interest, LLC  2012 All Rights Reserved