Group items tagged

Current Dollar Fair Market Valuation Pro bono work should be valued at Fair Market Value (FMV) and recorded as non-cash giving in CECP Survey Question 9.  FMV is the hourly or project cost that a paying client would incur for the same service. Companies are encouraged to use the three scenarios below to assist in determining the FMV of services rendered.  The dollar values in the scenarios below are based upon current U.S. salary data adjusted to account for geographic differences and typical fee-discounting practices.  CECP is currently unable to provide dollar-value assistance for non-U.S. pro bono service. Paid-release-time service that does not meet the pro bono criteria should be recorded at a dollar value that is appropriate to the skills involved in CECP Survey Question 22 (do not include pro bono hours in Question 22, as that would be double counting hours recorded in Question 9). When in doubt, the current Independent Sector rate is appropriate.

For companies with minimal pro bono tracking capabilities In the absence of employee skill area data and internal billing rates, CECP recommends using an estimate of $120 per hour for pro bono service projects. This is based on a rounded average billing rate for mid-level employees across disciplines, highlighted below. For companies with moderate pro bono tracking capabilities Companies that track the seniority level or skills deployed in pro bono projects should use the following chart to value pro bono hours if internal rates are not available.

For companies with robust pro bono tracking capabilities Companies should use their best internal billing information to determine the FMV of services rendered. These valuations should be adjusted to reflect billing differences by: geography, seniority level, rate discounting, employee skill area, etc. To do this, companies must track project metrics that affect billing rates so that an accurate, defensible valuation for pro bono contributions can be recorded. CECP strongly encourages companies to track pro bono to this level of specificity whenever possible.

The applicant must be financially sound, and Bell will be strongly impressed by organizations with low administrative costs which can offer a partnership that will fit its corporate vision and strengthen its position in the niches it wants to occupy.

crucial for Bell to have telecommunications exclusivity in the project

s it a unique made-in-Canada concept?

Is it likely to attract positive public attention?", "Is the applicant a Bell Canada customer or potential customer?", "Does this proposal present an opportunity for a commercial return for Bell?", and "Will there be a role for Bell employees to play?" No organization, Foster points out, will ever meet all of the criteria, "... but the more 'Yes's, the better your chances."

Offer proposals that make commercial sense to Bell Canada

each of the ten fraternity chapters on campus agreed to sign on and to collaborate on a philanthropic endeavor this semester and in the future

all fraternities will collaborate philanthropically around an agreed upon theme, sharing resources and co-sponsoring fundraising events together

Because fraternities at Tufts are already so busy with their individual chapter philanthropic activities, it was initially challenging to get all the chapters to sign on

However, once everyone came to the understanding that this was not intended to be a burden but rather a supplement to their ongoing activities, things began to develop well.

ollaboration really has great potential for better utilizing our manpower to maximize the effect we can have

hopes the partnership will help change some of the stereotypes about fraternities.  “While the point of this project is to increase the philanthropic activity of chapters, it is also very much to improve recognition of the philanthropic work chapters have been doing for a while now,

reek chapters participate in or host multiple philanthropy events a semester and the campus doesn't always hear about them, so by bringing all of the chapters together it is hoped that awareness of fraternity charitable activity will increase.

Why now?

what's with the boom in charity work in recent years?

candidates for medical school are becoming more and more qualified right out of university. With great grades and amazing recommendations, it can be hard to differentiate yourself from the pack. Enter philanthropy.

It adds some much-needed clout to your character and shows you can commit yourself fully to a project and see it through until the end.

Bus ads, billboards and online banner announcements all broadcast the latest causes to hit the scene. Perhaps all this good karma talk has seeped into our collective subconscious minds and led us to believe that the only way to live a worthwhile life is to include a little do-gooding in our daily activities.

the most important factor at play when it comes to philanthropy: the pure, selfish, unadulterated sense of warmth and happiness that comes from knowing that you've just used your valuable time to help someone who's not you

we've all started realizing that helping other people is just another way of helping yourself.

behind every good charity organization, there stands an army of amazing volunteers. So, here's to all you karma junkies, altruism enthusiasts and kindness fanatics out there. Consider yourselves all cyber high-fived, because the work you're doing is actually making the world a better place.

The trouble with my last company was that our experience in software development came from large companies, where your job is just to ship code.

So we thought that a launch was just about writing the code.  And, we did that in 6 months.  But, what we didn't account for was that in a startup, you don't have a ready large group of users just waiting to use your product. So, your launch time must also include a cycle of user experience and marketing.

So, if you do everything in series in a drawn out way like we did: build, market, measure, it's a cycle that can turn months into years.  Eric Ries suggests that shortening an iterative loop and going through such a loop multiple times quickly is the key to success.  I would take that a step further and suggest not only cutting activities to shorten that loop, but to do as much of this loop in parallel.

Our workflow looks like this: get your Unbounce or LaunchRock page up from Day 1 and start marketing before you have a product.  You can gauge interest and get signups from the very beginning until you're done with the first iteration of the product.  Start getting the Craigslist posts out there on Day 1 to get feedback and potential customers immediately.  Once you have enough of an idea of what to build, start mocking up your idea.  Get those mocks back out to potential customers to make sure you're on the right track.  Iterate as much as possible on paper before building, because it's much faster to re-draw than to re-code.  "Delete features" on your paper prototypes as well, reducing what you need to actually build in code.  Try to code as little as possible to shrink that build time to about 1-2 weeks.  By the time you're done building your first prototype, you've already acquired users from doing marketing in parallel.  This puts you in a position to start measuring usage and gauging interest immediately before iterating through that loop again.

Build, market, measure should happen as much as possible in parallel to reduce your launch time and keep your money, morale, and support up.