Lucky for you, here’s a chance to add to your money making mojo.  It’s the Grant Writers’ Forum happening this Friday, November 18th, from 8:30 – 2 at the Council Chambers in the North Charleston City Hall.

Grant writing consultants, foundation directors, administrators and nonprofit program officers will share their knowledge about a variety of topics including:

• building relationships with foundation funders
• developing strategic partnerships & collaborations
• working with corporate funders
• essential financial components of a winning proposal
• outlook on federal funding
• and more!

Each session will last from 45-60 minutes and will include time for questions.   You’ll even get a box lunch and drink with your registration.

The event is $30 for Charleston Association of Grants Pofessionals members, and only $35 for everyone.  For more information or to register, visit the Forum’s Eventbrite page.  Hurry on over; registration closes very soon!

Sponsored by the Charleston Association of Grants Professionals and the City of North Charleston Cultural Arts Department.

12:05 PM Michael is explaining PATH – Palmetto Technology Hub is a nonprofit that serves as an Internet help desk for other nonprofits.

Why we’re here? Money’s tight; we need to get more done with less. Nonprofits frequently don’t know what to even ask for on the technology front.

We’re going to talk about hardware, software, social media, people, resources today.

Hardware:

• Care & Maintenance is critical.
• Simple things: memory and ventilation.
• Recommended: once a year, have a day when you pull the PC out from the wall, look at the back, clean out all the dust.  Blow compressed air into it.  Keep pets and food away from the CPU.
• When you have to buy something new, don’t buy the cheapest.  Get the most you can on your budget.  It will last longer and serve you better.
• Get a good FREE antivirus program.  Right now, that’s Microsoft Security Essentials.
•  Recommended: once a year, take care of the registry and temporary files. Options: CCleaner and GlaryUtilities.com
• Your Internet: check your speed and contract at least every 2 years somewhere like speakeasy.net/speedtest
• Secure the WiFi.  You are securing your clients & donor’s information, and if someone is wardriving on your network they’re sucking up your speed/bandwidth
• Don’t forget about physical security.  Tag your equipment, have it physically secured
• Disaster recovery – 3 2 1 strategy: 3 copies, 2 media, 1 offsite ( multiple redundant online backups)
• Offsite backup, try something like mozy.com, or crashplan.org.  There are other good ones, too, these are just 2.  This is NOT expensive…from free to $60 a year

Space is limited; to register for the workshop, please call 805-6930.

Where: Meeting Room B, Main Library, 68 Calhoun St
When: Tuesday, November 8th from 12 – 1:15 p.m.

Hope to see you there!

You’ll learn:

• what email marketing is and why and how it works
• components of an effective email marketing campaign
• how email marketing can meet your needs
• case studies of successful email marketing campaigns
• email marketing best practices and tips

All information provided can be applied regardless of the system or service you are using for email marketing.

Our presenter is Anissa Freeman Starnes, the Regional Development Director for Constant Contact in the Carolinas.  Anissa is a small business expert with 19 years of experience in nonprofit management, fund development and sponsorship management.  She has a background as a successful small business owner and CEO of an international nonprofit organization.  Anissa is passionate about helping small businesses and organizations grow customer, member, and donor relationships through their use of email marketing.

Where: Main Library Auditorium, 68 Calhoun Street
When: Wednesday, August 24th, 2011 from 6-8 p.m.

Registration is not required for this event, but if you can preregister at http://tinyurl.com/register824 if you like.  As always this program is free and open to the public.

Hope to see you there!

I’m happy to report that the next help session will be held on Tuesday, August 2nd from 11:30 a.m. – 1 p.m.  Cornelia Carrier will be available for editing & review of resumes & cover letters on a first come, first served basis.

More details about CCPL’s August business events are coming soon!

Counselors will be available on the 2nd floor of the Main Library from 10 a.m. – 2 p.m. on Wednesdays, July 13th and July 27th.

For SCORE’s full counseling schedule or to ask SCORE a question, head over to their website or call (843) 727-4778.

Today was one of those days.  The tool we found is called MyBestSegments.  This site from The Neilsen Corporation gives you a quick & dirty look at the major market segments within a specific ZIP code.

Here’s how to do it:  Head to the lookup page.  Enter your 5-digit ZIP code and choose which market segmentation system you want to use (your choices are Prizm, P$YCLE, or ConneXions).  Fill out the security block & click Submit.

MyBestSegments' PRIZM result for 29401

Neat, huh?

For more information on how to use MyBestSegments, check their FAQ page.

If you’d like to know more about how market segmentation itself works, head over to our ebook edition of the Encyclopedia of Small Business.  (If the direct link doesn’t work for you, go to our Online Research Library, open the Encyclopedia of Small Business search for the phrase market segmentation.)

Independent consultants are doing a Strategic Plan to assess CCPL’s operations and find out what YOU want from your local library. This is your chance to be heard and your chance to make a difference in CCPL’s future.

Please join us at one of the Community Meetings:

When: Monday, May 9th at 6:30 p.m.
Where: Dorchester Road Regional Library AND Mt. Pleasant Regional Library

When: Tuesday, May 10th at 6:30 p.m.
Where: Otranto Road Regional Library

When: Wednesday, May 11th at 6:30 p.m.
Where: St. Andrews Regional Library

When: Thursday, May 12th at 6:30 p.m.
Where: John’s Island Regional Library

If you can’t make it to a meeting, simply email your ideas to
letusknow@ccpl.org or fill out our online feedback form.  Thanks for your help!

12:10 – We’re doing introductions.  There are two Pats here today!  :)

12:15 – When you have children in your facility, there’s a lot of rules & regs that you have to adhere to.  DSS is the best place to start for licensing requirements for child care facilities in SC.

When you look to hire, people of course tend to look for people who are reliable with a clean record.

But there’s more to it than that.  You need to comply with regulations!  A great place to start is nolo.com – forms and general overall requirements for things like writing a job description.

For example, forklift drivers have to be able to carry 50 lbs, because to get things onto the forklift, you may have to move things to get them onto the lift.  In the interview, you go over the job description, which should include that requirement.  On hire, new employee should sign the job description.  This protects you from them later saying, “But I can’t lift stuff.  You never told me that you can’t lift.”

12:25 – When you interview, have a set list of questions.  Go with meaty questions, not something like “Have you every stolen from your company.” A much better question, “Tell me what your biggest challenge thus far in your career.”

Have written policies & procedures.  Employee handbooks can be helpful to collect these policies & procedures in place.  Your employees basically have access to everything–keys, credit cards, cell phones, long distance, and security codes.  You need policies & procedures to protect yourself!

Question: Reasonable accomodations: if you have an employee who requests reasonable accomodation for something that they can’t do, get their physician involved.  It protects you

12:35 – Someone has pointed out that Frank Abignale’s The Art of the Steal includes a chapter on companies & employee fraud.

Employee development: when you get a great employee, train them to retain them!  Develop a succession plan, in which you give them stages of responsibility and they can work up to becoming, say, a manager.  Gives them the ability to learn new things, to add value to their position, even if they don’t want to move up the corporate ladder.

Benefits: it’s not just health care!  Even small businesses can try to develop some kind of benefit.  For example, Wild Dunes developed a little membership card where employees could get a discount at area businesses & those businesses in turn got a discount from Wild Dunes.  This didn’t cost anything, but helps reward employees.

Earnings are important.  Question: How do you decide how much to pay someone?  It’s complicated; the BLS Wage Data is a good place to start.  Other suggestions: simplyhired.com and glassdoor.com

12: 50 – To translate annual salary to hourly salary, divide the annual salary by 2080.

1 PM – 5 in 1 poster OSHA poster: the legal posters you’re required to post, all printed as one folder.

Our small, informal group had a great time talking with Pat about HR!  To get in touch with Pat, visit her website, www.pateardley.com!