GuideStar held its quarterly Impact Call on February 9, 2016 to report on fourth quarter results and provide an outlook for 2016. Key highlights included:
- Programmatic results showed declines in profile updates but growth in higher-level Gold profiles and GuideStar for Grants adoption. Unique users and the data distribution network also grew.
- Preliminary financial results for 2015 showed revenue growth of 10% and expenses growth of 20%, with a break-even operating income expected given investments in staffing. The balance sheet remained strong.
- Lessons from stakeholder feedback will inform GuideStar's 2020 strategic plan to build the "scaffolding of social change." The call concluded with a Q&A session.
2. Please suggest questions throughout the
conversation.
We’ll answer as many as we can.
Next Impact Call:
Tuesday, May 10, 2016, 2 pm ET
http://npo.gs/gsicmay16
#GSImpactCall
3. Opening remarks
Spotlight: The GuideStar Community
Programmatic results
Financial results
Lessons learned
Q&A
Jacob C.
Harold
DeLeon
DeMicoli
#GSImpactCall
Mizmun
Kusairi
AGENDA
4. Opening remarks
Spotlight: The GuideStar Community
Programmatic results
Financial results
Lessons learned
Q&A
#GSImpactCall
AGENDA
8. Getting Feedback from our Stakeholders
Source: GuideStar 2020, Building the Scaffolding of Social Change
9. Opening remarks
Spotlight: The GuideStar Community
Programmatic results
Financial results
Lessons learned
Q&A
#GSImpactCall
AGENDA
10. The GuideStar Experience
1. Update your GuideStar Nonprofit
Profile
2. Learn about GuideStar products
3. Read The GuideStar Blog
4. Receive community support
16. Login in to the Community
• Community.guidestar.org
• Login using your guidestar.org login info
• The site is free to use
• You do not have to sign in to search Support topics and
threads
• You must login to participate in the community
17. Check out The GuideStar Blog!
• http://npo.gs/1S0uRt7
• Blog post on the GuideStar Community
• Summary of features discussed during this presentation
• How to login and sign up
• Getting started
18. Opening remarks
Spotlight: The GuideStar Community
Programmatic results
Financial results
Lessons learned
Q&A
#GSImpactCall
AGENDA
20. 2 Data Distribution
HISTORIC HISTORIC CURRENT GROWTH GROWTH
Description Q4 2014A Q3 2015A Q4 2015A QoQ YoY
Unique Users 1 1,859,475 1,839,591 1,958,475 6.5% 5.3%
Data Distribution
Network 2 151 168 185 10.1% 22.5%
GuideStar for Grants
Adoption 3 8 21 23 9.5% 187.5%
1. Unique Users – Total number of unique visitors to www.guidestar.org during the specified quarter. This
does not include Hosted Solutions traffic
2. Data Distribution Network include customers of the following products: DonorEdge, Hosted Solution,
GPP, API customers, and recurring Data Sets
3. Foundations that have adopted Guidestar Profiles for Grant Applications
21. 3 Data Innovation
GuideStar Specific HISTORIC HISTORIC CURRENT GROWTH GROWTH
Description Q4 2014A Q3 2015A Q4 2015A QoQ YoY
Comparison Tool Participants 1 2,825 2,784 2,717 -2% -4%
Learning Tool Participants 2 1,051 2,357 1,569 -33% 49%
Sector Metric HISTORIC HISTORIC CURRENT GROWTH
Description Source 2012 2013 2014 YoY
Total Estimated U.S.
Charitable Giving 3
Giving
USA
$326.07b $339.94b 358.38b 5.4%
Description Source 2010 2011 2015 From 2011
% individual donors
compared organizations 4
Money
For Good
3% 6% 9% 50%
1. Nonprofit registrants on www.guidestar.org that have used GuideStar products that enable organization
comparison (Financial SCAN, Compensation Report). Also includes nonprofit experts on Philanthropedia
(cumulative).
2. Number of nonprofit registrants on www.guidestar.org that have used GuideStar products that enable
learning (Webinars, Blogs, Product Demos).
3. Adjusted for inflation.
4. Money for Good 2015: http://npo.gs/mforg2015
22. Opening remarks
Spotlight: The GuideStar Community
Programmatic results
Financial results
Lessons learned
Q&A
#GSImpactCall
AGENDA
25. Year End Balance Sheet
$1629k
($668k)
$2,478k
$258k
$1,585k
($235k)
$3,252k
$1,587k
($1,000)
($500)
$0
$500
$1,000
$1,500
$2,000
$2,500
$3,000
$3,500
Cash Unrestricted Net Assets
2012
2013
2014
2015
2015 Results are preliminary and unaudited
26. 2016 Financial Outlook
Revenue +10%
• Continued support in Transformational Capital campaign
(note: early payment in 2015)
• Q4 signs of growth in Product Sales
• Revamped Membership continuing growth trajectory
Expenses +20%
• Investments in people and systems
• FY Expenses ~$2.3M more than PY
Cash Flow and Operating Income
• Expect break-even operating income and cash flow given
early grants payments in 2015 (expected in 2016)
• Stronger balance sheet with over $3M cash
27. How should we balance between earned vs.
contributed revenue?
How do we distinguish between grant capital and
grant revenue?
How do margins vary across our product
portfolio?
How do our expenses break down by function
and time horizon?
How will our revenue mix evolve after the
transformational capital?
Key financial strategy questions
28. Notes:
1. Nonprofit Finance Fund reference: http://www.nonprofitfinancefund.org/sites/default/files/docs/2010/BuildingIsNotBuying.pdf
2. Grants include strategic grants and individual contributions, i.e. sum of contributed revenue.
Other income includes subleases, etc.
3. Other income comprises mainly sub-leases of our DC and CA offices, which is expected to grow in 2016
-
2,000
4,000
6,000
8,000
10,000
12,000
14,000
16,000
$365k
Expenses
New Roles
Existing Roles and
non-staff costs
Allocation of Income
Grants as capital
Grants as revenue
Earned Income
Other Income
$0
$74k
Grants allocation1
: based on
expenses of new roles
Earned income is roughly enough to just cover costs of hiring for new roles
– grants applied to revenue decreases over time to $0 in 2016
$ in ‘000
2014A 2015A 2016E
29. Opening remarks
Spotlight: The GuideStar Community
Programmatic results
Financial results
Lessons learned
Q&A
#GSImpactCall
AGENDA
30. Getting Feedback from our Stakeholders
Source: GuideStar 2020, Building the Scaffolding of Social Change
31. T H A N K Y O U !
Questions?
#GSImpactCall
Jacob C. Harold
President, CEO
Mizmun Kusairi
Vice President,
Strategy &
Finance
DeLeon
DeMicoli
Community
Manager
32. Additional Information
The GuideStar Community:
https://community.guidestar.org/welcome
Our impact:
Next Impact Call: May 10, 2016: http://npo.gs/gsicmay16
GuideStar’s impact page: www.guidestar.org/impact
Archives: http://npo.gs/webinararchivesgs
Blog resources:
The GuideStar Community: http://npo.gs/1S0uRt7
Introducing the New GuideStar Nonprofit Profile:
http://npo.gs/1Pfa4S6
#GSImpactCall
33. Disclaimers
• Financial results: Numbers are preliminary and
unaudited
• Safe Harbor disclosure:
Historical results are not necessarily indicative of future
results. All forward looking statements contain known
and unknown risks that may result in future results that
are materially different from historical results.
#GSImpactCal
l
Notas del editor
GABE
Welcome! Etc. etc. Join us as we’ll be live Tweeting from @GuideStarUSA using the hashtag #GSImpactCall
But, before we begin, I want to go over a few housekeeping items. First, we’re recording today’s event, so rest easy if you missed a point or didn’t have a chance to write down a note. You’ll receive an e-mail within 48 hours with links to the slides and a recording from today’s event to go back to as you’d like.Next, we’ve blocked off about 20 minutes at the end of today’s event to answer your questions. To submit a question, simply drop it into the Q&A box here within the WebEx platform. If you don’t see that box right now, move up to the top of your screen and select the Q&A button. If you’re on a Mac, it looks just a little different—the button is on the bottom. If we don’t get to your question today, Check The GuideStar Blog trust.guidestar.org next Tuesday (02/16) for additional follow-up answers.
GabeHere’s today’s agenda
Now I’d like to introduce GuideStar President & CEO Jaocb Harold. Jacob, take it away. JACOB begins
Lunar New Year! Miz new VP of Strategy and Finance
Jacob
Profile Pages launched on 1/203-4 points of customer feedback about the profiles
This was a large project so need to invest in more people
We have been growing our organization and recently hired 2 new team members, Eva Nico, Senior Director of Programs, and Kerstin Frailey, Director of Data Science
Here’s examples of Kerstin’s work: -The 3D image demonstrates the separation of clusters (color coded by cluster) of nonprofits according to revenue sources. What you’re seeing there is a dimension reduction technique (PCA) applied to the revenue makeup of the nonprofits who’ve filed 990s recently. (That image is not a final version)
-The bar plot is the average revenue stream profile of each cluster, as found via the same analysis that lead to the 3D plot. The clearly different revenue makeup
The vertical access is proportion of total revenue.
The horizontal access is cluster.
Each cluster then shows the portion of revenue due to a particular source, as seen be the color coding.
Comparing bars horizontally we can see the differences in portion of total revenue due to a particular source. For example, the first two clusters have very different portions of revenue arising from government grants and service revenues.
-The black image is typical looking code. the coding part (in SQL, Python, and R) enables tailored machine learning on big data.
New feedback mechanisms
Grasstops to grassroots mechanism in placeWe’ll be launching a grassroots mechanism next month.Break down-- some are nonprofits, some are FDNsOne important mechanism for feedback is our new GuideStar Community…
JACOB introduces DeLeon DeMicoli, Community Manager
DeLeon begins
DeLeon
Community highlights
An example and walkthrough of how Ask GuideStar Support works
An example and walkthrough of how Ask GuideStar Support works
An example and walkthrough of how Ask GuideStar Support works
Highlight features of collaboration and sharing best practices
DeLeon
DeLeonLink will be in follow-up email send
DeLeon introduces MIZ, VP of Strategy and Finance
MIZ begins
GS theory of change – 3 areas of work: Data Collection, Data Distribution, and Data Innovation
Data clean effort in Dec 2015: We have high standards – robust profiles and up to date information on nonprofits – unfortunately, over 10k profiles didn’t meet the standards and we expired them (thus big declines)
Late in the year we experienced a large scale expiration of over 14,000 participants. This was a large set back. While growth at the individual outreach level is on trend. However to reach our goal we’ll need to grow partnerships and reduce churn—two goals for 2016.
There’s 3 different ways GuideStar data reaches end users:
Unique users on GuideStar.org - Traffic increased ~5% YoY on GuideStar.org in 2015, attracting more than 7 million unique visitors. We expect this growth to accelerate in 2016 with the launch of new products and features – e.g. new profile pages.
Data Distribution Network where GuideStar data appears on other websites and mobile apps – Current number influenced by need for better messaging and a refresh of the APIs, which is planned for 2016
GuideStar for Grants Adoption by foundations on their GMS - auto populate grant application with GS data. Our efforts focused on getting more GMS vendors to build in the functionality at no cost to foundations. Because of this there has been a delay in adoption. Q1 will see the rollout of two major vendors – Fluxx is live - integrating this software and a major increase in use of G4G.
Lastly, in terms of how we measure our Data Innovation efforts, you’ll see GuideStar-specific metrics in the top table as experiments for full year 2015 for us this year to track nonprofits who use our:
Comparison Tools –
QoQ numbers for Financial SCAN purchases were down likely due to seasonality (retention rates, and therefore, overall usage, tend to decrease in Q4), but YoY usage was up due to a growing subscriber base.
QoQ purchases of Compensation Report dropped moderately due to seasonality. YoY purchases dropped dramatically. This is likely due to combination of factors, including market saturation from successful marketing efforts in 2014 and a modest price increase.
DATA:
Q4 2014 Q3 2015 Q4 2015 QoQ YoY
FinSCAN 67 108 79 -27% 18%
Comp Rpt 540 411 373 -9% -31%
-2% -4%
Learning Tool – Q3 had 10 large-scale events – more general targeting broad audiences: comprised of one Impact Call, six webinars to the nonprofit audience, and three demos for prospective leads. Two of these webinars aligned with our Compensation Report campaign, attracting a large audience. Q4, meanwhile had 7 events targeting smaller, more segmented audiences (nonprofits and members), comprised: of one Impact Call, two demos, one demo to our Foundation Membership Program, and three webinars to nonprofits. We continue to refine the process of aligning future webinars with a greater MarComm campaign as appropriate.
Q4 2014 Q3 2015 Q4 2015 QoQ YoY
Learning Tool 1,051 2,357 1,569 -33% 49%
Blogs 337 562 604 7.5% 79.2%
Webinar/Demos 714 1,795 965 -46.2% 35.2%
Bottom is sector-metrics since we operate at the systems level as an infrastructure organization. No updates from last quarter, trends generally positive. We contribute to these but don’t own.
MIZ continues
Previously, Unrestricted Revenue held steady but surged forward with an increase of over 29% - best fundraising year in GS history!
Most of the increase is from Grants revenue received – early Gates Foundation payment
Operating Expenses rose slightly by 7% to reflect the investments in Product improvement and Data Acquisition
As a result of improvement in Operating Income, overall Cash Flow improved greatly, making up for prior Year cash crunch – 2014 was investment year
Strong biz model but weak BS and it got a lot stronger last year
Cash in the bank was at all time high; this is reflective of increased collections effort as well as early payments on grant pledges
More modest revenue growth compared to expenses as we’ll be investing the early grants received in 2015
2016B Assumptions:
+10% earned revenue (+$1M)
$2.56M grants
+$2.3M expenses
($330k) Cash Flow
$3.1M Year End Cash
We’ve responded to our board’s request to engage them in new way – beyond accounting to true financial strategy
Here’s a glimpse at one early piece of analysis we tackled at last week’s board meeting and additional work ahead of us – not an easy task!
Based on work by NFF – allocation of grants as revenue (customers pay in exchange for goods and services – implicit subsidy) and capital (investment in building the org)
We know this is complicated slide – these are key takeaways:
This is a proxy – new staff (not perfect but useful). We’ve calculated in two totally diff ways I’m just going to show you one. With better systems and time tracking, we can update this with time spent/work done
Basically covering most core costs w/ earned revenue. Small portion of grants as revenue. Not saying there’s anything necessarily bad to treat grant as revenue – and it’s relatively small and declining.
We can’t cover new costs unless we get capital to build
Nonstaff costs about 35% (Personnel related is 65%)
Explain non staff costs in 2016 – new systems!
One of the biggest questions we’ve been wresting with: How do we allocate the $5M+ grants we’ve received in transformational grant revenue (from customers in exchange for services/implicit subsidies) and grant capital (to build the organization in transformation/investment in future)? See Nonprofit Finance Funds’ seminal piece on this at: http://www.nonprofitfinancefund.org/sites/default/files/docs/2010/BuildingIsNotBuying.pdf
--
The cleanest way to cut the data is by people who were hired “after Jacob” marking the start of Transformation:
New leadership: Evan, Me
Design team
NP strategy team: Eva, Kerstin
Sales/Development team
New BS/BI team
So, declining portion of grants are revenue and if we meet budget targets in 2016, by this method, all grants will then be capital – for investment in GS transformation.
Do want to note that if you cut the expense by time spent on work for current year/core operations vs. future year – will get a different result ($0 as I alluded to in my memo), but our systems not fully set-up to track this accurately (part of the workplan)!
Problem with comingling is you can’t see if grants are implicitly subsidizing/by what amount. Not saying there’s anything necessarily bad to treat grant as revenue – and it’s relatively small and declining. But once we set up a tracking system, we can clearly see this and share with you in future
--------
Depending on how you cut the expense data, you can get two different answers: (1) By framing expenses as time spent on “current year”/ core operations vs. “future year”/ innovation, we see that in 2014-2016, earned income sufficiently covers core operations, maintaining existing products, thus all grants are treated as capital. (2) By framing expenses as people hired for new roles that help transform the organization since the start of the transformational capital campaign, we see that some declining portion of grants are treated as revenue in 2014-2015 because earned income is not able to cover these new staff costs fully until 2016.
MIZ passes to JACOB for Lesson Learned
JACOB Lesson Learned: we’ve had to confront the fact that we have a lot of different types of stakeholders. And managing that requires real intentionality. We’re not sure that the Advisory Council and the Community will work, but they are an attempt to deal directly with that diversity—and turn it from a potential weakness into a strength.
JACOB turns it to GABE
GABE starts questions:
-The GuideStar nonprofit profile pages look great! If I have some feedback based on my experience on GuideStar, is there any way I can submit that to you? (Jacob)
-What information do users find most useful on the GuideStar nonprofit profiles pages? (Jacob)
-I don’t see overhead ratios on the profile pages! Is this part of the Overhead Myth campaign? (Jacob)
-The GuideStar Community looks great – so innovative! How quickly can we expect answers to questions from the GuideStar staff? (DeLeon)
-What made you decide to move forward with an online community? (DeLeon)
-The GuideStar Blog redesign looks great. Is it possible for us to suggest ideas for blog content, if there is a topic that would be useful to us? YES if you have an idea please email Courtney.Cherico@guidestar.org or look up the discussion “The GuideStar Blog: Blog post topic ideas, requests” in the guidestar community and we will get back to you! (Courtney or Gabe)
-I see in the sector metrics that the % of individual donors comparing organizations grew from 6 to 9% this year. Why do you think that is? How should that effect the way nonprofits operate? (Jacob)
-It looks like learning tool participation goes up and down a bit with the season. What have you learned about providing good content to the nonprofit sector to attract webinar attendees? (Gabe)
GABE
These resources will be emailed to you in the post-event follow up send