|
|
| Mail
Campaign |
A campaign, usually broadly based,
conducted by mail, frequently with several mailings over a specified period.
|
| Mail-Order
Buyers |
Individuals who shop by mail and
tend to respond to mail solicitations. A source for direct mail lists. |
| Mailbox |
The directory where your host
computer stores your e-mail messages. With some systems, you can elect to
either keep saved messages on the server or on your local computer.
|
| Major
Gift |
Any significant donation, from
an individual to a charitable or voluntary organization. |
| Major
Life Activity |
Basic activities that the average
person can perform with little or no difficulty, such as caring for oneself,
performing manual tasks, walking, seeing, hearing, speaking, breathing,
learning, and working. |
| Majority
Leader |
The Majority Leader is elected
by his/her party colleagues. In the Senate, the Majority Leader, in collaboration
with the Minority Leader, directs the legislation schedule for the chamber.
Each is his/her party’s spokesperson and chief strategist. In the House,
the Majority Leader is second to the Speaker in the majority party’s leadership,
and serves as his/her party’s legislative strategist. |
| Majority
Whip |
In effect, the assistant majority
leader, in either the House or Senate. His job is to help marshal majority
forces in support of party strategies and legislation. The party caucus
elects the whip. |
| Management
Accounting |
Reporting designed to assist management
in decision-making, planning, and control. Also known as Managerial Accounting.
|
| Management
Cabinet |
Leadership committee for a fundraising
program; also, executive, steering, or campaign committee; responsible for
providing leadership direction for a fundraising campaign. |
| Management
Development |
Grants for salaries, staff support,
staff training, strategic and long-range planning, budgeting and accounting.
|
| Management
Information System (MIS) |
A system designed by an organization
to collect and report information on a program, allowing managers to plan,
monitor, and evaluate the operations and performance of the whole program. |
| Management
Systems |
The formal and visible ways the
organization does its work - within governance, human resources, information
management and technology, communications, finance, training, planning,
evaluation, and so on. |
| Manager |
(1) A person who is in charge
of an organization or group of staff. (2) A person who administers and regulates
the activities and training of a group. |
| Mandatory
Minimum Distributions |
Internal Revenue Code Section
4942 requires private foundations and, in certain cases, charitable lead
trusts, charitable remainder trusts, and pooled income funds to distribute
specified minimum amounts to nonprofits. For private foundations, the minimum
distribution is 5 percent of net asset value. This private foundation rule
has no effect on charitable remainder trusts and pooled income funds until
the rights of the recipients expire. Rather than distributing those assets
to nonprofits, the entities continue to hold their assets and make payments
to nonprofits. |
| Mandatory
Service |
Community service which is required
to complete an academic program, such as high school graduation. School
or court-mandated community service may set required hours, type of service
and/or duration.
|
| Mandatory
Spending |
Spending (budget authority and
outlays) controlled by laws other than annual appropriations acts.
|
| Manual |
The official handbook in each
house prescribing in detail its organization, rules, procedures and operations.
|
| Marcom |
Marketing communications.
|
| Marital
Deduction |
A deduction allowed for estate
tax and gift tax for qualifying gifts made to spouses. Outright gifts to
spouses always qualify. Certain trusts and other gifts also qualify. Those
trusts must be expertly drafted. There is no limit on the marital deduction.
|
| Mark-Up |
The part of a price which seeks
to provide a business with profit as opposed to covering its costs. It is
used in cost plus pricing.
|
| Mark-Up |
A method of pricing a product
in which the seller takes the basic average cost of the product and adds
a fixed percentage constant to determine the price of the product.
|
| Market |
The group of your most likely
prospective buyers; the first (and most important) of the three elements
of direct marketing.
|
| Market |
Potential source of funds, members,
or clients (individuals and organizations).
|
| Market
Niche |
A small segment of a market.
|
| Market
Orientation |
An approach to business which
places the requirements of consumers at the center of the decision-making
process.
|
| Market
Oriented Pricing |
Methods of pricing based upon
the pricing conditions in the market at which a product is aimed.
|
| Market
Price |
The price that consumers are prepared
to pay.
|
| Market
Research |
The collection, collation and
analysis of data relating to the size, nature and scope of the market.
|
| Market
Research |
The process of collecting and
analyzing data about your products, your organization, your customers and
your prospects in a methodical, organized and proven manner.
|
| Market
Segment |
A portion of the total population
defined through demographics and/or psychographics.
|
| Market
Segment |
That part of a market consisting
of consumers with similar characteristics.
|
| Market
Segmentation |
The process of dividing a market
into distinct groups that have common needs and will respond similarly to
a marketing action.
|
| Market
Share |
The proportion of total sales
in a particular market for which one or more firms are responsible. It is
usually expressed as a percentage.
|
| Market
Structure |
The characteristics a market has
which determine the behavior of the organizations who operate within it.
|
| Marketing |
The management process involved
in identifying, anticipating, and satisfying customer requirements profitably.
|
| Marketing |
Involves determining the needs
of select or target audiences and then designing goods, services and opportunities
that respond to those needs. It relies heavily on designing the organization's
offering in terms of the target markets' needs and desires, and on using
effective pricing, communication, and distribution to inform, motivate,
and service the markets.
|
| Marketing |
The process by which you come
to understand the relationship between your product and your customer.
|
| Marketing
Campaign/Strategy |
The combination of promotion,
distribution and pricing strategies that a company adopts over a period
of time. Launch of a new product or launching a attack on a competitor.
|
| Marketing
for Mission |
A decision-making process that
applies corporate marketing principles to nonprofit actions so that more
mission is achieved. It identifies where the organization’s mission overlaps
with the desire of those who must take action to achieve it, and builds
strategies, programs and messages up from the overlap.
|
| Marketing
Mix |
The elements of a firm's marketing
strategy designed to meet the needs of its customers. The four main elements
are, price, product, promotion and place.
|
| Marketing
Objectives |
Marketing goals that businesses
try to achieve.
|
| Marketing
Objectives |
Goals to be accomplished by an
organization's overall marketing program such as sales, market share, or
profitability. A good objective will be measurable, attainable,and socially
significant.
|
| Marketing
P's - The Marketing Mix |
The controllable elements of a
marketing program including product, price, place and promotion.
|
| Marketing
Plan |
A written document concerned with
where a company is at present with regard to their marketing, where they
wish to be in the future and how they intend to get there.
|
| Marketing
Research |
Research into all aspects of marketing,
including advertising research, product research, etc.
|
| Marketing
Research |
The process of gathering, recording,
and analyzing information pertaining to the marketing of goods and services. |
| Marking
Up a Bill |
Going through the contents of
a piece of legislation in committee or subcommittee to consider its provisions
and proposed revisions to the language, and insert new sections and phraseology.
If the bill is extensively amended, the committee’s version may be introduced
as a separate bill, with a new number, before being considered by the full
House or Senate.
|
| Markup |
The process by which congressional
committees and subcommittees debate, amend, and rewrite proposed legislation.
|
| Mass
Marketing |
Mass marketing groups people into
large categories based solely on their demographics – age, income, gender,
education level, etc. It assumes that all, or at least most, people in the
same categorical group will react similarly to one marketing message. Because
of this broad sweep approach, mass marketers rely primarily on mass media
– television and print media – to reach their target in large numbers.
|
| Master
Plan Study |
An exceptionally detailed and
complex study by fundraising counsel that deals with many aspects of an
institution's operations apart from fundraising, such as mission, administration,
financial management, and governance. |
| Matching
Gift |
A gift contributed on the condition
that it be matched, often within a certain time period, in accordance with
a specified formula; or, a gift by a corporation matching a gift contributed
by one or more of its employees. |
| Matching
Gifts Program |
A grant or contributions program
that will match employees’ or directors’ gifts made to qualifying educational,
arts and cultural, health, or other organizations. |
| Matching
Grant |
(1) A grant or gift made with
the specification that the amount donated must be matched on a one-for-one
basis or according to some other prescribed formula. (2) A grant made in
response to a challenge grant. |
| Matching
Principle |
A fundamental concept of basic
accounting. In any one given accounting period, you should try to match
the revenue you are reporting with the expenses it took to generate that
revenue in the same time period, or over the periods in which you will be
receiving benefits from that expenditure.
|
| Matching
Support |
Grants made to match funds provided
by another donor and grant paid only if the donee is able to raise additional
funds from another source. |
| Materiality |
Magnitude of an omission or misstatements
of accounting information that, in the light of surrounding circumstances,
makes it probable that the judgment of a reasonable person relying on the
information would change or be influenced. |
| Mature |
A market research term used in
generational marketing. "Mature" describes the segment of the current population
born between 1909-1945.
|
| MB |
Megabyte. A million bytes or one
thousand kilobytes.
|
| Mbps |
The abbreviation used to describe
data transmission speeds, such as the rate at which information travels
over the Internet. Pronounced "mips".
|
| Measurable |
Capable of being measured through
quantitative means. |
| Measure |
A term used to imply embracing
the bill, resolution and other matters on which the Senate takes action.
|
| Measurement |
A procedure for assigning a number
to an object or an event. |
| Measurement
Error |
The difference between a measured
value and a true value. |
| Media |
A means of communication, such
as newspapers, magazines, film, telephone, radio, television and the internet.
|
| Media
Advisory |
A news release used to announce
an upcoming event.
|
| Media
Advocacy |
The strategic use of news media
and sometimes paid advertising to support community development and organizing
in order to advance a public policy initiative. |
| Media
Framing |
The process by which an issue
is portrayed in the news media. Media frames provide boundaries around a
news story and determine what is and is not newsworthy or notable. |
| Media
Kit |
A package of information containing
news releases, fact sheets, backgrounders, photographs, positions papers,
reprints and other materials given to news media representatives so as to
simplify their jobs and maximize the possibility the supplying organization's
story will be covered. |
| Media
Literacy |
The process of learning specific
skills of critical media viewing: learning to analyze and question what
is in a media frame, how the media frame is constructed and what may have
been left out. Media literacy may include an effort to go beyond media frame
analysis to address the social, political, cultural and economic factors
that determine how media production occurs. |
| Media
Mayhem |
Framing device that emphasizes
negative news so much that it undermines actual statistics about violent
crime. |
| Media
Monitoring |
A task by which individuals and
organizations pay close and critical attention to how their issues are being
reported by various news sources in an effort to more effectively target
those news sources. Media monitoring requires the individual or organization
to develop a critical eye as a news consumer. |
| Media
Policy |
Organizational directive as to
how company representatives will communicate with the media.
|
| Media
Power |
A term that refers to the media's
ability to provide visibility, credibility, and legitimacy to a public policy
issue and/or to an organization seeking social change. The media have the
power to select some events for coverage and leave out others, which sends
a public signal about what's important and what's not important.
, Communications and Marketing |
| Media
Relations |
The function of gaining positive
media attention and coverage.
|
| Media
Release |
A news release sent out on the
day of the event, or on the day you make your announcement.
|
| Mediation |
A method of conflict resolution
that is carried out by an intermediary who works with the disputing parties
to help them improve their communication and their analysis of the conflict
situation, so that the parties can themselves identify and choose an option
for resolving the conflict that meets the interests or needs of all of the
disputants.
|
| Mediator |
A person with whom parties in
a dispute meet, in an effort to reach a mutually acceptable decision. The
mediator is an active participant in the discussions, but unlike an arbitrator,
the mediator does not impose a decision on the disputants; rather, he or
she actively attempts to help them find a solution that is acceptable to
all parties. |
| Medium |
The means by which you communicate
with your current and potential customers. Can include advertising, direct
mail, publicity, posters, flyers, etc.
|
| Meeting
Management |
Tools and processes for productive
meetings. |
| Meeting
Minutes |
The written recording of the events
of a meeting. |
| Megabyte |
A megabyte contains 1,048,576
bytes (1,024 x 1,024 bytes). In other words, a million bytes is actually
less than a megabyte. This term is most frequently used to refer to file
sizes and storage capacity.
|
| Megahertz
(MHz) |
A megahertz is 1 million complete
cycles per second. This unit is most commonly used to measure transmission
speeds of electronic devices, such as the clock speed of a microprocessor,
the small computer chip that handles data-related tasks.
|
| Member
Orientation |
Training in an organization's
governance structure and policies which helps new board members maximize
their service to the organization.
|
| Member
Roles |
The responsibilities assigned
to each board member in an individual agreement or organization policy.
|
| Members |
The persons in a nonprofit corporation
who enjoy rights pursuant to the articles of incorporation, bylaws and state
law. These rights may include election of the board of directors of the
nonprofit corporation. |
| Memberships |
While not usually resulting in
high revenue, memberships become a means of identifying interested patrons
for additional offers throughout the season. |
| Memorial |
Gift made to perpetuate the memory
of an individual. "Memorial" should not be confused with a gift to honor
a living person. |
| Memorial
Fund |
A fund that is established to
remember and honor a lost loved one.
|
| Memory
Bandwidth |
A term referring to data-carrying
capacity, expressed in cycles per second or Hertz (Hz).
|
| Mental
Ladder |
The ranking order or "top-ten
list" of your customer's mind. If you are marketing an art museum then your
aim is to be in the top three names when your target customer thinks of
"art museums". This is especially important since each customer is bombarded
with thousands of messages daily, and will only retain a fraction of those
messages. He or she will remember those messages that catch his or her attention
and seem to be speaking directly to him or her.
|
| Mentor |
An experienced professional who
provides support to promote the development of new or less experienced persons. |
| Mentoring |
The one-on-one sharing of practical,
accumulated knowledge, often between a member of upper management to a person
in training in the same department or organization. |
| Merchandising |
That aspect marketing that tries
to pull the consumer towards a specific products (below the line sales promotion).
|
| Merge/Purge |
The process of unduplicating the
names between lists. Direct mailers hear constant complaints from their
customers about receiving duplicate pieces of mail. |
| Merger
|
The combination of two or more
entities through a purchase acquisition or a pooling of interests. Differs
from a consolidation in that no new entity is created from a merger. |
| Merit
Awards |
Promotions or financial rewards
given to employees in recognition of outstanding performance. |
| Message |
Also known as the "promise" or
the "benefit", the message is one concise statement that tells the target
audience why your organization is different and better than the competition.
|
| Meta
Evaluation |
A process of providing an overarching
assessment of previous project-level and/or cluster evaluations. This is
typically a complicated technique that can involve statistical analysis
and works best for numerical evaluations. |
| Meta
Tag |
An element of HTML that often
describes the contents of a Web page, and is placed near the beginning of
the page's source code. Search engines use information provided in a meta
tags to index pages by subject.
|
| Metaphors |
Words suggesting a comparison
between two things: his mind is a sharp razor.
|
| Methodology |
The means and logical procedure
by which a program plan or approach is implemented. |
| Microfiche |
Flat strips of microfilm used
to store information such as old newspapers, magazines or journals.
|
| Microprocessor |
The part that handles logic operations
in a computer, such as adding, subtracting, and copying. A set of instructions
in the chip design tells the microprocessor what to do, but different applications
can also give instructions to the microprocessor.
|
| Middleware |
The software managing communication
between a client program and a database.
|
| MIDI |
Musical Instrument Digital Interface.
The term used to describe the standard itself, the hardware that supports
the standard, and files that store information that the hardware can use.
MIDI files are like digital sheet music, containing instructions for musical
notes, tempo, and instrumentation, and are widely used in game soundtracks
and recording studios. Pronounced "middy".
|
| Milestone |
A significant point of achievement
or development, which describes progress toward a goal. |
| Millisecond |
Commonly used to measure data
access speeds, such as the amount of time it takes to retrieve data from
a hard disk, a CD-ROM drive, or a floppy drive.
|
| Mind
Share |
The amount of thinking an individual
or group does about a particular product, service, or company.
|
| Minimally
Acceptable |
A performance level that meets
the minimum standards, as defined by its criteria. Any lower level of performance
is not acceptable in terms of the purpose of the evaluation. |
| Minimum
Guarantee |
A partnership agreeement whereby
a partner agrees to pay a specific minimum dollar figure regardless of the
actual results the arrangement. |
| Minister |
Refers to a member of clergy in
any religion or denomination, including pastors, priests, rabbis, imams,
and similar members of the clergy. |
| Minority
Group Status |
Applied to subjugated, powerless,
and/or oppressed segments of a society, who are singled out for unequal
treatment and discrimination by the dominant segments of society. |
| Minority
Leader |
Floor leader and chief spokesperson
for the minority party in each chamber, elected by the members of that party.
The Minority Leader is also responsible for devising the party’s political
and procedural strategy. |
| Minority
Whip |
Performs duties of whip for the
minority party. Members of the minority party elect the Minority Whip. |
| Mirror
Site |
A site that diverts traffic from
the original site to a separate site with all of the same information, allowing
more people to view it simultaneously.
|
| Missed
Opportunity |
An occasion that offered a chance
for a beneficial activity to occur, but was overlooked. |
| Mission
Statement |
A philosophical or value statement
that seeks to respond to the why of the organization's existence, its basic
reason for being. A mission statement is not defined in expressions of goals
or objectives, rather it reflects a realistic but farsighted determination
of what the organization is, who it serves, what it does, and what it can
accomplish. |
| Mixed
Method Evaluation |
An evaluation for which the design
includes the use of both quantitative and qualitative methods for data collection
and data analysis. |
| Mock
up |
An unofficial copy of an amended
bill; although the amendments have been adopted the official amended version
is not yet back from the printer
|
| Model |
Describes processes or strategies
that are difficult to understand directly. A model may be a description,
a representation, or an analogy.
|
| Modem |
An external box or internal circuitry
that converts computer data into sound that can be transmitted over phone
lines.
|
| Moderator |
Group leader; often called a facilitator. |
| Modulation |
The process of encoding digital
data into analog signals for transmission. Often used with radio or cable
TV.
|
| Money
Measurement |
The concept that requires all
entries in financial records to be expressed in monetary quantities.
|
| Monitoring |
An on-going process of reviewing
a program's activities to determine whether set standards or requirements
are being met. |
| Monitoring
System |
An on-going system to collect
data on a program's activities and outputs, designed to provide feedback
on whether the program is fulfilling its functions, addressing the targeted
population, and/or producing intended services. |
| Monopolistic
Competition |
A market structure with freedom
of entry and exit, differentiated products and a large number of small firms
competing.
|
| Monopoly |
A market structure in which only
one firm supplies the entire output, there is no competition and barriers
to entry exist.
|
| Mortmain
Law |
A law which says that charitable
bequests are not valid (at least to a certain extent) unless the will or
living trust is executed more than a certain number of days before the testator's
death. The purpose of the laws was to limit the influence of religion over
death-bed gifts. A few states still have mortmain statutes. |
| Motherboard |
The largest printed circuit board
in your computer. It generally houses the CPU chip, the controller circuitry,
the bus, and sockets for additional boards, which are called daughterboards.
Also referred to as a main board.
|
| Motion |
In the House or Senate chamber,
a request by a member to institute any of a wide array of parliamentary
actions. The member "moves" for a certain procedure, such as the consideration
of a measure. The precedence of motions, and whether they are debatable,
are both set forth in the House and Senate manuals.
|
| Motion
to Proceed to Consider |
A motion, usually offered by the
Majority Leader to bring a bill or other measure up for consideration. The
usual way of bringing a measure to the floor when unanimous consent to do
so cannot be obtained. For legislative business, the motion is debatable
under most circumstances, and therefore may be subject to filibuster.
|
| Motion
to Table |
A senator may move to table any
pending question. The motion is not debatable, and agreement to the motion
is equivalent to defeating the question tabled. The motion is used to dispose
quickly of questions the Senate does not wish to consider further.
|
| Mozilla |
An open source Web browser designed
for standards compliance, performance, and portability. It was the original
version of the Netscape browser.
|
| MP3 |
MP3 is a codec, or process, that
compresses standard audio tracks into much smaller sizes without significantly
compromising sound quality.
|
| MPEG |
Moving Pictures Experts Group.
A standard for compressing sound and movie files into an attractive format
for downloading or streaming across the Internet.
|
| Multi-Sector
Collaboration |
A voluntary, strategic alliance
of public, private, and nonprofit organizations that enhances each organization’s
capacity to achieve a common purpose by sharing risks, resources, responsibilities,
and rewards. |
| Multi-User |
A term that refers to computer
systems that support two or more simultaneous users.
|
| Multiculturalism |
The inclusion of a variety of
cultures or ethnic groups. |
| Multidimensional
Assessment |
Assessment that gathers information
about a broad spectrum of abilities and skills. |
| Multimedia |
A computer-based method of presenting
combinations of text, images, graphics, animation, streaming audio or video,
and more.
|
| Multitasking |
The simultaneous execution of
more than one task.
|
| Must
Pass Bill |
A vitally important measure that
Congress must enact, such as annual money bills to fund operations of the
government.
|
| Myers-Briggs
Type Indicator |
An instrument for measuring a
person’s preferences, using four basic scales with opposite poles. The four
scales are: (1) extraversion/introversion, (2) sensate/intuitive, (3) thinking/feeling,
and (4) judging/perceiving. The various combinations of these preferences
result in 16 personality types. |
|
Glossary information provided by the Nonprofit Good Practice Guide, a project of the Philanthropic and Nonprofit Knowledge Management Initiative (PNKM) at the Dorothy A. Johnson Center for Philanthropy & Nonprofit Leadership.
|
