Author: erik

I was on a Zoom call a few weeks ago, and the facilitator said something that stuck with me. She said, “We’re in a pause right now as a community, and the big reset is coming.” I’ve been dwelling on this ever since she said it. And my mind keeps veering off and chewing on what the BIG RESET might look like.

To be clear, I don’t think the “big reset” is the same thing as the “New Normal,” which everyone seems to be talking and worrying about.

When I think of the “big reset,” I think of the weeks and months immediately after your state or local community lifts its coronavirus shelter-in-place order. Whereas, the “New Normal,” in my opinion, describes the changes in our collective behaviors that will have a structural impact on us individually and collectively (e.g. workplace, businesses, transportation systems, recreation, etc).

In the last few weeks, I had speculated on how nonprofits might be impacted in the New Normal. But I haven’t shared any thoughts on the big reset because it was all still too fuzzy for me. However, two recent random encounters during my morning walk provided me with an AH-HA moment.

Twice now I’ve crossed paths with a gentleman from India on my early morning walks. I had never met this man before. He is literally a stranger to me.

The first time we met, we were walking towards each other on the walking path. And as I always do with anyone I come across while out-and-about, I looked up, made eye contact, smiled and wished the stranger a “good morning.” What happened next took me by surprise.

This complete stranger returned my smile with one of his own. He came to a complete full-stop and just started talking at me as if we had known each other for quite some time. The following are just a few snippets from that conversation:

• Hi, my name is ______________.
• He was born in India and migrated to Canada as an adult.
• When he decided to migrate from Canada to the United States, his friends told him that he needed to be OK with two things: 1) women work in America and 2) the weather is cold.
• He used to drive a cab.

This literally went on and on for 10-minutes. Of course, I did my best to politely nod and grunt acknowledgements when it seemed appropriate to do so.

I chalked the entire experience up to a random chance encounter. But then it happened again approximately a week later.

Apparently, I was now his best friend. This time he simply stopped walking. There was no smile or pleasant social greetings. And he just started talking. It was almost as if the last conversation had never ended. For the next 15-minutes, we stood in drizzling rain and he expressed frustration and political opinions at me. He said things like . . .

• He is a good citizen. He pays his taxes and doesn’t cheat. He can’t believe what the government is doing to the economy and to good people like him.
• He’s been good. He is abiding by the shelter-in-place order. But he is a taxpayer. And he feels like a victim.
• He has been reading about Asian-Americans being victimized because of the misguided belief that their community is to blame for COVID-19. He didn’t think that was right.
• However, he thinks it is China’s fault and they need to be held accountable.
• He is concerned about how nuclear powers like India, Pakistan, and Russia will be impacted by COVID-19 ,and what it means for all of our safety and security.
• I don’t know how he got there, but he ended our conversation with lots of cheerleading for the state of Israel. And he emphatically concluded everything by stating that if George W. Bush were still President of the United States none of this would be happening.

As you can imagine, I was slack-jawed. And the only thing I found myself saying periodically throughout the conversation was, “Well, all we can do right now is practice patience and acceptance.” To which he never really responded and would just dive back into the conversation where he had left off.

Both times I walked away feeling like I had just tumbled down the rabbit hole and found myself in Wonderland.

So, I share these two experiences with you because I think the BIG RESET is going to feel like we’ve tumbled down a rabbit hole and landed in a strange and unfamiliar place.

Human beings are social creatures. And in my opinion, all of this social distancing will have people craving social interaction.

Trauma can take many different forms. And in my opinion, a community trauma is being perpetrated by this pandemic. While everyone reacts differently to trauma, I suspect some people might be heading into the BIG RESET with something similar to PTSD. I hope I am wrong.

But most importantly, I hope each of you take one thing away from this blog post, which is . . .

These people are your board members, volunteers, donors, staff and clients.

Are you ready? And if not, what are you doing to get ready?

Please use the comment box below to weigh-in with your thoughts. We can all learn from each other.

Erik Anderson
https://thehealthynonprofit.com/
https://www.facebook.com/thehealthynonprofit/

<Yawn> I woke up at an early hour this morning in order to jump into a Zoom meeting with approximately 40 planning consultants and professionals. I think every single continent (except Antarctica) on this planet had representation. It’s hard to impress me, but this group was impressive.

While there were lots of “takeaways” for me over the course of this two hour virtual meeting, this was one of the biggest:

The world needs planning now, more than ever before.

While this shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone coming from a group of planners, it was the reasoning that stands behind this statement that I found powerful.

Consider the facts:

• Right now, the world is on “pause.” Billions of people’s lives have been impacted by the coronavirus pandemic, and many of us are sheltering-in-place and cocooned in our homes.
• The BIG RESET is coming. Some states are already lifting their stay-at-home orders. You can hear the drumbeat of more and more policymakers weighing in on how to un-pause the world in our daily news coverage.
• Once the world is taken off of pause, it’s probably not going to look very pretty. In fact, I think it will look like a crowded theater full of people, who are all trying to simultaneously exit through one fire exit while panicking. Think about it for one moment (e.g. re-hiring or unfurloughing staff; rescheduling events; rebooting fundraising campaigns; retooling strategies to comply with continuing social distancing requirements; working with clients’, volunteers’ and donors’ virus fears and traumas; etc, etc, etc).
• Therefore, the argument ends with this conclusion . . . those organizations who have a plan will do better than those who don’t.

Think about it for just a second. Before the movie begins, the public service announcer instructs you to locate the fire exits. You are essentially being asked to engage in a moment of thoughtful personal planning in case of an emergency.

So, here we are. Things are on fire. And before you mock me for being too dramatic consider the following:

• Some donors will have less capacity to engage in charitable giving because of the stock market’s reaction to the pandemic.
• Some volunteers will be fearful about returning to work with your clients because they might be in a high-risk group (e.g. 65-years-old, diabetes, etc) or maybe they are just virus-phobic now.
• Some donors don’t have the technology to “go digital” and soliciting them the right way once the “new normal” materializes might be challenging and require flexibility/adaptability on your part.
• Social distancing and public health best practices will stay with us for years according to some reports, and with these new practices come increased organizational and operational costs.

I could go on and on, but I won’t. I just don’t want to engage in fear mongering. <yawn> It’s literally too easy to do right now.

So, do you know where your fire exits are? Are your board members and staff ready to run once the world comes off of “pause“?

I think the case for “the world needs planning, now more than ever before” is strong. It is the reason why I developed and rolled out two new services at The Healthy Non-Profit last week: “Coronavirus Coaching” and “Evolving Your 2020 Fundraising Plan To Survive Coronavirus“.

But I don’t want to turn this blog post into a sales pitch and commercial for my consulting practice.

What I’m really interested in hearing from you is . . .

• What have you specifically done to prepare for the “BIG RESET”?
• How did you engage your board in those planning discussions while practicing social distancing and complying with stay-at-home orders?
• What’s the biggest thing weighing on your mind as we inch closer and closer to re-opening our communities?

Please use the comment box below to weigh-in with your thoughts. We can all learn from each other.

Erik Anderson
https://thehealthynonprofit.com/
https://www.facebook.com/thehealthynonprofit/

Ever since my state’s coronavirus stay-at-home went into a effect in mid-March, it has been raining webinars in my email inbox. And with time on my hands, I decided to participate in LOTS of them. However, more than a month later, I think I’m finally a little webinar-ed out.

Interestingly, I think almost every webinar presenter drove home the point that regardless of whether your non-profit is on the front-lines or not, you should be “engaging” your donors during this pandemic.

I recently started a side gig working 8-hours/week for an organization doing some resource development work. I thought it might help keep my skills sharp. So, as I started thinking about how to help my organization “engage” its donors more deeply, here is what I cam up with:

• We’re now sending out a Constant Contact e-update with coronavirus motivated content every Monday using donor-centered verbiage and content
• We’re now posting every day on our Facebook page and sharing that mission-focused content to other popular community Facebook groups when appropriate
• We put a script together and asked board members to make “Checking In To Say Hello” phone calls with key donors
• We recently pushed out a survey asking donors to weigh-in on important questions that will impact how we move forward once the stay-at-home order is lifted (e.g. how likely will they be to attend events, are they comfortable using video conferencing services, what does charitable giving look like for them over the next 12-months, etc)

The response has been good. Donors really seem to appreciate these efforts. And why wouldn’t they? After all, fundraising professionals are always telling donors how they are “part of the family.” And isn’t it a natural inclination for many people to reach out to family during difficult times? I think so.

OK, there are so many rabbit holes I could go down with this blog post, but I am going to stop here. I’m simply going to resist pontificating on the how’s and the why’s associated with this topic.

Instead, I’m inviting all of you to use the comment box to share what other “donor communications strategies” you are employing or see others doing. And how are you personalizing those communications strategies?

We can all learn from each other!

Erik Anderson
https://thehealthynonprofit.com/
https://www.facebook.com/thehealthynonprofit/