erik – Page 63 – The Healthy Non-Profit

Time to Go Back to School: Computer Maintenance 101

August 13, 2012 erik Mondays with Marissa, technology

I can’t believe I’m going to say this, but summer is almost over. In fact, today many students and teachers are headed back to school. With that in mind, I thought I’d share some tips on how to keep your computer up to date and ready for what ever you throw at it. There are many things that you can do to improve the performance of your computer and prevent having to call your IT person.

Operating System Software Updates
Whether you have a PC or Mac, updating your operating system is important and easy to do. On Windows machines, your computer is updated when you turn your computer off from time to time or you are prompted to download updates and restart

your computer. On a Mac, Software Update runs once a week and brings you updates for your operating system and other software that is installed on your computer. While these notifications can come up at an inconvenient time, say while you’re working on a project, take the time to update them. Many of the updates are security updates and will help you with computer maintenance down the road.

Virus Scanning
Viruses can affect every type of computer and running a virus scan routinely is one of the best ways to catch viruses early. Too many people wait until their computer starts acting wonky. There are many options out there when it comes to choosing your virus scanning software. Some of the most popular ones are Symantec and McAfee, but there are many options out there. Just make sure you update your virus scanning software to ensure it is up to date on the latest viruses out there.

Updating Your Browser
Can you tell the theme of this post is updating your software? Browsers need updating too. With the amount of work done in a web browser these days making sure you have the most up to date version of your browser ready to go can

Image representing Google Chrome as depicted i... — Image via CrunchBase

help you make sure you have the most recent features to make your life easier while working in the cloud. Each browser is updated in a different way and their updates can sometimes be included in your operating system updates. However, if you use Chrome or Firefox you can set it up for automatic updates so you don’t need to worry about checking all of the time.

Dust it off
This one sounds a little strange, but at a former place of employment it was a regular part of our computer maintenance routine. Computers can suck in a lot of dust which can overheat them, making it harder for them to work properly. You can prevent this from happening by dusting off you computer from time to time. If you really want to get adventurous, open it up (if you have a desktop computer or are allowed to do so) and use a can of pressurized air to blow all of the dust inside the computer away. If you decide to do this, please turn off the computer before opening it up and make sure you contact IT to let them know that this is something you plan on doing. I don’t want to get you violating any technology polices, but dusting your computer can be one of the easiest ways to improve performance and it’s not too hard to do. If you can’t do it yourself, ask your IT department about doing this for you.

Back Up
I’ve talked about the importance of backing up your data before on DonorDreams, but I cannot stress it enough. If you can, set up your computer to back things up automatically so you don’t forget to do it.

Turn It Off and Turn it Back On Again
It’s super simple, but one of the best tips when it comes to computer maintenance. I am someone who leaves my computer on all of the time, but when things start running a bit sluggish, I restart it and it’s back to normal.

I hope these tips for improving the performance of your computer were helpful. What are some of your favorite ways to keep your computer running smoothly? Leave me a note in the comments below.

If I had a hammer . . .

August 10, 2012 erik organizational development

Welcome to O.D. Fridays at DonorDreams blog. Every Friday for the foreseeable future we will be looking more closely at a recent post from John Greco’s blog called “johnponders ~ about life at work, mostly” and applying his organizational development messages to the non-profit community.

Recently, John wrote two related posts titled “Rabbit Chase” and “Maslow’s Hammer“. These posts spoke to the ideas of organizational culture and effective processes. Additionally, they featured one of my favorite quotations of all-time from Abraham Maslow:

“I suppose it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail.”

As John’s posts typically do, they get my mind racing about how his organizational development principles apply to my non-profit experiences. Sometimes, they even set me off in an unpredictable direction as is the case today.

Three non-profit executive director friends of mine are all involved in some kind of job search process:

One friend is unemployed and jumping into an executive director search process.
A second friend is filling a vacancy and hiring a CFO.
My third friend received approval from the board to create a development director position and is hiring a fundraising professional with major gifts experience.

So, you’re probably wondering what in the heck do these three things have to do with Maslow’s quotation about hammers and nails or John Greco’s posts about organizational culture and effective processes?

Well, it dawned on me that when non-profit organizations go into “hiring mode” and open an employment search, they are essentially adding tools to their organizational toolbox. Carrying this analogy to its logical conclusion . . . The obvious challenge for those organizations who have a toolbox full of hammers is to not add another hammer. Right?

Having formerly run a non-profit agency, I look back over all of the search processes that I ran, and I now wonder how many times I started out the search by assessing my organizational toolbox to figure out what type of person would best fill the gap.

You might be thinking that a when you have a vacancy — like my friend who is hiring a replacement CFO — you are by definition filling a gap, but I encourage you to rethink your position by reading John’s post “Rabbit Chase“. You will clearly see in that example that all three actors in that post — the FBI, CIA, and NYPD — do the same thing (e.g. law enforcement), but they all have a different approach.

Won’t that be the same thing my friend experiences during his CFO search? All of his final candidates will know finance, but they will all come with different backgrounds and experiences. They will also all have different approaches.

I think we can also take this organizational development principle beyond the confines of executive search and apply it to board development and how you approach your organization’s board development process.

I’ve seen a number of non-profit boards that had too many hammers on it. I can tell you that it always results in a very flat executive director! LOL

Think about it for a second.

How do you maintain a diversified organizational toolbox from a staff or board perspective? What tools do you use? How do you develop your interview guides with this organizational development principle in mind? Does your board development process utilize a board composition matrix?

Our organizations are stretched too thin for us to continue re-inventing the wheel. So, why not share your approaches and tools with each other in the comment box? We can all learn from each other.

I don’t know about you, but I can’t get the idea of hammers out of my head this Friday morning. So, I thought I’d end today’s post with this classic song from Peter, Paul and Mary:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VaWl2lA7968&feature=related]

Here’s to your health!

Erik Anderson
Founder & President, The Healthy Non-Profit LLC
www.thehealthynonprofit.com
erik@thehealthynonprofit.com
http://twitter.com/#!/eanderson847
http://www.facebook.com/eanderson847
http://www.linkedin.com/in/erikanderson847

Social media ROI — Non-profits shouldn’t make it difficult

August 9, 2012 erik Fundraising, technology

At the end of Tuesday’s post titled “Are non-profits yelling at their donors using social media?” I promised that I’d share a few revelations from a social media conference that Marissa and I attended last week hosted by SkillPath Seminars. Yesterday, I posted “Answers to the two most popular social media questions asked by non-profits,” and today we’re talking about that thing that for-profit companies are obsessed with and non-profits seem to struggle with . . . RETURN ON INVESTMENT (ROI).

“43% of current social media marketers haven’t measured ROI.”

This number was shared with Marissa and me by our lovely SkillPath Seminars trainers at last week’s social media conference. They cited this information from King Fish Media in 2010.

Well, if I were a betting man, I would guess that this number is much, much higher when you just look at non-profit organizations using social media.

Let’s be honest. Most non-profit organizations are stretched too thin. So, asking employees to track a lot of stuff as it relates to your social media presence just doesn’t make a lot of sense. Right? However, it is important to measure something. Right? After all, resources are tight and you are dedicating time and resources to this thing called social media. If the ROI is very poor, then you probably have 101 ways to better spend those hours and dollars.

Additionally, keeping an eye on certain metrics also helps you evolve your social media presence and approach because when you see that something isn’t working then you stop and when you see something is working you do more of it.

This brings us to the big question . . . “What can non-profits easily measure and how should they do it?”

Looking across the fence at our for-profit cousins, I can tell you that they start by asking “What is most important to the success of the company?” It usually boils down into one of four things: conversion rates, generating sales leads, increased site traffic/number of new customers, and brand awareness.

Once they narrow their focus, they then pay a visit to their social media analytics buffet and look around at all of the yummy things that you can track including:

web traffic
viral video activity
bounce rate
page views
comments
social bookmarks
inbound links to your website
ratings
number of new followers
comments / mentions
leads generated
downloads
uploads
engagement activity

As we discussed in yesterday’s post — “Answers to the two most popular social media questions asked by non-profits“– your organization probably uses different social media platforms to achieve different objectives in your resource development plan (e.g. Facebook = stewardship; Twitter = cultivation; etc). So, it makes sense that what you measure might look a little different for each of the platforms your agency uses.

If I were using Facebook to steward donors and didn’t have enough time or money, then I would simply track: 1) how many Friends does my Facebook page have (and how did that number change in the last year), 2) how many “likes” and comments did my posted content generate, and 3) how many Facebook friends remained a donor to my agency in the last year (e.g. donor database loyalty report cross referenced to Facebook Friends list)?

If I were using Twitter to introduce and cultivate new prospective donors, then I would track: 1) how many Followers does my Twitter account have (and how did that number change in the last year), 2) what is my Klout score and level of online influence with my Twitter followers, and 3) how much traffic back to the agency’s website comes from Twitter (e.g. Google analytics from your website will tell you this number and much more).

As I’ve just done in the last two paragraphs, I suggest you do the same for each of your social media platforms: 1) determine your target audience and main objective for each platform and 2) select a small handful of metrics from your analytics program (e.g. Facebook Insights, Google analytics, etc) that make the most sense for what you’re trying to accomplish.

But wait . . . there’s more!

Measuring data for the sake of measuring data is a waste of time. You need to turn your data into something “actionable“. Here are just a few thoughts:

include it an annual performance plan for the employee who is responsible for managing your social media communities
build a social media dashboard and share with your marketing or resource development committee every month
place it on committee meeting and staff meeting agendas and facilitate conversations around the questions: “What does the data tell you?” and “What should we do differently with our content?”

Here are a few links that you might also want to read on this subject from me, Marissa or others:

Keep it simple. Don’t go overboard. And whatever you do, make sure you use the data.

Does your agency use social media? Are you measuring stuff? What are you measuring? Why are you measuring it? What are you doing with it? Has it made a difference in anything you do online or offline? Please scroll down and share answers to these questions or whatever else is on your mind in the comment box. We can all learn from each other.

Here’s to your health!

Answers to the two most popular social media questions asked by non-profits

August 8, 2012 erik Fundraising, technology

At the end of yesterday’s post titled “Are non-profits yelling at their donors using social media?” I promised that I’d share a few revelations from a social media conference that Marissa and I attended last week hosted by SkillPath Seminars. Today, we’re talking about two of the most popular social media questions that I’ve been asked by non-profit organizations:

Which social media platforms should your non-profit organization use to speak to donors and supporters?
How can your agency do a better job at engaging its supporters using social media and gain more traction?

Let me first say that I highly recommend this SkillPath training conference to all non-profit professionals who are responsible for managing their agency’s social media communities. You can find more information at the other end of the link that provided above. (No, I was not paid to say this)

When looking through the conference materials on this subject, they list more than 20 different platforms that companies are using to market their efforts. However, it came as no surprise that Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn were the top three “networking platforms;” YouTube was the most popular “promotional platform;” and various blogging platforms (e.g. WordPress, Blogger, and Tumblr) were the most popular “sharing platforms”.

Our trainers suggested that a company should give serious consideration to developing a presence on all three platforms and five sites. While that might sound easy enough, it becomes more complicated when you consider that you’ll be saying different things in each of these places. You need to figure out who your target audiences are and which social media platforms are best at communicating with them.

As I sat through many of the sessions, I found myself trying to translate the training curricula into non-profit speak. Assuming that my universal translator is working well, I concluded the following:

Facebook looks like a great stewardship tool where you can engage donors and show your “friends” how their contribution is being put to good use.
Twitter and its 140 character limitations could be an awesome cultivation tool where you catch the attention of prospects and drive them to a place where they learn more about your mission.
LinkedIn is more than a human resource tool. It is a place to build relationships with potential corporate supporters and identify special event sponsors.
YouTube can be a multi-purpose resource development tool and used in many different ways. However, it might be best used for raising brand awareness and developing a pool of interested prospects who you are positioning for cultivation activities.
Your blog is a friendly online place to engage in conversations with supporters and potential supporters. You can establish yourself as a “thought leader,” advocate and engaged listener.
All of these social media tools should be used to drive traffic to your website where there is more information, volunteer forms, donation pages, etc.

Yes, this is a lot of work and at some point you’ll need to frame your agency’s strategy in a written social media plan. While it is easy to think that it might end up on the fundraising department’s plate, I think there is an opportunity for thoughtful organizations to transform their agency into a “social company” and share the workload and transform your workplace culture.

Enough on platforms.

What about building momentum? Gaining traction? Engaging more deeply?

The following are just a few of the suggestions offered by our SkillPath trainers:

Write content that is interesting to your reader. (If you don’t know what that is, then go ask them)
Host contests
Offer coupons
Make your content interactive
Include links to things that your audience will find interesting and useful

Perhaps, one of the best ideas I heard was that a picture is worth a thousand words. Write less and post more pictures of your mission, your programs, your volunteers, and your donors. This one simple idea that will probably result in increased traffic, more content sharing, and deeper engagement.

Is your agency using social media? How’s it going? Do you feel like it is working? Why or why not? Please scroll down and use the comment box to share your thoughts. We can all learn from each other.

Here’s to your health!

Are non-profits YELLING at their donors using social media?

August 7, 2012 erik Donor-centered fundraising, technology

For a moment this morning, please picture this fictional situation.

You are sitting at Starbucks enjoying your favorite beverage. The music is soothing. The place is buzzing. The smell of baked goods is in the air. Perhaps, you’re engaged in a little people watching. You might also be eavesdropping on an interesting conversation at the table next to you. Ahhhhhh . . . this is a great place to be.

Suddenly, a wild-eyed person bursts through the door and makes a beeline right over to your table. They are loud. They are obnoxious. This mild acquaintance is talking at you, and there is seemingly no place in the conversation for you to get a word in edgewise. You focus in on what they’re saying (in an effort to find a way into the conversation):

Hi, my name is ________
I was born in Anywhere, USA.
I am ___ years old
I like cookies
I won a silver media in the fourth grade during field day
I like shiny objects

You think to yourself, “Why do I want to know all of this?” You also get annoyed because your peaceful and serene happy place quickly evaporated because of this person who you don’t know very well.

Believe it or not, this story might describe how your non-profit organization is behaving on social media platforms.

Many of your donors go to places like Facebook to find “fun” and “love”. They are relaxing, catching up with friends and family, and just chillin’ out. When out of the blue you (and other agencies) start shouting various things. Let’s look at some real Facebook posts from non-profits who I follow (I won’t attribute names in order to protect the innocent).

Oh! Oh! Look at me, look at me: “School is back in session! Let’s make this year GREAT!! Welcome back the kids!”
Oh! Oh! Look at me, look at me: “As you watch the Olympics this week, 1-get psyched up for our week-long competition next week, 2-admire how the font you see on TV for the Olympics is the exact same we used on our summer flier!”
Oh! Oh! Look at me, look at me: “Please vote many times. Takes seconds to do. Click. Enter info. Vote. Done. Round 1 almost over.”

Many of you might be wondering, “What’s the point?” After all, isn’t social media the place that your agency is supposed to engage and cultivate new prospective donors and steward existing donors?

Yes, social media is a place to engage people. It is even a place where you can promote yourself. However, too many non-profit agencies in my opinion have the proportions way off. There are three specific goals that your written social media plan should have:

Networking
Promoting
Sharing

Chris Abrams wrote a great blog post over at Marketing Conversation titled “Stop shouting and start listening to your social media fans“. While his audience is for-profit companies, I think he is right on target for non-profits as well when he says: “. . . social media is two-thirds defense and monitoring — listening — and only one-third promotion and publicity — speaking.”

Think of it this way . . . social media is a “conversation” between you and your donors, and you need to do at least as much listening as you do talking (if not more).

When I started getting more active in social media, the one person who I read a lot of was Beth Kanter. One of the most important things I once read in her blog was that it is OK for a non-profit organization to start their social media efforts slowly by setting up their platform, connecting with friends, and just listening for the first year.

Click here to read a little bit more about listening from Beth and her guest bloggers on the subject of “listening”.

I suggest that you revisit your social media strategy and stop YELLING things about yourself to your supporters. Here are a few quick suggestions:

If you haven’t written a social media plan yet, gather a few donors and supporters and get to work.
If you don’t have written social media policies, then ask the same group of donors and supporters to help.
Post more pictures of what you do because a picture is worth a thousand words.
Ask more questions and use fewer declarative sentences.
Use social media as a funnel by capturing someone’s attention and sending them to your website if they want to learn more.
Engage your donors and supporters in a conversation about what content they would like to see.

Last week, Marissa (the person you read on Mondays at DonorDreams blog) and I attended a social media conference. I will share a few things that we learned over the next few days. So, please stay tuned!

Does your non-profit organization use social media (e.g. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, blog, etc)? If so, what has been your experience so far? What challenges are you running into? Please share your thoughts and question in the comment box below. I will “listen” and attempt to “engage” you in a conversation. 😉

Here’s to your health!

What non-profits can learn from the Olympics: A lesson in social media

August 6, 2012 erik Mondays with Marissa, technology

I don’t know about you, but I can’t get enough of the Olympics. It is a chance for me to see sports that I don’t normally have an opportunity to watch. For instance, have you seen handball?!!? That stuff is crazy!

Sports watching aside, the London 2012 Games have been a little different from the Olympiads before them. They are the most “social” games that we’ve ever experienced. I thought today, since we are smack dab in the middle of The Games, we could take a look at how social media has made an impact and what non-profits can take away from it.

Censorship

Last week, reporter Guy Adam’s Twitter account, was taken down. This was shocking to hear because Twitter has been social media’s liberation network. Twitter is supportive of free speech . . . just look at their public positions on WikiLeaks and the Arab Spring movement. When reporter Guy Adams tweeted criticism of NBC’s coverage of the Opening Ceremonies, Twitter responded by shutting down his account. After media coverage of this censorship, Adams’ account was reactivated.

What can non-profits take away from this?

Just because social media is, in most cases, a free service and covered under the First Amendment, it doesn’t take away from the fact that Twitter, Facebook, et al, are still corporations. They can still regulate your account without your knowledge. As a result, I recommend that all non-profit organizations have their own websites and not solely rely on social media. After all, social media is only one tool that you should use to drive people to your website and share their message with the world.

Rants

People will talk. There’s no doubt about that.

However, there are times when people are not only representations of themselves, but they are also representing an organization and something larger than just themselves. So, when USA Women’s Soccer Team member, Hope Solo, tweeted her disdain for the commentary that was being given during her games, her coaches and captains called her in for a meeting. She wasn’t suspended, but since the meeting, her tweets have had a different tone to them.

Similarly, athletes have been suspended from participating in the The Olympic Games due to racist tweets they published.

What is the lesson in all of this for non-profit organizations? The need for a social media policy is stronger than ever.

What is the lesson in all of this for non-profit professionals? Employees and volunteers need to understand what restrictions might exist when it comes to sharing things on their personal accounts as it pertains to your organization.

Finally, this all begs one simple question: “How does your organization know who is saying what about you online?”

I believe that someone at your organization should be assigned the responsibility of monitoring what (if anything) is being said about your organization on the internet. Please don’t misunderstand . . . I’m not suggesting that you break any privacy laws here, but if an employee has a public twitter account, it can be seen by anyone.

One way to set up something without being as much of a stalker is to set up a Google Alert to notify you when the name of your organization or a key word attached your mission is mentioned on the internet.

Share Your Successes

The Olympics are all about results. Who ran the race the fastest? Which country has the most gold medals? Athletes, teams, and news networks constantly updating their feeds with success stories.

People like good news. Non-profit organizations should share their successes, big or small, with their online communities.

Did you recently make a purchase that will improve the work that you do? Tell people about it. Were you recently awarded a grant that will make an impact on furthering your mission? Scream it from the mountaintops of cyberspace.

People will “like” the good news on Facebook and retweet the news on Twitter. This can gain you new followers and supporters.

We still have about a week left of Olympic coverage, and new stories regarding social media are bound to pop up. I encourage you to keep your eyes open and see what happens. After all, in its most basic form, The Olympics are simply one big special event that is runs by an organization. Non-profits run special events, too. What social media stories have caught your eye recently? I’d love to talk about them in the comment section below!

Are you a successful non-profit professional?

August 3, 2012 erik leadership, organizational development

I just had lunch with dear friend a few days ago. She is smart. She is talented. She runs an awesome non-profit organization that is growing by leaps and bounds. However, during lunch our conversation turned to lots of questions and doubts:

Is she still the right leader for this organization at this point in time?
Has the organization outgrown what she has to offer?
Will she know when it is the right time to leave?
Is there someone she should be grooming to whom she could pass the baton at the appropriate time?

This discussion was surprising to me because she is so obviously successful, but it isn’t apparent to her. This got me thinking of an awesome blog post by John Greco titled “Success“. Since today is OD Friday at DonorDreams blog, I encourage you to click over and read John’s post. After digesting his thoughts, please circle back here and re-read the list of questions that my friend posed over lunch. After accomplishing all of that, scroll down and post your thoughts in the comment box below.

What practices and tools do you and your non-profit organization utilize to let you and your donors know that you’re successful? We can all learn from each other. So, please take a moment to share!

Here’s to your health.

A one page strategic plan in 60 minutes?

August 2, 2012 erik Planning

When it comes to strategic planning, many of my non-profit executive director friends tell me that it is not one their favorite things to do. In fact, many of them told me they would rather have a root canal performed without novocaine than go through a strategic planning process.

I can sympathize with this mindset. Very few people like to wake up in the morning and take a good hard took at themselves in the mirror. Most planning models start with an assessment / evaluation phase, which sometimes feels very harsh and judgmental. If assessment isn’t the objection, then the consensus building process can feel tedious for some people and in some cases it can even become contentious if a few strong-willed individuals hijack the process.

Unfortunately, these objections to planning can erode organizational stability because planning gets put off sometimes forever. Without an organizational blueprint, everything becomes an organic process and decisions get made based upon the loudest voice in the boardroom.

This is not the best way to run a non-profit organization.

When talking to friends who are obviously anti-planning, I usually steer the conversation toward different planning models in an effort to find something that might work better for their circumstances. After all, one size doesn’t fit all . . . right?

Recently, I decided to expand the number of planning models in my consultant toolbox. So, I purchased the following two planning books and started reading:

To be honest, I was a skeptic before I started reading. Now, I am much less so.

If you are looking for a shortcut that results in a comprehensive strategic plan that addresses a variety of strategic issues all condensed down into a one page document, then you will be disappointed. This strategic planning model is interesting, but it cannot perform miracles.

However, if you have one (possibly two) things that need some attention, then this model will work for you. It will help focus your agency those issues into goals, measurable objectives and accountable actionable.

Perhaps, the most important thing to keep in mind is that regardless of the planning model your organization chooses for strategic planning, it still involves engaging a variety of different stakeholders and building consensus around the who-what-where-when-why-how. Most importantly, all planning models must get participants to focus on one key question:

“Which parts of this plan am I so excited about that I’m willing to take responsibility for making it happen.”

After all, planning is not an event . . . planning is not about the resulting document . . . planning is an engagement activity.

No strategic planning model will ever change this basic idea.

On a side note, fundraising professionals should look at this planning model because I suspect it would be great to use with a special event fundraising committee or your annual campaign team.

Have you ever employed the 60 minute, one page planning model to anything at your agency? If so, how well did it work for you? What do you attribute to your success or lack of success?

Managing vs Leading: a follow-up post

August 1, 2012 erik organizational development

Last week, I wrote a post titled “Managing versus leading at your non-profit organization“. Well, it seems like this is a hot topic for many of you because a day has not gone by without someone saying something to me or emailing me about it. Additionally, my blog analytics reports indicate that this post has been popular. So, I thought I’d take a moment this morning to post a quick follow-up on this topic and share some of what you’ve said to me privately.

Smaller non-profit organizations

The idea of leading versus managing appears to be different for small non-profit organizations. Those of you who work at agencies with budgets under $1 million have emphatically said to me that you wear many different hats throughout the day primarily because your budget is stretched very thin. As a result, many of you have described a typical work day that you believe involves significantly more managing than leading.

When I’ve pressed many of you on the question of how to solve this situation, you’ve all had the same reaction, which is that you need to raise more money and hire more staff.

While I generally agree with you, this solution is simple and possibly unattainable because you’ve described being caught in feedback loop that doesn’t allow for you to find the time to focus on fundraising.

In the interest of being solution-focused this morning, the following are just a few ideas that you may want to chew on:

Identify a funding partner and secure organizational development and capacity building funding to help build a volunteer program, improve your fundraising efforts or strengthen your board.
Identify a strategic alliance with another non-profit organization in your community. This might free you up and allow you to shift more time from managing to leading.
Explore merger and acquisition opportunities. If what you’re saying about bigger non-profit organizations is true (e.g. more resources allows their CEO to spend more time leading), then it makes sense to chew on the idea of how you can become a bigger organization.

Bigger non-profit organizations

The idea of leading versus managing also appears to be different for larger non-profit organizations. Those of you who work at agencies with multi-million dollar budgets have emphatically said to me that you end up focusing more on managing than on leading when the staff underneath you doesn’t perform or do well at executing their jobs.

With a sluggish economy and job market, the solution is obvious . . . find ways to hire more talented people than what you currently have on your staff. While this is a simple solution, it is something with which many of you are struggling. Why? Because we are non-profit professionals and we see this approach as ruthless. You have explained to me that non-profit organizations (specifically social service agencies) are in the business of saving people and not putting them in situations where they need help.

You need to find a way to get over this attitudinal barrier because the job market will not be abundant forever. Now is the time to upgrade your staff. Finding a way to do so in a compassionate way might be one of the most transformational things you do during this decade.

Your leadership toolbox

As many of you have engaged me in this conversation, we’ve found ourselves talking about tools, strategies and approaches that you think help you restore balance between the competing ideas of leading and managing. The following is a brief list of your thoughts:

Board development is important. Leadership isn’t just something that comes from the CEO’s office. A strong board that understands their roles and responsibilities and keeps its nose out of the operational details and focused on big picture strategic issues is more likely to demand the same from you.
Strategic planning is foundational. Many of you have said that it is impossible to lead without a leadership blueprint, and your strategic plan serves that function. The plan is not an “end” strategy, but you’ve said it is a “means to an end” . . . it is a starting point.
Executive coaching provides perspective. While executive coaching still seems to be more prevalent among for-profit CEOs, some of you told me that you’ve engaged the services of an executive coach. It is hard to “see the forest through the trees“. Your executive coach helps you with this issue and brings a sense of accountability and action-focus to your job.
Tools and systems make it easier. The following is a list of tools and systems that many of you referenced: annual performance plans, organizational dashboards, time management tools and practices, trainings, weekly meetings with key staff, etc.

I’ve come to the conclusion that this topic is very large and could take up a month’s worth of blog posts. I also find it curious that so many of you want to have this discussion off-line, which is why I decided to double back and ask you to please reconsider and post your thoughts in the comment box below. How do you know when you are leading compared to managing? What are you doing (what tools or strategies are you using) that enables you to do more leading? We can all learn from each other. It will only take one or two minutes out of your day to post a comment. Please?

Here’s to your health!

Your donors aren’t letting you off the hook

July 31, 2012 erik Uncategorized

It has happened to all of us. A donor wags their finger and authoritatively tells us to stop wasting money by sending them acknowledgement letters or newsletters or stewardship pieces. They trust us. They don’t need that kind of attention. They want all of their money to go directly to our organization’s mission and its programs.

When this happens, you should not interpret it as “the donor is always right and I need to comply”.

In reality, the donor is not letting you off the hook. It may sound that way, but it is not the case. The first time you accidentally misuse their contribution or do something that doesn’t align with what that donor thinks you should be doing, they will be upset and you will hear about it.

So, what should you do when a donor instructs you to stop using a stewardship tool and best practices?

You need to double down and figure out how to best provide stewardship. Of course, you need to comply with the donor’s wishes. If they want to be removed from the newsletter list, you better do it or prepare to face their wrath. However, don’t stop there . . . engage those donors in a deeper conversation. Tell them why transparency is so important to your agency. Tell them why you’ve elected to employ certain stewardship tools with your donor pool. Most importantly, ask them how you can achieve the same stewardship objectives with their charitable contributions while still honoring their wishes.

It could be as simple as donor wanting to be taken off your newsletter list because they want less junk in their mailbox, but being OK with being added to your e-newsletter list. Or it could be complicated and involve periodic phone calls and a personal visit with your annual report in hand. While each donor will come up with different solutions, it is worth going through the trouble because it will save you potential grief and “gotcha moments” down the road.

Have you ever been faced with a donor like this? How did you handle it and still remain true to your non-profit organization’s values and stewardship principles? Please share your experiences in the comment box below.

Here’s to your health!