posts – Page 55 – The Healthy Non-Profit

Evaluating your non-profit board volunteer prospects’ social reach and network

December 6, 2012 erik Board development, organizational development, volunteers

I was recently engaged in an engaging discussion about board development with a great group of non-profit board volunteers. The range of topics in that conversation spanned issues such as prospect identification, evaluation methods, prioritizing prospect lists, cultivating prospects, recruitment process, orientation, recognition, and evaluation. It was one of those conversations that a facilitator loves because everyone was engaged and actively participating. There was an energetic dynamic in the room, and then someone asked a really tough question:

“How do we evaluate the scope of someone’s social network?”

This question stems from the discussion on the importance of diversity in your boardroom. After talking about the obvious (e.g. age, gender, ethnicity), these discussions always turn to the more difficult subjects including how to assess a prospective board volunteer’s social network and social capital. Of course, this is important because you don’t want a boardroom full of people who all walk in the same social circles.

Moreover, this is important because:

Fundraising — The collective network in your boardroom is related to the reach of your fundraising program, its appeals and potential future donors.
Board Development — Birds of a feather flock together, and the collective network in your boardroom will give birth to future boards. Board replicate themselves all the time!
Group-think — People who are close and come from the same walks of life can sometimes think alike, which can greatly influence board governance and important decisions.

So, what is the answer to the aforementioned question pose by this obviously super smart board volunteer?

Well, it is complicated and simple all at the same time. Ugh!

For decades (and probably centuries), board development committees have answered this question the old fashion way. They sat down around a table and talked it over. Those committees who were successful had a diversity of people sitting around the table and were able to assess a prospect’s social network in an anecdotal manner. They talked about what they see and hear about the prospect. Here are just some of the things they most likely talked through:

Does the prospect sit on other non-profit boards?
What church does this prospect belong to? Are they active? Who else belongs to that church?
What other groups does this person belong to? (e.g. Rotary, Kiwanis, country club, chamber of commerce, local booster clubs, etc) Who else belongs to those groups?
What else do we see this person’s name attached to? (e.g annual reports, donor recognition walls, local newspaper articles, etc)
How does this prospect’s network, reach, and social capital compare to what is currently sitting around our boardroom table?

This is what “old school” board development assessment work looks like. It is highly effective. It has a track record of working. It is highly dependent on a diversity of people with a diversity of perspectives engaging in such a conversation.

Of course, our 21st Century mindset and perspectives leads us to question old approaches and investigate new tools and approaches, and there is nothing wrong with that.

So, I recently opened up my board development toolbox and re-examined some very traditional tools such as:

board matrix
sample prospective board member information sheet
board candidate rating form

In doing that simple review, it occurred to me that there isn’t much substance to those tools from the perspective of assessing someone’s social network, social reach and social capital. The matrix does ask the board development committee to assess “community connections,” and the information sheet also asks questions about your prospect’s affiliations and other non-profit board service. While these tools nibble around the edges, it wouldn’t be difficult to tweak these tools to more directly address the question posed by our board volunteer at the beginning of this blog post.

However, there are some “21st Century” tools that your board development committee might want to start using when talking through the issue of a prospect’s network. Consider the following:

Do a Google search on your prospective new board members during the evaluation phase of your process. Talk about the results of that search.
Look at their online social networks (e.g. Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter). If no one around the table is connected to the prospect in that way, then: 1) that might tell you something in and of itself and 2) you might expand your reach and find someone on the board or among your network who is linked in such a way.
Use Guidestar to determine if they are associated with other non-profits in your community.

Of course, there is nothing wrong with the “old school approach”. In fact, one simple way that you can tweak this traditional approach is by including your prospective future board volunteers in the process. Asking them to help you answer a few questions about their network and their reach. If done appropriately, it wouldn’t have to feel awkward.

How does your non-profit organization tackle the question posed at the beginning of this blog post as part of its board development process? Please use the comment box to share your best practices. We can all learn from each other and save time by not re-inventing the wheel. 😉

Here’s to your health!

Erik Anderson
Founder & President, The Healthy Non-Profit LLC
www.thehealthynonprofit.com
erik@thehealthynonprofit.com
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Does your non-profit board use this time to “Take Stock”?

December 5, 2012 erik Board development, volunteers

Dani Robbins is the Founder & Principal Strategist at Non Profit Evolution located in Columbus, Ohio. I’ve invited my good friend and fellow non-profit consultant to the first Wednesday of each month about board development related topics. Dani also recently co-authored a book titled “Innovative Leadership Workbook for Nonprofit Executives” that you can find on Amazon.com.

board evaluation It’s the end of the year, which always seems like a good time to take stock. Did I meet my obligations? Did I rise to the occasion? Did I do what I said I would? Have I become what I aspired to be? Am I living an authentic life?

For me, an authentic life includes service. So, while I take stock of myself, I also take stock of my Boards, the ones I serve, serve on, volunteer for or am paid by. I encourage an annual Board evaluation process.

The vast majority of Boards do not evaluate themselves. It’s not the norm. I’m not sure why, but it makes people uncomfortable. Yet…Board evaluations are not intended to be report cards; they’re intended to be opportunities for development, reflection and growth.

I’ve seen evaluations done a few different ways, and there is no right way. The following two options seem to be the most prevalent; I’ve also seen anything and everything in between. The only wrong (and career terminal) way to evaluate a Board is for the executive director to do it or to not do it at all. Two options:

Turn the Board expectations into a self-evaluation form and allow members to rate themselves on a scale of 1-4. If you’d like to take it a bit further, include at the bottom a space to allow them 3 opportunities to commit to (and hold themselves to) future growth or hand it in to the Board Development committee who can hold Board members individually accountable.
Have the Board Development Committee assess each member individually against the Board expectations, including committee and meeting attendance, giving, event participation, introducing and soliciting new donors, and ambassadorship in the community.

I also encourage you to survey your Board members to determine their opinion of Board process and enjoyment of strategic and generative discussions. It’s not enough for them to assess themselves individually. It’s also imperative that entire Board systems are evaluated and improved or evolved, as necessary and appropriate.

Please note it is the responsibility of the Board Development Committee to ensure evaluations are completed. The executive director can encourage the process and can write the evaluation form, but they cannot evaluate the Board members to whom they report. The Board must evaluate itself.

We can all do better. We can all be more. We serve because we believe in the potential of our organization, our communities and our own ability to affect change.

Take stock, you might like what you find; if you don’t, you can start building new systems toward a stronger future.

What’s been your experience? As always, I welcome your experience and insight.

‘Tis the season to put your non-profit organization’s shared values to use

December 4, 2012 erik leadership, volunteers

values1 For the last few weeks, I’ve found myself in a number of non-profit boardrooms talking to board volunteers about a variety of difficult subjects. These difficult conversations covered the following areas uncomfortable areas: staff reduction, re-organization, service reduction, radical revenue enhancement, board transformation, and so on. In each instance, it felt like a “soul-searching” discussion . . . very big and very weighty. I found myself wishing for a magic pill that I could dispense that would make their path forward a little less difficult.

As I poured my morning cup of coffee and wondered what I should blog about today, my mind wandered back to this same question, but this time it wasn’t a “magic pill” for which my sleepy head wished and dreamed. This time is was a tool that I could hand them. Something like a compass?!?! And then it came to me like a bolt of lightning.

A year ago, I wrote a post titled “Does your non-profit have a soul?” It was all about the importance of engaging your board, staff, clients, donors, volunteers and stakeholders in a “shared values” exercise. One of the quotes in that post that jumped back out at me this morning after my revelation at the coffee pot was from Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner who stated the following in their book “The Leadership Challenge“:

“Shared values make an enormous difference to organizational and personal vitality. Research confirms that firms with strong corporate culture based on a foundation of shared values outperform other firms by a huge margin. Their revenue grew 4-times fast; their rate of job creation was 7-times higher; their stock price grew 12-times faster; and their profit performance was 750-percent higher.”

values2 So, one organizations might find some comfort in their shared values of:

Care
Empathy
Sustainability
Success
Respect

While exercising these values when talking about difficult subject matter won’t make those issues disappear, it will likely bring clarity to the boardroom and help people relate better to each other. Right?

Another one of the organizations I am thinking of has the following values posted on the walls around their facility:

Believe
Inspire
Lead
Innovate

I close my eyes and imagine a boardroom discussion focused on questions such as “Where are we going to raise more money next year?” and “What short-term cuts can/should we make to balance the budget?” Those discussions look different when I overlay their values on those conversations. Right?

‘Tis the season for giving and charity. It is also that time of the year when non-profit boards struggle with big, weighty issues like budget and revenue strategies for next year. My best advice to all non-profit boards is to take another peek under the tree and unwrap that tiny present you placed there years ago when you went through your strategic planning process.

Contained in that small package is your agency’s shared values. Use them as they were intended . . . as a tool to frame discussions and a backdrop to make tough decisions.

It might be the best gift that you’ve given yourself in a very long time.

What are your organization’s shared values? How do you use them? Can you recall an instance when your values helped with a difficult discussion or decision? Please use the comment box below to share your thoughts.

Here’s to your health!

Use video to help volunteers polish their case for support

November 29, 2012 erik Board development, Fundraising, technology, volunteers

I am helping a friend run for city council in my town. He is a great guy, and he will make a great council member. He is personable, down to earth, genuine, and just an everyday kind of person. He is funny, and best of all he is a storyteller. While these might be good building blocks for a servant leader on the city council, I am coming to the conclusion that these traits might not be so great for a “candidate”.

For example, good candidates have their well-polished elevator speech down to science. They knock on your door, you answer it, and they very succinctly tell you in 30 to 60 seconds why they are running and why you should vote for them. However, a good storyteller knows how to stretch a story. They are the master of delivery and timing. They weave and spin and divert and then . . . BOOM. . . they hit you with the punchline or the point of their story.

Needless to say, I’ve been working with my friend on how to polish a powerful and compact elevator speech before he starts knocking on doors. Here is what that has looked like:

We wrote a case for support.
We reduced the case down to a written script.
We refined that script down to something even more simple.

However, none of this has really helped because at his heart, he is a storyteller. Each new tool we’ve developed becomes something new for him to add to the bigger story. LOL

So, last night I decided to try one last trick that I had up my sleeve.

In a room full of 30 of his friends, family, and supporters, I asked him to deliver his case for support (aka his elevator speech). I handed everyone a worksheet with five questions. A few questions dealt with delivery and others addressed content. I asked that everyone fill it out and do so anonymously. I then pulled out my Samsung pocket video camera (similar to the old Flip video cameras), and I videotaped him.

You can probably guess where this is going.

His 30 to 60 second elevator speech turned into an eight minute story. It was funny, and people laughed, but it wasn’t an elevator speech that he will be able to use.

Next steps for me will be sitting down with him to review the critique feedback forms and view the videotape. After digesting this information, it will be back to the grindstone to continue the work of forging a powerful case for support.

The reason I am blogging about this experience on a blog focused on non-profit issues such as board development, fundraising, etc-etc-etc, is because it dawned on me that this same process can be used in variety of ways at your non-profit agency.

Why not use it to help fundraising volunteers polish their approach?

I like this idea because:

It is hard for people to step outside of their bodies to see and hear what they look like. Video is a tool that helps us do exactly this (albeit many people hate seeing or hearing themselves on video)
Achieving this vantage point can create a moment of clarity and focus people on fixing something specific in their delivery or pitch.
People often end up “off script” and speak from the heart even though it isn’t part of the written case for support document. Recording them and capturing some of those impromptu comments can help you refine your case and incorporate it into an elevator speech.

Yes, I know that no one likes to do activities like this, but sometimes good things aren’t necessarily the easy things in life. Right?

I also recently used my little Samsung pocket video camera to interview board volunteers prior to a board retreat. I asked questions like:

Why did you agree to serve on this board?
Why are you so passionate about this organization’s mission?
Why do you think other people should join you in serving on this board?
In the end, what do you want your legacy to be on this board?

You wouldn’t believe what comes out of people’s mouths. In fact, I think they are surprised at what comes out of their mouths.

When you ask someone to speak from the bottom of their heart, amazing things can happen. When you capture it on video and replay it back to them, it becomes a powerful tool for accomplishing a number of different objectives (e.g. engagement, reflection, etc).

Have you ever used video as a tool to help board members or fundraising volunteers? If so, what was your experience? If not, what barriers do you see that stop you from doing so? Please use the comment box to share your thoughts and experiences.

Here’s to your health!

Are some Executive Directors deliberately disengaging their non-profit board volunteers?

November 28, 2012 erik Board development, organizational development, volunteers

I’ve been on a board governance and board development kick lately. One of the big thought-leaders in this area is Richard Chait, who is a Professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and one of the authors of “Governance as Leadership: Reframing the Work of Nonprofit Boards,” and I am a big fan of his work.

I recently came across a white paper published by Bader & Associates Governance Consultants in Potomac, MD. It is a simple to read two-page interview with Richard Chait about his book and the idea of generative conversations in the boardroom. I keep re-reading this white paper every few weeks, and it sparks a new thought every time I read it.

For example, I read the following passage this morning:

“Generative governance engages and challenges trustees intellectually. It’s what leaders do best. Yet most boards spend most of their time on fiduciary work, and they devote little time to the generative mode.”

In other words, boards are talking more about things like “can we afford that” and “where is the money coming from for that” and not talking about “are we being impacted by a larger trend and if so what should we do about it“.

When I read the aforementioned quote this morning, a wicked thought popped into my head, and I wondered if non-profit executive directors purposely keep their board volunteers focused on the “little picture” in an attempt to keep them out of the decision-making on the “big picture”?

I admit that this is a cynical thought, but I just wonder . . . Hmmmmmmm?

It is so hard to build consensus with 15 or 20 people sitting around a boardroom table. A good facilitator makes it look so easy, but it really is a gift. From what I see from many of my non-profit friends, they are hired for their fundraising and program/operations skills. I can honestly say that I’ve never worked with a search committee that said “facilitation skills” were a top skill set they were looking for in an executive director.

Is it possible that we have a dynamic where the executive director is trying to lead and it is too difficult to get the group to make big decisions on big issues; so they focus the group on tactical issues because it is easier (and important to the day-to-day functioning of the agency). When it comes time to make those big decisions, the executive director engages a few key board members who are of like mind and have influence with their peers and the decision gets made.

The net impact of this approach is widespread disengagement among board members.

OK, so here is the question this morning. Did I just wake up on the wrong side of the bed this morning and cynical thoughts are rampaging through my head. Or do you think this is likely happening in a number of non-profit organizations in your community? The better question might be “what needs to be done to fix this, and are Chait’s suggestions this right perscription?”

Please join me by taking a good hard look in the mirror this morning and share your assessment in the comment box below.

Here’s to your health!

Tips to improving your charity auction

November 27, 2012 erik Fundraising

Later this morning, I am facilitating a discussion among some non-profit professionals about how to improve your auction fundraiser event. I am apparently itching to get this conversation underway. So, I thought it might be fun to start it online with the DonorDreams blog community. I suspect that I also have auctions on my mind because a number of local charities that I support are gearing up for their 2013 auction fundraising events right now, and I see them working hard at securing donations.

Let me first start by saying that I am not an auction expert, but I attend a number of these type of events and can speak to the issue from a donor’s perspective. In my experience, I am spending money when:

The mood in the room is fun, and I am surrounded by friends who are bidding.
There are auction items that I find appealing.
Alcohol helps open my wallet.
The check-out procedure appears to be easy and hassle-free (e.g. I won’t have to stand in long lines to check-out if I win my bids)
I can bid on a project to directly support the charity (e.g. underwrite a scholarship for a year, purchase a mattress for the homeless shelter, etc)

Here are a few things that I’ve seen fundraising professionals do to support the things I just mentioned:

Survey last year’s participants well in advance of the event to get an idea of what types of items that want to see in the auction.
Latch onto an event theme and use it throughout the event to create a sense of fun.
Offer both a live and silent auction format.
Don’t close the silent auction until AFTER the live auction is done. This way people who lost their live auction bids and still have cash in their wallet can still invest it in winning their silent auction bids.
Use auction software to automate the check-in and check-out procedures. Integrate other technology into the auction (e.g. electronic bidding) in order to add a new wrinkle.
Keep the theme focused on the auction (e.g. don’t mix-and-match your themes such as an awards dinner and auction).

As I always say at the end of my blog posts, “We can all learn from each other.” Please take a moment this morning to answer one of the following questions (I plan on using these same questions to start my roundtable discussion off on the right foot this morning):

What is your check-in and check-out procedures (and what role does accepting credit cards in advance play in that process)?
What best practices have you seen used with “silent auctions” vs “live auctions” that can help drive revenue?
What kinds of policies do you have around alcohol and getting your bidding public “liquored up”?
What kind of data do you collect and how do you use it from year-to-year to drive revenue? How does it line up with pre-event engagement strategies?

I recently bumped into Dave Naffziger’s Blog and I think his post on “How to run a successful charity auction” is one of the better ones that I’ve recently seen. You may want to go check it out.

Here’s to your health!

Five ways your non-profit can participate in #GivingTuesday

November 26, 2012 erik Fundraising, Mondays with Marissa, technology

Last week I provided a few ideas about how non-profits can benefit from creating a donor drive modeled after Black Friday sales. This week I want to highlight a campaign that is taking off for the first time tomorrow (the first Tuesday after Thanksgiving) by name of Giving Tuesday.

After standing in lines on Black Friday, running around to leftover sales on the weekend, and grabbing the best deals online (aka Cyber Monday), many corporations and non-profits want to turn the nation’s attention to the spirit of giving.

Let’s take a look at five things your nonprofit can do to get involved tomorrow.

Make it easy to donate – If people catch wind that there is a movement called “Giving Tuesday” and cannot make a donation on your agency’s website, then you’re going to miss the boat. As Erik stated in his post a few months ago about end of the year giving strategies, Giving Tuesday could be beneficial to your organization meeting its year-end fundraising goals. So, make sure there is clear and easy directions about how to make a donation on your website. You can add a Donate Now button easily through PayPal. If you don’t have time to make major changes to your site, at least put up a blog post or update that tells people where they can send their money.
Link it up – Link to your website on every social media platform where you have a presence. Make sure to mention “Giving Tuesday” in your updates. People don’t want to go searching for where to go. Also, don’t forget to also send an email to your donors.
Provide reasons to give – On a variety of social media sites, share photos of what your organization does with the money it receives (e.g. services, items purchased, your clients, events, facilities, etc). If you are looking to reach a goal for a certain fund or project, then Giving Tuesday is the perfect time to highlight those needs. You also want to mention something simple such as what a $20 donation can provide. Remember, crowdfunding sites such as Kickstarter have started a trend of microfunding and people are more apt to give to your organization if they can see results.
Give updates – Throughout the day, give people updates on how things are going. There’s a reason why telethons go to the “total board” many times throughout the broadcast . . . it encourages people to give and creates a bandwagon effect.
Thank people – Thank individuals who either “retweet” your tweets or “like” or “share” your photos on Facebook. Acknowledging those who participate in Giving Tuesday will only help the movement grow. So, even if all you do is spread the word tomorrow, next year your organizations could benefit even more.

I hope that these tips help and your organization gets involved in Giving Tuesday tomorrow.

Even if your organization hasn’t given any thought to Giving Tuesday until reading this post, getting involved by spreading the word can help lay the groundwork for next year. In all off your updates, make sure to include the hashtag #GivingTuesday. The organizers of the Giving Tuesday campaign are showing tweets with #GivingTuesday on their site in real-time. Think of the exposure your non-profit will receive.

What are your thoughts about Giving Tuesday? Is your organization planning on participating? If your agency does participate, please come back here and leave us a comment on how it went.

Robert Frost’s cautionary words for your non-profit agency

November 23, 2012 erik organizational development, Planning

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.

In a recent post, John deconstructed one of my favorite poems of all time — Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken”. While many of us read this popular poem and conclude that it is about self-actualization, John helps us see that this is far from the case when he says, “This is far from being about self-actualization and appreciating the immense satisfaction and reward of going our own way. It is about our propensity to rationalize.”

I’ve spent a lot time this morning combing through this post and all of the supporting links, and I buy into all of the analysis about “The Road Not Taken”. I can honestly say that I will never look at this poem in the same way. Additionally, there are all sorts of organizational development lessons to be learned for non-profit agencies embedded in this poem.

For example, the line in the poem that says “Yet knowing how way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever come back.” are big time words of warning about the cause-and-effect nature of the world and the effect of our actions carrying us away so that we don’t typically backtrack to the divergence of those same two paths.

Up to this point, I am buying into everything and there are a number of “AH-HA” moments going off in my head, until I read this . . .

“But here’s the real deal: We can’t possibly know which path is our path before we choose it.”

I have to laugh at myself sometimes because I have wrestled with these words for an hour now. I’ve paced my living room and consumed two cups of coffee trying to process exactly what John is getting at. I struggle with this because I am a planner. I have two degrees in planning from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. I have facilitated countless numbers of plans for non-profit organizations including strategic plans, resource development plans, board development plans, marketing plans, business plans, annual campaign plans, etc etc etc.

I believe “planning” is akin to creating a map for your agency, which means that as you approach those two roads that diverge in a yellow wood you have a map in your hands, you have considered a number of facts, and you’re prepared to make a choice that makes sense for your organization.

So, for the last hour I’ve struggled with John’s words because it feels like an indictment of planning. However, I can feel it in my bones that he isn’t saying that your organization shouldn’t invest time in planning efforts.

Since planning is an engagement activity (e.g. not something a non-profit professional should do in the silence of their office), there is a lot of value in it. Yet, you can have the best plan (aka road map) in the world and you may even know far in advance which of the two roads your agency will take, but you can’t and won’t know if the path you choose is the right path until you actually start walking down it.

Now that is a terrifying revelation for someone like me. LOL Why? Because planning is how I deal with an uncertain and scary future. Planning activities bring me peace of mind because it allows me to bring the uncertain future into the present, and it gives me the a false sense of security that I can exert some control over uncertainty.

Apparently, the Nile (read de-nial) is more than just a river in Egypt.

Did you see that big flash a moment ago? If so, then you probably recognize it as the final “AH-HA” moment and light bulb going off over my head.

Please don’t misunderstand me. As I circle back around to Robert Frost’s poem, I don’t see any mention of the traveler NOT having a map. I still feel strongly that any agency that chooses to do business in today’s rough-and-tumble business world without a plan is doomed to wander the woods lost and will likely starve to death.

So, there are a few different sets of cautionary words that emerge from today’s post:

The cause-and-effect nature of our world has a tendency to sweep us away so that we seldom end up backtracking and approaching the same fork in the road again. One decision begets another decision, we get carried away, and oftentimes look back with regret and unable to unwind a series of decisions. So, be thoughtful and intentional
The woods are confusing and a map (e.g. plan) is necessary so that you can improve your chances of making a good decision as your approach the fork in the road; however, you will never know if you are making the right choice until you choose it.
Don’t let the fact that you have a plan fool you into making blind decisions or prevent you from questioning your decisions along the way.

Well, this “O.D. Friday” certainly involved a lot of deep thinking. I blame last night’s Thanksgiving turkey meal. 😉

What do you think about all of this? Has your agency ever had a plan/roadmap, used it to make a difficult choice, and then regretted making that choice? If so, what happened? Since hindsight is 20/20, would you please help others benefit from your experiences and wisdom? Please use the comment box below to share your thoughts. We can all learn from each other.

Here’s to your health!

Does your non-profit really give thanks at Thanksgiving?

November 22, 2012 erik Donor-centered fundraising, Fundraising, volunteers

Let me start off on a positive note by saying Happy Thanksgiving. I am thankful to those of you who subscribe to this blog as well as those who participate in the discussions using the comment box. The last few years have been lean years for the non-profit sector, and I know many of you are thankful for donors, board members, staff, clients, and volunteers. We should all give thanks today as we sit down to enjoy a nice plate of turkey.

Over the last few days, I have been bombarded with stewardship emails, eBlasts, snail-mail, social media posts, text messages, and thank-a-thon calls from various charities and non-profit friends.

If you go back and look at my blog archive, you can see that I am a HUGE fan of these kind of activities. However, I can’t seem to get this one simple thought out of my head this year:

Are we just going through the motions?

Are we conveying heartfelt thanks this way?

I honestly don’t know the answer to these questions. As more and more non-profits engage in these types of stewardship activities, I wonder if they lose their impact and luster? I used to love getting a thank-a-thon call from a charity I support. Now those thank-a-thon messages line up one after another on my voicemail like planes at O’Hare airport.

If board members, staff and donors are part of our “extended non-profit family,” then maybe the test for our stewardship activities should be this simple question: “Is this how I would engage a member of my family?”

For example, would you send you Mom & Dad a Thanksgiving card and be done with it? Maybe some of you would, but I’m guessing many wouldn’t.

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, I used to cook a Thanksgiving dinner for the Boys Scout district for whom I served as their scouting professional. That seemed to feel right to me because it is what I planned on doing with my biological family.

I understand that non-profit organizations cannot host a number of different dinners to give thanks with all of their stakeholder groups. I guess that I am suggesting we need to all be vigilant and mindful that giving thanks should never become a rote activity.

My Thanksgiving recommendations for your consideration are:

Keep doing what you’re doing
Evaluate & critique your efforts afterward
Engage a small group of donors in a post-Thanksgiving Day discussion about what should change with next year’s efforts
Pick-up the phone and call each of your board members and personally say thank you to them one-on-one (no voicemail and no group speech in the board room)
Start thinking about who you might invite to your non-profit family Thanksgiving dinner next year. Host it the week before Thanksgiving 2013. See how it goes and how it feels. You may just like it.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone. Remember that this day can be more than just being thankful. It can be about showing people you’re thankful.

Here’s to your health!

Latest Posts

Evaluating your non-profit board volunteer prospects’ social reach and network

Does your non-profit board use this time to “Take Stock”?

‘Tis the season to put your non-profit organization’s shared values to use

Top Ten Mondays with Marissa Posts – Part One

Use video to help volunteers polish their case for support

Are some Executive Directors deliberately disengaging their non-profit board volunteers?

Tips to improving your charity auction

Robert Frost’s cautionary words for your non-profit agency

Does your non-profit really give thanks at Thanksgiving?