nonprofit – Page 29 – The Healthy Non-Profit

Does your non-profit organization have a culture of philanthropy?

October 28, 2013 erik Fundraising

org culture I love Monday mornings! I wake up, feed the dog and cat, grab a cup of coffee, sit down at my computer and open my email, and most Monday mornings involves watching “Movie Mondays for Fundraising Professionals“. This morning’s video was an interview with Andrea McManus who is the President of The Development Group, a Canadian resource development consulting firm. Within the first 15 seconds of the interview Andrea poses a great question about whether your organization has a “philanthropic culture” or “fundraising culture“.

When I’m conducting a resource development assessment for a client who doesn’t have a strong fundraising program in place, it isn’t uncommon for me to make an observation about the agency lacking a “culture of philanthropy“. When I watched Andrea’s interview this morning, it dawned on me that some of those clients might not have understood what I was driving at.

I love the distinction that Andrea draws in the video. I love even more that she takes the time to share with viewers the nine signs of a strong philanthropic culture.

Do you know what those nine signs are? Does your organization exhibit those nine signs?

OK, I have a confession to make. When I look for philanthropic culture, I use the less formal “smell test,” which is akin to sniffing what is in a Tupperware container in the refrigerator to determine whether or not it is still safe to eat leftovers. Essentially, I knew it when I saw it and experienced it. So, when Andrea said she was going to share her nine signs of a philanthropic culture with viewers this morning, I settled in and prepared to watch the entire 15 minute video.

I highly recommend that you take a moment to watch “9 Signs of a Strong Philanthropic Culture“.

To help whet your appetite, here are three of Andrea’s nine signs:

Your board and agency leadership know how to spell “philanthropy” (While her tongue is planted firmly in her cheek, she makes a great point when talking about this sign.)
Organizational leadership (both board and staff) understand the difference between philanthropy, development, and fundraising.
When a donor calls the main phone line, the person answering the phone knows exactly what to do with that call. They know where to send those calls. They also recognize the importance of that person and treats them as such.

There are six other even more amazing signs. Aren’t you even a little curious? Click here to check-out Andrea’s interview and discover those six other signs.

I’m going to end today’s blog with the same question Andrea poses at the end of her video. What other things (aka signs) do you look for when assessing whether or not a non-profit agency possesses a philanthropic culture? Even more important, how are you trying to instill these things into your organizational culture? Please share one or two of those things in the comment box below.

Here’s to your health!

Erik Anderson
Founder & President, The Healthy Non-Profit LLC
www.thehealthynonprofit.com
erik@thehealthynonprofit.com
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Will you know when it is your time to leave and how to do so gracefully?

October 25, 2013 erik leadership, organizational development, Planning

Welcome to O.D. Fridays at DonorDreams blog. For the last few years, we’ve looked at posts from John Greco’s blog called “johnponders ~ about life at work, mostly” and applied his organizational development messages to the non-profit community. For the foreseeable future, John is taking a break from blogging and our Friday organizational development blog series will morph into something else. Stay tuned!

In this week’s post titled “Your Stage Now,” John announces to the world that he needs a break from blogging. He simply tells us that he is going on hiatus, and he isn’t sure if and when he will start-up again. In the meantime, he invites everyone to use his blog platform to share their organizational development stories.

After shaking off the suddenness of this announcement, John’s post reminded me of a time when I was an executive director working for a local non-profit organization. During that time, it wasn’t uncommon for the following three questions to visit me like the ghosts of Christmas past, present and future:

Will this board meeting be my last? Is this the meeting when my board will ask me to leave?
Will I know when it is time for me to go? Will I be able to leave or will I be asked to leave?
When it is my time to go, will I be able to fade from the stage with grace?

Yes, those six years of my life were filled with anxiety and stress. No, I was not fired. In fact, I like to think I did a nice job. I did leave on my terms, and I think I left gracefully.

John’s post this morning brought all of those memories flooding back mostly because he exited the stage with class, dignity and grace. His post also reminded me of how many non-profit professionals (and even board volunteers) I’ve seen throughout the years who are completely and utterly unprepared for this moment. It is as if they never contemplated the possibility and it crept up on them like a stealthy cat.

the end2 Here are just a few examples of what those situations looked like:

The board terminating their executive director due to performance issues.
The non-profit professional deciding it was time for a change, which usually meant they were leaving for greener pastures (or so they thought).
The executive director resigning because a BIG issue was about to bite them in the butt, and they would rather pull the pin on the grenade instead of being shot by the board.
The fundraising professional being squeezed out as a result of a new boss being hired with new priorities in the middle of a re-org and shake-up.
A non-profit professional suddenly realizing that it is time to retire and move into their golden years.
A board president quitting suddenly because their child is no longer involved in the agency.

Upon leaving the stage, I’ve seen lots of good and lots of bad. I’m sure you have, too, Sometimes people just run away and hide. Other times, I’ve seen the big hook used to pull that person off of the stage. The following are just a few things that I’ve seen and heard that make me cringe:

I’ve heard executive directors and fundraising professionals assuring donors, volunteers and board members that everything will be OK after they leave. (This feels pretentious and always leaves me wondering if they have doubts that everything is going to actually be OK.)
I’ve heard bad mouthing and airing of grievances. (This looks cowardly and spiteful.)
I’ve seen people simply take their hands off of the wheel in their final days and weeks on the job. (This looks reckless.)

You’re probably thinking that in these situations those were “bad people“. The reality is that I’ve seen both poor professionals and iconic professionals do things like this. I’ve also seen volunteers who I revere accidentally step into some of these pitfalls.

the end3 The definition of the word “grace” according to a Google search is: “simple elegance or refinement of movement“.

The previous bullet points are not good examples of “grace“. However, when I think about myself, I know that I am not a naturally graceful person, which is probably why I obsessed about “the end” and felt the need to think through and plan my exit. (Yes, I recognize that I have control issues and I am working with my counselor to address this. LOL!)

While I encourage you to not obsess (like I did) over what the end will look like, I think it is healthy to contemplate it from time-to-time. And when the end does finally come, I think it is responsible to put a thoughtful plan in place to ensure a graceful exit with a smooth transition.

The following are just a variety of different links and resource that I think you might find useful:

Key Corporate Services blog: “How to Resign From a Job With Grace“
Personal Branding Blog: “5 Steps To Quitting Your Job With Grace“
Foundation Center: “Succession Planning for Nonprofit Organizations: A Resource List“
The Annie E. Casey Foundation: “Building Leaderful Organizations: Succession Planning For Nonprofits“

Do you have any tips or tricks for how to exit the big stage with grace? Do you have a story about a fellow co-worker or board volunteer who left in a less than perfect way? If so, what could they have done differently to make it a better departure? Please use the comment box below to share your thoughts and experiences. We can all learn from each other.

On a personal note, I want to thank John Greco for providing the DonorDreams blog readers with countless “Organizational Development Fridays” over the years. I wish him a restful break and hope he comes back to the blogosphere when he is ready because the world is better place when he is blogging and sharing his perspective on how to grow our organizational capacity and manage change.

Here’s to your health!

What don’t you know about your non-profit D&O insurance policy?

October 24, 2013 erik Board governance

insurance1 Just the other day a friend started talking with me about non-profit directors and officers (D&O) insurance. During the course of that conversation, all sorts of things were discussed and at one point I made a mental note to do a little research. Having just finished my homework, I honestly can say that I completely understand why people don’t like insurance companies — this stuff is complicated.

Let me begin by saying to all of my insurance friends out there . . . I love you. I understand the importance insurance. This will not turn into a rant against you or your employers. I promise!

Next let me suggest to all of my non-profit friends — volunteers and professional staff — that you need to be very careful when it comes to D&O insurance. As I’ve just been reminded by Googling around, the devil is in the details.

Here is some of what I learned . . .

Confusing coverage

I didn’t know until a few hours ago that D&O insurance policies are NOT standardized. In other words, what one company covers in their D&O policy may not be covered in another company’s D&O policy.

To make matters even worse, D&O policies don’t really affirmatively list what is covered. In my experience, just saying that the policy covers “wrongful acts” usually results in board members using their imagination. This is where the trouble starts.

Some of the best advise I read online when researching this topic was:

Read the definitions section of the policy
Read the exclusions section of the policy

By understanding “what is what” and “what isn’t what,” you can get a better picture of what your actual coverage looks like.

Typical exclusions

insurance2 The list is long, but the following things are typically excluded from the average D&O insurance policy:

Bodily injury (General Liability)
Property damage (General Liability)
Professional services (Malpractice)
Handling Funds (Fidelity, Bond)
Nuclear radiation, pollution damage
Illegal acts
Dishonest acts
Intentional misconduct
Punitive damages
Fines, penalties and matters uninsurable by law
Failure to obtain adequate insurance
Contract claims
Employee retirement income security act (ERISA)
Antitrust, price-fixing, restraint of trade
Peer review, standard setting
Credentialing, certification
Discrimination
Sexual misconduct
“Insured versus insured”
Injunctions/no pecuniary suits

I found this list in a document published by the Ohio Youth Soccer Association North (OYSAN), which was at one time part of a larger handbook published by the Nonprofits’ Risk Management and Insurance Institute.

If you find yourself saying “Hey, but I need coverage for those things,” then don’t worry because your insurance company is more than willing to sell you other policies to cover those things. 😉

When you assume . . .

You know how this expression ends, and it is very applicable to what most board members do when it comes to D&O insurance.

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away . . . a friend of mine was the board president for a non-profit organization that went out-of-business. As the board started down the long, sad path of winding things down, the following facts were discovered:

the executive director hadn’t paid payroll taxes in three quarters
there wasn’t enough money in the bank to pay the final payroll
many vendors hadn’t been paid in full for their products or services

To make a long story short, Uncle Sam always gets his, and you must pay your employees. These things aren’t covered by D&O insurance (in fact, as I recall, the executive director also forgot to pay the D&O insurance premium). In the end, board volunteers were forced to write a number of big checks and those who couldn’t had a lein placed on their house by the IRS.

Ouch!

Best practices?

insurance3 I shared some of my research with a group of amazing non-profit consultants tonight. The consensus of this group of very smart people was that board volunteers never ask the hard questions about their D&O insurance policies until it is too late.

This prompted me to ask the obvious question, “What are some best practices that non-profit boards should follow?” Here is what they said:

Once a year in a board meeting, time should be set aside to review policies and coverages with an opportunity for Q&A.
Boards should pay for a lawyer, who isn’t a board member and who specializes in risk assessment, to review your policies and inform the board about their gaps.
Engage an insurance broker who can help you shop policies and tailor the search to your needs.

Yes, insurance can be boring and board volunteers may not want to do this every year, but the angels of our better nature must prevail. Failure to do the right thing when it comes to D&O insurance and other insurance coverage all too often results in tragedy and hardship for the organization and board volunteers.

What is your organization’s process for renewing insurance policies? How do you educate board members about your agency’s gaps and their risk and exposure? Please use the comment box below to share your thoughts and experiences.

Here’s to your health!

Does your non-profit practice data sharing?

October 23, 2013 erik Fundraising

data1 Last week I was in Reno, Nevada at Boys & Girls Clubs of America’s (BGCA) Pacific Leadership Conference. This week I am in Mashantucket, Connecticut at BGCA’s Northeast Leadership Conference. The common denominator is that I am helping organize and facilitate a training track for executive directors and school superintendents. One of the sessions in the training track addresses the issue of data sharing, and I thought it would be a good topic to discuss today with DonorDreams readers.

Why include this topic in a training track focused on collaboration? Because data sharing is an important part of developing any successful partnership.

In the Boys & Girls Club universe, schools and Clubs share data with each other for a number if reasons including:

It is a way to measure success.
It is a way to improve programs.
It is a way to demonstrate ROI to donors.

Of course, if sharing data was easy, everyone would be doing it. Here are a few obstacles participants identified:

Time
Limited staff
Untrained staff
Lack of reasons for needing specific data
Client privacy
Trust

data2 The following are just a few key strategies identified by participants that will help any non-profit organization sustain data sharing agreements with its partners:

Develop a memorandum of understanding (MOU) clearly spelling out roles and responsibilities.
Seek to understand your partner first before seeking to be understood.
Have a reason for needing the data for which you are asking.
Be mission-driven and focused when it comes to your partnerships and data needs.
Regularly scheduled meetings are communication opportunities.
Make data sharing part of your non-profit culture.
Use the data for which you’re asking and share the aggregated results with your partners.
Use the data for which you’re asking to make important decisions thus demonstrating the importance of it to all stakeholders both internal and external.
Have your data analysis plan written and in place before you collect the data because collecting data for the sake of collecting data is frustrating and stupid.

The following are a few great online resources pertaining to data collection, sharing and usage:

NTEN: “The State of Nonprofit Data“
NTEN: “Nonprofit-Centric Data Sharing Sites
Beth’s Blog: “Liberating Nonprofit Data for Greater Impact“
Spinnakr Blog: “Is Big Data Changing the Scope of Nonprofits?“

I walked away from the three different symposiums that I helped organize and facilitate this month with the following big take away:

If you want to measure the depth and strength of your collaboration, then look at your data sharing efforts.

What does your data sharing efforts with other partners look like? What best practices and key strategies can you share with others? If you don’t share data with your collaborative partners, would you be willing to share with us why not?

Please use the comment box below to share your thoughts and experiences. We can all learn from each other.

Here’s to your health!

A recipe for securing major gifts

October 22, 2013 erik Fundraising

recipe When I was an internal consultant working for Boys & Girls Clubs of America (BGCA), my team was charged with helping local affiliates build their organizational capacity around resource development. In the beginning, there were two sides of our team — annual campaign support and planned giving support. As time passed, our team focused on creating a third vehicle of service — major gifts.

Over the last few years, there have been a number of consultants hired to help develop the pilot project and then ultimately the help with the roll out. Lots of thought went into developing BGCA’s major gifts initiative.

As you can imagine, there is great diversity among local affiliates. Some Clubs are very large and capable, and many others are small and still developing. With this in mind, my former team preferred to develop programs that involved taking simple steps. This approach was the easiest way to ensure all local affiliates regardless of their size and capacity were able to implement any fundraising program.

The following are the 10 steps my team advocated for when teaching others how to secure a major gift:

Develop your internal case for support and menu of gift opportunities
Identify top ‘ready to give’ major gift prospects
Assemble your cultivation team
Develop confidential personal strategy plan(s)
Implement specific personal strategy(ies)
Monitor progress and modify plan(s) as needed
Ask prospect for permission to develop specific proposal(s)
Present proposal in person; modify proposal if needed
Finalize gift when donor is ready
Thank and recognize donor as appropriate

For those of you who think I’ve given away major trade secrets or violated copyright laws, I assure you that I have not.

Of course, I checked the manual for copyright warnings and there were none. The reason being is that these 10 steps are part of the public domain and are common knowledge. Spend a few minutes on Google and you’ll find any number of bloggers and traditional authors who’ve published similar lists.

When I look at this list, I think of any number of recipes that I might find online or in my mom’s old cookbooks. These 10 items are akin to simple ingredients on a recipe card for a yummy dish.

Of course, there will likely be a HUGE difference between me making a recipe and the Barefoot Contessa (aka Ina Garten) making the same dish. I suspect there will be huge differences in results between small and large non-profit organizations. In my opinion, here are just a few things that will make a difference:

how well your donors are being stewarded and depth of relationships
experience of fundraising staff
experience and relationships of fundraising volunteers
resource development systems (e.g. donor database or CRM, Moves Management program, etc)

When Claire published her call for submissions for October’s Nonprofit Blog Carival, she asked her fellow bloggers with tongue firmly planted in the side of her Halloween cheek to consider:

“Do you HAUNT prospects through a series of managed ‘moves’? Do you fly in on a BROOMSTICK and just drop in spontaneously? How do you put them under your SPELL?”

I love these questions. Those of you who regularly tune into the DonorDreams blog know how much I talk about stewardship. I honestly think it is the key to developing relationships and cultivating major gift donors down the road. The following are just a few of my favorite stewardship focused posts over the years:

Does your organization use a similar major gifts “recipe” as the one I shared from my former employer? If so, what steps do you think are the most important? Do you find particular cultivation and stewardship strategies more effective than others? Please scroll down and share your thoughts and experiences in the comment box below. We can all learn from each other.

Here’s to your health!

Have you discovered non-profit radio yet?

October 21, 2013 erik technology

radio I don’t know about you, but radio plays an important role in my life. I used to live in my car traveling from client-to-client throughout the Midwest when I was an internal consultant. After opening my own consulting practice, I now travel much shorter distances, but I still spend a decent amount of time in my car. So, the radio is where I turn for a decent amount of news and entertainment, especially when I’m on the road. However, when I’m at home I don’t listen as much because I don’t get very good reception in the house, which is why I was so elated the other day when I discovered the Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio online.

On Fridays from 1:00 to 2:00 pm (eastern time), Tony broadcasts his show online and focuses on non-profit topics that will excite many non-profit professionals and board volunteers who read this blog. Here are just a few topics from the last month:

Click here if you want to check out the last 100 radio shows by Tony in the iTunes store. They are free to download.

You’re probably asking yourself, “Who is this Martignetti guy?”

In a nutshell, Tony started his work with non-profit organizations 16-years ago in 1997 as a planned giving officer. He created the planned giving programs for Iona College and St. John’s University. Along the way, he obviously spun off and created his own consulting practice. For more about Tony, you can click here to view his extensive profile.

I suspect that I will start tuning in on Fridays when I’m sitting at my desk and not on the road working with a client.

I need your help

This online radio show is one of many different sources for non-profit news, information and best practices. Here is where I get much of my information on a variety of non-profit subjects:

Blogs
LinkedIn
Google
eNewsletters from other consultants and thought-leaders
Old manuals and books
Conferences and in-person training events
Webinars

What about you? Where are you getting most of your information on non-profit best practices?

I am trying to update the DonorDreams blogroll, and I am taking suggestions from readers on what to add to this section of the blog. Please scroll down and share your thoughts and ideas. Please remember to also share the web address so I can include a link to it.

Here’s to your health!

Larkin Center evolves for 117 years, and then it ceases to exist

October 18, 2013 erik leadership, organizational development

Welcome to O.D. Fridays at DonorDreams blog. Every Friday for the foreseeable future we will be looking at posts 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 post titled “Survival Is Not Mandatory,” John talks about how change is occurring all around us all of the time. Organizations need to make the decision to adapt to those changes or risk going out of business.

On Wednesday afternoon, I received the following email in my inbox from a local non-profit organization with whom I’ve worked with and supported over the last 13 years.

A Farewell Thank You to Larkin Center Supporters

The Larkin Center has been a valuable part of the Elgin area for over 117 years. Unfortunately, the Center has experienced financial challenges at a time when demand for its services has increased. We have been in discussions with several strategic partners over the last 18 months to secure the long-term future of the Center.

As of last Friday, the effort collapsed and we are working with appropriate state agencies to transfer contracts and transition our clients as a result, it saddens us to announce that the Center will no longer be able to sustain itself after Friday, October 18, 2013.

The Larkin Center clients and staff would like to thank the many individuals and organizations that have supported our mission throughout the years and have truly made a difference in the lives of our clients.

Larkin Center has adapted to all of the changes throughout the years. They were founded more than 100 years ago as an orphanage. Over the course of time, orphanages disappeared from our communities, and Larkin Center evolved into an agency offering residential services to children who had trouble surviving in a state-run foster care system.

larkin4 As the years passed, Larkin Center added more services including a school for children struggling with behavior disorders and counseling services for adults.

It is obvious to me that Larkin Center’s staff and board understood that “survival is not mandatory,” which is why they kept evolving and changing with the times. I think it is this realization that makes this closure so difficult to swallow.

Is it possible that there comes a time when adapting to change and evolving is not possible? Do organizations have a life span much like human beings?

The sadness of this moment makes it impossible for me to go down this road and contemplate the answers to these questions.

Instead, I want to celebrate. That’s right. You heard me correctly.

larkin1 There will be lots of news coverage about the “failure“. Many people will weigh-in with what they think went wrong and what could’ve and should’ve been done differently. There might even be a victory lap taken by a few Elgin city council members who openly fought with Larkin Center because they didn’t think “those kids” belonged in our community.

I won’t touch any of these topics with a ten foot pole. At least not today.

Instead, I urge all of you to take a moment to think about the heroes who fought to the very end to save Larkin Center.

When I think about the countless number of volunteer hours invested in strategic planning and exploring merger possibilities over the last 18 months, I want to honor those efforts.

When I think about the Larkin Center staff who persevered through furloughs and late paychecks because they believed in saving this agency’s mission, I want to honor those efforts.

larkin3 When I think about the donors who invested in efforts to save this organization in the final months and years of its life, I want to honor those efforts.

When I think about the tens of thousands of children and adults (if not more), whose lives were touched and changed by Larkin Center, I want to honor those efforts.

There will be plenty of time to dissect what happened and learn lessons from Larkin Center, but please join me in honoring the accomplishments and hard work of so many people.

Sigh! As always, John is right . . . “Survival is not mandatory.” But it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t celebrate 117 years of evolution and the will to survive.

You can join me in remembering Larkin Center and honoring the organization, its accomplishments and its volunteers and staff members by recalling a memory and sharing it in the comment box below.

Here’s to your health (and continued evolution)!

Does your non-profit use shiny objects?

October 17, 2013 erik Uncategorized

IMG_20131016_135643_455 As I said in an earlier post this week, I am currently in Reno, Nevada at Boys & Girls Clubs of America’s Pacific Leadership Conference. The conference is being held at Silver Legacy Resort & Casino. Of course, in order to get from the hotel to the conference sessions, you need to walk through the casino where you are bombarded by all sorts of “shiny objects”.

By shiny objects, I mean:

Slot machines
Bars
Blaring music & P.A. announcements
Gaming tables with dealers
Alarm bells announcing winners
Restaurants and delicious smelling food
Distracting blinking lights
Interesting decorations

I literally found my eyes darting all over the place. I’m not a gambler, but I was definitely tuned in and engaged with what was going on all around me.

When you consider how much money casinos make, it is hard to argue with all of these shiny object tactics.

As I sat in my exhibitor booth, I kept watching the salesperson at Markel Insurance spinning a “Wheel of Fortune” type of prop. As the minutes and hours ticked by slowly, I couldn’t help focus in on how this wheel worked its charm on conference attendees. Someone could be wandering by the Markel booth with no intention of stopping, but the moment that wheel started clicking and whirling people stopped to pay attention.

Shiny objects . . . human being like them. A LOT!

All of this got me thinking . . .

What types of shiny objects do non-profit organizations use to capture the attention of donors, clients, and volunteers?

IMG_20131016_135832_525 In an effort to make the time pass more quickly, I started making a list. Admittedly, I started thinking way outside of the box, but here is some of what I came up with:

newsletters
websites
Facebook pages
Twitter feeds
Various other social media platforms (e.g. Pinterest, LinkedIn, etc)
Texting
Newspaper stories (e.g. earned media)
Newspaper advertising (e.g. public service announcements)
Outdoor advertising (e.g. billboard)
Cable advertising
Phone calls to donors
Announced challenge gifts
Radio ads
Special event fundraisers
Press conferences
Town hall meetings
Constant Contact e-blasts
Online advertising (e.g. Google ads, Facebook ads, etc)
Sending your executive director out in public (e.g. speaking at city council, Rotary meetings, etc)
Hosting small cultivation or stewardship events in board members living rooms
Direct mail
Health and community service fares
Cause related marketing campaigns

I suspect the list could probably go on and on and on.

As I stepped back and started contemplating how many shiny objects I had identified, I suddenly realized the problem with the road I was walking down.

The casino throws their shiny objects at their customers all at once. It is like an amazing fireworks finale that never stops. Most of the non-profits I could think of that do messaging well, use an eyedropper to carefully measure out their marketing efforts.

I am hard pressed to think of many examples of cross-channel messaging by a non-profit organization. The few that come to mind might used two or three different channels to cross promote their message. For example, a year-end direct mail appeal referencing a website address along with volunteers following up with a phone call solicitation.

This is not exactly comparable to my experience at the Silver Legacy Resort & Casino this week.

Let me end this post by asking for your help:

Please help me add to my laundry list of shiny objects used by non-profit organizations.
Please highlight communications efforts that utilize more than a few channels to engage supporters.
Please weigh-in with your suggestions on how non-profits can get better at lighting up the world around them.

You can share your thoughts and experience by using the comment box below. Why? Because we can all learn from each other.

Here’s to your health! (Enjoy additional pictures I’ve included from the conference that I’ve pasted into this post below my signature block)

IMG_20131016_135942_889 IMG_20131016_135741_658

IMG_20131016_135921_679 IMG_20131016_135603_946 IMG_20131016_135814_197

Does your non-profit have an ‘Abs of Steel’ conference strategy?

October 14, 2013 erik Uncategorized

abs1 The month of October is brutal for me this year. On top of working with my existing client base, I am attending three different conferences in three different regions to help another client with implementation of a specific training track aimed at executive directors and school superintendents. As I attend these conferences, I see non-profit professionals hopping from session-to-session and find myself wondering, “What is their conference strategy?”

When I was an executive director, I loved attending conferences and trainings. It felt like I was nurturing the inner non-profit professional inside of me. However, after a few years on the job, I found an entire bookshelf in my office full of conference materials and notes. I wasn’t using them. I wasn’t referencing back to them. They were just gathering dust.

The analogy I use to describe this useless activity involves the popular “Abs of Steel” workout DVD, and it goes something like this:

For those of you who know me, you know that I do not possess abs of steel. In fact, I don’t possess anything of steel anywhere on my body. So, if I went to the mall and purchased an Abs of Steel workout DVD, some people might consider that a step in the right direction. This is akin to you deciding to attend a conference or training session.

However, if I came home with my new Abs of Steel workout DVD, popped a tub of buttery popcorn, and watched the DVD while sitting on the couch and eating that popcorn, I would be no closer to my goal of obtaining abs of steel. This is akin to you attending a conference, coming home with a bunch of notes and materials, and putting them on your shelf to collect dust.

The reality of the situation is that you need to do the exercises on the workout DVD in order to achieve the desired result. Of course, the same is true with what you learn at the conference. When you get home, you need to turn your new-found knowledge into action. The act of doing what you learned will build your organizational muscles and grow your organizational capacity.

So, what is your conference abs of steel strategy? Do you have one?

todolist After a few years of proverbially eating popcorn on the couch after attending conferences and trainings, I decided to do something different. My strategy was simple. Rather than taking notes on what the trainer was saying, I only wrote down action items that came to mind while listening to the speaker.

These were things I planned to transfer to my To Do List when I got home.

I decided that I didn’t need to write down what the trainer was saying because they were most likely handing out copies of their PowerPoint presentation along with a dump truck of materials. Besides, those notes were no good to me if they were just going to sit on my book shelf and collect dust. Right?

I’ll admit that this strategy didn’t always work perfectly. Oftentimes, I’d get home from a conference and my desk was piled high and my To Do List was long. Nevertheless, I found this strategy to be better than the previous one and so I kept it.

I personally liked the “action-focus” of what I was trying to accomplish.

As I facilitate my sessions and sit in my exhibitor booth during the month of October, I can’t help but wonder what are other people’s conference strategies. Are you popping popcorn or are you doing something else? Are you building your organizational muscles or are you just making yourself feel better because you now own the transformational resource?

Please scroll down to the comment box below and share your conference and training strategies. We can all learn from each other.

Here’s to your health!

Are you addressing symptoms or root causes of your agency’s distress?

October 11, 2013 erik organizational development

In a post titled “Baffling,” John talks about a situation where a CEO was not up for the cultural change in his company. Instead of addressing the real issues, the CEO tried to deal with symptoms rather than the root cause of his employee morale challenges.

Reading John’s post this morning, I am reminded of how many non-profit organizations do the same thing.

We offer employees more in benefits (e.g. extra vacation days) rather than addressing the obvious wage disparity that exists between many non-profits and for-profits.
We offer donors more facts and figures about program outputs rather than demonstrating true outcomes and sharing stories about how our programs have been transformational to those we serve.
We engage in strategic planning and focus on strategies/tactics/action rather than looking deep within our organizations and tackling cultural issues first.

Is your agency engaged in this type of activity right now? If so, here are a few previous posts you may find useful:

DonorDreams: “Mmmmm … strategy for breakfast again?”
johnponders: “Making Breakfast“
The Bridgespan Group: “Four Actions Nonprofit Leaders Can Take to Transform Organizational Culture“

A few quick tips to consider:

Who you have on your bus is important (It always comes back to Jim Collins for me). A strategic plan won’t help you if you have the wrong people on the bus and sitting around your boardroom and staff meeting tables.
The biggest difference between for-profit and non-profit organizations can be summed up in one word — “MISSION“. Doubling down on mission-focus activities and messaging might help you when organizational culture becomes an issue.
Leadership means making tough decisions. It does not mean compromising to make everyone happy.

Are you currently facing an issue dealing with organizational culture? How are you addressing it? Did you read John’s post? What do you think the CEO in that story should’ve done differently? Please use the comment box below to share your thoughts and experiences.

Here’s to your health!