You need to dance with the person who brought you

September 20, 2016 erik Board development

board of directors3 There is an old expression that says, “You need to dance with the person who brought you to the prom.” It essentially means you need to work with the person who got you where you’re at today in spite of the circumstances. When I think of this in terms of volunteer management (e.g. your board members and fundraising volunteers), it means you need to get the job done with those who you recruited.
The implication of this interpretation is that your organization is only as effective as those who you recruited to do the work that needs to be accomplished (e.g. raising the necessary funds, governing the organization, etc). So, you need to be very careful at the beginning of any recruitment process and pay special attention during the identification and recruitment process to the traits, characteristics, skills and experiences that an effective volunteer will need for the organization to be successful in whatever it is trying to accomplish.
This begs the question . . . what is the difference between traits, characteristics, skills and experiences?

A trait is something someone inherits or is born with
A characteristic (e.g. quality) is something that describes someone
A skill is something that someone has learned
An experience is something someone has experienced

When I think of traits I’ve seen effective non-profit board members exhibit, I think of things such as:

Detailed-oriented
Focus
Collaborative / Team-oriented
Confident
Communicator
Decision-oriented
Optimistic
Accountable

Characteristics of effective board members in my opinion include someone who is:

Mission-focused and passionate about what you do
Eager to participate and ask questions
A life-long learner
Willing to contribute their time, talent and financial resources to your organization
Socially engaged in the community with a large circle of friends and influence

When I think about skill sets, there are are many different ones that need to be present around your boardroom table, which is why diversity is so important. In other words, you won’t find people who possess ALL of the skills you need. The following are some of the skills you need to make sure find their way into your boardroom:

Accounting & financial management
Marketing & promotion
Planning
Sales, resource development, fundraising
Insurance & risk management
Facility management
Assessment and evaluation
Human resources
Organizational development
Management

Experience is a tricky consideration because you should be looking for individuals who have had successful experiences not just any experience. When I was in the business of identifying board volunteers, I looked for people who had successfully:

Served on other boards
Participated in fundraising activities
Worked well with other people in team environments
Managed other people
Thrived in situations with deadlines and urgency
Managed their time
Been entrepreneurial and grown their own business

If I’ve seen it once, I’ve seen it often where non-profit volunteers look at their social networks and asked others to get involved based on the likelihood of getting a YES regardless of whether that person possessed many of the traits, characteristics, skills and experiences necessary for success.
This is usually a recipe for disaster because “you need to dance with the person who brought you.” Essentially, if you recruit the people lacking what you need to help govern your organization or raise money to operationalize your mission, it is next to impossible to make quick wholesale changes, which likely locks you into an undesirable outcome.
How does your organization integrate the aforementioned traits, characteristics, skills and experiences into a prospect identification, evaluation and recruitment process? What specific tools have you used that you found helpful? Are their any specific traits, characteristics, skills and experiences that I missed that you would add to the list?
Please use the comment box below to share your thoughts and experiences. We can all learn from each other.
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

Advice to my younger-fundraising-self about delegation and collaboration

April 14, 2016 erik Fundraising, teambuilding

This month DonorDreams is hosting the nationally acclaimed Nonprofit Blog Carnival, and this month’s theme is: “If you could go back in time and give your younger-fundraising-self one piece of advice, what would it be?” As I’ve done each of the last three year’s when I’ve hosted the carnival, I plan on focusing this month’s DonorDreams blog posts on the topic as a way to help inspire other non-profit bloggers to submit posts for consideration. The April 2016 Nonprofit Blog Carnival is scheduled to go live on Thursday, April 28, 2016. So, mark your calendars because you won’t want to miss what other non-profit bloggers have to say on this topic.
Today’s time machine post involves a younger me who learned valuable lessons about how not to delegate and collaborate with others. Enjoy!

I am embarrassed to admit how many times I made the same mistake before finally learning how to effectively delegate and collaborate. In the following two sections, I will share examples where my younger-fundraising-self goofed up. In the final section, I will share with you what I’d tell my younger-self if I could go back in time with a few pieces of advice.
Annual campaign management
is anyone out there As a young Boy Scout professional in the 1990s, I was just starting to learn may way around fundraising principles and best practices. While I previously had helped out with a few special events and written a grant proposal for another organization, I never helped plan-organize-implement an annual campaign pledge drive, which is what I was being asked to do with a group of Friends of Scouting (FOS) volunteer within my district.
With the help of the council’s Finance Director, I easily plowed through the early deadlines in my backdating plan. I nailed the pre-campaign tasks such as volunteer recruitment, setting FOS unit presentation dates, identifying community donor prospects, running pledge cards, goal setting, etc. I remember thinking early on how easy it all seemed.
And then the official “kickoff meeting” happened . . .
All of my volunteers gathered before work for an early morning meeting I sold as the “FOS Kickoff”. For slightly more than an hour over coffee and donuts, I walked my team of fundraising volunteers through training, review of materials, and even prospect assignment exercises. Everyone walked away from that meeting knowing the who, what, where, when and why.
Or so I thought.
Four weeks after the kickoff, nothing was happening. The signed pledge cards weren’t coming back to me with pledge amounts. Six weeks passed . . . still nothing was occurring and no one was returning my phone calls. Finally, I started panicking at the eight week mark because there was only one month remaining before the end of the campaign. It didn’t look like we’d come anywhere close to hitting our overall goal.
What I didn’t understand was that while I might have delegated all of those fundraising solicitations to volunteers, I still owned all of those tasks even though someone else had agreed to do them.
Grant reporting
deadline Fast forward a number of years into the future when I was a first-time executive director for a Boys & Girls Club.
After the resource development director, who I had inherited from the previous CEO, had resigned, I hired a replacement who had good pledge drive and event planning skills. Unfortunately, he lacked grant writing experience. I quickly concluded that I was the organization’s best writer, and I took over grant writing responsibilities.
As a former newspaper editor in a previous life, I knew how to write and took to grant writing like a baby duck takes to water. In short order, I fell into the routine of “research, cultivate, write” (aka rinse, later, repeat). And when we received funding, I turned everything over to one of my direct reports who was responsible for operations.
Whenever I handed over a grant, I always sat down with the operations director and reviewed the grant deliverables. I clearly explained what needed to be done (e.g. hiring, program planning, scheduling, kid recruiting, program promotion, outcomes measurement, etc). I also shared reporting deadlines from the funding partner.
As with the aforementioned annual campaign story, I walked away from those meetings knowing the who, what, where, when and why were as clear as possible. Everyone knew what needed to happen and by when.
Or so I thought.
I’ll never forget the first time a funder called me asking where our close-out report was and why we had missed the last few quarterly deadlines.
Even though it had been a few years between the lesson I had learned with my annual campaign volunteers and the staff supervision story pertaining to grant management and reporting, I still had obviously not learned the simple truism that delegating action items doesn’t mean I’m allowed to wash my hands of them.
Where is that time machine when you really need it?
Sometimes when I daydream, I see myself standing outside my house in the street with Dr. Emmitt Brown (aka Christopher Lloyd’s character in Back to the Future), waiting for the lighting storm so I can jump into that DeLorean Time Machine. I know exactly where in the past I would first point myself.
It would be either immediately before my first FOS annual campaign kickoff meeting. Or it would be right before one of the staff meetings when I handed off grant materials to the operations director. <sigh>
I also know exactly what I’d say to my younger-fundraising-self if I had the opportunity:

Never remove deadlines from your calendar even though you might delegated reporting to others
Use your Microsoft Outlook task list and set future reminders to yourself about checking-in with employees who were tasked with reporting
Include campaign goal amounts + deadlines + meeting dates/times in the campaign volunteer description to help set expectations during the recruitment process in order to help volunteers determine whether or not they are able to do what you’re asking them to do
Schedule in-person “report meetings” every few weeks throughout the annual campaign where volunteers are asked to share their progress (or lack thereof) with each other
Email campaign reports illustrating how the overall campaign is performing as well as how individuals are doing compared to each other

<Sigh> If I only knew then what I know now. 😉

If you are a non-profit blogger who wants to participate in this month’s Nonprofit Blog Carnival and submit a post for consideration on this month’s carnival theme, click here to read the “call for submissions” post I published last week. It should answer all of your questions and clearly explain how to submit your entry. If not, then simply email me and I’ll be happy to help.
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

Are You the Future of Philanthropy? Meet Dan Rich

May 21, 2015 erik Uncategorized

For the third year in a row, DonorDreams is proud to be hosting the Nonprofit Blog Carnival in May. On May 4, 2015, we published a call for submissions from non-profit bloggers across the blogosphere on the topic of “You are the future of philanthropy,” which stems from a 2007 TED Talks video presentation by Katherine Fulton. I asked bloggers to pontificate on any number of topics including the democratization of philanthropy, aggregated giving, social investing, and much more. If you are a blogger looking for more details, click here to read the May 4th call for submissions.
We will publish the May 2015 Nonprofit Blog Carnival on May 28, 2015 right here on the DonorDreams blog platform.
In addition to whipping the blogosphere up into a frenzy, we are dedicating our Tuesday and Thursday DonorDreams posts throughout May to people involved in local philanthropy. We’re videotaping donors, volunteers and non-profit professionals and asking them to answer the following question posed by Katherine Fulton at the end of her TED Talks presentation:

“Imagine 100 years from now and your grandchildren are looking at an old picture of you. What is the story? What impact did you want to have on the community around you? What impact did you make?”

Meet Dan Rich
Dan helps people . . . period. And he is “philanthropic” in many ways including his career path, his volunteer choices, and his charitable giving.
As the City of Elgin’s Public Works Superintendent, Dan’s work is people-centered. His work and the work of his team represents an investment in community every single day. When it snows, they clear the roads so the rest of us can get to work and help other people. When a water main breaks, they fix it. When the streets crumble and decay, they patch it.
President John F. Kennedy cast public service in a philanthropic light when he said the following in his 1961 State of the Union speech:

“I have pledged myself and my colleagues in the cabinet to a continuous encouragement of initiative, responsibility and energy in serving the public interest. Let every public servant know, whether his post is high or low, that a man’s rank and reputation in this Administration will be determined by the size of the job he does, and not by the size of his staff, his office or his budget. Let it be clear that this Administration recognizes the value of dissent and daring — that we greet healthy controversy as the hallmark of healthy change. Let the public service be a proud and lively career. And let every man and woman who works in any area of our national government, in any branch, at any level, be able to say with pride and with honor in future years: ‘I served the United States Government in that hour of our nation’s need.'”

Of course, Dan is much more than a public servant, and his philanthropic work is varied, deep and wide. The following is a brief summary of some of his contributions to the community:

When Dan was on the front line of the public works department, he volunteered as an executive officer of the local SEIU union chapter.
When Dan was confronted with an unfairness in his daughters school district, he ran for school board, won a seat and served.
Dan once sat on his local United Way board of directors, and he is currently a board volunteer for the Boys & Girls Club. In addition to attending board meetings, he has volunteered his time to work with kids after-school
Dan has rolled up his sleeves and helped plan, organize and implement special event fundraisers. He recently chaired an annual campaign pledge drive.
Dan makes charitable contributions to local charities.

For all of these reasons, we ask Dan to take a crack at answering the question that Katherine Fulton posed at the end of her TED Talks presentation.
Dan’s philanthropy story?

(Note: If you receive DonorDreams via email you may need to click here to view today’s video interview.)
Stories from your community?
Katherine Fulton says in her TED Talks presentation:

“We have a problem. Our experience to date both individually and collectively hasn’t prepared us for what we’re going to need to do or who we’re going to need to be. We’re going to need a new generation of citizen leaders willing to commit ourselves to growing and changing and learning as rapidly as possible.”

Have you met someone in your community who you think embodies the future of philanthropy and is a member of a new generation of citizen leaders? If so, please scroll down and use the comment box to tell us about that person.
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

Are You the Future of Philanthropy? Meet Marissa Garza

May 19, 2015 erik nonprofit

“Imagine 100 years from now and your grandchildren are looking at an old picture of you. What is the story? What impact did you want to have on the community around you? What impact did you make?”

Meet Marissa Garza
Marissa Garza works as and volunteers for:

Digital Marketing and Project Manager for Girl Scouts of Northern Illinois
Board member for the Elgin Young Professionals Network
Board member for Elgin Technology Center
Friend of DonorDreams blog.

Being a “child of philanthropy” (e.g. Marissa’s mom has worked for a local non-profit — Marklund), Marissa has enjoyed volunteering for everything from direct care to helping with special events. She has filled her life with volunteer opportunities and other little opportunities when and where she can.
For all of these reasons, we ask Marissa to take a crack at answering the question that Katherine Fulton posed at the end of her TED Talks presentation.
Marissa’s philanthropy story?

(Note: If you receive DonorDreams via email you may need to click here to view today’s video interview.)
Stories from your community?
Katherine Fulton says in her TED Talks presentation:

“We have a problem. Our experience to date both individually and collectively hasn’t prepared us for what we’re going to need to do or who we’re going to need to be. We’re going to need a new generation of citizen leaders willing to commit ourselves to growing and changing and learning as rapidly as possible.”

What skills and experiences are critical to your board volunteers' success?

March 24, 2015 erik Board development, Board governance, Fundraising, organizational development

boarddev1 Do you know which skills and experiences are most important for a new board volunteer to possess in order to succeed on your board? Knowing this could help your organization conduct better prospecting exercises and result in better prospect recruitment lists. Today’s post is the third in a three part non-profit board development series that started last week. During this time, we focused on a recent survey released by our friends at non-profit technology research firm Software Advice of 1,545 board volunteers and people tasked with recruiting new board members. The survey’s key findings probably won’t surprise you, but the implications might change the way you think about your organization’s future board development efforts.
The final two findings of SoftwareAdvice.com’s survey that caught my eye related to skills and experiences. The first finding was:

“Basic computer skills (e.g. email, Excel, etc) are the most important technology skill for service (44 percent).“

The remaining 66% of responses were as follows:
nonprofit-board-tech-skills
The other finding was:

“Fundraising experience was the most cited (24 percent) skill set and experience that has the greatest impact on a board member’s success.“

The other responses included:
nonprofit-board-professional-skills
As I digested these final two findings, I immediately had two visceral reactions.
Was Carol Weisman wrong?
weisman1 If you haven’t heard Carol speak or read her books, then you need to figure out how to check those things off of your non-profit bucket list. She is amazing!
When I read the study’s finding about “basic tech skills,” my mind immediately wandered back to a Boys & Girls Clubs of America conference hosted somewhere in the Midwest more than 10 years ago. Carol was one of the keynote speakers, and she was talking about building an amazing board of directors.
I remember her sitting on a stool on a large stage with a wireless lapel mic telling fun stories about non-profit boards and individual board volunteers. She was also likely promoting one of her many books. I was a relatively new and young non-profit executive director, and everything she said sounded right on target.
During Carol’s presentation, one of the things she talked about was how technology is changing non-profit boardroom dynamics. She shared a story about a board she had worked with that had embraced technology. If my memory serves me correctly, the following were just a few examples:

Every board member was provided a laptop computer by the organization
Board members received their board meeting agenda and info packet electronically
Volunteer who were out of town for meetings would use their webcam and remotely attend and participate

weisman2 I am a member of GenX, and this news made my heart sing. I was so excited to hear that my Baby Boomer board could be transformed into that type of board. I came home from that conference with renewed focus and determination to figure out how tech can help my board become more engaged and efficient in governance.
I started digitally scanning my board packets. I created an intranet site for the board. I uploaded board packets and other materials (e.g. policies, procedures, etc) to the intranet. Needless to say, no one followed me, and I abandon my tech efforts a year later.
The lesson learned was:

“You get the board you recruit!”

We had not recruited the board that Carol described in her conference keynote speech. My board development committee had not included “better-than-basic tech skills” as a skill set criteria. The result was that my board possessed basic tech skills related to the Microsoft Office productivity suite and email. They were light years away from going paperless and using Skype.
So, I guess Carol wasn’t “wrong” because tech will obviously change the boardroom experience, but . .

change will likely take much longer than we thought (and will likely happen when GenX and Millennial board volunteers make up the majority on most boards)
change will occur faster only if board development and board governance committees include tech skills in their search criteria when assembling their prospect lists

If you are looking for additional board development tools to add to your organization’s board development toolbox, then you should read a wonderful blog post by the National Council of Nonprofits and check out their hyperlinks to additional online resources. The post was titled “Finding the Right Board Members for Your Nonprofit“.
Fundraising experience is underrated
scared When I read that only 25% of survey respondents identified “fundraising skills and experiences” as having a great impact on a board member’s success, I literally groaned and rolled by eyes.
Sure, it was the number one response, but it was still only one-quarter of respondents. As my 10-year-old niece would say . . .

“Really? Seriously?”

I suspect that fundraising might not be as important for non-profits that rely on fees and government money to buoy their business model, but the vast majority of non-profits with which I’ve worked aren’t hospitals and universities. Many non-profits have fundraising at the core of their business model, and it is one of the most difficult things I’ve seen board volunteers struggle with.
More oftentimes than not, when I’ve seen a board volunteer frustrated and on the verge of resigning, it usually has something to do with fundraising.
Of course, the solution is the same as I mentioned in the last section . . . “You get the board you recruit, and the board development committee needs to include fundraising skills and experiences in their search criteria.”
The tougher question is “what are fundraising skill and what should we be looking for?” My suggestion is to look for the following when going through prospect identification and evaluation exercises:

people who donate to other charities and appear to have an appreciation for philanthropy
people who are social and appear to have larger than average social networks
people who have served on other non-profit board with a business model rooted in fundraising
people who belong to service clubs that organize fundraising activities
people who are passionate about your mission (e.g. are willing to walk across hot coals to achieve success for your organization)
people who are well-versed at “closing the deal” in their professional lives (e.g. people who work in sales, banking, self-employed, etc)
people who are assertive, persuasive, good communicators, relationship builders, etc.

Gail Perry speaks much more eloquently than I do on this subject. You might want to read her blog post titled “Mastering the ‘Soft Skills’ of Fundraising” and figure out if you can add any of those qualities to your board development prospect identification and evaluation process.
If you missed the earlier blog posts in this board development series, I encourage you to investigate the previous two posts from last week. You might also want to click-through and read SoftwareAdvice.com’s full survey report titled “Tech Skills and Other Considerations for Joining a Nonprofit Board IndustryView“.
What are your thoughts and experiences regarding tech and fundraising skills and experiences and your board of directors? Are you doing anything different now as part of your board development process that might help other non-profit professionals and volunteers re-think their approach? Please use the comment box below to share.
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

A basic truism about fundraising volunteers

July 8, 2014 erik Board development, Fundraising

horse to water I believe it is a basic truism that you can’t make people do anything they don’t want to do. Every example I can think of ends up not working.
As a nation, we tried to force people to stop drinking (when they didn’t want to) by passing a constitutional amendment banning alcohol. The result? A black market and the rise of Al Capone.
Tell someone to stop smoking or lose weight (when they don’t want to) and it might result in short-term results, but the relapse rate in the long run is high.
While I’m sure there are exceptions to what I am calling a truism, I think I am more on the right track than the wrong track with this belief.
So, if you’re buying what I’m selling this morning, I have one simple question for you:

“Why do so many of us try to force non-profit board members to do fundraising when they tell us that they are strongly opposed to do it?”

I know, I know. We do it because many of our fundraising models need volunteers to be involved in order for it to work. Obviously, another basic truism in fundraising is that “people give to people.”
However, I still go back to where I started . . . forcing people to do what they don’t want to do is a recipe for failure.
So, what is the solution?
In my opinion, the answer can be found in the old Texas two-step:

Stop recruiting people to do things they don’t want to do
Start engaging people in honest discussions about what they do want to do

Board Development
There have been many blog posts written on this subject, but it is time to stop agreeing with what is written and start putting those thoughts into action.
Your board development and recruitment process must include honesty, transparency and a number of tools that set expectations before a volunteer is asked to say “YES” to joining your board.
If someone wants to join your board but doesn’t have the stomach for fundraising, then you need to find another role for them in your organization (e.g. program volunteer, committee work, etc).
This type of strategic focus in recruiting like-minded people when it comes to fundraising will help solve your problem because you’ll no longer be forcing people to do what they don’t want to do.
Resource Development Plan
Unfortunately, this board development strategy won’t be enough to completely solve your problem.
Why?
Because not everyone around your boardroom table will be comfortable participating in every aspect of your fundraising program.
Some people are drawn to planning parties (e.g. special event fundraisers). Other people are attracted to your pledge drive and sitting down face-to-face with their friends to ask for money. There are also be a number of people who appear to disdain traditional fundraising activities, but who are open-minded to opening doors, going on donor solicitation visits (as long as you do the talking and asking), and various other stewardship activities.
The reality of the situation is that you need people to do all of these things in order for your fundraising program to be successful.
This is where involving everyone in writing your annual resource development plan comes into play.
Getting everyone involved in the planning process is akin to asking them to choose which seat on the bus they want to sit. In doing so, you avoid the pitfall of arm twisting and making people do what they don’t want to do (which never works and is where we started in the first paragraph of this blog post)
So, there you have it! Your agency’s fundraising problem is solved. 😉
Good luck rolling out this two-part strategy and please circle back to this space to let me know how it works out for you.
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

Having difficult conversations with board, staff and donors

March 6, 2014 erik Uncategorized

difficult conversations2 From time-to-time, we all need to have a difficult conversation with someone. It could be an employee, board volunteer, donor, collaborative partner, or even a spouse or loved-one. I was in such a position a few days ago, and needless to say it didn’t go very well. In the subsequent days, I spent a lot of time licking my wounds and thinking about what I could’ve done differently. So, I’ve decided to share some of my thoughts with the readers at DonorDreams blog and hope you’ll also share your thoughts and experiences.
Setting the stage
Let’s make sure we’re on the same page. The following are just a few examples of difficult conversations I see non-profit professionals having every day:

correcting poor performance or disciplinary action with an employee
engaging a board member in a discussion about poor attendance at meetings or following through on things they’ve committed to do for the agency
speaking with a donor who spontaneously donated — before your fundraising volunteers could schedule an appointment to visit — and made a contribution of less than what you were planning to ask them to give
talking with a funder about a set of grant deliverables that your agency agreed to achieve but might now be having difficulty achieving

I’m sure we could identify many more of these types of conversations without even trying very hard. Won’t you please share?
What not to do
As I look back upon the many difficult conversations I’ve had in my professional life, I’ve made many mistakes and some of those mistakes I continue to make over and over again for some dumb reason. Here are just a few of those missteps:

I procrastinate and put off having those conversations
I obsess and over-think those conversations, essentially having different version of those conversations in my head prior to the actual conversation
I try to set the stage with a pre-discussion email outlining the issues that need to be discussed
I get emotional and take things personally
I wear my emotions on my sleeve
I get entrenched in my opinions and don’t leave any room for alternate viewpoints

I could also go on and on with developing this list of mistakes. I’ve made so many of them throughout the years. I know you probably have a few things to add here. Won’t you please share?

Best practices
difficult conversations1 I’ve done some research into how I can do better in the future with engaging others in these type of conversations. Here are just a few of the best practices that resonate with me:

Don’t have this conversation in your head before having it in-person because over-thinking creates anxiety and frames issues that might not even come up
Stay away from email because people read tone into written communications that you may not intend . . . but perception is reality
Go into the discussion prepared to: a) hear the other person and b) possibly change your mind
Encourage questions to promote understanding
Restate what you hear the other person saying in order to make sure you’re hearing them correctly

As with the previous section of this post, I know there are many more best practices. Won’t you please share your best practices?
Resources
When you Google the search words “having difficult conversations,” there are a ton of great resources. Here are just a few that I’ve found helpful:

Judy Ringer: We Have To Talk: A Step-By-Step Checklist For Difficult Conversations
Harvard Business Review: Tips On Having Difficult Conversations
Lean In: Managing Difficult Conversations

Without sharing the ugly details about one of your difficult conversations, please use the comment box below to share your thoughts and experiences. Share resources that you’ve found useful. Share things that you’ve learned not to do. Share things that you always try to do. Life is too short . . . we can all learn from each other.
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

Does your non-profit board sometimes do the opposite of what it wants to do?

December 13, 2013 erik Board governance, organizational development

Jerry’s Trip to Abilene

By John Greco
Originally published on March 15, 2012
Re-posted with permission from johnponders blog
That July afternoon in Coleman, Texas was particularly hot — 104 degrees according to the Walgreen’s Rexall’s thermometer. In addition, the wind was blowing fine-grained Texas topsoil through the house. But the afternoon was still tolerable; even potentially enjoyable. A fan was stirring the air on the back porch; there was cold lemonade; and finally, there was entertainment. Dominoes. Perfect for the conditions. The game requires little more physical exertion than an occasional mumbled comment, “Shuffle ‘em,” and an unhurried movement of the arm to place the tiles in their appropriate positions on the table. All in all, it had the makings of an agreeable Sunday afternoon in Coleman. That is, until my father-in-law suddenly said, “Let’s get in the car and go to Abilene and have dinner at the cafeteria.”
I thought, “What, go to Abilene? Fifty-three miles? In this dust storm and heat? And in an unconditioned 1958 Buick?”
But my wife chimed in with, “Sounds like a great idea. I’d like to go. How about you Jerry?” Since my own preferences were out of step with the rest, I replied, “Sounds good to me,” and added, “I just hope your mother wants to go.”
“Of course I want to go,” said my mother-in-law. “I haven’t been to Abilene in a long time.”
So into the car and off to Abilene we went. My predictions were fulfilled. The heat was brutal. Perspiration had cemented a fine layer of dust to our skin by the time we arrived. The cafeteria’s food could serve as a first-rate prop in an antacid commercial.
Some four hours and 106 miles later, we returned to Coleman, hot and exhausted. We silently sat in front of the fan for a long time. Then, to be sociable and to break the silence, I dishonestly said, “It was a great trip, wasn’t it?”
No one spoke.
Finally, my mother-in-law said, with some irritation, “Well, to tell you the truth, I really didn’t enjoy it much and would rather have stayed here. I just went along because the three of you were so enthusiastic about going. I wouldn’t have gone if you all hadn’t pressured me into it.”
I couldn’t believe it. “What do you mean ‘you’all?” I said. Don’t put me in the ‘you’all’ group. I was delighted to be doing what we were doing. I didn’t want to go. I only went to satisfy the rest of you. You’re the culprits.”
My wife looked shocked. “Don’t call me a culprit. You and Daddy and Mama were the ones who wanted to go. I just went along to keep you happy. I would have had to be crazy to go out in heat like that.”
Her father entered the conversation with one word: “Shee-it.” He then expanded on what was already clear: “Listen, I never wanted to go to Abilene. I just thought you might be bored. You visit so seldom I just wanted to be sure you enjoyed it. I would have preferred to play another game of dominoes and eat the leftovers in the icebox.”
After the outburst of incrimination, we all sat back in silence. Here we were, four reasonably sensible people who — of our own volition — had just taken a 106-mile trip across a godforsaken desert in furnace-like heat and a dust storm to eat unpalatable food at a hole-in-the-wall cafeteria in Abilene, when none of us had really wanted to go. To be concise, we’d done just the opposite of what we wanted to do. The whole situation simply didn’t make sense.

— Jerry Harvey, The Abilene Paradox and Other Meditations on Management.

My first exposure to this story was as I was unknowingly about to experience it…
Three colleagues and I were all out-of-towners in Memphis for business. After a stressful day at work we had just had a nice dinner. While leaving the restaurant Don suggested “You guys want to continue our discussion while we drive around Memphis a bit? Jude responded with a lukewarm “okay;” I said I’m up for it, even though I was tired and wanted some down time. Then mild-mannered, soft-spoken Laura chimed in with “sounds like we might be taking a trip to Abilene …”
I didn’t get the reference.
Thankfully, Don knew exactly what she meant, and we went back to our respective hotel rooms for the evening.
The lesson never has left me.
That might be because I have since seen teams of smart and committed people going on their own trips to Abilene… and some of these teams included me. None of them, quite obviously, included Laura.
Yes; I have been in Abilene-bound meetings and I have been on Abilene-bound teams. Have you as well? Have you seen some of these trips being taken, and perhaps you might admit your participation as well? … Odd, isn’t it?
Odd, unsatisfying, and unhelpful.
There’s a powerful social dynamic at play here. I need to bone up on what exactly that is, but, for now, I just know that I do not want to take any more trips to Abilene.
I need to take a trip and find Laura… or, I need to become Laura.

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)!

Erik Anderson
Founder & President, The Healthy Non-Profit LLC
www.thehealthynonprofit.com
erik@thehealthynonprofit.com
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Engaging your non-profit board volunteers more effectively

August 29, 2013 erik Board development, Board governance, organizational development

Board member engagement is a common thread running through many of my blog posts. This isn’t because I’m a broken record. The fact of the matter is that so many of the things that plague non-profits are simply “symptoms” of a bigger problem. Yep, you guessed it . . . the root cause of many of our challenges in the can be traced back to our boards.

So, a few days ago I received an email from Suzanne Culhane. I don’t know Suzanne, but she is a fundraising consultant for Bob Carter Companies. Apparently, one of my posts hit her just right, and she took to heart my frequent rally cry at the end of many of my posts to “. . . please share your thoughts . . . we can all learn from each other . . .”

So, in the spirit of complying with my own point of view, I’m going to use my bully pulpit this morning to share Suzanne’s tips on “How to get your board members to be more effective advocates for your cause“.

Here is what she recommends:

Only elect board members who are passionate about the mission and rank the organization as number one or two in terms of their own volunteer and philanthropic priorities.
Implement an annual give/get requirement end enforce it! This is best done through an annual commitment form which includes personal fundraising goals and volunteer responsibilities (e.g. committee and event involvement). This keeps board members focused on giving personally and asking others to do so.
Conduct an annual commitment review session should be conducted with each board member. In addition to personal giving and fundraising, this individual meeting should also offer the opportunity to discuss the board member’s experience of serving, any unfulfilled interests, challenges and concerns. That is, the organization must regularly invite individual feedback from leaders.
For empowerment, periodic interactive workshops should be conducted and all board members should be fully support by the staff in their undertakings on behalf of the organization.
Celebrate all accomplishments and victories as a team! Organizational impact and fundraising results should be regularly shared with the board.

For the record, I love all of these ideas (except I waffle on the give/get policy and only suggest it when a board’s culture is devoid of philanthropy). I’ve personally used all of these suggestions when I was on the front line and as a consultant. They are best practices, and they work!

So, let’s keep this going. Sharing is fun. What else do you do at your agency to engage your board volunteers? Please use the comment box below to share your thoughts and experiences. Why? Yep, you guessed it . . . because we can all learn from each other.

Here’s to your health!