Social Sector

Inspired

Great companies don’t hire skilled people and motivate them, they hire already motivated people and inspire them.

Simon Sinek, Start With Why
I hope we all have had the experience of walking into a business or enterprise where the interactions just feel different.  The people who greet you are remarkable.  They create memorable moments.  Your interactions are authentic.  They are inspired.  They can even exist in unexpected places.  Airline call centers employee some remarkable team members who standout because they act as an advocate for the customer instead of part of a policy enforcement agency.  This catches our attention.

Has your organization built a team of inspired leaders?  How to you keep the level of engagement growing?

90 Minutes

Wondering how to engage individuals who are too busy to serve on your board?  Or a young entrepreneur who has has expressed an interest in enhancing your programs?  Have an organizational opportunity but unsure of how to proceed?  Hoping to evaluate options with the insight of professional wisdom?

A strategy that has worked well for a number of enterprises:
Invite a small group of individuals with appropriate expertise for a 90 minute table top session.  Send the attendees a relevant synopsis of your organization and an outline of the topic you propose discussing.  Provide food and beverages.  Keep your introduction to fifteen minutes when framing the issue.  Turn the meeting over to the participants and get their council.  As the session wraps-up ask permission to keep the participants updated on the organization’s progress.  Report back on any actions taken as a result of the meeting.

Some of the benefits of this strategy include that you use the participant’s time wisely.  The attendees use their expertise to further your mission and they in turn become familiar with your organization.  Many times these individuals become resources for future sessions, committee members, or even board members.  If the connection is strong many will become donors and fans of your cause.  They will recruit others to be involved.

Would you commit 90 minutes to gain the wisdom of others?

Trust

How does your cause demonstrate trust?  Is is done with words?  Actions? Programs? Volunteers? Partnerships? Relationships? Everyday? By proxy?  Through all individual or key leaders?  With a large megaphone?

Which organizations do you trust?  Why?  Which ones would you recommend to a colleague or friend?  Which organizations would you trust to take care of a friend no matter when and how they interacted?  What makes these organizations so trustworthy?

Keep your eyes open for trust today.

Board Members Wanted

What would a “board members wanted” advertisement look like for your organization?  How would it stand out from another nonprofits?  What attributes would you list?  What would be your unique selling proposition?  Could you answer why your cause is worthy of support without listing facts and results?  How would you define your board’s chemistry?  Can you define the loyalty of your board members?  What could you do to differentiate your organization for the others in your community?

Open Dashboards

Social sector organizations use dashboards with varying degrees of success.  Some enterprises produce an active dashboard that is the first document that goes to the board and staff at predetermined interval.  Other organizations use a summarizing document to track strategic initiatives.  Another grouping of causes finds dashboards to be distracting and irrelevant to their work.

I have always approached dashboards as an inside/out method.  The data is generated inside the organization and then communicated out to a small group of individuals closest to the organization.  A blog post from Beth Kanter got me thinking about possible paradigm shifts.  

  • What if the dashboard was distributed to a larger audience, say your entire membership base?
  • What if the data on the dashboard was reflective of input provided from the outside (customers, donors, volunteers, community members, partnerships)?
  • What if the dashboard was assembled by a different partner or peer organization?


What information would you choose to include in these scenarios?  What data would be meaningful?  What would be valuable to track if the audience became your entire membership?  What if the dashboard was an outside/in proposition?

Comfotable

A piece on NPR suggested that consumers are getting more comfortable with their financial position.  They are willing to invest in purchases that they had previously postponed.  Does that mean that donors are willing to make long term commitments to campaigns that are seen a viable and necessary?  What are you seeing within your social sector enterprises?  Are funders returning?  Are they willing to discuss multiple year commitments?

I am seeing some great leadership giving taking place.  I am also witness to organizations being more purposeful when they design a request or submit a proposal.  Donors are no longer a limitless resource.