Social Sector

Failure is an Option

Blue Avocado published part one of a two part piece on the failings and alternatives to strategic planning.  In my role as a strategic planning consultant, I have become more aware of assessing and avoiding potential engagements that are going to end poorly and perpetuate the idea that strategic planning is done for ritual and not for revitalization.  Jan Masaoka keenly outlines some of the pitfalls in part one.

Over the weekend I also received a link to the One Page Business Plan Company.  Interesting approach to providing a methodology and platform for implementing goals and tracking the plan’s progress.  Like all approaches, it is tool that can maximize your strategic return if your enterprise takes the time to develop compelling content.

Forward or Backwards

When reviewing history, do you do so with the benefit of hindsight or do you appreciate the realities that many decisions were made-it-up as you go.  Listening to NPR’s Fresh Air program today, Terry Gross was speaking to Eric Foner who spoke about the realities of history when taken in a real-time approach.  If you know the ending of the movie it is easy to see how the plot unfolds.  When you research a past event through the lens of that moment, it becomes a different narrative.  Appreciate that reviewing a strategic plan it is easy to see what activities resonated and others that were derailed.  Creating a plan requires a real-time perspective.  You are creating history but cannot judge your achievements until you have decided and taken action. 

Majority Role

Recently, a colleague asked for a recommendation on Twitter.  The vast majority of responses agreed with proposed course of action outlined in the tweet.  Two people were adamantly opposed and offered another solution.  Turns out the minority were uniquely positioned to offer the best recommendation.  If the majority had ruled, the result would have been far less desirable.  Can you weight your decision to acknowledge expertise?  One attorney’s input on a contract may out-weight the conventional wisdom of your advisers.

Video of the Day

A common requests I get is to recommend a videographer who can produce a short film to highlight a nonprofit and its impact.  There are few videographers with the bandwidth to meet the demand and budget limitations of the social sector, so many enterprises keep the concept of a short video on their ‘to do’ list.

The Case Foundation in partnership with the DoGooder Video Contest created a very simple tutorial on how to self-produce a video for your cause.  See the simple step-by-step process here.


The final product

Victory

I received the following email from Change.org:

Here are a few of the top victories and successes we’ve had together:

  • Late last week, the largest florist in the world, 1-800-Flowers, responded to 54,000 Change.org members and agreed to begin selling Fair Trade flowers and insist on a strong code of conduct for all their suppliers to counteract the deplorable working conditions that thousands of female flower workers face in South America. They’ve promised to offer Fair Trade flowers in time for Mother’s Day, making 1-800-Flowers a leader in the industry. (Click here to write a thank you message on 1-800-Flowers’ Facebook wall.)
  • After a devastating clothing factory fire in Bangladesh took the lives of 27 workers, you asked seven clothing companies, including Abercrombie, the Gap, and Target to compensate the victims’ families and revamp safety standards in their affiliated factories. After 65,000 of us spoke up, a spokesperson from Target said this to us: “I want to understand what we have to do to get our brand off the Change.org petition … Tell me what we need to do, and we will try to do it.” All seven companies met your demands.
  • An Ohio mom named Kelley Williams-Bolar was sentenced to jail last month for sending her kids to a safer school in a neighboring district. Another mom in Massachusetts started a petition on her behalf – and the campaign gained wide notice in Time, USA Today, and on Good Morning America. We teamed up with grassroots groups Color of Change and MomsRising to deliver more than 165,000 signatures in person to the office of Ohio Governor John Kasich. Less than 24 hours later, Governor Kasich took an important step toward pardoning Kelley.

This message was not just sent to those who signed the petition but to everyone who is involved in the cause.  Some members may not even support some of the initiatives but the sense of momentum and accomplishment draws us closer.  Remember to publicize your victories and do not leave them only for the annual report.  Momentum attracts more followers.

The Theme for Today is…

What if you simplified your focus.  One theme for the day, week or even year.  Explore, ignite, engage, empower, learn, love, separate, evolve, energize, demand, relax, or decide.

What theme did you select?  Humor yourself for a second and make a decision.  Capture it and place it front and center.  Can you affix a few key phrases or images to your theme?  Once you decide and move away from all other options you are committed.

So much of our time can be spent planning that it is easy to fore-go making any real decisions. Take action.  Answering one big question for your enterprise often yields far greater results than the most detailed strategic plan that preserves the status quo.

Forced Collisions

When you create opportunities for ideas and people to collide, powerful results emerge.  Many causes invest significant amounts of time trying to buffer the collision of tribes and ideology.  But who is to say that the collision will not become a confluence.  The point of intersection may be turbulent, murky, and turbid but eventually both streams of thought and action may find their way forward, flowing in a united direction.

Pixar designed a building to encourage these force collisions.  What if your cause accelerated these encounters?  How might it transform your community and its perceptions?

Big Announcement!
This is Big!
Sensational Information to Share!
New Partnership Announced….
Please click on the PDF link to read about the change in the newsletter.
Anti-climatic?  What happened, you could not find the link? What if there was big news- perhaps a partnership with a major enterprise?  A whole new platform, a bigger audience, a larger megaphone, higher stakes, more networks.  Our tribe was joining forces and everything was going to change.  Should it come in a newsletter?  I am shocked by how many causes broadcast their biggest story by using just print.  In the age of YouTube, webcasts, Twitter, Facebook, interactive greeting cards, and personal delivery services we resort to a flat platform.  This is your chance to shout, “Everest Basecamp, this is Everest Summit, we made it!”  Pick-up the satellite phone and make a few calls, take some pictures, hang banners, dance, take the oxygen mask off for a second and breath the highest alpine air.  Nobody composes a newsletter and emails it out when the reach the summit of Everest.  You alert everyone in your tribe and if you can make them realize that they are part of the team, all the better.  Gather your community, huddle, look them in the eyes and allow them to gauge the significance of the announcement.  Let your fans ask questions, provide guidance, and celebrate the news.  Can you do better than sending hyperlinks with transformational news using the same document that contains a coupon and the school lunch menu?