Social Sector

Your Volunteers

The IRS values volunteers time at $20.85 per hour.  You can do the math for your most loyal and active volunteers but I bet the value of the time they contribute might exceed their financial donation.  If we looked at the budget impact of volunteers time by recognizing the expense of hiring a staff position and then adjusted the revenue to recognize the volunteer contribution I believe the total would overshadow many other programs.  Just for demonstration purposes, do the following quick calculations:

Number of board member  x  number board meetings x  average duration of meetings in hours  x  $20.85= IRS valuation of volunteer time

This equation does not take into account the committee meetings, fundraising events, task forces, and all the other volunteer responsibilities that your board members assume.  This is just one segment of the volunteer impact on the organization that is easy to quantify. 

A trend in annual reports is to list volunteers as prominently and appreciatively as the contributors.  Other initiatives include creating online forums where volunteers can connect with one another, sending special volunteer newsletters, holding meaningful recognition events hosted by donors and staff, seating volunteers at fundraising galas as invited guests.  Most importantly, the best volunteer programs ask each individual what talent they are most excited to contribute before providing them with a portfolio of opportunities.

Ripping up the Syllabus
The mind, once expanded to the dimensions of larger ideas, never returns to its original size.
– Oliver Wendell Homes

How does your enterprise penetrate the bubble of fans that surrounds your cause?  Do you ever seek outsiders who have a fresh perspective?  Does your organization have enough tolerance to hear revolutionary ideas?

I had a professor in college who started his course on the American Revolution by passing out the syllabus.  He then asked us to rip them up.  He had been on sabbatical doing research for a new book and it had fundamentally altered the way he was going to teach the course.  His method for the coming semester was to make-it-up and borrow from existing ideas as we went along.  It was also his thesis for his book on the framing of the constitution.  The semester was memorable because we were adventuring into new territory as a group, not simply on a guided tour.

Search for New Members

Looking for new board members or volunteers or even staff?  Perhaps you can consider using a model frequently employed by Realtors.  Often heard is the refrain, ‘we need new members for the board.’  It is equivalent of stating that you are looking for a house in Nashville, TN.  Where to start?  I would be asking some leading questions before I started giving recommendations.

If you can provide some detail to your search.  Perhaps I am looking for three bedrooms, two bath, near a park and easy to get to the airport.  I now have details to work with and my map gets more specific.



When you put out a call for new members or volunteers, try to paint a picture and see if your results are more successful.  Are you looking for a representative of Generation X, who is female, has social media skills, and experience with finance and small business?  I might know that person by name.  Without directions I might just nominate my best friend who is very much like me and brings an existing perspective and skill set to the organization.  It is the same as telling your friends only about the homes for sale in you neighborhood.


Waiting for a Matched Set

The lost sock sitting on top of the dyer waits patiently for its mate.  Cycles of laundry are completed and yet the matching sock still does not appear. 

The sock appears to be of no use.  Left to its own it is unattended and irrelevant.

How many great ideas sit on your organization’s dryer waiting for the right match?  I frequently see social sector enterprises put some of their best ideas aside like a unmatched sock.  They are waiting for the perfect donor, moment, or partner to appear and give their abandoned project life.  I am certain that if I go search in the sock drawer I have a high probability of finding the missing sock or I have a better chance of finding the mate clinging to a piece of clothing that the odds of it appearing magically from the dyer.

If there is power in the idea or project then perhaps it is well worth the energy to seek out a partner and start searching.  Another organization will gladly take the sock and turn it into their showcase project if you take no action.

 

Regrets

Matt Gross, the author of the Frugal Traveler announced he is leaving the New York Times in Wednesday’s column.  He reminisced about the highlights and also listed a few regrets.  In my mind, regret is a symptom of truly trying to contribute or maximize an opportunity.  We depart with regret when we have not accomplished all that we had set-out to achieve or perhaps we learned of alternative adventures.

As board members, staff and volunteers decided to head for new horizons it might be interesting to ask them for their highlights and regrets.  What did not get accomplished during their watch that they felt was important?  What opportunities do they wish they had taken greater advantage of during their tenure with the cause?

Regrets might tell you a lot about your enterprise’s challenges and opportunities. 

 Photo Credit: http://3.bp.blogspot.com

Supporting Your CEO

Conversations this week have underscored the need to have a couple key documents and processes in place to support your organization’s CEO.

  • A CEO job description- updated if new responsibilities have been added or shifted.
  • An organizational strategic plan.
  • An annual plan- a written plan identifying which strategic goals the organization is planning to address in the coming year.
  • Annual goals- at least one professional and personal goal for the CEO.
  • An annual assessment that includes a review process which collects actionable critique or commendations.  360 degree reviews are becoming best practices (includes feedback from direct reports, clients, donors, staff, volunteers, board members, and community members).
  • Alignment of the review process with the development of an annual budget.  It is much easier to measure the CEO’s fiscal management at the end of one budget year and adjust the CEO’s compensation during the creation of the coming year’s budget.
  • A strong and trusting relationship between the CEO and Board Chair.  I have often heard Board Chairs and CEOs talk about reaching a level of communication and support where there were ‘no surprises’ for either individuals.

Many CEOs concern themselves with the strength of their contract.  I would suggest that if the aforementioned processes and procedures are in place the CEO will have positive and supportive working relationship with the organization.  If the board takes the annual assessment seriously and ties the review to the strategic plan, annual goals and job description, there should be few surprises.  Working for an enterprise that promotes transparency and fairness is a highly sought after environment.


What else would you add to the list?

Photo Credit: http://www.bcps.org

30 Seconds- Your Elevator Pitch

Could you describe your organization in 30 seconds?  Could you do it on YouTube?  Could you produce a video and explain how you would use $10,000? Consumer Financial Solutions put together such a contest and received 120 entries.  They even increased the awarding pool to include a tier of $5,000 grants.  The best part about the contest is that it forced many causes to consider their elevator pitch.  In thirty seconds many enterprises were required to condense their message to the most significant facts and images.  What would your thirty second YouTube video look like?

Recipient or Partner

I just received fantastic information from a cause I support and I have been asked to share it with a major advocate of the organization.  A compelling report shows the organization to be performing exceedingly well when compared to peer institutions.  I was ready to forward the document via email and add a quick message to the advocate explaining how they can clearly see the organization’s success when viewed on the attached spreadsheet.  Then a colleague spoke-up.  My co-worker suggested that an email seems like a rather small return when sharing such valuable data.  Why not frame the information with few detailed points that the cause believes is important and then ask the advocate for their interpretation of the data?  Gain their insights on the benchmarking numbers.  Make them a partner in creating the findings of the report.  Take our joint efforts and share them with a greater audience.

My first hunch was to treat the advocate as a recipient.  My colleague’s focus was on transforming the advocate into a partner.  Partners make for a personalized relationship.  Partners are invested in an enterprise’s success.  Partnerships cannote a more formal relationship.  Recipients are omnipresent.  Being a recipient requires filtering information before one even decides which emails are even worth considering.  Partners provide advice and rise far above recipients.

Do you partner with key individuals and organizations or is everyone a recipient?  Can you partners engage each other in dialogue?  Do you listen to your partners recommendations?

Photo Credit: http://www.kodyaz.com

Authentic

As a fan of professional cycling I have had to recalibrate my enthusiasm of the sport.  Performance Enhancing Drugs (PEDs) have been the bane of the sport’s recent history.  I now watch the Tour de France or Giro d’Italia with the same skepticism that I might watch daytime soap operas or professional wrestling.  Riders suddenly achieve spectacular results going from middle of the peleton to front of the field in single months.

If I knew the performances where authentic I could allow my passion for the sport to roll unhindered but I have learned to guard against the next scandal.  

How do you ensure your audience is experience an authentic result?  Can they trust your cause?  Being authentic is one of the most highly sought values and increasingly is part of an enterprise’s competitive advantage.