Social Sector

Quality of Your Relationship

What type of relationship does your enterprise have with its customers, donors, volunteers, staff, board, and community?  Is it authentic and built on trust?  Do you attract people who are committed to your purpose and vision?  Do you take everyone who raises their hand or are you selective?

Consider the following images that are associated with appeals for funding.

What reaction does this image bring forward for you?  Some international hunger organizations prefer this or more graphic models.

Or this sign, does it make you feel inspired?  How about guilty?  What story do you tell yourself when you face this type of requests for assistance?

Does your reaction change when the message is reframed?  Does a new perspective or context alter your perception?

Does your reaction change when the image focuses on hope and opportunity?  Heifer International leads with pictures like the one above.

Perhaps this approach (via Simon Sinek) reverses the classic approach to the homeless person sign.  The message on this sign actually generated $40 in two hours for a homeless person in New York City when the traditional approach brought in $20 a day.

A quick way to create a temporary relationship is to lead with guilt or fear.  It tends to make us uncomfortable.  We are willing to take immediate action to alleviate the discomfort.  In a fundraising environment an easy way to standout in a crowded field of appeals is to shock.

What if you build a relationship on a foundation of inspiration.  What if you are selective about who you attract to your cause.  Would it change the quality of your interactions if people were considering their purpose in the context of your cause?

What type of relationships is your cause cultivating?
 

The Importance of Momentum

Achieve released an article that highlighted the importance of momentum in a fundraising campaign.  

Organizations will often lose momentum when there is a singular focus on the short term.  Organizations will also lose momentum when they are not clear about direction or the ability to express that direction with donors.  As a donor, it is very hard to support potential growth, new opportunities, or even bigger impact if you don’t understand where the organization is going.

I also came across a passage in The Soul of Leadership: Unlocking Your Potential For Greatness by Deepak Chopra.

A successful visionary makes his or her manifest in the world.  Invisible seeds planted in the silence of your deepest awareness become tangible, visible realities.  As they unfold, you will manage their growth with passion and energy.  Your purpose will be apparent to all.

The alignment of purpose and action allows us to generate a whole host of attributes, many of which are impossible to manufacture under false pretense.  If I asked you to show me more authenticity right now, could you?  I have yet to see this trick performed.  The formula for authenticity might be expressed as:

My purposed + My daily actions matching purpose = authenticity
The same formula can also be applied to the concepts of trust and charisma.  These are ideals are hollow when listed on a resume or in a fundraising pitch.  But when demonstrated daily and repeatedly and held against the Rosetta Stone of organizational purpose, then they generate a different type of relationship.  As Simon Sinek would state, when people start interacting with you because they believe what you believe instead of doing business with your enterprise because they need what you have, a paradigm shift has taken place.  Momentum is doing business with individuals that share your purpose and then building a tribe that is connected by this shared vision.  Momentum is having clarity of purpose and then living it daily.  Momentum is lost when our vision gets fuzzy or derailed by other interests.  Momentum is a result not a purpose. 
The mind, once expanded to the dimension of bigger ideas, never returns to its original size- Oliver Wendell Holmes

A new year provides a platform full of possibilities, new paths to explore and ideas to expand the mind.  The simple act of moving to a new page on a calendar and the psychology of putting last year’s events and memories down at the New Year’s threshold can be refreshing.  Allowing momentum from last year’s successes to cascade into the unexplored frontier that greets us today can be a compelling outpost from which to launch our explorations.  The opportunity to refine purpose, confirm values, alter ones brand, and set macro goals is exhilarating.  Subtle shifts that open new viewpoints may be equally as monumental as whole sale changes.

In reviewing my consulting work from the past few years, I realize that I am at my best when I act as a strategist.  To assess the goals and opportunities selected by an enterprise and consider alternative approaches and perspectives is part of my purpose in life.  Attracting and amplifying the best ideas is what engages and energizes my daily activity.  Assembling resources and customizing methodologies from other sectors is part of the value I enjoy delivering for clients.   For 2011, I am committing to my role as a strategist and allow facilitation to take a secondary role.  Step one of any significant goal is to find an immediate actionable step (micro goal) that can build momentum and serve as a starting point for the voyage.  Posting ones goal publicly and being held accountable by your tribe or community is a part of an authentic relationship.  I look forward to sharing my progress and goals in the coming months.

What journey are you committed to for 2011?

I Recommend

These are some of the titles that shaped my thinking in the last year.

Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness
Design choice architecture
Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action
Finding your purpose changes everything!
The Dragonfly Effect: Quick, Effective, and Powerful Ways To Use Social Media to Drive Social Change
Brilliant approach to activating a movement
Nonprofit Strategy Revolution: Real-Time Strategic Planning in a Rapid-Response World
The strategic planning model I use
Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us
Leverage your passion
Zilch: The Power of Zero in Business
Nonprofit ideas in the corporate world
Linchpin: Are You Indispensable?
Maximize your talents
Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard
Understand and guide change
A. Gawande's The Checklist Manifesto(The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right [Hardcover])(2009)
Pilots will not fly without a checklist- why should you?
Crush It!: Why NOW Is the Time to Cash In on Your Passion
Making a run at the motivational gold medal
Trust Agents: Using the Web to Build Influence, Improve Reputation, and Earn Trust
Who influences you and how?
The Networked Nonprofit: Connecting with Social Media to Drive Change
The guide to social media

What influenced you in 2010?

Fees for Nonprofits?

The Wall Street Journal published an article about the growing trend taking place in city and states to assess or recommend fees for service on nonprofit organizations. Many of these organizations were the same ones that local and state governments were awarding grants to just a few years ago. A number of these nonprofits provide essential services that would otherwise cost the states money or resources to attend to.  What is the right balance?  Should nonprofits pay a fee for service or is there a metric whereby we can measure the essential services these enterprises provide?  As a donor of your time, talent, treasurer, or touch, how would you most like to see your investment utilized?

What does fear keep you from doing?




Would you be willing to learn a foreign language, take-up swimming, learn ballroom dancing in public venues when you are starting from square one?  Tim Ferriss discusses how to become accomplished and feel like the Incredible Hulk.


What is fear keeping you from experiencing or achieving?  In Tim’s terms, “what is the worst that can happen?”  It may show you what you should do.

The Gift that Keeps on Giving

As we enter the final days of shipping and celebrating material goods for the holiday season, one gift concept continues to standout as memorable.  Consider what experience you can create for another person.  If you put your best concierge hat on for a moment, what personalized adventure would you design?  Often the point of amplification during the experience is not to make it solely one way but rather has an intended impact on the others around us.  When it comes to developing a meaningful relationship, the social sector is uniquely positioned to meet this requirement.  Celebrate with a personalized touch and be a force for good.