Category Archives: Nonprofit/NGO/Agency Management

Nonprofits: be honest with yourself, your staff & the public about how the November 2024 elections may affect you

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a primitive figure, like a petroglyph, shots through a megaphone

Most nonprofits are terrified of being perceived as political. It’s not just a fear that they will violate the strict IRS rules regarding political activities by 501 (c) (3) nonprofit organizations; it’s also a fear that they will anger donors and other supporters with a statement that might in any way be perceived as political, and therefore lose funding and volunteers.

Nonprofits in the USA are prohibited from endorsing a political candidate, but not from encouraging their staff, volunteers, clients and supporters to vote. Nonprofits can also say if proposed legislation or a proposed policy has the potential to change how they do their work or affect their clients, adversely or positively.

Whether you choose to engage in those kinds of communications or dialogues or not, there is one thing all nonprofits need to be honest and open about: how the November 2024 elections may affect your work.

Do you know where the candidates for state and national offices that represent your area stand with regards to your cause? If an office holder that’s been friendly to your organization is voted out, will you already have a relationship with the new office holder or will you be introducing yourself for the first time when you add that person to your press release mailing list?

If a candidate has said he or she will work to eliminate funding that your organization has received and hopes to receive again, you need to let your staff know so they know the financial viability of the organization and can make plans for their own future accordingly. You need to have a list of funding you have received that is directly or indirectly tied to federal programs and consider what to do if that funding ends. And you might need to be working overtime NOW to increase your number of major donors (corporations, foundations, wealthy individuals) and individual donors to make up for potential financial shortfalls when budget cuts come if new representatives will be working to eliminate your government funding.

You also need to consider if budget cuts will increase demands on your services, and plan for that accordingly.

Elections matter. Cuts and proposed cuts under the Trump administration to the budgets of USDA, USAID, education, energy and environment had consequences for nonprofits and those they serve. AmeriCorps, VISTA, other CNCS programs were on the chopping block in 2017 and again in 2018 and 2019, and though those programs were ultimately saved in the past, I don’t think they will be again if those folks are elected again. All these budget and program cuts will be happening again – but in far greater percentages – in a second Trump administration. Expect far greater numbers of people in need of assistance at organizations that are helping with food and shelter. Expect government scrutiny and probable hostility to nonprofits serving women seeking abortion services, nonprofits serving LBGTQ people, and refugees, asylum seekers and immigrants. Some staff may need to move on as soon as the results of the election are known, to avoid challenges to their own livelihoods and families, and to protect the safety of some family members.

Be realistic: do you have at least the start of a plan of what you are going to do if the election goes either way? The future of your nonprofit, and the cause you are addressing with your clients, depend on it.

Also see:

National Service Has Presidential Support Again! (2021)

Bill before US Congress: Pandemic Response & Opportunity Through National Service (2020)

Trump is trying to eliminate national service – again

Trump’s War on Volunteerism

Trump wants to eliminate national service

Governor Bevin & Donald Trump Are Wrong on Community Service Requirements

Volunteering to help national public lands cleanup after shutdown

How Will Trump Presidency Affect Humanitarian Aid & Development?

Charity isn’t enough

Volunteering is no substitute for government programs

Arts Organizations Have Always Been Masters of Customer Relations & Data Management

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Earlier this month, I talked about how working at nonprofits that produced live theater taught me oh-so-much about effective management and internal communications and continuous improvement. In this blog, I’m going to focus on what that experience taught me about managing and leveraging customer data.

Back in the 1980s, professional nonprofit theaters had already mastered customer data management: such was fundamental to their cultivating recognition and value in their communities, support that translated regularly into donations. And regular donations mean an organization is sustainable – it means it’s not completely reliant on an angel donor, which is fine until that angel donor dies or gets bought out by a company with no interest being an angel donor.

Most of these nonprofits used a program called ArtSoft to manage data regarding their audience, both program attendees and donors. ArtSoft dominated the market for managing customer and donor data at nonprofits that were focused on live performance. Back then, it felt like every theater, every dance company, every performing arts center used it. It’s sad that it doesn’t have even a Wikipedia entry – it deserves such.

But it wasn’t the software that mattered: it was the human protocols and processes in place to ensure audience member information was regularly gathered and updated. At any theater I worked in the 80s or 90s, there were protocols in place so that every single ticket buyer, every season ticket buyer, every special event attendee, every class participant, every donor and every volunteer went immediately into the master database system, ArtSoft or not, at the moment they paid money or signed up for any activities. And each person – each entry – was tracked regarding their relationship with the organization and their activities from then on.

The goal of this data tracking? To communicate with the people in the database such that:

  • season ticket buyers came back year after year,
  • single ticket buyers either became season ticket buyers or kept coming back as single ticket buyers
  • that people that purchased tickets to events or classes were encouraged to buy tickets to stage shows
  • that everyone was encouraged to donate financially, annually, to the organization
  • that volunteers were encouraged to do any of the above, and that any of these audiences were encouraged to volunteer

35 years ago, these arts organizations were already experienced in target marketing in a way that I feel like so many nonprofits now, particularly those started by corporate folks, are still learning.

Those arts organizations had a relationship with every person in that database, everyone of a few thousand people. The organizations could target market to single ticket buyers based on the kinds of shows they liked in the past. We could target market events based on ages. We could engage in highly-targeted correspondence and phone calls that built relationships such that individual donors came back year after year after year. At one theater, we decided to stop trying to convert single ticket buyers to season ticket holders because, reviewing our data, we felt like we had “enough” of the latter, and wanted to still have an avenue to cultivate new customers. These arts organizations were regularly engaged in highly successful, annual crowdfunding – but they didn’t call it that.

These organizations were successful because of the relationship they built and sustained with individual donors, and it was individual donors, not large grants, that provided MOST of their funding.

That was all before “big data.” Those relationships happened because every person that touched that database understood that the people in it were humans, many of whom had emotional moments when they came to performances. They weren’t just a record number – they were real people, and they felt an emotional connection to the theater.

Not because of the software we used, but because of the protocols that were in place, everything about every program participant ended up almost immediately in our master database. How did we do that?! This way: at nonprofit theaters, absolutely everyone in every audience and every program came through the box office staff or the fundraising staff. That’s easier for nonprofits built around attendance to one primary series of events than an organization that has a range of programs each managed by different people. In addition, there was one person whose primary responsibility was to oversee all of the correspondence to everyone in that database, with the goal of either encouraging participation (including buying tickets) or donating money, and that messaging followed a strategy – it wasn’t haphazard.

Absolutely, individual staff sometimes exported certain data and worked with that data on their own. A staff member might have his own volunteer management database with very specific information to track about volunteers, information that should be kept confidential for the rest of the staff. Another staff member might have a database of media contacts with information separate from the main database. But the main database was the MAIN database, a precious asset as important as anything that went on the stage.

One of the many things I learned in working with these databases: you didn’t delete anyone from them. Duplicates, yes, but if someone called and requested to not be on the database anymore, or died, the recorded got marked as such, but not entirely removed, at least not for a certain number of years. Why? Because the data from the precious engagement was still needed for at least five years on, or because of the very real possibility that someone would re-input that person if they weren’t there already, not knowing the person had requested to be removed or had died.

It’s just yet another example of how arts organizations are often so far ahead of supposedly more tech-savvy nonprofits. And how there are lessons from 35 years are still oh-so-relevant.

This experience was the basis of one of the first web pages I created for my new web site back in the 1990s, about how to manage customer databases. And I can still see the influence in these pages on my site:

Keeping Volunteer Information Up-to-Date.

Advice on Choosing Volunteer Management Software.

Basic Customer Database Principles (an updated version of that first advice page on my web site).

Customer Database Regular Maintenance .

Has working in arts-related organizations affected how you work in other environments? Please share how below in the comments.

If you have benefited from this blog, my other blogs, or other parts of my web site and would like to support the time that went into researching information, developing material, preparing articles, updating pages, etc. (I receive no funding for this work), here is how you can help. 

what theatre taught me about management & internal communications

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Working at nonprofits in the 1980s and 1990s, nonprofits that produced live theatre, deeply affected me in terms of how I work in management, communications, customer service, team support and client data management in organizations that have nothing to do with the arts. The things accomplished in producing live theater that I had the privilege of being a part of – with few or no computers, and no Internet – seems astounding now. Back then, it was just business as usual.

How theatres approach project management offer great lessons for any nonprofit and their staff.

I started writing a blog about this long ago, but realized it’s really two blogs. This is part one of two on the subject of how working in nonprofit live theater back in the 1980s still affects how I work to this day, and how your nonprofit or company that is NOT focused on the arts can learn from such:

  • Everyone at the organization, whether full-time employee or short-time contractor or volunteer, whether on stage or back stage or up in the administrative offices, was committed to the success of the stage production and would do just about anything within their role to make sure it was a success. The executive director, the marketing director, the actors, the designers, the stagehands, the box office manager, the volunteer ushers, the intermission bartenders – EVERYONE wanted the production to be successful and cared deeply about it happening as close to the vision as possible. Everyone had each other’s backs – yes, I have jumped behind the bar to clean glasses when I realized intermission staff was overwhelmed, and I was the marketing manager.
  • Deadlines are absolute when producing stage productions at a theater that sells season tickets. Dress rehearsal happened on the date on which it was announced to happen. Opening night happened on the date on which it was announced to happen. Delays were oh-so-rare and, on the rare occassion they happened, deeply shameful. To miss that date gave the impression that the team was a poor planner and, perhaps, lacking in basic competence. It’s because of my background in theater management that I have laughed at web designers or tech developers who feel deadlines should be fluid or that say that what is being asked for is impossible or too much. They wouldn’t last a day in most professional nonprofit theater companies I’ve worked in, where a deadline is real, it’s non-negotiable. In my 15 years in live theater, we made every opening night. There might not be working light cues, there might have been an understudy in a role, but the audience saw a show the night we said there would be a show to see.
  • Meeting all the deadlines associated with dress rehearsal and opening night – for the play program to be printed, the volunteers recruited and scheduled, the press contacted and their seats booked, the costumes and props and sets fully constructed and operational, etc. – required frequent, continuous communication among various staff and departments, with all staff feeling empowered to communicate with absolutely anyone across hierarchies and departments. We didn’t have email – we still visited each other’s offices and still put things on paper. And at the weekly staff meeting, we were focused on exactly what needed to be done and WHO would be responsible. The house manager would a short report after EVERY performance noting ANY issues AT ALL, from a cell phone going off during the second act to late patrons not being seated until the first scene change. The stage manager wrote a short report EVERY performance noting ANY issues AT ALL during the performance. A senior staff member read that report EVERY morning and was not surprised when a patron called with a complaint about something they were angry about, or when an item showed up in the press noting a mistake in a performance, because they already knew about it. No one claimed they didn’t have time to write those reports or read them. I have stared dumbfounded at senior managers at non-arts-related nonprofits who want to focus on how they first heard about a program problem – the messenger – rather than the problem itself.
  • Hierarchies existed, but not when it came to communications about the quality of the “final product.” If the marketing assistant attended a rehearsal and sat in a seat and realized the staging would keep certain audience members from seeing a critical moment, that marketing assistant woud be welcomed to tell either the stage manager or even the director, directly – that assistant didn’t to have to go to the marketing director, who would then go to the executive director, who would then go to the artistic director, who will then go to the stage director.
  • Absolutely, we were happy with full houses and sold-out shows, but we were just as thrilled looking out and seeing a half-filled but completely diverse audience, with people of ethnicities or ages we didn’t usually have in those seats. We also were thrilled when we put on a show that was challenging in terms of its theme or how it was presented, and it connected with the audience, even if we weren’t playing to full houses. I’ve never been able to relate to corporate folks that want nonprofits to focus exclusively on numbers instead of other factors, like the diversity of the audience and feedback from that audience, when judging marketing success.
  • EVERYONE took part in celebrating the success: on opening night, the box office assistant manager was as delighted as the show’s director that the play – the project – was off and running successfully, and they were side-by-side celebrating at some point.

I miss that environment so, so much. I’ve kept those lessons in my work, much to the frustration of some managers. I still think it’s a great way to operate.

Next week, I’ll share blog number two on how working in nonprofit theater taught me so much about customer relations and data management.

If you feel that your work or volunteering at any arts-related nonprofit has positively affected your work at other nonprofits, or even in the corporate sector, please comment below!

If you have benefited from this blog, my other blogs, or other parts of my web site and would like to support the time that went into researching information, developing material, preparing articles, updating pages, etc. (I receive no funding for this work), here is how you can help. 

Are you using your own smartphone or other devices in your work or volunteering activities? Is your employer aware?

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images meant to look like cave drawings, one of a woman using a smartphone and one at a desktop computer.

Do you use your own, personal smartphone in your work activities for your employer? Does your company reimburse you for this? Does your company have a policy in writing about this use? Are you facing any challenges in using your own tech resources for your work, tech that you pay for and maintain yourself and use for your personal life as well?

I started a thread on the TechSoup forum a while back about this and a lot of folks have some strong feelings about this issue. There are also some companies that reimburse staff for use of their own personal devices.

What about your company? And for nonprofit organizations – do you realize what the cost is for your staff and volunteers when you require them to use their smartphones and other personal devices in their work for you? Had you even thought about it before?

You can weight in on the comments below, but please also weigh in on the original TechSoup forum.

a hand is receiving money

If you have benefited from this blog or other parts of my web site or my YouTube videos and would like to support the time that went into researching information, developing material, preparing articles, updating pages, etc. (I receive no funding for this work), here is how you can help.

Keys to Success in That Project / Process / Disruption You Want to Introduce

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US Digital Response is a nonprofit that leverages a network of pro bono technical expertise – volunteers – to help governments, nonprofits, and public entities respond quickly to critical public needs. As of May 2023, USDR has partnered with almost 300 government and nonprofit partners on nearly 400 projects. For instance, a state workforce partner needed to reopen applications for multilingual claimants who were previously denied benefits and determine if they are eligible to receive retroactive PUA payments. Many claimants had not interacted with the UI system in months or possibly years, causing the potential for confusion when the department reached back out to the claimant. Another concern was the increased call center activity, putting additional strain on support staff working through a backlog of cases from existing claims. To help combat these issues, the state agency wanted to create a self-guided experience that was clear for claimants as well as reduce load on their call center. USDR volunteers helped them do this.

I really like this guide from US Digital Response on how their projects work. I think it’s how all ICT projects that help nonprofits – and indeed, how all capacity-building projects, even those that do not involve tech – should work. Too often, when expert consultants, whether volunteer or paid, come into a program to create what is supposed to be a sustainable project – ICT-related or not – it never really gets adopted by the agency. That’s time and money wasted. I think following this guide can help stop that:

1. Deliver value in days, not months. Quickly demonstrate what's possible. 2. Design for sustainability and usability, always with the end user in mind. 3. Leverage or adapt existing tools and products whenever possible. 4. Help partners build their technical capacity and deliver services on their own.

Let’s take a closer look at each of these:

Deliver in values in days, not months. This isn’t possible for every project, tech-related or not. But it’s always worth thinking about: is there a small win that could be achieved early in a project that, ultimately, will take longer and will quickly demonstrate what’s possible, show why this is worth doing, etc.? If the project will take a long time, could small wins every few weeks be built into the project development?

Design for sustainability and usability, always with the end user in mind. Can I get an amen?! I feel so strongly about this, it really should be number one. To me, sustainability means that what you create can be taken over by the regular staff, whether employees or volunteers, when you, the person designing and implementing this, move on. If that’s not possible, IT’S NOT WORTH DOING. And to do this means you have focused on usability.

Leverage or adapt existing tools and products whenever possible. The first thing I do when I go into an organization is to access what they have in terms of software, hardware, forms and processes. I do NOT go in and start switching whatever they are using for document-sharing, live chat, photo-sharing with the public, donor tracking, etc. The organization MAY have all that they need – they just need to improve how they use it.

Help partners build their technical capacity and deliver services on their own. This, to me, links back to my comment about sustainability.

Of course, all of this is easier said than done. The biggest thing that has affected the success of my own change-based projects at an organization is a leader suddenly changing their mind about what they want and retreating into the but that’s the way we’ve always done it mentality. A lot of people say they want a change, or something new, but then balk when they see what that is really going to look like. I’m not sure what the process is to diplomatically ask, “You say this is what you want – but do you really?”

Also, I am always fascinated how a staff person or volunteer can have an idea for a new way of doing things and it’s rejected outright – but a consultant can suggest the same thing and it’s immediately endorsed and implemented. Before your organization looks for outside expertise, take an honest look inside – you may already have the inspiration, talent and energy you need among current staff.

Also see:

If you have benefited from this blog or other parts of my web site and would like to support the time that went into researching information, developing material, preparing articles, updating pages, etc. (I receive no funding for this work), here is how you can help.

Abilities you need to work in humanitarian development successfully

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image of a panel discussion

I’ve been working on this for a while: a list of abilities that I believe a person needs to work in humanitarian development successfully – including to work at the United Nations. For my purposes here, I define such success as meeting the requirements of your job and the goals of your program and getting along well with others while also staying personally satisfied.

These are the skills I’ve seen that have made the difference in success, as I have just defined it, for oh so many people – and myself. Many would call them “soft skills.” These skills usually won’t be listed in job requirements. You can’t major in any of these skills at a university; you get them from working, volunteering and collaborating on anything with others (co-workers, neighbors, family…), and you can do all of that (and gain these skills) no matter where you live.

Also, it’s good to approach at least some of these as job interview questions: “Tell me about a time when you needed to adapt and improvise regarding a strategy you had planned out but you realized wouldn’t work as planned…” or “tell me about a time when you broke down a process into smaller steps so that it was easier to understand by co-workers or community members…”

To work in humanitarian development successfully, you need the abilities to:

  1. read large amounts of text, and to understand what you have read and apply it to your work.
  2. memorize.
  3. manage time effectively.
  4. speak comfortably in front of audiences, including those that may be hostile to your subject matter.
  5. shut up, listen and learn from others (and I am using “shut up” because too many don’t understand “listen quietly”).
  6. adapt and improvise when you realize a strategy has to be altered or something unexpected happens.
  7. negotiate.
  8. write words to educate, persuade and influence others.
  9. cultivate trust quickly and on an ongoing basis with others.
  10. make decisions based on facts and not on emotions or just your “gut” – and be ready to do that despite what you wanted to believe in your gut.
  11. break a process down to smaller steps.
  12. reframe complex ideas into plain language.
  13. delegate tasks appropriately and frequently with an eye to building the skills of others.
  14. build the skills of someone to eventually take over a process you currently undertake.
  15. guide without micromanaging.
  16. work with co-workers, community members and others you don’t like.
  17. know how to quickly tell your boss what you are doing and why you are doing it, what you are achieving and what is challenging you – and make sure your boss’s boss knows all of this too.
  18. not let an insult of you derail the work you need to do.
  19. read the room, to be aware of the feelings and opinions of those you are talking to, and to be able to alter your approach if you realize it’s not going to work or be inappropriate in that circumstance.
  20. keep trying and experimenting, and learn from failure.
  21. do self-analysis and let go of ideas when it’s clear they won’t work.
  22. stay positive and hopeful – and get that back when you lose it.
  23. understand what others feel, even if you disagree with their values.
  24. ask for advice and help and know how to seek and find the expertise you don’t have.
  25. recognize situations that are unnecessarily dangerous or when you are personally at risk and react to keep yourself safe.
  26. process your own stress, anxiety, and other negative feelings, and address feelings of loneliness in a healthy way.
  27. balance priorities with personal needs and know when it’s time to take a break.
  28. pick your battles.
  29. know when to ask for permission and when to do it without prior approval and be ready to ask for forgiveness.
  30. own your mistakes.
  31. know who you are working with that has your back and those who do NOT.
  32. how to get back up when you stumble and fall.

No one person can have all of these abilities all the time, by the way.

And, yes, it’s helpful to have abilities like being able to learn another language so that you can work in a language other than the one your own family and neighbors speak – your native language. And you need the abilities to obtain a university degree and a lot of work experience and on and on. But you need these “soft skills” as well – and just as much.

For those of you who have worked in international development, what abilities would you add – abilities that might not ever be named in a role’s Terms of Reference?

Also see:

If you have benefited from this blog, my other blogs, or other parts of my web site and would like to support the time that went into researching information, developing material, preparing articles, updating pages, etc. (I receive no funding for this work), here is how you can help. 

Most popular blogs of 2022

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We’ve celebrated another trip around the sun, and that means it’s time to look at what were my most popular blogs of 2022 – and to try to figure out why. It’s an exercise I do not so much for YOU, my readers, but for me. It’s the kind of self-analysis every nonprofit, NGO, government agency, or consultant for such should do.

There are eight blogs here that had enough readers (clicks) to qualify for being “popular”, in my opinion. And here they are.

Nine plus four emerging volunteer engagement trends (a VERY different list than you will read elsewhere) is not only the most popular blog I wrote in 2022, it is also in the top 20 of the most popular blogs I have EVER written. I was really surprised at how many people retweeted it.

The key to retaining volunteers. Another blog that got a LOT of retweets. It’s worth noting that Twitter has always been the most popular driver of people to my blogs – way more than Facebook or LinkedIn. That’s why I can’t quit it… yet.

What funding volunteer engagement looks like. A really popular blog – but I thought it would be even more so.

Seen a drop in volunteers? Quit blaming the pandemic & fix the problems. This blog struck quite a nerve, based on retweets.

How are you supporting the mental health needs of your volunteers? This blog, published in July 2022, saw a surge in popularity late in the year. Not sure why – I can’t see that someone has reposted it. But thank you to whoever did so.

How to connect & engage with volunteers remotely – even when those volunteers work onsite. More and more nonprofits are realizing that the Internet is an essential tool for supporting ALL volunteers, including those that you see onsite most of the time.

Either be committed to quality or quit involving volunteers. A blog I worked on for months and based on SO many conversations with nonprofits, schools and community programs that recruit volunteers, as well as my own experience trying to volunteer.

When IT staff isn’t providing proper support for volunteer engagement. Another blog I drafted over months. I’ve wanted to write it for years. I wish IT staff wasn’t an obstacle for managers of volunteers but, sadly, too often they are.

A couple of months, I’ve been blogging every other week, rather than every week. I’ve had a lot of other projects going on that need my energy and time, and cutting back on blogging let me do those other projects too. But for the first four months of 2023 at least, I’ll be back to blogging every week for a while, because those other projects have given me OH so much more to say! Let’s see how long that lasts.

Happy 2023! Hope yours is off to a great start.

If you have benefited from any of my blogs or other parts of my web site and would like to support the time that went into researching information, developing material, preparing articles, updating pages, etc. (I receive no funding for this work), here is how you can help.

cover of Virtual Volunteering book with hands raising up various Internet connected devices

Also, I have exactly 18 copies of The Last Virtual Volunteering Guidebook. And when they are gone, they are gone – as in, you will have to pay a LOT more by ordering them from Amazon. If you want to learn how to leverage online tools to communicate with and support volunteers, whether those volunteers are mostly online (virtual volunteering) or they provide service mostly onsite at your organization, and to dig deep into the factors for success in supporting online volunteers and keeping virtual volunteering a worthwhile endeavor for everyone involved, you will not find a more detailed guide anywhere than The Last Virtual Volunteering Guidebook. It’s based on many years of experience, from a variety of organizations. It’s available both as a traditional print publication and as a digital book.

Young nonprofit consultants? Starting today, Halloween, don’t be afraid to CHARGE MORE.

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One of the biggest mistakes of my consulting career is this:

I didn’t charge more for my services in my first years of consulting. Sometimes, I didn’t charge at all.

I charged very little for my consulting and contract work when I was younger because I was trying to prove myself, and thought that the “exposure” would lead to more high-paid gigs.

As years passed, nonprofits, including several very large ones that paid their executive directors in the triple digits, would tell me how strapped for cash they were, how it was impossible for them to pay me anything but an honorarium (which they often noted many past consultants donated back to the nonprofit), if they paid anything at all. And I believed them. Then I would find out that they paid another consultant, someone from the corporate sector – and, often, a man – much more than me.

I was an employee for a nonprofit a few years back, and I spent a weekend – hours and hours – editing videos from various events into videos that showed how great a particular program of the nonprofit was. To this day, I think they are some of my best work. Later, I found videos from years before that a private consultant had done, and they were largely unusable: the sound was horrible and they weren’t edited at all. And I found out that, for the same amount of work that I had done, he’d been paid thousands of dollars.

By not charging what I should have, I devalued my work. I reinforced the idea that nonprofit employees and consultants don’t deserve competitive wages, because our work isn’t as important or as worthwhile as work in the corporate world. I contributed to a negative stereotype that affects professionals to this day.

If you are a consultant in the nonprofit world, or looking for contract work, here is my advice: don’t give nonprofits a special rate that devalues your services. Find out what people that do that kind of work charge in the for-profit or corporate world, and if you want, knock 10% off of it for nonprofits, but don’t offer deep discounts to nonprofits, especially those that have paid staff. And remember to charge for ALL of your time, including travel time and preparation time!

Nonprofits, if you need consultant or contract help, write a funding proposal for such and talk to your corporate donors. Remind them that nonprofit staff do not get discounts on their home mortgages or rent, their health care, their child care, their children’s university educations, gas for their car, etc. Remind them that if they want nonprofits to behave more like businesses, it means paying competitive wages.

If you have benefited from this blog, my other blogs, or other parts of my web site and would like to support the time that went into researching information, developing material, preparing articles, updating pages, etc. (I receive no funding for this work), here is how you can help. 

Do your volunteers feel psychologically safe?

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Google researchers, the People Analytics team, studied the qualifies of effective teams at Google. Code-named Project Aristotle – a tribute to Aristotle’s quote, “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts” (as the Google researchers believed employees can do more working together than alone) – the goal was to answer the question: What makes a team effective at Google?

Research from Google’s Project Aristotle found that the most important dynamic of a successful team is members feeling psychologically safe. This occurs in environments where no one else will embarrass or punish others for admitting a mistake, asking a question, or offering a new idea.

Reading this was like a punch in the gut for me. For any job that hasn’t worked out, that I couldn’t wait to leave, this was always the primary problem I faced with supervisors.

I hope that all managers of people that see this do a deep, honest examination of the culture of their own departments and companies with regard to this kind of fear-based way of working. But I hope managers of volunteers look at the culture around volunteer service as well. And I hope you won’t get defensive if the evidence you gather points to toxicity in your program or your entire organization.

Also see:

If you have benefited from this blog, my other blogs, or other parts of my web site and would like to support the time that went into researching information, developing material, preparing articles, updating pages, etc. (I receive no funding for this work), here is how you can help. 

Nonprofits: legislation & politics are affecting your staff & clients.

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An image to depict social cohesion and team work and interconnectedness: images of four human like figures, each a different color, holding hands and leaning back - if one breaks hands, it will mean that, eventually, all will fall backwards.

Nonprofits, community groups and other mission-based programs in the USA need to be aware that legislation and politics are affecting your staff (employees and volunteers) and your clients/customers. Such is affecting their families and their day-to-day life, their health care, the life-altering choices they can make, their participation in society, and on and on. And that means it’s also going to affect staff job performance with you and potentially affect the impact you can have with clients/customers.

Regardless of your own personal politics and regardless of your organization’s mission, you need to be aware of how legislation and politics are affecting your staff and to think about how you are, or are not, going to support staff as this is happening.

You have employee, volunteers and clients who may become pregnant and need to seek abortion services. Or maybe denied access to abortion services despite an ectopic pregnancy, an incomplete miscarriage, placental problems and premature rupture of membranes. How are you going to support them as they undergo these experiences?

You have employees, volunteers and clients who have same-sex marriages, something the US Supreme Court may overturn. If that happens, and their marriages are declared invalid, will you continue to give spousal benefits for staff, such as maternity leave or health care coverage? If that happens but those marriages remain valid, but no more can happen, will you give spousal benefits, such as maternity leave or health care coverage, to those staff members now forbidden by law from marrying? Will you still send track the names of those partners in your database if you do so already?

For an election, some states are putting just one ballot drop box to serve an entire county, or prohibiting most people from applying for absentee ballots. Are you going to give your employees and volunteers paid time off to vote on election day? Are you going to make sure staff and clients know about non-partisan voter education programs, like guides from the League of Women Voters, and debates?

Some staff have family members who are not legally in the country and are living in day-to-day danger of being deported, and if such happens, it could not only mean the separation of a loved one, but sudden changes regarding income, in options regarding child care, and more. What will you do to support such staff?

Consequences of not thinking about this or addressing it:

  • You will lose employees and volunteers.
  • The productivity and performance of employees and volunteers could be affected, which affects your service delivery.
  • Inaction may go against your stated organizational values.

Note I’m not asking you to take a political stance. The IRS wording on the Restriction of Political Campaign Intervention by nonprofits is clear: 

Under the Internal Revenue Code, all section 501(c)(3) organizations are absolutely prohibited from directly or indirectly participating in, or intervening in, any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for elective public office. Contributions to political campaign funds or public statements of position (verbal or written) made on behalf of the organization in favor of or in opposition to any candidate for public office clearly violate the prohibition against political campaign activity.  Violating this prohibition may result in denial or revocation of tax-exempt status and the imposition of certain excise taxes.

Certain activities or expenditures may not be prohibited depending on the facts and circumstances.  For example, certain voter education activities (including presenting public forums and publishing voter education guides) conducted in a non-partisan manner do not constitute prohibited political campaign activity. In addition, other activities intended to encourage people to participate in the electoral process, such as voter registration and get-out-the-vote drives, would not be prohibited political campaign activity if conducted in a non-partisan manner.

On the other hand, voter education or registration activities with evidence of bias that (a) would favor one candidate over another; (b) oppose a candidate in some manner; or (c) have the effect of favoring a candidate or group of candidates, will constitute prohibited participation or intervention.

But if you think politics isn’t personal and can’t affect a nonprofit, whether it’s a performing arts center or a literacy program or an animal rescue group, think again.

And you should consider mentioning to funders how these state and federal actions are affecting your staff, your clients and your work in general. They should know.

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