I will be in Mexico City April 2 – 9. If your organization in Mexico City or Puebla asks for such, I could possibly squeeze in a consultation or short workshop while there. However, my Spanish is not as good as it was a few years ago, so I would need a translator if the group did not speak English. Contact me ASAP for more info. See more information on my web site about my workshops and consultations.
Estaré en México D.F. 2 – 9 de abrill. Si su organización en México o Puebla me solicita, podría presentar un taller o la consulta cortos durante mi visita. Sin embargo, mi español no es bueno ahora. ¡Perdóneme! Necesitaré a un traductor si el grupo no habla inglés. Contácteme inmediatamente para más información. Mas información sobre mis talleres y consultas.
I’m in Budapest, Hungary where, yesterday, I presented an all-day intensive onsite workshop for education advising centers throughout Eastern and Western Europe affiliated with EducationUSA, a global network supported by the U.S. Department of State. My workshop was regarding business planning and creating revenue streams/fee-based services. I’ve certainly done business planning and managed fee-based services at nonprofits, and I’ve consulted on this subject before with nonprofits, but I have never trained on it.
It was a fascinating challenge for me to develop a hands-on workshop that would be relevant to an audience representing so many different countries, and, therefore, very different rules, different cultures, etc. (countries included Azerbaijan, Cyprus, Georgia, Lithuania, Russia, Portugal, Ukraine, the UK, Germany, Slovenia and Spain). To get everyone on the same page regarding what I meant by business planning, fees, customer service, and financial sustainability, I used a car mechanic as a model — a car mechanic, it seems to me, is a rather universal concept, someone we are all familiar with, even if we don’t have a car.
To be provocative, I ofcourse used an image of a FEMALE car mechanic.
And then I talked about what makes a car mechanic successful:
Her prices are reasonable (at least understandable – why she charges for what for a particular task or material).
She helps you to understand what she will do.
She can give you an immediate, realistic estimate for how long a job will take and when she can do that job.
She does the job she says she will do, on time.
She exudes quality.
In short, her customers TRUST her, because of the above activities and approach.
And then we related that back to nonprofit businesses – how, really, we have to do all those same things regarding our organizations, even if we have just one funder who gives us a mega-grant to pay everything.
I think it worked really well at setting the stage for all the rest of the workshop, if I do say so myself. I’m sure that most car mechanics don’t use the forms and exercises I used with these centers, like a SWOT analysis, to develop their business plans. But the car mechanic approach seemed to help my oh-so-multi-cultural group understand how to use those tools.
One of the biggest takeaways that attendees seemed to really seize on: clients who are expected to pay for something anticipate gaining significantly more from an organization than those who get the service for free. That slide got referred back to again and again.
And, finally, I have to thank Michael Keizer for posting the infographic shouldiworkforfree.com in the comments section of a recent previous blog of mine – I ended up using it in the workshop, after being reminded of it by my colleague Ann Merrill, and the group not only laughed, they said it actually helped them in thinking about what to charge for!
A reminder: The Last Virtual Volunteering Guidebook provides detailed advice on creating assignments for online volunteers, for working with online volunteers, for using the Internet to support and involve ALL volunteers, including volunteers that provide service onsite, for ensuring success in virtual volunteering, and for using the Internet to build awareness and support for all volunteering at your program. Tech tools come and go, but certain community engagement principles never change, and those principles are detailed in this comprehensive guide. You will not find a more detailed guide anywhere for working with online volunteers and using the Internet to support and involve all volunteers. It’s available as a digital book or as a traditional paperback. It’s co-written by myself and Susan Ellis.
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.
I’m here to conduct an all-day onsite workshop and engage in some one-on-one consulting regarding business planning, donor relations and creating revenue streams for education advising centers throughout Eastern and Western Europe affiliated with EducationUSA, a global network supported by the U.S. Department of State. The center representatives I will be presenting to are from Azerbaijan, Lithuania, Cyprus, Georgia, Germany, Hungary, Lithuania, Portugal, Russia, Slovenia, Spain, Ukraine and the UK (the centers are usually staffed by local people, not Americans). I did similar workshops, more focused on strategic planning, program credibility and transparency, in Belgrade, Serbia. Dec. 2009 for with centers based throughout the Balkans.
EducationUSA is a global network of more than 400 advising centers supported by the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA) at the U.S. Department of State. “EducationUSA centers actively promote U.S. higher education around the world by offering accurate, unbiased, comprehensive, objective and timely information about educational institutions in the United States and guidance to qualified individuals on how best to access those opportunities. Millions of prospective students learn about U.S. study opportunities through EducationUSA centers each year. Centers are staffed by professional advisers, many of whom have first-hand experience having studied in the United States themselves, adhere to ethical standards, and/or have received State Department-approved training about U.S. higher education and the advising process.” EducationUSA centers also advise U.S. colleges and universities about options for developing study programs in other countries. EducationUSA advisers work in a variety of host institutions, such as Fulbright Commissions, NGOs, U.S. embassies and consulates, bi-national centers, universities, and public libraries.
A national nonprofit organization asked me to participate in a one-hour conference call this week to help them brainstorm something they want to do. I said sure, because I can make time available to do this, the topic is interesting to me, and I would like to contribute.
That same nonprofit then asked me to participate in a series of calls between now and the summer, contributing more than 20-30 hours of my time to a planning process. I said no. They wanted 20-30 hours free consulting from me, and from about a dozen other people as well, and seemed stunned that I (and at least one other person involved) found this request exploitative.
If I were running a store, would you walk in and say, “Hi, can you give me several hundred dollars of stuff for free?”? If I ran a restaurant, would you say, “Could I eat hear for six months every night for free? After all, we’re friends!”?
When does a request for donated time go from being appropriate, even welcomed, to being exploitive? When the organization forgets what they are asking for — for volunteering. Pro bono consulting is volunteering.
Time is a precious commodity. In today’s economy, asking for a person’s time can be the same as asking for money. If you are going to ask me to part with that much of my time, you had better have a highly-motivating reason for me to do so, because you are asking me to give you something that I normally charge for – and I have bills to pay, a household to support, and many things to pay for, just like you do.
This organization forgot what goes into recruiting volunteers. Which is shocking, since it’s an organization that is supposed to be focused on volunteering. Recruiting volunteers is never, “Here’s a bunch of work we need done. Please come do it. Because we’re a nonprofit.”
what their organization does, in terms of results for their target audience, and it inspired me or motivated me to get involved.
why volunteers are essential to what that organization does, but never in terms like, “We could never have enough money to pay staff to do this, so we involve volunteers” or “volunteers contribute $xxxx in services,” which implies money saved in having to pay people; instead, the messages focus on why volunteers are more appropriate to do the tasks than paid staff, for reasons that have NOTHING to do with money.
what the benefits will be for me in volunteering; Will I get to work with a target audience or regarding an issue I care deeply about? Will it be fun? Will I get opportunities that might help me in my professional work? Will I get some kind of incredible discount on something I would love to have?
I don’t wait for some free time to give these organizations; I MAKE time to help them. And these organizations also let me know that they appreciate my work:
They send me personalized emails when I finish an assignment, commenting on the work to show me that they actually read it.
They send me stuff: a pen, a t-shirt, a trophy.
Sometimes, someone writes me just to say “hi.”
In short, they treat me like a precious investor!
I cannot possibly say yes to every organization that wants my donated time. In fact, I say “no” more often than I say “yes,” even to organizations that have a great volunteer recruitment message, because, as I’ve said, I have bills to pay. In fact, even if I win the lottery and can afford to give away all my time for free, I will still have to say “no” often, because there are only 24 hours a day, and I’ll still need time for eating, sleeping, spending time with my family, etc.
Time is precious. Sometimes, if you really want it, you are going to have to pay for it – even if you are a nonprofit.
It’s looking very likely I will be in Budapest in late January 2011to perform some training (more on that as details emerge). I would be happy to stick around Europe for a week or even two for other training gigs. If you are in Europe and are interested in booking me for a training the first or second week of February, please contact me.
