Why Volunteer?

During a recent conversation, with other writers on this blog, we discussed why we volunteer. Here is our list of reasons. Check the ones that motivate you:

1. To give back

2. To be part of the community

3. To learn important information to help other organizations

4. To gain visibility and create useful connections

5. To redeem or collect favors

6. To stay grounded

7. To have fun

8. To gain skills or expertise

9. To create results and impact

10. (For leadership roles) To lead the effort, because it’s more comfortable than participating (i.e., If I run the meetings, we will end on time.)

11. So that the work will be taken seriously

12. To respond to our passion for the mission

Now that you have a better idea about why you volunteer, go to Volunteering As a Nonprofit Leader to discover a tool to help you rate your different volunteer opportunities. It will help you to select opportunities that will provide you the most value.

Enhancing Nonprofit Accountability

Lately, I’ve been thinking about lot about how to increase nonprofit accountability, since it is so crucial to creating outcomes. In addition to dedicating the Fall Issue of Added Value to the topic, I’ve also developed a dozen other tips to grow it

Here is one additional tip:

Create Checklists for Routine Tasks. Reduce the need for repetitive (and boring) thinking about regular tasks. Develop checklists. You might already use these for emergency closings. Add them for board meeting preparations, posting website updates, the end of the day lock-up and similar routines.

The Business of Changing Lives

This is a great read if you’re trying to create nonprofit programming that will appeal to businesses or employ business concepts for sustainability. Author Allan Weis, Internet Pioneer, shares the story of how profits from Advanced Network and Services (ANS), were used to create ThinkQuest, a learning platform that helps students across the globe. Weiss calls it the “Olympics of Web Programming,” see www.thinkquest.org. The text also provides insight into the intent of other ANS grant making and replicable, sustainable program ideas.

This book was a gift from Laura Breeze from the Sarasota Education Foundation. The Foundation supports the TeXellence Program, a recipient of ANS funding. TeXellence provides computers to over 1,000 fourth graders and their low-income families each year. Imagine my surprise when I discovered in the book, that Ron Zimmerman was its founder. At the time, I was taking one of his MAC classes. It is “a small world after all” and we’re all in the business of changing lives.

Aligning Our Work Behind Our Vision

I am currently in Tucson, Arizona with my business partner Gail Meltzer, CFRE. We have just finished an incredible week-long class presented by Hildy Gottlieb and Dimitri Petropolis from the Community Driven Institute. The class was centered around The Pollyanna Principles, a book I’ve talked about previously on this blog. The two of us have come away with so much that we’d like to share with the world. However, on this blog posting I feel compelled to speak to the issue of ensuring our work is aligned behind our vision.

Throughout the course we spoke of the very real ability to create amazing communities. That ability starts with creating a vision that captures our highest potential – not for the organization but rather for the community. We must be able to see how lives will be dramatically changed as a result of our efforts. After all, when we aim for the sun or the moon, if we don’t make it, at least we’ll be up among the stars.

However, we can create the most inspiring vision known to man, but if our work does not move us on a direct trajectory toward our vision, we will fail to get there, or at best, get there after unnecessary delays and untold financial and human costs. Dimitri shared the example of a space craft designed to reach the moon. The astronauts or Mission Control must make numerous adjustments throughout the flight to ensure the craft remains on the proper path. If it is off by even a degree or two over the course of its long journey the craft will miss the moon altogether. Think how often we allow mission creep or even the protection of a program that is past its prime to take us the degree or two off course. With money as tight as it has been this last year and the needs greater than ever, we cannot afford squandering resources on paths that are not perfectly aligned with our vision.

So, begin today by reviewing your vision. Consider the conditions that must be met in order to achieve it. Identify the community impact goals that will allow you to meet each condition. Then prioritize these goals based on those that are most likely to help you reach your vision in the most elegant and robust manner possible.

Ruined By A Grant?

The other day, my cousin emailed about a program at her congregation. “We have a Hispanic Ministry here which was funded partially though a grant. It will expire at the end of this year. With that income source going away, the Finance Committee is interested in learning if there are other grants out there that we could target.”

Too many programs, started with a grant, have weak or absent sustainability plans. In most cases, the grant funds are shortly expended and the program (no matter how excellent) closes for lack of funding. Thus, your great idea is ruined by a grant.

Don’t let a grant ruin your great program. Disciple your organization, to create a realistic sustainability plan and implement it. Here, are two articles that will help you to create programs that will be enhanced, instead of ruined, with grant funding:

When to Begin Your Sustainability Plans
and
Sustainability Questions for Before You Seek the Grant

Evaluating your organization's "foundation" makes good sense

I recently received a flyer from my favorite undergarments boutique and found some of the questions posed relate to non-profits.

Just as a bra is the foundation to looking and feeling great in your clothes, a non-profit's mission is the foundation to looking and feeling great to your constituents and funders. If it doesn't fit properly, your organization will not look as well as it should.

Many women wear the same size bra they wore in high school, even though their body has changed considerably. Are you using the same mission statement you've been using for the past 25 years? Have you ever considered re-evaluating your mission to see if it still fits? Just as there is no guaranteed lifespan for a bra, there's no guarantee that your mission still fits your organization.

Our collective expertise can help you find the right foundation for your organization.

Laura Mikuska

laura@mikuska.com

www.mikuska.com

"Helping charities achieve their dreams."

The Benefits and Limits of Storybanking

Two of my essays, on the benefits and limits of banking your organization's stories, can now be found at PhilanTopic.