May 5, 2014— Mary Beth Washington is the stuff that kindergarten dreams are made of. “She did almost everything contrary to the rules: she took the kids out walking in the rain, she napped with them during naptime, she came to school dressed like a circus performer. She was in love with birds, dancing, poetry and people.” Now in her 93rd year, she is as spirited as ever and still going strong with her walking stick, cheery stockings and shoes, and many layers of scarves. “I teach the big children, now,” she says, in a chance encounter with a parent whose child was one of her students. With hearty chuckles and magical winks, there are many lessons to be learned from this special woman. (10901 reads)
Posts Tagged ‘meaningful work’
Lessons From My 93-Year-Old Kindergarten Teacher
In Inspiration, Motivation, Random on May 6, 2014 at 11:52 amIt’s Not What You Tell Your Donors, It’s How You Say It
In change management, consulting, Fundraising, nonprofit organizations on February 5, 2014 at 10:52 pmI’ve seen my share of “donor death” due to the academic delivery of every specific detail relating to an organization’s mission. It’s not pretty. First the eyes glaze over and the face slackens, the brow slightly furrows, then the fingers fret with each other as the donor begins to avert his eyes. This is quickly followed by phone checking, paper rustling, and long loving glances at wristwatches. When this happens, there is no question that the end is near.
When a donor goes into this death spiral, the organization must work harder to keep the donor engaged and interested. Hard work requires more resources and additional resources are expensive. It is far more effective for organizations to understand the dynamics of donor engagement before the meeting. Spending a minimum of upfront time, determining how to tell your organization’s story in an effective and engaging manner rather than reporting your organization’s destination will pay dividends.
Nonprofits as an industry, we are in love with our science. We love the academics and inner workings of our profession. It’s our passion for the science of what we do that drives us to perform. But frankly, for our donors, it’s the pedestrian, everyday results they can relate to that fires their engines. I am reminded of a 1970s advertisement produced by Crispin and Porter, that illustrates this point (see above). Telling someone you need to get to a destination is uninteresting and even boring when you compare it to sharing with someone your need to connect with humanity, your family, your loved ones. Same message, but a very different emotion attached to that message.
Check your language. Review your letters, materials, your website. Are you alienating and potentially killing off your donors with your technical speak? Are you telling them where you need to be, rather than sharing with them what or who you want to become. They don’t need the details or the destination. They need the information that will spark their emotions, encourage engagement, and keep them excited about your cause.
How to Start a Movement
In change management, Discussables on February 3, 2014 at 5:08 pm“Set yourself on fire with passion, and people will come for miles to watch you burn.”
You can’t lead movements without passion for your cause. I don’t care if your movement is for profit or nonprofit, you have to be on fire for your mission, product, service, goals. This however has much risk.
First is the risk of being alone in your passion. We are a people hard wired to belong in groups, in tribes. Seth Godin makes a great argument for that in his book by the same name, “Tribes”. Being alone requires one to be unafraid, to overcome their fears of ridicule, judgement, rejection, or attack. Being alone means bearing through the anxiety of uncertainty and the prospect of failure. Will I remain alone? Will anyone join me? Is this truth? What if I’m wrong? Being alone in your passion for your cause also bears the possibility of alienation. Look at the scripture persona of John the Baptist. He was labeled insane and spent years wandering the desert alone because very few joined his cause for a very long time. But then, he changed the world.
Secondly, being on fire for your passion requires you to inspire others. To find just the right actions to get others to join you. The risk in this is doing the wrong thing. Is there such a risk? Is doing the wrong thing a permanent fault?
Finally, being on fire for your passion can hurt. Risking your emotional well being requires bravery and piety, putting aside your own needs for the needs of the cause. And yet everyday, we are inspired by people who HAVE set themselves on fire for their cause. And there is a formula, as evidenced in this TED Talk by Derek Sivers.
The formula can be condensed into this:
- You can’t be successful unless you are ON FIRE for your cause.
- Passion drives performance. Feel your cause and let it move you to action.
- Passion is contagious. Mentor others through your actions, words are a dime a dozen.
- Have patience. Passion hears ‘no’ as Not Now.
- Develop and deepen your faith. Trust that what you believe in will have followers. Somewhere. Sometime. If one person believes it, there ARE others.
- Embrace your early followers and empower them to own the passion and the cause. Leadership means stepping aside to enable the growing fire to burn freely.
- Celebrate small victories. New followers are like gold, treat them to a joyous celebration.
- Think allow, not how. Once the fire burns, controlling it can consume you. Know that your passion has ignited a cause and it’s ultimate outcome is driven by your tribe of similarly passionate people.
- Most importantly, be brave.
A world driven by passion is a world on fire for change.
Passion, in the boardroom, gives birth to a fundraising high
In Discussables on September 28, 2010 at 10:35 amFundraising for an organization on which a person serves as a board member is a core component of their role. Why? Because a boards role is to govern and act as fiduciary authority for the protection of the organization. According to a Grant Thornton report from 2008, boards spent 30% of their time on Strategic Planning, followed by Fundraising at 21%. That’s more than 50% of the board’s time spent on governance and raising money.
That’s the official requirement.
“When non profit board members are fired up about the real change they want to make in the world, they are more willing to embrace fundraising.” – Gail PerryBut there is something more real. More authentic. Something of which I hope you can relate, because the power that comes from having board members with passion is beyond measure.
Passion=Philanthropy
Passion drives philanthropy. Philanthropy drives fundraising.
Fundraising is not about talking your friends out of their money….its about giving them the opportunity to get involved in something important to you, something that will give them satisfaction in successfully making a difference, having their investment show results, feel rewarded.
As philanthropy professionals, we want our boards to be excited about the possibilities for our mission and be eager to help create the resources to make it happen.
That means a lot of work for the organization in engaging our board. The organization will need to set strategy and keep it. Set goals and reach them. Show results. Share stories on how they have changed lives. Be responsible to their clients and to the board for the organizations actions. Prove their value through their work.
But it is also work for the board.
Board members have promised to steward and guide the organization and its donors, to be strong, passionate advocates about the work being performed and to harness that passion in gathering much needed revenue to continue to serve the mission. It is an essential requirement that they work toward developing that passion, through active participation in the organizations activities: presence at the board meetings, special gatherings, organizational events, and through donor engagement.
Passion builds Philanthropy, through enthusiastic and engaged leadership, the type that revs people up and makes them want to be a part of what’s going on!
A passionate board member:
- Has no problem helping in ask for a large gift from a donor.
- Picks up the phone without prompting to thank a donor he knows.
- Introduces himself enthusiastically at events to donors and new friends, eager to share the mission.
- Offers to write notes of encouragement on solicitation letters.
- Gets excited and provides recommendations on fundraising success and progress.
- Shares with her vendors and clients her experience at the organization and asks them to help her.
- Invites neighbors and friends to a reception at his home to present programs stories and solicit support.
- Invites an organizations administrator to coffee with them next time they are meeting a friend.
- Makes their own personal financial commitment to the organization, because it feels good, they are excited to do so and they give sacrificially, leading by example.
And that my friends, is fundraising
This is a partnership between you, the philanthropy professional, and your board members. A team effort that when carefully nurtured, has been shown to move mountains. Be careful on who you pick to be at your board table: bad choices will never build passionate support no matter how hard you try. Give your board clear roles, expectations and measured outcomes to support their effort. Allow them access and authority to staff, programs, data. Encourage their results. Build their passion.
So, before we complain once more about the board that does nothing to raise funds, make sure you’ve invited passion into your boardroom, that you are igniting passion in your board members and that passion is driving your philanthropy.
Slow Money…Salvaged Soul
In Discussables, Retail ideas on April 26, 2010 at 10:44 amGo here
Amazing concept and yet so…..organic? familiar? basic?
Principles of the Slow Money Alliance include:
In order to enhance food safety and food security; promote cultural and ecological health and diversity; and, accelerate the transition from an economy based on extraction and consumption to an economy based on preservation and restoration, we do hereby affirm the following Principles:
I. We must bring money back down to earth.II. There is such a thing as money that is too fast, companies that are too big, finance that is too complex. Therefore, we must slow our money down — not all of it, of course, but enough to matter.
III. The 20th Century was the era of Buy Low/Sell High and Wealth Now/Philanthropy Later—what one venture capitalist called “the largest legal accumulation of wealth in history.” The 21st Century will be the era of nurture capital, built around principles of carrying capacity, care of the commons, sense of place and non-violence.
IV. We must learn to invest as if food, farms and fertility mattered. We must connect investors to the places where they live, creating vital relationships and new sources of capital for small food enterprises.
V. Let us celebrate the new generation of entrepreneurs, consumers and investors who are showing the way from Making A Killing to Making a Living.
VI. Paul Newman said, “I just happen to think that in life we need to be a little like the farmer who puts back into the soil what he takes out.” Recognizing the wisdom of these words, let us begin rebuilding our economy from the ground up, asking:
* What would the world be like if we invested 50% of our assets within 50 miles of where we live?
* What if there were a new generation of companies that gave away 50% of their profits?
* What if there were 50% more organic matter in our soil 50 years from now?
Wow. Finally, a better way to measure our success as a society.
“Locard’s Exchange Principle” or “Some armchair philosophy to start your morning”
In Random on September 30, 2009 at 9:34 amWhen someone comes in contact with another person or place, something of that person is left behind, and something is taken away.
“Locard’s Exchange Principle”
Edmund Locard was a 20th century forensic scientist and director of the first crime lab in Lyon, France in 1910.
His theory postulates that wherever two things meet, evidence exists of their meeting. In his case, he was speaking in terms of crimes against humanity.
But in recent years, his theory has been used in terms of more positive meetings as well. Although it continues to be used in crimes, including white collar crimes of a business and financial nature, it has been applied to explore interactions that result in the advancement of positive outcomes: mentoring, coaching, management, consumerism and philanthropy.
How does the theory apply to you in a positive way? What ‘fingerprints’ exist due to your personal contact with others. Globally it is evident that the work of nonprofit organizations change individual lives. But Locard was speaking on a more singular interaction, the one on one imprint of a conversation, written communication, action.
A mentor hypothesized yesterday that “relationships are the conversation”. That everything else before and after: your thoughts, inner dialogue, intentions are not a relationship, it exists only within the communication you are having with the other person. And to review that communication, in the moment and after, to assess your relationship.
How often do we think in terms of communicating with the intention of enhancing the relationship? Of the relationship as a means of leaving an imprint, of employing Locards theory?
I for one believe Locards theory can be applied universally. Maybe it deserves a plaque above our desks, on our walls, on our hearts, to help us remember that we are not moving through this world alone, but in connection and concert with everyone and everything around us. And that we are leaving an imprint.
Talk about authenticity.