Tag: nonprofit marketing

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Customer service Marketing Training & Development

“Management Lessons from Mayo Clinic” That We Can All Learn

Every service provider is challenged with engaging employees and creating systems to deliver a positive customer experience, but none more so than those who work in healthcare. So what can be learned from the Mayo Clinic? This excerpt, from the book Management Lessons from Mayo Clinic by Leonard Berry and Kent Seltman, explains it best:

“Imagine what can be learned from an organization that serves customers who:

  1. arrive with some combination of illness or injury, pain uncertainty, and fear
  2. give up most of their freedoms if hospitalized
  3. need the service but dread it
  4. typically relinquish their privacy (and modesty) to clinicians they may be meeting for the first time.

“Mayo Clinic and other well-run healthcare organizations serve just these kinds of special customers who are called patients and still earn high praise and fierce loyalty from them. Yes, indeed, a successful healthcare organization offers important lessons for most business organizations.”

Inside Mayo Clinic

There’s quite a story behind the powerful and enduring brand that is the Mayo Clinic with its emphasis on patient-first care, medical research and education, an integrated approach to healthcare, and a strong partnership between physicians and administrators (an adversarial relationship in many hospitals). Co-authors Leonard Berry, Distinguished Professor of Marketing at Texas A&M (one of my mentors), and Kent Seltman, former Marketing Director at the Mayo Clinic, studied Mayo Clinic’s service culture through in-depth interviews and observing patient-clinician interactions.

Their book paints a fascinating picture of the history and culture of Mayo Clinic, including how it engineers its internal systems to support its patient-first mission. Best of all, the book contains great lessons on creating and managing a brand that has achieved incredible growth in a difficult and challenging industry while staying true to its core values. The story is even more amazing given ongoing medical technological advances and the financial and political pressures placed on the healthcare profession.

Listening to the Voice of the Customer

Berry and Seltman share numerous quotes and testimonials from patients, their families, doctors, nurses, administrators, and their families, to illustrate the Mayo Clinic story. (Some of the anecdotes brought me to tears.) Even with Mayo Clinic’s unique position in healthcare, the authors do a great job discussing lessons applicable to other service firms in the “Lessons for Managers” section throughout the book.

One of my favorite chapters describes how Mayo Clinic manages the different types of clues that positively impact the customer experience:

  • demonstrating competence to instill customer confidence – e.g., with a collaborative team approach to patient care and integrated & timely access to medical records.
  • influencing first impressions and expectations – such as the design of physical space to convey a sense of healing and calm to reduce the stress of patients and staff.
  • exceeding customer expectations – including extraordinary sensitivity to patients and their families.

I recommend Management Lessons from Mayo Clinic to all service management, marketing and branding professionals … and everyone who works in healthcare.

Caution: the only downside after reading this book is the possible dissatisfaction with most healthcare institutions. If my family or I need critical care, my first choice would be Mayo Clinic!

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Engagement Marketing

Engagement Can Be Tricky in Association Management

A colleague recently wrote about not taking employee engagement for granted based on his experience working for nonprofit associations.

Here’s another reason to be concerned with staff engagement – loyal members who have strong ties to their professional associations, particularly those who are strongly committed to and passionate about their participation. These members tend to work closely with the association’s professional staff and develop strong collegial relationships with them. As a result, they become concerned with – even protective of – how staff are treated in the organization.

For association management, the staff-volunteer relationship can be tricky, especially in instances where volunteers overstep their bounds to interfere with personnel issues. The relationship works both way, however, as many professional staff enjoy working with the members and volunteer leaders; it’s one of the perks that compensates for working in a professional association at nonprofit wages.

For association management, the bottom line is that internal issues regarding staff engagement can also impact (and be impacted by) member engagement.

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Marketing

The Ultimate Gift Card: The Good Card

For personal and corporate holiday shopping, consider the ultimate gift card – The Good Card, a gift card for charity that allows the recipient to donate to his/her charity of choice. The Good Card is the brainchild of nonprofit Network for Good, the leading online charitable resource that’s approved by the Better Business Bureau Wise Giving Alliance.

Good Cards can be purchased online at Network for Good and can be sent via mail or email (the latter as an electronic gift card). The Good Card recipient goes to Network for Good’s website, selects his/her charity of choice from over one million charities registered in the U.S., and enters the donation amount using the code indicated on the card. Network for Good then sends to the donation to the chosen charity. And get this – 100% of the card’s value goes to the charity!

A wonderful gift from individuals and any-size business

Each card costs $5 plus the donation amount (ranging from $10 to $250). Both the donation and fee are tax deductible for the purchaser. (Remember, 100% of the donation amount goes to charity.)

For corporate gift-giving, companies can get logo placement on bulk orders of the physical cards for an additional charge. This unique charitable gift card allows a company to reinforce its philanthropic image without limiting its support to a single cause.

The Good Card – it’s the perfect gift suitable for anyone.

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Engagement Marketing

Working Smarter, Not Harder: A Nonprofit Case Study (Part 3)

Here’s the last post in this nonprofit case study on how small nonprofits can effectively balance growing demands and limited resources by working smarter, not harder. As a quick review, the first two steps involved staying mission-focused and inventorying your organization’s program offerings.

The third key step called for role clarification and communication. Each ABC Healthcare affiliate was increasingly recognized as an organization that “made things happen and got things done.” As a result, other groups’ expectations were becoming unrealistic in looking to ABC Healthcare to do everything – providing funding, leadership, and manpower. The affiliates needed to better manage these expectations.

Step 3. Clarify and communicate your organization’s role

To do this, they assessed their participation in regional activities – from program development and implementation to assisting with other groups’ programs to serving on community committees. They recognized they played a number of roles (based on their mission and operation) that they labeled as: “advocate,” “catalyst,” “connector,” “do-er,” and “facilitator.”

The resulting discussion helped staff identify which role was most appropriate for certain situations instead of being all things to all people. When someone came to ABC Healthcare with a request for money and/or manpower, staff clarified “up front” their limited resources and the specific role the organization was willing to play. As a result, the affiliates learned how to better manage expectations within their communities.

An ongoing challenge

Coping with success involves a delicate balance of mission, need, and resources. To maintain equilibrium, nonprofit leaders need to continually ask hard questions: What are our mission and purpose? What programs and activities do we need to offer, maintain, or give up to fulfill our mission? What is our role in the community we serve? Should we change that role, given our capabilities and resources?

The answers may be as difficult as the questions themselves. But the results, as ABC Healthcare has learned, are worthwhile. Those who don’t engage in these critical discussions are at serious risk for fragmented focus and staff burnout.

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Engagement Marketing

Working Smarter, Not Harder: A Nonprofit Case Study (Part 2)

This post continues the case study on how small nonprofits can effectively balance growing demands and limited resources by working smarter, not harder.

The first step is to stay mission-focused, but that can also present a challenge. Many nonprofits have broad mission statements that let them justify responding to even remotely-related requests. Staff who are truly passionate about the mission find it difficult to turn down such requests or discontinue programs that are no longer worthwhile. (“But we helped the three people who came to our educational seminar!”)

Recognizing this situation, one ABC Healthcare affiliate took the next step to address the question: Where can we, with our limited resources, really make a difference?

Step 2. Inventory your program offerings

To answer this question, the affiliate conducted a detailed inventory of its educational programs and activities. This was a multi-step process in which staff completed program descriptions and developed a profile for each educational offering. First they reviewed the following key questions (several adapted from the Drucker Foundation’s nonprofit self-assessment tool: The Five Most Important Questions You Will Ever Ask about Your Nonprofit Organization) for each of their programs:

  • Who is the target audience for the program?
  • What does the target audience value about the program (based on evaluations and other feedback)?
  • Could this audience get the same program elsewhere?
  • What is the estimated return on investment for the organization (based on mission-fit, resource input, and resulting output)?
  • Will this offering advance our capacity to carry out our mission?
  • If we weren’t already presenting this program would we start now?

Answering these questions allowed staff to sort the educational programs into three categories:

  1. “Need to have” (programs that should be kept)
  2. “Nice to have” (those that might be expendable) and
  3. “Not sure.”

They further assessed each program in the “nice to have” and “not sure” categories by considering: Is what we’re doing precluding other opportunities? Can (or should) we invest our time and energy more effectively elsewhere? What would be the greatest consequence if we didn’t offer this program for a few more years?

Their answers to this second set of questions helped determine which programs to keep, which to phase out, and which to eliminate. Staff also revisited programs in the “Need to have” category to see if they should be kept “as is” or if there might be opportunities to enhance or expand them.

The inventory exercise was a valuable way for employees to prioritize and streamline their programs and activities. While initially reluctant to let go of a number of programs, they recognized that doing so would free them to explore new initiatives as well as improve current ones.

The next (and final) post in this series explores the 3rd critical step involving communication.

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Engagement Marketing

Working Smarter, Not Harder: A Nonprofit Case Study (Part 1)

Picture this: You’re the head of a relatively new nonprofit serving a community need with a small, dedicated staff and board. In just a few years, you experience major growth in your activities and accomplishments. Such success, however, is a mixed blessing: work demands have grown faster than your human and financial resources. In addition, the more you do and the more successful you are, the more others expect you to do.

How do you continue to serve the community’s growing needs with increasingly limited resources?

The challenge of coping with how to do more with less is twofold. On one hand, nonprofits have to guard against potential burnout when staff members are pulled in too many directions. On the other hand, mission-driven organizations have a hard time saying no.

Several of my clients found themselves in this situation, and how they effectively dealt with it may be helpful to others. In this “case study” to be covered in three posts, I’ll share the experience of several affiliates of a healthcare-related nonprofit who learned how to manage their success by working smarter, not harder. To maintain confidentiality, I’ll call this nonprofit ABC Healthcare.

With a broad-based mission and regional scope, each ABC Healthcare affiliate – ranging in age of operation from four to 10 years – was challenged to respond to its area’s diverse healthcare needs while not spreading itself too thin. They were initially funded by government grants, so their budgets were variable (never knowing how much they would get or when they would get it).

To cope with growing demands and limited resources, they followed three vital steps:

  1. Stay focused on the mission.
  2. Inventory your organization’s program offerings.
  3. Clarify and communicate your organization’s role.

Step 1: Stay focused on the mission

Regardless of how long a nonprofit has been operating, it’s a good idea to keep the “big picture” in mind by focusing on the mission. Why? Because the mission describes your organization’s purpose and reason for being.

ABC Healthcare affiliate staff regularly revisited the organization’s mission to: 1) ensure they were on target, and 2) guard against fragmenting their focus to avoid overextending manpower and other critical resources.

In routine meetings or special planning sessions, staff members placed high priority on mission “fit” when evaluating requests to participate in new or ongoing programs. Any requests that didn’t directly fit with the mission were turned down.

While using the mission as a touchstone is a no-brainer, the reality is staff in small nonprofits can lose focus because their jobs involve multiple and time-consuming roles (such as outreach and development) beyond their primary responsibility.

Starting with the mission is an important first step in working smarter, not harder. But by itself, it is not enough as I’ll explain in my next post. So stay tuned.

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Marketing

Nonprofit Marketing Book Special Offer

I shared my post about Robin Hood Marketing with its author, Katya Andresen, and she graciously offered a free copy of the book to one of my blog readers.

I’m happy to give this book to the first person who requests it by writing a comment on this post. Just be sure to include your mailing address so I can forward it to Katya. Note: I’ll omit your address before I publish your comment.

Thanks, Katya!

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Marketing

“The Golden Thread” & Storytelling Magic

Lots of nonprofit and for-profit marketers are extolling the virtues of storytelling.

 

As Trish Lambert writes in her blog:

 

“Stories work.  They always have and they always will.  Whether you are trying to teach someone something better or sell someone something, stories will get the point made better than any other form of communication at your disposal.”

I’m privileged to know a professional storyteller, Susan Danoff, founder & Executive Director of Storytelling Arts, Inc.  And with all the interest in storytelling these days, I wanted to tell you about her latest book, The Golden Thread: Storytelling in Teaching and Learning.

In full disclosure, Susan and I are childhood friends who’ve stayed in touch.  I became familiar with her work with Storytelling Arts about a year ago when I wrote a nonprofit marketing case study on her organization.

Not for teachers only

While the book is targeted to traditional educators, it’s also a great resource for business professionals.  I don’t work in a K-12 classroom; my “teaching” occurs in professional development workshops & seminars for corporate and nonprofit managers.  Yet I found Susan’s book engaging and relevant, particularly the section “On Becoming a Storyteller” and the sources cited.

The Golden Thread explores the experience and profound impact that storytellers have on children, including those with special needs – strengthening their literacy skills and increasing their motivation for learning.  The magic and power of storytelling is enhanced with traditional and original folktales woven throughout the book.  And I highly recommend it for both educational and business professionals.

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Engagement Marketing Training & Development

Mission Statements – One More Thing

Here’s a postscript to my recent series on Memorable & Meaningful Mission Statements – it’s a great example of how one organization is making its mission truly viable.

To enable its employees & staff to more effectively keep up with the growth of medical technology & research, along with changes and challenges to the healthcare industry, the North Shore-Long Island Jewish Hospital System created its Center for Learning & Innovation.

Touted as “one of healthcare’s first corporate universities,” the Center was designed to instill & reinforce a “sense of shared mission” for all employees and “be a transformative culture changing force” within the organization.

What’s most impressive is all course content is directly linked to the Health System’s mission, vision, and strategic plan.

You can learn more about the Center (as I did) from the Leader to Leader Institute.

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Engagement Marketing

Memorable & Meaningful Mission Statements – Part 3

Here’s the last post in my series about making mission statements both memorable & meaningful.  The final challenge is: does your mission statement really differentiate your organization?

I’ve seen too many instances where you could easily substitute the name of a competitor in another organization’s mission statement.  It’s not unusual to find a lot of “me-too” or similar sounding missions for organizations in the same industry.

This was the situation for one of my nonprofit clients, and here’s how we handled it.

While its organizational charter was somewhat unique, the group’s services overlapped with several other nonprofits.  The result was its members, donors, and even board members all had trouble explaining how the organization was different from others in the market.

What’s Your Score?

To illustrate the problem, I developed a “Mission Matching Quiz” for the board’s executive committee retreat.  After a web search turned up hundreds of nonprofits offering similar education, research & support services, I selected 10-12 organizations (many fairly well known) and listed them on a sheet of paper with their mission statements in random order.  The exec committee was asked to match each organization with its mission.

No one scored 100% on this quiz or even came close … ditto for the rest of the board members and staff.  But everyone was astounded by this demonstration in which almost every organization’s mission read & sounded the same!  No wonder they were challenged in distinguishing their own organization.

As a result, the group clarified its mission to highlight and better articulate its differentiation.  Board leadership continues to refine the mission as needed.

Maintaining & Changing Your Mission

A mission statement is dynamic.  As the market changes, as your competition changes, and as your organization evolves in response, you’ll need to update your mission.  This is why Peter Drucker encouraged organizations to revisit their mission statements every three years.

When is the last time your organization reviewed its mission?  And how memorable & meaningful is it?