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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.

Categories
Musings

Don’t Call Us, Unless We Need You

I ranted in my last post about organizations that don’t communicate with job applicants. Wait till you hear this shabby treatment of an internal job candidate.

A friend of mine provided freelance PR services for a number of years to an organization that decided to bring the position in-house. And she applied for the position.

How did she learn she didn’t get it? When she received an invitation to meet the new PR person. She called the office where she was contracted as a freelancer and was told that her rejection letter would be sent shortly. (That it should have been sent before the invitation is a moot point as my friend never received any letter.) She was also told she wasn’t hired for the position because she wasn’t a good fit with the organization’s culture and strategic plan. (Huh? Up to this point, she had never gotten any negative feedback about her work.)

The bottom line was that after all her years of service, she was treated rudely and without any professional courtesy. And get this – the office then called my friend because it wanted her to spend some time orienting the new person to the PR job!

Guess that was one task they had to tackle themselves …  : )

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Engagement Marketing

Don’t Call Us, We’ll Call You

Seems almost everybody I talk to who’s in the current job market has stories on how they’re ignored by prospective employers when they apply for jobs. Only a few organizations extend the courtesy of a postcard or letter confirming receipt of an applicant’s resume.

Doesn’t matter whether it’s an entry-level or executive job search … new job or job-change … for-profit or nonprofit … too many organizations do not acknowledge their job applicants.

I’ve heard the excuses before: HR & other departments doing the hiring are short-staffed and/or there are too many applications flooding into the system. But there’s enough technology out there to automate the acknowledgment process.

At the very least, firms can better manage applicants’ expectations by putting a disclaimer in their want ads that tell people “You won’t hear from us at all unless we’re interested in you.” Don’t assume every applicant takes “no news is no news” as a given.

The smart organization can actually create a favorable brand impression by extending the courtesy of communication to its job applicants. Consumers, including prospective employees, judge an organization by how well they’re treated by everyone in the organization they come in contact with. In other words, EVERYONE in the organization impacts the brand. So ignoring job applicants doesn’t do much if you want to be known as an employer-of-choice.

To those involved in the hiring process, listen up: someday YOU may be the one looking for a job who is ignored.

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Engagement

Caution When Using E-Mail in the Workplace

A while back I wrote several posts about e-mail’s impact on workplace relationships and the growing body of research on this topic.

As a follow up, here’s a recent article on the subject: “E-Mail is Easy to Write (and to Misread)” by Daniel Goleman. Citing a number of research studies already out there + some not yet published, Goleman offers a fascinating look at how e-mail can easily be misunderstood because our human brains aren’t able to interpret electronic communications as effectively as we can face-to-face communications.

Although there’s no guarantee for perfect communication in face-to-face or verbal situations, studies in the emerging field of social neuroscience confirm a likelihood for miscommunication via e-mail. (Maybe that explains why, despite the medium’s efficiency, it takes me a long time to write some e-mails … another reason I sometimes prefer to pick up the phone instead of sending an e-mail.)

Goleman’s article also includes tips for minimizing miscommunication. So check it out.

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Engagement Marketing

“Fun Works” (Really!)

If you’re interested in creating and maintaining a positive corporate culture, check out the 2nd edition (updated & expanded) of Fun Works: Creating Places Where People Love to Work by Leslie Yerkes.

Her book lays the foundation for the “fusion” of play and work. She showcases companies that consciously chose to integrate fun into their corporate culture, but it’s not an add-on or forced “let’s-take-a-break-and-play-a-game” type of fun ala The Office. According to Yerkes, “I don’t want to be put in charge of fun. That makes it a job and that would not be fun.”

Yerkes explores how different companies integrate fun into their normal course of business, creating positive experiences for employees and customers, to illustrate “there’s no right or wrong way to engage in serious fun.” She shares what she calls “Principles of Fun/Work Fusion” and the resulting benefits that include:

  • reduced employee absenteeism and better retention
  • a buffer for stress and potential burnout
  • enhanced employee commitment
  • stimulation of creativity & innovation
  • positive impact on productivity.

From my work in internal marketing, I’m familiar with the power of a corporate culture that encourages a sense of humor and appropriate play in the workplace. I found Fun Works a good reinforcement.

Trying to deal with my own workload pressures, I found this book a great reminder that I need to adjust my own Puritan Work Ethic (i.e., work first, play later) to achieve a better balance. (Maybe I need to take a break and catch up on my favorite cartoons … )

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Engagement

Reducing Information Overload

I addressed the issue of managing information overload in a previous post. For great advice on reducing overload, check out a recent issue of Melcrum’s Source for Communicators.

What resonated most with me is the guiding question for internal communicators: “How do I make this [content] relevant for my audience?” rather than just focusing on message distribution.

The relevancy question is applicable to everyone responsible for communications (internal and external) … and it’s THE question we need to constantly ask ourselves.

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Engagement

Engaging Employees – Not Just for Front Line Management

When it comes to employee engagement, most of us know the critical role of supervisor-to-employee communications, especially given the proximity of the supervisor and staff working relationship. But a recent study found companies overestimate the importance of this communication.

Watson Wyatt’s Work USA® 2006/2007 research found that “senior leadership and the frequency with which senior managers communicate with employees are far more important drivers of engagement.”

Not to minimize the role of supervisory communications, the study also found “High-engagement employees receive communication from [both] their supervisors and senior management far more frequently than low-engagement employees.”

The bottom line: to engage employees, communication is needed from ALL levels of management.

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Engagement Marketing

Gaining Employee Support through a New Type of Journalism

[2014 update: the following content still resonates, although the original links in this post were removed because they are no longer available.]

Here’s a fascinating concept to add to your internal marketing & communications toolbox: Workplace Journalism — “a conscious effort to make employee communications at least partly about employees and their concerns, not just the business and its issues.”

I learned about this from Barry Nelson, who believes business communicators can have a positive impact by adding more “empathetic, employee-advocacy journalism … into their otherwise business-results focused reportorial mix.”

He recommends that in addition to communicating corporate strategy, goals, progress & results, (which employees need to know), companies should also share stories of how employees cope with on-the-job issues & stresses (which employees want to know). According to Barry, we need to give “at least some prominence to our employees’ human concerns” such as “how and why to get along with the boss, make friends on the job, cope with stress, live the brand, be a good teammate, and other aspects of a satisfactory work life.”

The Pay-Off

This isn’t just ‘feel-good’ communications for the heck of it. Organizations that share these types of stories demonstrate their care and concern for employees, and this contributes to a strong sense of employee commitment and loyalty in turn.

To learn more, check out Barry’s guidance on getting started with Workplace Journalism.

 

Categories
Musings

Find Your Happy Place

A well-intentioned friend recently sent me one of those “chain” e-mails for women.

You know the kind with sometimes uplifting, usually schmaltzy content that asks you to forward the e-mail to all your friends. (Which I rarely, if ever, do.)

Part of this particular message, however, resonated with me. It said:

“Every woman should know where to go … be it her best friend’s kitchen table … or a charming inn in the woods … when her soul needs soothing.”

I do have a place nearby where I go when my soul & body need soothing, and I call it my happy place. It’s The Shoppes at Premise Maid, complete with ice-creamery, bakery, and chocolate shoppe – the ultimate triple header – and it’s open year round.

I go mostly for the cold “calcium” and to enjoy the wonderful, sweet aroma in the bakery and candy shop. I decompress just sitting outside (weather permitting) while I enjoy my coffee ice-cream and watch the giant inflatable pink flamingos sway gently in the summer breeze, listening to the music (mostly show tunes) piped outdoors, and watching other people enjoying the place.

It’s great that I found my “happy place” just a few miles away. Where’s yours?