The meeting just ended with people laughing and hugging each other. We had completed a very successful meeting. This mood was dramatically different than just a month ago. Then, the agency was struggling with a serious cash flow problem, unable to pay all its bills, with a small and frustrated Board of Directors. Now there was electricity in the air, everyone was smiling and laughing, people were eagerly taking assignments, and the future seemed brighter. What was the magic that made this possible? New people!
After months of trying the Board has attracted several new, well-connected and enthusiastic Board members. These new board members are already reaching out to their friends and acquaintances to help this wonderful agency. Recently struggling to get panelists to a women’s event, one panelist is recommending others, and all of a sudden there are four. A new development director was recruited whose skills and enthusiasm has been a lightning rod for more electricity. Board members are eagerly taking assignments and following up on them. The future all of sudden seems brighter.
So why am I writing this story. I have always believed that if you bring the right people together, inspire them with the mission of the agency, that magic can happen. I was trained as a social group worker, and I was taught to believe in the group as an agent for change. In my many years of working with nonprofit Boards, it always struck me as somewhat magical how the Mission of an agency, properly articulated, can motivate volunteers. And once they “drink the Kool-Aid” (that’s what we describe as really understanding the Mission), how a snowball can begin to sweep up other critical resources that the agency so desperately needs.
Everyone can sense when they are associated with a winner, with an agency that has big dreams and is going somewhere. Often it takes just one new person who comes in with a fresh vision, with enthusiasm and skills, to turn a down-hearted organization into a one that continues to attract new opportunities, and human and fiscal resources.
Often just one person! A new board member, A new staff member. A consultant. They say, “hey wait a minute! We have a treasure here. We can make this happen.” A suggestion here. Someone else agrees and new ideas begin to flow. Energy builds, people begin to see new opportunities and resources that were there before but were hidden under despair, and that despair become elation, energy and movement.
I see it over and over. It’s what I preach to my clients, and when it does happen, it seems like magic. But the magic is contained in the mission, the cause, and the services. We just somehow have to to get people to “drink the Kool-Aid”!