Posts Tagged ‘Volunteers’

Why do people give up their precious leisure time and their accumulated wealth to become engaged in philanthropic endeavors?
There is a ton of literature on the subject, but I have a very practical and ground-floor view, which I would like to share.
1. To do what we can to make this a better world.
Whether it’s [...]

Why do we need volunteers in a nonprofit?
The whole nonprofit field was built on volunteerism. Almost every nonprofit began with a group of volunteers sitting around a table trying to find ways to solve a community problem. As our agencies have grown and become more complicated, we needed to hire staff, and we have professionalized [...]

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 [...]

So many times I hear staff and board members complaining that they can’t get volunteers to do what they promised to do.
 I believe there are several reasons why we are often disappointed when commitments made are not commitments kept.  Three critical factors can keep volunteers motivated and assure that decisions that are made are carried [...]

It is very difficult to be optimist and hopeful during these times. For most of us in the nonprofit field things look pretty bleak. There will be up to 100,000 nonprofits that could go out of business, according to the Chronicle of Philanthropy.

I offer some tips to do the best we can with what we’ve got. [...]

UTILIZING FACILITATIVE LEADERSHIP TO IMPROVE MEETINGS
One of the greatest challenges facing nonprofit leadership is getting volunteers to do the work that the Board needs to get done.

Here is a major difference with the for-profit, with paid staff. In the nonprofit much of the work, especially Board work, gets done by people voluntarily. This supplements the [...]

I hear the complaints wherever I go, from board Chairs and executive directors.
 
What’s wrong with our board members. I can’t get them to come to meetings. I can’t get them to follow-up on commitments they make. I can’t get them to fund raise.
 
These complaints are so prevalent, that there must be something wrong with the [...]

At a recent Seminar, the speaker, after people in the audience had introduced themselves as staff, Board or volunteers, made an excellent point. Let’s not forget that Board members are volunteers, too!
 
The implications of this are profound. When we chastise Board members for not stepping up to the plate on their fund raising obligations, we [...]