I'm hearing from many nonprofit folks that they are feeling the exhaustion from a perpetual cycle of outrage. Many felt stressed and exhausted back in Nov. 2016, and have been fighting for important causes for 18 months now. The environment nonprofits find themselves operating in is going to last for awhile. Nonprofits have carefully think about how best to channel their energy while working and living in the midst of an outrage storm that can drain our energy.Many nonprofit professionals … [Read more...]
Archives for June 2018
Trainer's Notebook: The Digital Nonprofit: A Participatory Workshop
Last week at the IFC-Asia, I co-designed and facilitated a 90 minute workshop with Marco Kuntze titled "The Digital NGO: The Journey from Paper to Screen." Jo Wolfe, Aseem Thakur, Gillian Tan, Cherisse Beh, Katie Bengaard, and Toral Cowieson joined our session as small group facilitators. Just A Little Content To Get Started There are different ways to design a participatory workshop. It could be 100% in that participants provide the content by connecting with others and sharing experience and … [Read more...]
How Nonprofits Practice Continuous Improvement
I'm just back from spending a week in Bangkok, Thailand at the IFC-ASIA: Ecosystems for Good. I co-lead a workshop on digital transformation, co-facilitated a master class on digital fundraising campaigns, co-hosted a learning breakfast for scholarship participants, co-designed a Big Room session on Technology for Good, and in between attended some amazing sessions. I also served on the program advisory committee. It was a lot of learning in a short time-period and I'll be unpacking and sharing … [Read more...]
Why Nonprofit Workplaces Are Stressful and What To Do About It
In light of the recent high profile suicides by Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain, Vu Le wrote an excellent piece on what nonprofits need to know about mental illness. One of the points he brings up is the importance of creating an environment where life/work balance flourish. Overwork and stress can lead to burnout and depression and that can lead to even bigger problems. As a sector, we need to understand that working endlessly long hours is not productive. And here's a summary of the … [Read more...]
How to Design an Effective Nonprofit Staff Retreat: A Lesson from Life
Note from Beth: Blocking out time for your nonprofit's staff to do planning and work on areas like organizational culture is essential for success. Designing the meeting so it is effective and encourages team-building can be tricky. Here's some terrific advice from Sarah Axelson. How to Design an Effective Staff Retreat: A Lesson from Life - Guest Post by Sarah Axelson from ETR When is the last time your organization held a staff retreat? Did it help you accomplish your organizational … [Read more...]
