Recently, I was invited to participate in a staff "Lunch and Learn," by Connor Diemand-Yauman, CEO of Philanthropy University, about building a culture of wellbeing in the nonprofit workplace and capacity building. One of the things I immediately noticed in the office, is that they displayed their values on the wall (the sign with the different color circles). Many organizations do that. But there was also another sign on the wall that described their Quarter 3 theme word "Mindfulness" and a … [Read more...]
The Power of Small Wins: Celebrating Your Nonprofit's To Dones
Working as a nonprofit consultant can sometimes feel isolating. That's why it important to have networking opportunities to connect with professional colleagues face-to-face beyond online groups. I try to make an effort to do this regularly. This past week, I met up with nonprofit consultant Carrie Rice. We met in a nonprofit conference space of another colleague, Corey Newhouse, executive director of PublicProfit. Her organization helps youth organizations do program evaluation using … [Read more...]
How Nonprofit Professionals Can Manage Workplace Stress Triggers
This week I facilitated a Happy Healthy Nonprofit workshop for nonprofit professionals hosted by CVNL in Marin County. Before focusing on workplace strategies and culture change, participants go through some reflective exercises, including taking the nonprofit burnout assessment, identifying stress triggers and reactions before creating a self-care plan. As a group, I have participants take an online poll, answering the questions, "What are your workplace stress triggers?" As the word … [Read more...]
How Much Is Nonprofit Workplace Stress Self-Inflicted?
Last week I facilitated a workshop on the Happy Healthy Nonprofit: Linking Nonprofit High Performance to Wellbeing in Santa Cruz hosted by the Community Foundation of Santa Cruz County. Part of the workshop included an assessment and reflection about the causes of stress in the nonprofit workplace. I had participants use an online polling app to type in their answers and the combined responses generate a word cloud. The word "Perfectionism" was the most frequent response. It made me wonder … [Read more...]
Tips for Avoiding Collaborative Overload
What is Collaborative Overload? The potential for being overwhelmed by technology is magnified in the workplace by something called “Collaborative Overload” Rob Cross and Adam Grant in a recent Harvard Business Review article. Collaborative overload is defined as the burnout that results from our over reliance on e-mails, meetings and other collaborative technology tools that have, ironically, limited our ability to get stuff done. As nonprofits become networked and different departments work … [Read more...]
