Help for small non-for-profit Organizations and small businesses

See the big picture and you will succeed

2014-05-12T17:25:00.001-07:00

I read ones that if you can dream it, you can reach it.

A cold, hard winter and other conditions put an army in a miscible situation. Soldiers didn't have enough supply and were cut off from any resources. The general in charge didn't give up. He had a vision that the war can be won. In the darkest moment of this winter he shared this vision with his men with such a powerful energy that his troops got so inspired to turn the situation and under the generals vision they won the war.

The great general, who saw the bigger picture and led his troops through everything by sharing his vision, was General Washington.

Every great leader has to have a bigger picture in mind that he/she wants to reach. But nobody can do it alone.

Did you ever ask yourself why some organizations are more successful than others?

You may think it is because they can effort better qualified people even that could be truth, but I can guaranty you small organizations (non-for-profits and small businesses) can attract the same qualified people without being able to pay the corporations big bugs.

So what do they do different?

Many bigger companies have leaders who can inspire others with a dream. Everyone wants to be a part of something great to find individual fulfillment.

The big question is how to get a vision that motivate everybody in your team to give all they've got to reach this goal?

It is doesn't matter if you are following your own agenda or you are somewhere in lower and middle management. Picture what the outcome of your task should be. For example your task is it to make your organization more effective. Do you personal gain from the outcome? Not always. But the future of your job and anybody else depending on it. Why? Because resource money is always tight and every waste is taking away from achieving the organizations purpose.

How to create a vision that a team will do their best to be a part of it?

Communicate (write it down) your goals.

Analyze the Situation

Break it down in different small tasks

Ensure that you got all resources - Even the best team can only succeed if it has all the tools that it needs for the job.

No personal agendas - Imagine you play basketball. If each of you is only playing for them self and do everything that makes them individual looking good and not passing the ball to someone else who is in a better position to make the shot the other team have it easy to stop you and win the game.

Paint the picture in a way that all members of your team step up to the plate.

Let other take a lead in some tasks that they are specialist in.

Please stay tune to read about: How to put a successful team together?

Nothing gets done if you don't work together

2014-05-07T07:27:00.003-07:00

Every organization is based on teamwork. I don't know what your heros are, or if they are in politics, business world or just comics. I only know that we like to lookup to people to be encouraged. If you ask my little she is absolute fan of Jack and the Neverland Pirates. She learned something really important for life from this show.

One person can do something great, but a team can do something significant.

So think about your organization. Is there anyone who takes over the show and makes every decision by him-/herself? For the greater goal of your nonprofit organization this person has to learn the value of a team and the team members have to stand up to make their case.

Like Micheal Jordan once said: “Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence wins championships.”

So let's see why is a team so important:

Different point of view
Teams can do many things at the same time to reach the goal
Strengths and weakness become balanced
More resources and ideas can be taped in
Leaders are more accountable

The difference between a good leader and a great leader is not the better knowledge of the specific field or how much he/she is loved. A great leader is accountable for every step that the team is taking and the most important part is how much the leader knows about his own weaknesses.

Many leader have to point out that they are in charge because of their insecurity. That's why many of them putting members of their team down or hold them back instate to unleash their potential.

A great leader notice the strength and talents of each of their team members.

The ego of some of the team leaders are in the way of the teams development because of the fear that it someone could become better and fits more the leadership position.

Since I was a young boy I was a lone ranger who tried everything on his own. An attitude like this holed me back so many times to reach my full potential.

Don't wasted your potential by losing yourself in trying to do everything on your own. Lead your team by developing yourself and every one of your team.

Stay tuned for more articles on how to lead your team to greatness.

What is Strategic Planning? Gavin Give-A-Hoot and the Tinyville Arts Council Starts Collecting Information

2012-12-05T08:03:00.002-08:00

Gavin and the board of the Tinyville Arts Council learned a lot from the last few unpleasant episodes.

You have to have a plan. What better time than the end of the year to get organized and recapture the events of the year and start putting information together, not only for taxation purposes but even more to see how well the organization did?

“Now that everyone is back on board in helping with this task, let us start,”announced Jane Know-It-All.

After a few minutes of discussion, everyone agreed that the best way of accomplishing a lot was to split into teams.

Marketing and PR
Event planning and management
Finances

Each team will use the organizations basic information to create important views how the arts council did in above fields.

Basic information that was needed:

· Mission and vision statement
· Yearly expenses
· Yearly revenue
· Budget reports
· Fundraising materials
· Fundraising plans
· Number of members
· List of corporate and individual donors and sponsors
· Event calendar
· Number of visitors per event
· Surveys
· Newsletters, public announcements

When the meeting was almost over, and everyone had written down what information needed to be collected and processed, the whole board welcomed Gavin’s idea to use his garage as a temporary office so that all the documents stayed in one place and was still accessible.

Stay tuned to see how the Give-A-Hoots changes the world of this small volunteer organization.

Don’t Get Emotional - Focus on the Solution: How Gavin Give-A-Hoot Deals With a Conflict

2012-12-05T07:45:00.004-08:00

Jane and Brian were totally angry when they got to know Gavin’s plans to organize a meeting with the goal of changing what had worked for many years. Over the last decade, the Arts Council had the same board members and the same program of activities. Over time, the Tinyville Arts Council has shrunk in the numbers of members, and the participation for each event was decreasing. The Arts Council had started to outlive its purpose by failing to meet the cultural needs of the community.

Gavin tried to explain his actions to Jane on the phone, but she turned a deaf ear. The president of the Tinyville Arts Council accused him of taking over the board with a hostile move. Those accusations were by far unrealistic. All he wanted was a change so that people would take the work of the Council seriously again and that the community could see the benefits of the organization.

Gavin told Jane to calm down and that they should all have an emergency meeting as soon as possible to discuss Gavin’s actions and to prepare the official board meeting. With this, he cut Jane short and hung up.

Right after, a storm of emails broke loose and everyone agreed to meet the next day for an emergency meeting.

Gavin was nervous and doubted if the idea to call for an election was right without talking first to Jane Know-It-All (President), Brian No-Decision (Vice President), Shonda Detailed (Secretary), Mark Don’t-Spend (Treasurer), and George Let-Me-Do-It (Board Member).

Gavin realized that he created a conflict that could have easily been avoided. He started preparing himself for the meeting. Thinking about how he could solve this unwanted situation, Gavin found a solution:

Writing down all the facts that led him to his actions
Planning on how to present his apology

Gavin went to the meeting and waited until everyone went inside.

When he thought everyone was ready for the meeting, he went inside and started talking without giving anyone a chance to say anything. While he was apologizing, he handed out a piece of paper with all the things he was so concerned about. Gavin explained that changes needed to be made with passion and respect. He wanted to comply with the needs of the community and to bring the Tinyville Arts Council back to their Mission and Vision statement. He went on to say that he was sorry about how he handled his frustrations. The room got quiet after Gavin’s speech, and people started to think about what he was saying and agreed.

How to solve a conflict:

Appoint a mediator
Agree to disagree; the reached compromise will settle the conflict
Don’t point fingers
Prepare the scenario and the environment of the meeting
Have all the facts written down
Present the problem as a team problem
Lead or have someone else lead the meeting with focus on team solutions
All members should participate in the solution-finding process
Keep emotions out (if the team gets emotional, remind everyone that no one is on trial)
Keep meeting in a time frame
Brainstorm – everyone should write down words or phrases and post them so everyone can see it (Smartboard, whiteboard, etc.)
Mediator should categorize the posts with help from the participants
The categories and the found words and phrases should be used to define a solution and new rules, if necessary,
Make these new rules binding for the future

Stay tuned to see how the Give-A-Hoots change the world of this small volunteer organization.

Where to Find a New Board of Directors: Gavin Give-A-Hoot Wants to Change the System

2012-11-22T05:17:00.003-08:00

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Where to Find a New Board of Directors: Gavin Give-A-Hoot Wants to Change the System

Gavin’s decision to find new people for the board of directors was faster made than done. He started reading the bylaws sentence by sentence to discover that the board of directors has to be elected every two years. He was happy to see this because it had already been two years since the last election of the board.

He started trying to find candidates, but where should Gavin start to look? It is hard to find people to volunteer anyway.

While he was sitting at his desk in his home office trying to figure out how he could find suitable candidates, his wife came in to ask if he already wrote the yearly donation check to the afterschool program.

Gavin got an idea. He went down the list of loyal donors and found a few names that would fit as members of the Board of Directors.

He made himself a check list:

Sharing a passion for the mission of the organization
Strong ties to the community
Willingness to help hands-on
Supporting efforts to raise money
Commitment to participate in all meetings

“Great!” he thought, “but are there more ways to find good candidates?” He asked himself. “Let me see if there is anyone I know who serves at other boards.” He started researching other organization’s websites and discovered that a few of the members of the Tinyville Arts Council were serving on Boards of other local organizations.

While Gavin was planning to get a new Board of Directors together, the phone rang. It was Jane Know-it-all (President) and Brian No-decision (Vice President). They were on the line to complain that Gavin’s move would destroy the Arts Council.

See how Gavin Give-A-Hoot will handle this conflict.

Ways to find active members for your Board:

Regular donors and patrons
Active board members of other organizations
Well-known members of the community
Local business owners

Many people would jump in and help by serving on the board of an organization, but they never were asked to step up.

Time to change - Gavin Give-A-Hoot plans to change the Board of Directors

2012-11-19T08:54:00.001-08:00

Time to change - Gavin Give-A-Hoot plans to change the Board of Directors

It has been over a year now since the Tinyville Arts Council came together. Gavin wrote many emails this year to get the members of the board to meet so they can make plans for next season. It ate him up that everyone seemed to be too busy to meet, and they all just sent emails around to make sure everyone did his or her part.

Gavin was concerned about this behavior, that it would lead to complaints and possibly losing the organization’s 501(c) 3 status. Gavin had learned from books and seminars that every nonprofit organization has to have public meetings as a part of their status.

He was tired of reading all the emails from Mrs. Know-it-all, who is still the president. The program has not changed for the last few years; there was nothing new, and everyone seems to just follow the lead without question. There was no plan in place about how to create a new program or how to find a way to fulfill the needs of the community. The strategic plan that the Tinyville Arts Council created last year never got finished, and the good ideas we had never got implemented because the board didn’t come together often enough. Another problem that is becoming more and more threatening to the organization is that members and board members are losing interest in the Arts Council.

Gavin was talking to his wife one night, and he decided it was time to change everything. Full of energy, he started calling all the board members to have a board meeting the next morning. Now the next thing to do is to get as many members of the Tinyville Arts Council together as possible to come to the meeting. He used Facebook Invitation and email as a tool to reach out. It is fast and free.

His agenda:

Summary of the last year’s program

Report from the Treasurer

Discuss next season

Release the Board of Directors

Voting for a new Board of Directors

He tried to find a date for the meeting that many could attend, and also that gave him enough time to find people who are interested in a new direction.

Stay tuned to see how the Give-A-Hoots change the world of this small volunteer organization.

What is Strategic Planning? Gavin Give-A-Hoot – Is taking charge

2011-08-15T15:10:00.000-07:00

After a few more meetings with no outcome, Gavin decided some things have to change to be a great organization. He heard about Strategic Planning and wonders if a small organization like yours can do something like this.

He started going to seminars and reading books about it and finds out that all sizes of organizations can do it.

Gavin discovered the recipe that is needed to make this project successful and to bring a major impact in culture and arts to the people of Tinyville.

Let us see how Gavin starts his journey.

Gavin found out that there are five steps to Strategic Planning:

• Step 1: Get Organized

• Step 2: Situation Analysis

• Step 3: Set Direction

• Step 4: Refine and Adopt the Plan

• Step 5: Implement the Plan

He is so excited about it that he asks for a special meeting to present his ideas.

In this meeting, Gavin explains what Strategic Planning is:

• Planning process starts with the future – What do we want?

• Vision defines goals or objectives

• Creating a sequence of steps to achieve

• “What must be done on current level to achieve the next stage”

The president, Jane Knowitall, interrupts Gavin and says that they did this few years ago. When they applied for 501 (c) 3 they had to create a Long Term Plan.

Gavin explains that there is a difference between a Strategic Plan and long-term plan. He continued that a long-term plan:

Starts planning process from the current situation
Is a road map that outlines the path to future needs
Creates a list of interim goals that needs to be met

Jane does not like the idea that Gavin steps so forward, because she founded the Arts Council and she did everything right. Only for the last two or three years the organization didn’t meet their goals, because the people didn't understand. There is nothing wrong with the current plan. They should follow it without paying attention to the changes around them.

Gavin thanks Jane Knowitall for proving the point. Strategic Planning has a wider view and is more flexible in adopting the environmental changes.

The organization is in this situation even though it met their interim goals:

All the bills are paid
Some arts events were organized
At least one meeting every month
Always complies with the mission statement

Brian Nodecision speaks up and supports Jane’s argument. Everything is great.

The debate gets heated until Gavin asks, why do they only have thirty members and declining participation at their arts shows. Why is funding the organization getting harder? No one could answer.

The Board of the Directors decided to give it a try.

Without realizing it the Tinyville Arts Council already started with the first step. They all talked about their concerns and benefits.

George Letmedoit does not know much about Strategic Planning, but he is on fire to get started with it. He asks a few simple questions with an extremely high value for the Strategic Planning process:

Is this plan for the whole organization or do we do this only for a specific part?
For how long do we plan? For what period of time are we planning?
What do we want to accomplish with the plan?
How much time do we want to spend on planning?
What is the time line for each planning step?
Who is in charge of the planning process?
Do we split the planning process into smaller parts?
Are we going to use a consultant for developing a plan?
If so, how much will it cost and is there any funding support in the form of a grant?

After the meeting, all questions got answered and were written down by Secretary Shonda Detailed.

Stay tuned to see how the Give-A-Hoots change the world of this small volunteer organization.

What is Strategic Planning? - Gavin Give-A-Hoot – Attend a Board Meeting

2011-08-15T14:43:00.000-07:00

The next day Gavin goes to the meeting.
Even though it is a public meeting there are only five people present. He introduced himself. Gavin gets to know the board of directors.

Jane Knowitall – President

Brian Nodecision – Vice President

Shonda Detailed – Secretary

Mark Dontspend – Treasurer

George Letmedoit – Board Member

Gavin took a seat and the meeting started. Jane began the meeting with asking what they should talk about. After fifteen minutes the board agreed on an agenda.

Mark gave his report. “We have $5,000 in our account. All the bills are paid. Our thirty members paid their membership dues.”

The next point on the agenda was the need for more board members. Jane asked if anyone knows somebody who would like to get involved. Nobody had an answer.

Shonda asked Gavin if he would like to get involved. Gavin nodded. Without hesitations the board voted for Gavin as their new board member.

Gavin got up and took his new place at the table.

George asked if anyone has an idea what kind of art event we should organize this year. Jane said that is a great question. We should brainstorm about it. After two hours the meeting closed without any ideas. Jane decided we all should meet in two weeks.

On his way home, Gavin thought about the meeting. He knew all those people were great but totally unstructured and disorganized. If this should be successful, we need a plan.

Problems:

Agenda – meeting management
Leadership
How to create a functional, supportive, and successful Board of Directors
Vision

Stay tuned to see how the Give-A-Hoots change the world of this small volunteer organization.

What is Strategic Planning?

2011-08-15T13:50:00.000-07:00

Gavin Give-A-Hoot wants to volunteer

Gavin Give-A-Hoot lives with his wife, Gloria, in Tinyville. Tinyville is a small town in the heart of Tennessee on a lake and not so far from the beautiful mountains. More than five thousand people call Tinyville their home and around thirty thousand live in Tinyville County. This beautiful town has everything that any other small town has like churches, a Wal-Mart, small businesses, factories, and farmers.

Gavin and Gloria Give-A-Hoot decided that it is time to give something back to the community. They are searching for opportunities to help in a field of their interests. They start looking through newspapers and searching the web. Gavin cannot believe that only a handful of organizations are publicly known. He has friends who volunteer, too, but not with those organizations that Gloria and Gavin have found. The Give-A-Hoots love arts and culture so they think Tinyville could use some more events in this area.

Gavin is wondering if the Local Arts Council is still operating; he remembers seeing an article about an arts event almost a year ago. Gloria helps him and finds a website from this organization. It has not been updated, but an email address in the contact section is available. Gavin sends an email and after three weeks, he finally gets an answer.

A standard email: “Dear Sir and Madam, Thank you for your interest in the Tinyville Arts Council. We are meeting once a month to talk about new projects like fundraising, art shows, etc.. If you are interested, please contact us.”

Gloria is dialing the number, which was in the footer of the email, and gets the voicemail. Two weeks later Gavin gets a call and talks to an elderly lady who invites him to a meeting the next day. Gavin asks about the agenda of the meeting, to find out there in no agenda.

Does this story sound familiar?

It does not have to be like that.

Stay tuned to see how the Give-A-Hoots change the world of this small volunteer organization.

Help for small non-for-profit Organizations and small businesses

See the big picture and you will succeed

Nothing gets done if you don't work together

What is Strategic Planning? Gavin Give-A-Hoot and the Tinyville Arts Council Starts Collecting Information

Don’t Get Emotional - Focus on the Solution: How Gavin Give-A-Hoot Deals With a Conflict

Where to Find a New Board of Directors: Gavin Give-A-Hoot Wants to Change the System

Time to change - Gavin Give-A-Hoot plans to change the Board of Directors

Gavin was concerned about this behavior, that it would lead to complaints and possibly losing the organization’s 501(c) 3 status. Gavin had learned from books and seminars that every nonprofit organization has to have public meetings as a part of their status.

His agenda:

Summary of the last year’s program Report from the Treasurer Discuss next season Release the Board of Directors Voting for a new Board of Directors

He tried to find a date for the meeting that many could attend, and also that gave him enough time to find people who are interested in a new direction.

What is Strategic Planning? Gavin Give-A-Hoot – Is taking charge

What is Strategic Planning? - Gavin Give-A-Hoot – Attend a Board Meeting

What is Strategic Planning?

Summary of the last year’s program

Report from the Treasurer

Discuss next season

Release the Board of Directors

Voting for a new Board of Directors