Your strategic planning process is one way to check in with the community. In addition, incorporating Human-Centered Design helps facilitate meaningful engagement.
All in Human Resources
Preparing for Exciting New Opportunities
Providing quality, paid leave, benefits your staff. Still, if you budget for the time away, you may be worried about how to carry the load of the responsibilities while your employee is out of the office. Here are three tips to help you prepare:
2022: Trending Benefits to Retain your Staff
In a recent study from Nonprofit HR, 80% of respondents indicated that they had no formal employee retention strategy. As we emerge from the stress of the pandemic, your employees and colleagues are likely talking about what it would take to keep employees engaged. Focus on nurturing a psychologically safe work environment and offer key benefits – both of which cost comparatively little. We outline three flexible benefit trends that help your organization to stand out.
How to Set Healthy Boundaries as a Nonprofit Leader
A common badge of honor that we wear as nonprofit professionals is the one that states “I’m overworked!” It is time to change that narrative! You are a superhero! You are running a social service organization trying to solve the world’s most pressing problems on limited resources. I totally affirm that you are working your tail off and that you are tired! However, it is imperative that we take the necessary steps to handle our stress in order to help move our organizations forward.
Celebrating Holidays at Work
As we celebrate July 4th this week, it is an excellent time to think about the dos and don’ts for celebrating holidays at a non-profit organization. Celebrating holidays is an important part of the culture of organizations. Diverse cultures celebrate in a variety of ways and have different holidays. It is important for an organization to understand its culture better and also understand the culture of the staff, the community, and the people that are being served. You don’t want to commit any faux pas when you celebrate holidays at your organization either. Here is a list of three dos and don’ts for celebrating holidays at work.
Four Ways to Improve Mental Health in Your Organization
As a leader, you understand that to take care of the well-being of an organization, you must care about the well-being of its people. Mental wellness is critical to reducing burnout, increasing productivity and staff retention, and improving functioning across many key skill areas, from communication to creativity to task completion. Healthy organizations must foster an environment that promotes mental health and wellness in order to thrive. Consider these ways you can support mental health in your organization.
Workplace Conflict: Don't Get Mad. Don't Get Even. Get What you Want!
You’ve likely heard the phrase, Don’t get mad, get even. The idea is that there isn’t much point in expending emotional energy on anger when you can take action. Well, this may be a motto some live by but when it comes to workplace conflict, “getting even” hardly ever leads to a healthy resolution. So what do you do when you are embroiled in the middle of a conflict and neither party will budge?
Employee Mental Health in 2022
May is Mental Health Awareness Month – and a great opportunity to talk about Employee mental health. Of course this is no small topic, even in the best of times. And in 2022 … mental health – both in the workplace and out of it – is definitely a topic worth paying attention to. Read more to find out how you can apply flexibility in the workplace to support employee mental health.
Nonprofit Consultants: What is Their Role and How Much do They Cost?
There are a lot of questions regarding nonprofit consultants. You may wonder about the consultant’s role, how much they cost, or where to find a consultant. This post will walk you through determining whether or not you need to hire a consultant, then how to price your work and where to find a consultant partner.
Succession Planning 101
Leadership transitions at a nonprofit can be an unexpected surprise, but you can be prepared and weather the transition period successfully by having a written succession plan in place. By taking this step, you’ll not only find yourself with an easier, smoother transition period, but you’ll also taking positive steps toward the long-term sustainability of your organization.
4 Tips for Exceptional Volunteer Management
Whether you celebrate Volunteer Month or Week, April is a time for the nonprofit sector to focus on those who give of their time freely. Volunteers provide an enormous benefit to the sector. For example, volunteerism offers a value of over $1.8 billion dollars to the U.S economy. However, you might find it hard to recruit volunteers and use them well. Spark Group provides four best practices for getting the most out of your volunteer program.
Fundraising Events: In Person or Online?
Many of us fundraising professionals have questions about how or when we can host in-person events. Living with the coronavirus for the past two years has taught us new ways technology can support fundraising to coordinate three types of events: in-person, virtual, and hybrid. Most importantly, we should think about what will make for a unique and meaningful experience for donors.
Exceptional Leadership in a Time of Crisis
How do you become an exceptional leader in a time of crisis? Start by understanding your default leadership style. Once we know what leadership style comes naturally to us, we can then build a plan for how to improve other aspects of our leadership. Building up our skills in each of the frames allows us to adapt to changes and crises and become exceptional!
How to Conduct a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Evaluation
A Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) evaluation is critical to an organization's end-of-the-year review. While this might not be a part of an organization's current end-of-the-year process, it is an important piece to add.
Strategic Planning: It Takes a Team!
As the executive director of a small nonprofit, you are likely in the habit of wearing many different hats at your organization – often multiple hats at the same time. It’s time for your organization to set goals for the upcoming year through a strategic planning process. While some organizations bring in outside consultants to lead this process, you are confident the strategic planning process is one more task you are ready to handle. So, where do you begin?
Turning Your Volunteer Management Into A Natural System Of Your Organization
Volunteers play a vital role in a nonprofit organization. Volunteers play a role in most organizations’ governance, administration, fundraising, programming, promotion, and advocacy. Therefore, volunteers are a huge part of an organization. However, volunteer management can often feel clunky and piecemealed. To turn your volunteer management into a natural system of your organization, you should focus on the four areas of volunteer management: recruitment, tracking, engagement, and retention.
Back to School and the Nonprofit Sector
The back-to-school season means that summer plans are coming to a close, excitement and emotions are high, and nonprofits are gearing up for their fall programming and fundraising operations. Here are tips for working with your internal teams, clients, and donors regarding back-to-school campaigns.
Three Questions to Consider As Your Organization Returns to the Workplace
Many organizations are moving back into the workplace. There is a lot of information about re-entering the workplace. After reading several articles, I came up with three questions to consider as you move back.
Pride & Pronouns
What better way to celebrate Pride month than to take inventory of your organization and ask – are we doing everything we can to ensure inclusivity towards members of the LGBTQIA+ community?
A good first step to take (or second step, or third step…) is to consider your organization’s use of pronouns.
Volunteer Management in 2021
If volunteers have a critical role to play in the health of your organization, it is equally important that you take the steps necessary to protect the health and well-being of your volunteers – especially as groups begin to shift away from working virtually, and begin to gather in person again.