Archive for the ‘Personal/Professional Development’ Category

A friend shared this very powerful video with me and I wanted to share it with you. 
It’s a great example of the power of words.

“Vision Is Seeing the Invisible.” — Jonathan Swift

Thanks!

Sandy

I was listening to a speaker on Saturday talk about the difference a few minutes makes.  He had met some people who were there the day the Federal building in Oklahoma was destroyed by a bomb many years ago.

He said he heard stories about how people risked their lives going into a burning, crumbling building looking for survivors.  Isn’t it amazing how brave some folks become in the face of disaster?

And yet, a few minutes earlier, these same people wouldn’t give others a second glance.  Or the time of day.

Interesting, huh?

I heard the same comparison about the disaster in Japan.  Not that many years ago, Americans and Japanese were at war and trying to kill each other.  Some of those same Americans are still alive today and making donations to help the Japanese people in this terrible disaster they are experiencing.

It’s emotional fruitbasket turnover.

What would it be like if we could find a more happy medium to live in all the time?  Then instead of either totally ignoring people or risking our own lives to save them, we could live every day in a state of love for our fellow man.  How would that change things?  Would we stop complaining about the guy who cut us off in traffic this morning?  Would we stop griping about our co-worker and their annoying habits?  Would we find a totally different space to be in with our teenager whose room is a train wreck?

What do you think?  Leave a comment and share your thoughts.

Thanks to my sweet friend Hugh for sharing this.

A young lady confidently walked around the room while leading and explaining stress management to an audience; with a raised glass of water, and everyone knew she was going to ask the ultimate question, ‘half empty or half full?’….. she fooled them all… “How heavy is this glass of water?”, she inquired with a smile.

Answers called out ranged from 8 oz. to 20 oz.

She replied, “The absolute weight doesn’t matter. It depends on how long I hold it. If I hold it for a minute, that’s not a problem.  If I hold it for an hour, I’ll have an ache in my right arm. If I hold it for a day, you’ll have to call an ambulance.In each case it’s the same weight, but the longer I hold it, the heavier it becomes.” She continued, “and that’s the way it is with stress. If we carry our burdens all the time, sooner or later, as the burden becomes increasingly heavy, we won’t be able to carry on.”

“As with the glass of water, you have to put it down for a while and rest before holding it again.  When we’re refreshed, we can carry on with the burden – holding stress longer and better each time practiced. So, as early in the evening as you can, put all your burdens down. Don’t carry them through the evening and into the night… pick them up tomorrow.Whatever burdens you’re carrying now, let them down for a moment. Relax, pick them up later after you’ve rested. Life is short. Enjoy it and the now ‘supposed’ stress that you’ve conquered!”

I had the privilege of attending the AFP (Association of Fundraising Professionals) Think Tank a couple of weeks ago.  It was so cool to be among a group of great thinkers to talk and brainstorm.

One of the things that came up was the number of people who are entering the profession without a solid understanding of our principles and ethics.  Lots of people take jobs in nonprofit fundraising and assume their sales or other corporate skills will transfer.  While an awful lot of things are the same, some are very different.

Skills/concepts that translate:

• Marketing concepts are the same in for-profit as in non-profit.  It’s about identifying target audiences, key messages, and consistent communication.
• Good leadership is always appropriate!
• Customer service works very well in the nonprofit.  Donors, volunteers, and people in the community enjoy being treated well and sort of expect it from nonprofit organizations.

Skills/concepts that don’t translate:

• Working on comission is considered unethical among professional fundraisers.  This is troublesome, because in the for-profit world, it’s a commonly accepted practice.  In fundraising, the donor expects 100% of their gift to go directly to the nonprofit to help people.  When a commission is given, the nonprofit doesn’t get 100% of the gift.
• In the for-profit world, it’s all about me, me, me.  In the non-profit world, it’s about what’s in the best interest of the organization.  In fact, there are times when a fundraising professional needs to step out of a donor relationship so as not to muddy the waters.  For example, imagine that a particular Director of Development (DD) builds a very strong relationship with a particular donor, so much so that the donor decides to leave the DD in her will (not the non-profit).  This puts the DD in a precarious ethical situation, because they are working to secure resources for the non-profit, not for themselves.

I’m sure there will continue to be many well-intended people who try to apply what they know from the for-profit world to the non-profit one.  Somehow, we must find a way to education them about our industry’s ethics so they can be successful in their new jobs.

I saw a great blog post this morning from a former coach of mine, Andrea Lee.  She said:

“If you have been complaining about not earning enough money for more than one month – not earning enough money isn’t really an emergency for you.”

Translated for the nonprofit world, it means if you’ve been complaining about not raising enough money for more than a month, it must not be a problem.  Because if it was REALLY a problem for you, you’d do something about it.

Think about it: there are lots of things we tolerate:  a broken piece of office equipment, a slow computer, a volunteer who isn’t quite working out but we don’t want to have to fire them.  We put up with it for months longer than we should.  A true problem or emergency gets our attention and we do something about it, fast.

Back to fundraising.  Are you raising enough money?  And is that a real problem or are you tolerating it? 

This is some tough love, I know.  But here’s the thing:  the time you spend complaining about the situation is a waste.  How about instead, make an action plan and go DO something about it.  You’ll be much more productive with your time and you’ll likely see things start to happen.

If you need a little help getting motivated and moving, stay tuned.  I’m about to launch a very inexpensive 1-hour Clarity session where you can get clear about exactly what you need to do to start raising more money.  I’ll help you craft a 90-day plan of action with easy-to-follow steps.

This time of year, lots of people are making resolutions. Others don’t. Some people don’t want to commit to losing weight or changing their lives because they’re too busy, too tired, overcommitted, etc. These are excuses. If you really want to change something about your life, you’ll find a way to do it. Period.

You see, an excuse is just a way to let yourself off the hook.  It’s a way to justify your behavior.  For example, if your excuse is “I don’t have time to exercise” then you are simply justifying your behavior to not exercise.  The truth is that we make time for what’s important to us.

In fundraising, we use excuses too. When there’s something that seems hard we make an excuse so we don’t have to do it.  It’s what keeps us from truly excelling in fundraising, raising boatloads of money, and fully funding our mission.  Excuses keep us stuck in mediocre fundraising.

Here are some common excuses I’ve heard. See if any of these sound familiar:

• “We don’t have any big donors.”
• “Our Board won’t help with fundraising.”
• “We tried direct mail (or fill in the blank) and it didn’t work.”
• “I don’t have time to write grants (or fill in the blank).”
• “Our mission isn’t sexy.”
• “We’re not a big organization like (fill in the blank).”

Excuses will get in your way of improving your fundraising efforts.  They’ll keep you stuck where you are, and if you’re okay with where you are, then you can stop reading and go about your day.  If you want to be a better Fundraiser and raise more money for your nonprofit, you’ve got to ditch the excuses.  You’ve to to adopt a new attitude and take a “No Excuses Approach” to your work.

The business coach that I’m working with right now expects me to take a “No Excuses Approach” to my work.  I’ll tell you, it’s not always easy!  It requires my attention and some personal growth.  Some of my behaviors and habits are pretty ingrained.  But I know if I want to get better at what I do, I MUST change how I do things, no matter how painful the process might be.

I encourage you to start noticing the excuses you use in fundraising.  Keep a running list over the next week or so of every time something pops into your head or out of your mouth that supports mediocre fundraising. 

Being aware is the first step in changing things.  Once you get a handle on what excuses you are using, I’ll tell you how to dump them.

Sometimes, despite your best effort and your most extensive planning, your fundraising effort falls flat.

You know what I’m talking about. You send out an appeal through the mail and the returns are very slow to come in. Or you hold a fundraising dinner for 200 people and only a few show up. It’s heart-breaking (believe me, I know! Been there, done that.).

The best thing you can do is learn from the experience. First, have a close look at what didn’t work. Is there something else you could have done? Is there something you could have done better? Or was that particular event or campaign not a good idea in the first place? The better you can answer these questions, the faster you’ll move to an event or campaign that will work for your organization.

It’s all about learning so you can move forward and become a better Fundraiser. The more skilled and confident you become, the more you’ll know exactly what needs to happen in order for your fundraising plans to bear rich, sweet fruit.

So keep learning. And if you’re sweating right now, here’s my love and encouragement for you: It’s all going to be okay. Do what you know works and let everything else go. Your worrying about it, especially if you worry so that you make yourself sick, isn’t going to help.

Do what you can do and let the rest go. If you’re wound up tighter than a drum, you’re probably not going to be a very effective Fundraiser anyway.

If you’ve overcome a fundraising flop, we’d love to hear from you! Please share your story in the comments section.

Here’s a great little video that will probably make you giggle or at least smile.  After watching it a couple of times, I think there are some deeper lessons to be learned.  One is “don’t start something unless you’re prepared to deal with the consequences.”  Another is “if you give, be prepared to receive.”

Watch the video and see what other lessons can be learned.

Stink.  I made a big mistake last week on a project for a client.  Maybe in the big scheme of things, it wasn’t that big, but it was big to me. And I immediately started in on myself.  I bet you do this to yourself, too, so I wanted to share a bit.

Here’s some of what was going on inside my head:  “I should have paid more attention to the details.  I should have double-checked the list.  I should have……”  You see what’s happening here?  Lots of ‘shoulds.’ 

After I let the ‘shoulds’ run their course, then I dug into the truth.  The truth is I made a mistake.  I took responsibility for it (contacted the client to let them know), I apologized, and did what I could do to make it right.  There was no need for me to beat myself up over what I could have done differently.  My best option was to learn from the experience and move on.  ‘Should’ doesn’t help me.  It only keeps me in a negative place of being wrong.

I share this because I know lots of other people ‘should’ on themselves.  Instead, do what I did:

• Acknowledge the truth
• Take responsibility for your mistake
• Apologize
• Make it right
• Learn from the experience
• Move forward

Otherwise, you can get stuck in the mistakes of the past pretty easily.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this.  Please leave a comment and let me know how you handle mistakes.

I was talking with a sweet woman this morning about my upcoming Mastermind program and we discussed the importance of having a grou[ of peers to think and reflect with.  You know what I’m talking about – people you can whine with and bounce ideas off of.

Way too many nonprofit Executive Directors and Development Directors work on an island.  They don’t have a group of colleagues they can go to for support.   It gets really lonely (and it doesn’t have to be that way).

I figured out early in my fundraising career that I needed people to walk this amazing journey with.  So I formed my own fundraising tribe made up of several other fundraisers who were also looking for some support.  I affectionately referred to them as my “rowdy girlfriends.”  By the way, it was this same group of rowdy girls that talked me into starting my consulting business 5 years ago! (Thanks gals!)

So, who is in your tribe?  Who do you call when you need to vent about some crazy Board member?  Who do you lean on when times get tough?  Who do you celebrate your big achievements with?  If you don’t have a group like this, I encourage you to start one.  It doesn’t have to be big.  Just 3 or 4 people can provide a LOT of support to one another. 

The only groundrule that my group used was that everything was confidential.   We’d meet once a month for a nice lunch and catch up with each other.  It gave us the chance to ask for advice on how to handle things or even how to implement specific fundraising strategies.  We were so close that we could even ask about insights into specific donors (“Have you ever worked with Jean Smith?”).  It was awesome.

If you’re looking for a group that you can not only get support from but also learn from, I encourage you to check out my Fundraising Gold Mastermind group.  It will be a small group of 6 nonprofit fundraisers all looking to raise significantly more money in 2011.  You can get all the details at www.privatecoachingwithsandy.com.