Your Team is the Best Resource You Have

Whether your nonprofit is staffed solely by volunteers, or positions at least partially paid, your people are your organisation’s most valuable asset. Your staff is the creative engine for identifying problems and finding new solutions to hard questions as well as accomplishing all of the hard work that benefits your service community. Without them, it’s impossible to create meaningful impact.

Despite their importance to achieving your goals, many nonprofit’s neglect their staff’s needs, and the results show up as a loss of worker productivity, donor engagement and your beneficiaries’ satisfaction.

To keep your staff on task and fully engaged, you must look after them, and find ways to increase the enjoyment that they experience working with your organisation. The following strategies can boost your team’s morale and keep them motivated to help your NFP meet its objectives and goals.

Spruce up the Workspace

The environment that we work in can have a direct, immediate impact on our energy levels, mood and sense of well-being. Give your team a boost by investing in quality lighting, including natural sources of light, and ensuring that they have the tools, material and equipment that they need to perform their work well.

This means investing in quality, ergonomically designed desks, chairs, computers and other hardware for office workers, and providing laptops and other mobile devices for workers that telecommute or otherwise work off-site. Invest in current software and other upgrades to ensure that your best people don’t become frustrated by hanging apps and lost data that sap willpower and decrease productivity.

Do Something Different, Exciting, and Fun as a Team

Team building exercises are great for increasing comradery and morale and helping your people learn how to cooperate and collaborate with one another. You could do something simple, such as hosting an office party or have a potluck at work, where everyone contributes a dish to a group meal, but why not make this event something to truly remember by hosting an offsite event.

If you have the budget, schedule your staff to take a joint field trip to a local amusement park, enjoy a picnic together on the beach. Whatever activity you choose, take steps to ensure that it is something that most of your staff will enjoy.

Perks and Rewards Have Their Place

While they should never take the place of just compensation that is due to your staff, partnering with third parties to offer meaningful rewards for exceptional service and dedication can help you show your staff that you do truly appreciate their effort and hard work.

To make sure that your rewards program is hitting the mark, conduct a survey to find out what types of rewards most appeal, and then work on incorporating as many of these ideas as possible into your program.

Be Flexible with Time Commitments

Another way to show your team that you understand their needs and value them for the unique people that they are is to offer schedules and time commitments that take into consideration real-world needs. Look for ways to allow team members to trade shifts and tasks to help them be able to meet their commitments to your nonprofit and their personal lives. Try to allow as many of your staff as possible to work remotely and offer multiple shifts and ranges of time for your people to have as many opportunities to work helping out at your NFP into their other obligations.

Provide Praise and Public Recognition

Everyone likes to have their hard work acknowledged and an appropriate level of gratitude expressed for their effort. Use your social media channels to give shout-outs to your team, host awards ceremonies, and otherwise publish notifications of your staff’s dedication to your organisation. In addition to these larger, more public efforts, never neglect an opportunity to “catch” your people doing something right and offer them praise on the spot.

Whether it’s a firm handshake and a heartfelt thank you spoken out loud or sending thanks in an email on a daily basis, let your team know how much their work means to you and your nonprofit! The more you can express your gratitude to your people, the more likely they will be thankful for the opportunities that your organisation offers them to help your service community!

The Keys To The Success Of Your NFP

Creating a successful nonprofit takes more than the desire to lead positive change in your community. In addition to making a genuine impact, your organisation must be able to survive over the long term and grow at a sustainable level.

The following strategies can help you lay a strong foundation upon which to build and grow a focused, and resilient, organisation that moves its mission forward.

Clearly Define Your Purpose

It’s so much easier for organisations to make real progress when everyone shares the same values and focuses on the same goals. Nonprofit leaders should set the tone and pace of their organisation by clearly defining the reason why the NFP exists in their statement of purpose and include a list of activities that they will and will not pursue in the organisation’s formal bylaws.

Recruit and Retain Top Talent

Every organisation is only as strong as its weakest link. The people on your team are your most important asset, which means that whether you're searching for a director, support staff, or volunteers for your NFP, you need to take steps to ensure that you can attract and keep knowledgeable, skilled and gifted candidates for both paid, and unpaid, positions.

To help in your search for the best candidates, create a written description for every position within your NFP, whether it’s paid or unpaid. Not only will this help you to have a firmer grasp of the traits and qualities you need, clarifying roles, duties and responsibilities, it helps all parties get started on a better footing. Make sure that you conduct interviews, as well as background checks on all potential candidates before they begin work.

Activities like training, career guidance, peer-mentoring and job shadowing can help you ensure that each person that you bring on board will have the tools that they need to make a positive contribution to your team. Establish formal policies and protocols to increase open communication and quickly resolve any conflicts that arise to boost morale and workplace satisfaction.

Set Goals with Realistic Expectations

Creating goals that do not have a specific target, start and stop date, and are not easily measured, are usually unobtainable at the start. Whether it’s increasing the results of your fundraising efforts or the number and quality of services that you provide your beneficiaries, make sure that you are setting specific goals, with results that can be measured. This will make it easier to hit your target.

Keep All Your Stakeholders Updated and in the Loop

Do your volunteers know how important they are to achieving your goals? Do you show gratitude and fill them in on the results of their efforts? What about your donors? Do they know what’s truly at stake and understand how even very small, but consistent donations, can add up over time and help you achieve greater results? Do your service beneficiaries understand what you can do to help make their lives better?

Provide all stakeholders with frequent updates on the status of your projects and drives, and their results. Look for ways to get the word out about everyone’s hard work and other contributions across multiple media channels. Explain results in human “real world” terms to increase your stakeholder’s emotional connection to your organisation. And last, but certainly not least, never neglect an opportunity to express your gratitude for everyone’s contributions to your cause.