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!

How to Keep Your Team Happy

High turnover extracts a heavy toll on all organisations, particularly those in the not-for-profit sector. Not only does it waste the time, money and other precious resources that your NFP uses to train its people, turnover increases inefficiency in your organisation as your nonprofit must now go to the effort of finding, training and retaining new personnel.

Long before they leave, unhappy staff and volunteers impact your organisation in terms of the quality of service it provides all stakeholders. If you want to keep your team, and ensure that they are fully engaged in their work for your service community, your NFP’s leadership must make some effort to keep them happy.

The following are a few tips to help your nonprofit better meet the needs of its volunteers and staff members.

Empowerment and Flexibility

Regardless of anyone’s job title and duties, at least some of the tasks that are performed each day seem redundant and unnecessary. Each of us is also an individual with our own tastes and preferences, so wherever it is possible, try to grant your team as much autonomy and authority as possible. Empower your people to make decisions and to take responsibility in the areas that they work in.

Allow staff and volunteers to switch things up during their workday by allowing them to cross train and do similar work, but in different departments. Not only does this help to prevent monotony and boredom, your nonprofit benefits from new insight and perspective brought by members from other areas of your NFP’s operations. It also improves your organisation’s flexibility during times when you might be understaffed in some departments but overstaffed in others.

Keep Everyone Up-to-Date

Have you ever had the experience of having people close to you keep a secret from you? How did it make you feel?

When we respect others, we bring them into our circle of confidence. Everyone wants to know what is going on, and what they need to do as a team to advance the mission forward.

Be accessible to your teams, and make yourself available to them. Have an open-door policy that works both ways. Hold regular meetings with your team members so that you can keep them updated as to your organisation’s goals, policies, and breaking news.

If your team is scattered across multiple locations, assemble them together in one central location with as many members of your team as possible. Next, bring the others in via live video conferencing on Skype or another online platform. Make an effort to give everyone a voice during your meetings so that everyone’s concerns or questions are heard and addressed.

When you openly communicate with your team, you build trust, respect and rapport. Your staff and volunteers learn that they can count on you to provide them with the information that they need to perform their tasks well. Your team also learns that you have their best interests at heart and are looking out for them.

Acknowledgement

When we work hard, it’s only natural to want our efforts to be recognised and appreciated. Make sure that you are taking concrete steps to show your team that you truly value them as people. Let them know you are grateful for all the hard work that they put into advancing the mission and meeting the needs of others.

Awards ceremonies, perks, rewards and letters of appreciation can all go a long way to show your team just how important they are to you and your organisation. While many nonprofits run on the proverbial shoestring budget, it’s important to avoid the tendency to substitute perks and recognition for comparable compensation.

For your paid staff and volunteers, offer a living wage that’s in line with what others in comparable fields and positions pay. Whether other members of your team are paid or unpaid, make sure that they have all the resources that they need to do their jobs well. Invest in replacing outdated systems and upgrading critical infrastructure. Offer updated training and use innovative technologies to reduce the strain and workload on your teams.

Truly honoring your team’s contribution to your organisation is about more than offering a token acknowledgement; it’s about being realistic about the demands that are placed on them. Give them everything they need to perform well including public recognition, realistic wages, current information and equipment.