Organizational Intelligence and nonprofits (part 1)

While I was getting my MBA, I took this amazing class in organizational intelligence. Basically, organizational intelligence is a cultural shift from a single person hoarding all of his or her knowledge in an organization to recording the knowledge so others in the org. have access to it. Think about it--when someone leaves an organization, there is usually a giant gaping hole left in their wake. If an organization has a culture of intelligence sharing there will be a smoother transition between employees and between employees across the organization in real time. Less duplication of work, more collaboration between employees--sounds pretty amazing to me!

In a nonprofit organization, many employees wear "multiple hats" and have so many different roles that the organization must instill a culture of shared intelligence where the employee (or volunteer) is willing to share what they know or do for the organization's future.

Technology is the best answer to this problem--asking employees to do something as simple as asking employees to post key documents on Google Docs (or another open site) or to record key relationships in the CRM would help anyone involved in the organization to see exactly where things stand with constituents.

A Conundrum

So yesterday, I met up with my friend Renee'. Renee' wants to start a career in volunteer coordination, and she and I started chatting about some ethical dilemmas that may come up when volunteering for an organization and how a volunteer should deal with that. For instance, what if you were volunteering (and highly invested) in an organization and you found out that said organization was involved in activities that were contrary to your beliefs. How do you, as a volunteer, deal with that? Conversely, what if an organization has a rock-star volunteer and then finds out that the volunteer is involved in some shady activities, etc. I think that this situation (or really either situation) would be the .00001% of the time, but it was interesting to think about nonetheless.

This involved into a conversation about corporate sponsorships for an organization....If an corporation approaches a nonprofit for a sponsorship, or vice versa, there is a courting process, but I think that so many times the donations or the prospect for joining forces with a nonprofit clouds some decision making. Whose decision making wouldn't be clouded though? Anyway, with the Internet making everything transparent, any corporation or nonprofit can't hide anything. For instance, a huge corporation may choose to join forces with a nonprofit who is focused on public health. The parent company of said huge corporation may manufacture food that is horrible for the public. How can the nonprofit accept a sponsorship knowing that the roots of this corporation works against the nonprofit's mission? Surely, this information will become known by some web-sleuths...but how can the organization pass up this huge sponsorship?

Just some food for thought...


***Update*** I just saw this article on the NPQ about a similar issue...and with some solid advice about turning something like this into a positive for the organization.

Lights. Camera. Help. Party

Last night I went to a party that I found out about on the YNPN list serv. My friend Renee and I went and we decided to go to check it out. We weren't sure what it was about or what to expect, so we were pretty nervous. It turns out that Lights. Camera. Help. is a new non-profit here in Austin and their mission is to help nonprofits create movies or short videos for marketing, social media or fundraising for their organizations. Lights. Camera. Help. gives classes to other nonprofits in what they need to do to make movies. They also host a nonprofit film festival and give cash prizes to those nonprofits who have the best films. We were able to watch a few of them last night at the party--they were pretty powerful. One that struck me the most was from a local organization here in Austin that works with students who have dyslexia in a free after school program. The students in the short film were all very well-spoken and so willing to learn! They spoke about what an impact this particular nonprofit had on them and their learning at school. It was incredible--and I wanted to donate to them right away!

Lights. Camera. Help. is also debuting a new volunteer match-up system. This will allow nonprofits and volunteers to be auto-matched in their system to get the skills in the time-frame that the nonprofits need. This is great--and hopefully this model of matching volunteers automatically to nonprofits' needs will become more and more powerful and exact so that it will be mutually beneficial!

The Merit of Merit Badges

Remember when you were little and you got a badge in Girl or Boy Scouts for learning a new skill or going on an overnight trip? The feeling of being able to proudly show the badge, of knowing that you had done something good and were being recognized for it was, well awesome.
Lately, I have been obsessing using the CauseWorld app on my iPhone. At first, I received many badges for where I was checking in. I got a frequency badge for checking in a bunch of times at one location (ok, it was one of the places that I could be in my apartment and check in from), an All-nighter badge for checking in at 3 am (couldn’t sleep), a Nomadic badge (for checking in at 5 different places) and various others. Now that I have been using it for a while, the badges are more infrequent, but I am obsessed with getting them. I don’t know which one I am going to get next, but it has become a compulsion to check in wherever I go! And the thing is—every time I check in, I receive more karma points, so it all goes towards a good cause. I have donated all the points to great causes, so it’s all good!
My yoga studio has something similar. We receive wrist bands in different colors for attending classes. Just like CauseWorld, we receive more at the beginning of our journey, and they become more and more infrequent, but somehow more rewarding. It’s a point of pride for me to wear my 200-class wrist band, and I can’t wait until I get the 350 class band in front of the people that I practice with. They present the wrist-band at the beginning of class and the teacher gives a little speech. It’s nice to be recognized for hard work!
I listened to All Things Considered today on NPR, and they had an Austin local contributor talking about the interactive part of SXSW. When asked what the next big thing is, Omar Gallaga said that it would probably have to be 4-Square and Gowalla, GPS based apps where people can check in at locations and let their networks know where they are. People earn badges for where they check in (similar to CauseWorld), and the ultimate honor is being declared the Mayor of a certain place on 4-Square. This is given to the person who has checked in the most times at a specific location.
Anyhoo, what does this mean for non-profit organizations? GIVE BADGES. Our inner Girl or Boy Scout still wants badges. Perhaps organizations can give badges to people that volunteer. They can get badges for frequency, duties performed, etc. Maybe Convio, Blackbaud or any of the other CRMs can allow badges to become part of their peer-to-peer fundraising pages. It’s like the equivalent of the sashes that we used to have our mother sew our badges on! But seriously, nonprofits need to jump on board with this stuff. I am all about recognizing people for their hard work and making a big deal of people who are doing good things for your organization. Do it!!

Alternative Spring Breaks

It’s spring break time again. Lots of college students are headed down to various tropical locales to drink, sleep and sun themselves on the beach. However, more and more schools and organizations are offering alternative spring breaks. Students who sign up may travel to an area that needs help and volunteer for several days, or stay where they are and volunteer locally. Most students coming back from Mexico say that it was “the experience of a lifetime”. The students on the alternative spring breaks would probably say the same, and actually mean it.
When I was in college, our campus ministry department had a staff member whose sole responsibility was to organize and recruit students to go on multiple trips “mission trips” throughout the year. This was not to say that the students were out preaching—it was faith through action and social just oriented than anything else. There were local trips, national trips and even a few international trips. All of them were amazing, and some even gave college credit!
When I was a sophomore in college, I traveled to Americus, GA to work with a group from my school and to learn about the history and mission of Habitat for Humanity and to help build a house in one of the Habitat communities. During the few days that we were in Americus, we lived together in a large Habitat-owned house, and cooked, cleaned and entertained one another.
I remember calling my father after our first day of working on site and giving him a stern talking to because I was 20 and had just learned how to use a hammer! I was absolutely horrified that I had just learned this basic life skill.
During this trip my eyes were opened to more than just my lack of manual labor—I also saw some poverty, and learned about what a great mission Habitat for Humanity was. We met Millard Fullard (the founder of HoH) and his wife, who were able to talk to us a bit about how they live and why they have done everything that they have. We spoke with people who have been recipients of Habitat homes and how their lives along with their living situations. Because of my experience, I continued to volunteer for the local Habitat chapter during my college career, and support Habitat as much as I can.
I support these alternative spring breaks very much, but only if the students are in the frame of mind where they WANT to volunteer, learn and experience. The traditional spring breaks are good—students work hard and they should have fun. But sometimes, they feel the need to give back. As these alternative spring breaks become more popular, graduating students will have a more worldly view and know what it feels like to give back, and to make a difference in someone’s life.