Giving Good Meetings

Are your meetings endless and unproductive? Do you dread the approach of your next board or committee meeting? Are commitment, creativity, and attendance dropping? Here are some guidelines for making your meetings more constructive and fun:

• Do a meeting reality check. If you didn't have to be there, would you go to your meetings? Think about meetings you have attended that have been effective, and use them as a role model.

• Don't hold a meeting just to have a meeting. Could your business be accomplished more easily and appropriately via email, or in an executive session? If most of your agenda involves simple reporting, consider alternative methods of communication - or just give your group a month's vacation.

• Avoid Robert's Rules of Order. Did you know that Robert's Rules were developed by an Army officer in 1876? It's not 1876 anymore, and you are definitely not in the army. Robert's Rules are rigid and restrictive. And contrary to popular opinion, there is no legal requirement that requires non-governmental nonprofit organizations to follow them. Instead, work with your Board to develop simple procedures and rules of conduct that are appropriate to your organizational culture.

• Stick to a timetable. After two hours, no one attending any meeting will be paying much attention or at their best. Establish a timeline for your discussions, appoint a timekeeper, stay focused and on task, and get out of there in no more than 120 minutes.

• Provide thorough and clearly written materials in advance. And be sure to remind committee members if they have assignments to complete prior to the meeting. Then pray that everyone will read the notes and come prepared.

• Allow some time for fun. Nothing improves a meeting more than a good laugh.

• Finish with a summary and action plan. Always designate the final 5-10 minutes to summarizing what has been accomplished and coming to agreement on next steps, including a timetable and who has volunteered to do what.

Meetings get a bad rap, but there are good meetings and bad meetings. Take the time to make your meetings fun, focused, effective, and productive - and turn them into important tools towards creating partnerships and community, sustaining volunteers, supporting staff, and furthering the mission of your organization.

The Power of Fundraising

Fundraising isn't just about money! It's about promoting the good work of your organization and creating an environment that welcomes donors to participate in that good work:

• Promoting your mission: This is where it all starts - with the organizational mission that powers all of your services and programs. And it's surprising to discover how many folks involved actively in nonprofits are unfamiliar with the agency's mission statement. Everyone involved in fundraising should have this mission memorized, and be ready to talk about it - passionately and personally - with clients, members, and donors.

• Building relationships: Every fundraiser will tell you that there are three basic reasons people give: because they want to participate in the work of the organization, because they were asked, and because they know and respect the person that asked. Your job is to represent your organization with integrity, skill, and passion. As you do this, you also have opportunity to really get to know people - and to build genuine, sustaining partnerships and friendships for yourself and for your agency.

• Encouraging active participation: When people donate to an organization, whether it be $10 or $10,000, they become involved. They have a sense of ownership of the agency and its services. They care more. And that caring frequently translates into active participation doing meaningful volunteer work that benefits your clients, your organization - and the donor. A recent survey by Volunteer Match indicated that two-thirds of respondents said volunteer work makes them feel healthier, both mentally and physically.

• Creating community: We live in a fractured, stressful world increasingly dominated by technology - and often sadly lacking in human connection. As you talk to people about your work in making the world a better place, as you build relationships with your donors, as you facilitate their volunteer participation, you are bucking this trend by bringing people together and creating community. Along with the important services nonprofits provide, this too is how the nonprofit sector can help heal the world.

Fundraising is about real people - staff and volunteers and board members like yourselves - and their passionate commitment to a cause. It's about developing sustaining friendships and relationships. It's about creating an atmosphere that gets people involved in volunteering to make their community and world a better place to live. And it's about creating community in a world where we need as much real personal connection as we can get.

Searching for Gen X and Y

Have you been trying to figure out how to get those elusive young people in their 20's and 30's (Gen X and Y) involved in your organization? Join the crowd. Most nonprofits are dominated by folks age 50 and up - as staff, volunteers, board members, and donors.

• Gen X and Y have been born into a very different world - dominated by the fear of environmental collapse and terrorism, an exploding world of new media, and decreasing faith in institutions. But they also have a strong desire to help others and to raise money for their favorite causes.

• Members of Gen and Y now constitute more than half of the pool of potential donors - yet they contribute less money, support fewer charities, and are challenging to hold onto. According to a recent study by Edge Research, Gen Y donors averaged gifts of $341 to 3.6 group; members of Gen X gave $796 to 4.2 organizations. By contract, Baby Boomers contributed $901 to 5.2 groups and those born before 1946 gave $1,066 to 6.3 charities.

• For Gen X and Y, no one manner of giving dominates - 43% used direct mail, 35% a nonprofit website, 13% cellphone donations. In fact, 77% of those surveyed said they learned about helping quake victims in Haiti via their cellphones, and the majority found information on nonprofits primarily through internet sources. Older folks respond primarily to direct mail and print materials - 77% said they gave through the mail in the past two years.

• Younger donors enjoy giving as part of social events and through volunteering - personal contact with an organization , especially when it involves fun and friends, is still important to them.

• Gen X and Y give just because they are asked by friends - and this is increasingly happening through social media networks. 36% of those under 30 had forwarded a message from a charity to a friend in the past month, 37% would join an organization's Facebook group, and 29% had posted information about a favorite charity on their person Facebook page.

• Younger donors are likely to say they will be increasing charitable donations this year - and much less likely to feel that the global recession has affected their giving.

So: in order to retain current donors and reach out to Gen X and Y, your nonprofit is going to have to do it all: Facebook, text messages, enewsletters, volunteer work parties, youth-oriented events and parties, brochures, phone calls. Your challenge is to engage the genuine desire of young people to make a difference in this world, using every new strategy at your fingertips.