Recovering Executive Director

I lead two nonprofit workshops this week; one on the use of technology and one on how to communicate your impact.  I always begin my workshops with a similar theme: understand your organization and take a serious look at your values, vision, and mission.  Once that is clear, you can more clearly identify the goals and actions to take your organization where it needs to go.  Seems simple but in most cases, these are extremely hard conversations to have and even harder to reach consensus. As I was leaving my Forefront workshop in Galesburg, Illinois, I drove past a construction crew working on a house and had to capture the image.  The signs read  "Every action of creation is first of all an act of destruction " by Pablo Picasso .  Genius and true! If you want to build strong buildings and organizations, you first have to tear them apart, see what you're dealing with, come up with a plan for improvement and then build it. This also reminds of nonprofit...

I want to connect with my own kids and my students, and I truly enjoy learning and using technology.  I also think that we need to manage our online brand as much as we spend our face to face identity. We pay attention to what we wear or how we speak, depending on the context.  We need to take the same care to develop and nurture our online brand, which is possibly the only brand we may be known for. So how do you do this?  At a basic level, Google yourself (really - right now!).  See what comes up. This is what people will do when you are applying for a job, joining a committee, volunteering in an organization etc.  What comes up when you Google yourself?  Is the content correct?  This is hard if you have a more common name because you will undoubtedly come up with information about people other than yourself.  But what content comes up that is actually about you and where does that information "live" online?  The media? Your employer's we...

Don't be scared! This Wednesday, I will be giving a workshop called "Executive Director 101 ".  What I wanted to call it was "Everything I wish I would have known but didn't when I started my first Executive Director job" but that's a little too long. I half jokingly say I was hired to be an Executive Director for the first time because I had three important qualities (in no priority order):  I didn't need medical insurance, I was willing to do it for the meager salary, and I was willing to learn on the job.  I had some skills and education but none of that really prepared me to lead a small nonprofit organization, more or less by the seat of my pants. I thought what the organization needed was my stellar marketing and communication skills, which I felt confidently about.  What I realized is that marketing and communications are only effective when you have your story straight, that the organization is on solid ground financially, and you hav...

I attended the DeKalb Leadership Symposium on Saturday, March 4, an event organized by the community to strengthen leadership in the community.  There were people from all sectors, of all ages and backgrounds.  There were many takeaways from the day and I will try to share the highlights here. The keynote speaker to kick off the day was Colonel Jill Morgenthaler, one of the first women to train and serve alongside men in the US Army. She did a TEDx talk called "Fake it till you make it" which you can check out here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MuoQE3-BTMw.   Great leaders need three things: confidence, compassion, and competence.  Confidence includes being humble in what you know and what you don't know, being confident enough to ask for help and sharing success with your team. Leadership is not about one person.  Compassion is actually caring about your team and the people you serve which also includes being inspiring to others and serving others hon...