Does your nonprofit need volunteers? Does it need both governance volunteers and those who actually implement the programs? Would you consider your volunteers diverse enough to reflect the various communities in your service area?

First, I’m not asking if your organization is ethnically diverse. That is but one component of diversity. Let me give you an example. In 1987, I was the Executive Director of the American Cancer Society managing a territory based in Waco, TX.  We began to identify different “communities” in Waco in preparation to reaching out to them in order to recruit volunteers and to expand our presence and visibility. We defined a community as a group of people with similar interests. In addition to ethniticy, race, age, etc., we also looked at other non-geographical communities such as the “business” community, the “medical” community, the “education” community and more. We stopped once we had identified 22 distinct non-geographical communities. There were at least that many more we hadn’t listed.

My point is this: you want your organization to reflect the diversity of your service area. Diversity is more than just ethnicity and age. The more diverse your organization is, the more entrée you have into the various communities. This pays off in more volunteers, higher visibility, and better program delivery.

Thinking about your organization, get a group of volunteers and staff together and make a list of the various communities in your service area. Because you won’t have enough resources to recruit volunteers in all of them, prioritize them and focus on expanding your presence in two or three of those communities over the next year. Then go after a few more the following year.

For example, if your nonprofit’s mission relates to music, do you have any high school or middle school music teachers involved? I have two sons involved in orchestra at their respective schools and I can tell you that all music teachers in our urban school district network with each other and help each other. Recruiting one or two opens the door to gaining assistance from the others.

Do you have a college professor or instructor involved as a leadership volunteer? He or she can give you vital information about all of the different departments and organizations on campus.

How about someone from the business sector? Many businesses such as banks, utilities, and hospitals require their managers to be involved in the community. Let’s take banks for example. Poll your volunteers and find out how many bank at the two or three largest banks in your community. One of them is bound to have a relationship with a senior or middle manager. Ask that volunteer to go with you to inform the banker that you have volunteer openings and you would welcome an employee or two from that bank.

You can utilize the same strategy for any “community.” The benefit to you is that the more diverse your organization is, the more entrée you will have into the dozens of communities that make up the greater community in your service area.

I have seen volunteer boards made up of entirely of people from one profession or from only one of the many communities that made up the larger community. In nearly every case these boards were underachievers who were usually less productive than they were the year before.

Perhaps 2010 is the year you embrace all facets of diversity as your biggest innovation.

Practice your diversity by following me on Twitter. I’m txglennross.

Just got an e-mail from the American Diabetes Association promoting their online gift shop as a source of Christmas gifts.  Prominently displayed was: “Every penny of profit from your Gift Of Hope purchase goes directly to fund Diabetes research.

I think that’s a great idea. I’ve always struggled with what to get family members who have everything. When my Mom was alive, I’d ask her what she wanted and she’d reply, “All I want is for you to be happy!”

If your nonprofit has a gift store, perhaps promoting it should take a higher priority especially when you’re scouring the land trying to raise every extra dollar.

An e-mail to your constituents might bring in some much needed revenue. Near the bottom of the e-mail, I’d add something about how the public can make a gift to honor someone still living. So, if they don’t want a polo shirt or another tote, perhaps just making a gift in their name would be the right holiday gift.

I spent several years in retail. If you don’t have time to get organized for this holiday season, code your calendar for next fall so you can start earlier. Then take a look at your inventory. Does it lend itself to a Valentines Day promotion? How about Mother’s Day, high school or college graduation, or Father’s Day?

By the way, here’s a link to the American Cancer Society’s gift shop. (I wear an XL, BTW:-)

In lieu of sending me a gift, you can follow me on Twitter. I’m txglennross

Back in April the American Cancer Society launched its “More Birthdays” campaign. The premise being that we want to eliminate cancer as a major health problem so that more people can have more birthdays.

Now, over at Tipping Pitches, John Loomer reports that an iPhone app is being developed which is scheduled to be released in a few weeks. Not only will it help you remember birthdays of friends, family members, and co-workers, but it will also allow you to make a donation, send an e-card, and you can even blow out the candles on your cake (no, really!).

What’s innovative about this is not the fact that it’s an iPhone app, rather it’s the way it supports our mission. It will help to strengthen the bonds between our constituents and the Society as well as providing another means of making a donation.

If you’re thinking about building an app, designing it so that it strongly supports your mission will, I believe, make it more popular and relevant.

If you want to implement a new idea or if you’re interested in changing your organizational culture to value innovation, there are four things you should know before you begin.

1. You’re not that smart; they’re not that dumb (Horstman’s Law) Many people will be cool to your idea. It’s not that they’re stupid or that you’re smarter than they are; it’s that innovation is not one of their core competencies. They have other strengths, indeed some of them will be star performers. They won’t embrace innovation. They should be kept informed as appropriate as part of your communications plan. They are not your opponents.
2. Identify Your biggest opponents—and add several to your design team. Years ago I was working with a hospital to provide them with advice on changing to a non-smoking policy. The employee charged with leading the initiative had actual received threats of physical violence. I asked her if she knew who her biggest opponents were. She did, and I encouraged her to add them to her team. Months later, after the implementation went smoothly, she told me they had become her best team members. Their attitude turned around because they not only saw the benefits, but also because they were shown respect for their opinions.
3. Be sure your end users are well represented on your design team. Don’t just appoint a department head, recruit people from the trenches most impacted by your innovation. Your idea will have a better design and you will have powerful peer advocates among those end users.
4. Create and implement an effective two–way communications plan. As Dale Carnegie said, “Ninety percent of all management problems are caused by miscommunication.” Make sure you have an internal communication plan focused on your employees.  You need to explain to them the benefits to your organization, to your constituents or members, and to them.  I’ve seen many ideas fail in deployment because no one focused on the benefits to the employees. Just as nature abhors a vacuum, so do employees. If you under communicate, they will fill that vacuum with often inaccurate gossip and other talk.Your communication plan should include a process to rapidly capture feedback.  The US Army is fond of saying, “No plan survives the first contact intact.” No matter how great your idea, Murphy’s Law will come into play at some point. Make sure you can rapidly discover any obstacles so that you can quickly develop solutions. Failure to rapidly respond will slow user adoption.  An effective feedback process will also allow you to quickly highlight successes. If you can quicly spread the work, you may be able to drive user adoption upward at a faster rate.

   Once you’ve sought out the feedback, don’t take it personally; take it professionally.  Be very clinical in your analysis, even if you’re the one who’s nurtured this baby from its earliest stages. Your credibility will increase when people learn that you actively seek accurate feedback.

This is by no means all you need to know about successful innovation. I encourage you to seek out additional resources on that topic as well as on change management. You’ll find it time well spent.

I’ve entered this article in Blogging Innovation’s October Innovation Contest – To show your support for this article, please follow the link and add a comment.

Change your behavior. Follow me on Twitter. I’m txglennross

Courtesy of The Cutting Edge,

You might think it’s funny, but you can follow me on Twitter. I’m txglennross.

Do you want to accelerate the speed of innovation in your nonprofit? You might first want to read, Optimizing Innovation by Braden Kelly. It summarizes a presentation by Steve Faktor of American Express.

Sometimes I wonder if the only innovation going on in the business and nonprofit sectors is the implementation of social media strategies. But Steve points out “there are lots of opportunities for innovation.”

• Business Models
• Systems and Processes
• Offerings
• Marketing
• Experience & Design

Check out Braden’s entire post. Ask yourself “How can I apply this to my nonprofit?” For example, in my organization we are taking a very hard look at our procurement procedures and we are looking for innovative ways to streamline them.  In my division, we’ve also taken a look at ways we can use virtual meetings and other online tools (Adobe Connect to Google Docs to Zoomerang survey tools) to lower travel costs yet still be able to conduct team meetings.

Don’t be a late adopter. Follow me on Twitter. I’m txglennross.

This is the fifth in a series of posts about building a customer service course.

We found in building our customer service course that we needed to discuss the abilities we expect staff to demonstrate. Before we introduced these, we spent a slide discussing the importance of professionalism and how we, as an organization, value it. We then transitioned into a discussion of the abilities we expect our staff to implement when dealing with our constituents.

To make these abilities easy to remember, we only chose four and of course, that meant we had to create an acronym. (I think that’s required by law, isn’t it.)

We drilled down into each ability giving an example of how it related to our mission and how practicing it would create a positive customer experience.

I’m not going to share the specific abilities with you because you should pick those that best reflect your culture and goals/mission. But I will give you an example of one of them. We believe being “Trustworthy” is an important ability that impacts both customer service and Customer Relationship Management (CRM). We talk about the importance of delivering on your promises and of being there when you’re needed.

We follow with another slide quoting three of our satisfied constituents who were the recipients of superior customer service and we show how that ties back to these abilities.

Trust me, I’m on Twitter. txglennross

You’ve just thought up an innovative idea that you’re convinced is going to help move your nonprofit much closer to completing its mission. Shortly thereafter, you have a chance encounter with a key influencer in your organization. You see an opening and you start to discuss your idea, but somehow your brain and your mouth go in two separate directions. Verbally, you’re unfocused, you can’t organize your thoughts into coherent speech, every other word is an “um” or “ah.” You’ve just blown a great opportunity to sell your idea.

If you want to reduce the risk of that happening in the future, I highly recommend you seek out a nearby Toastmasters Club and go by and visit. Today is their 85th anniversary and the nonprofit has helped thousands of men and women become more effective speakers.

Toastmasters not only teaches you how to deliver more effective prepared speeches, it also trains you to think and talk on your feet in impromptu situations like the one above.

The American Cancer Society has an employee club in our headquarters in Atlanta, and you can set one up too. There are dozens of public clubs which might, however, come closer to meeting your needs. Simply go to Toastmasters.org, key in your ZIP code (or country if you’re outside the US, it’s international). The advantage to a public club is the networking opportunities it offers (hey, you could recruit some new volunteers) and the diversity. An older club is also likely to have experienced Toastmasters who are great mentors.

The price is right, too. Most likely your first year dues will be less than $100. There is a small one-time initiation fee, then membership dues can be paid twice a year. My club dues are $37.00 every six months. Your mileage may vary.

Toastmasters is also a volunteer organization. Chances are you’ll never meet an employee. So there are ample opportunities to expand your leadership skills in addition to improving your speaking.

Finally, it’s very motivational and frequently fun. I’ve been a member for five years and I cannot tell you how much I have learned, laughed, and been motivated.

Check it out. Perhaps the next time you have a chance encounter with someone important you’ll be able to communicate your idea like a professional speaker.

(You bet I’m on Twitter. txglennross)

My favorite futuring and innovation conference is happening this week in my favorite small town, Camden, Maine. I was able to attend Pop! Tech back in 2006 and I not only enjoyed it, I really benefited from it as well.

Of course, now I don’t attend conferences any more since the Masters of The Universe screwed up everything.

But on October 22, 23, and 24, I’ll be watching the conference live from my home as they stream it online.

Here’s the best way. I’m going to plug my wife’s laptop into my HDTV (she won’t be using it). I use the same cable you would use to connect an LCD projector to a computer.

If I don’t find the presentation interesting, I can use my laptop to work on my projects.

I did this last year, and while it wasn’t as much fun as being in Camden, I did save thousands of dollars.

Yea, I’m on Twitter. txglennross

This is part four of how to build a customer service training course.

If you use a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) strategy, you should discuss how it relates to superior customer service. For example, in the non profit sector a Major Gift Officer wants to ask the right person to fund the right opportunity at the right time. She needs data to achieve that outcome. As she builds a relationship with that potential donor, she will need to use customer service skills to establish a strong relationship, answer questions, and possibly handle complaints. In the business sector, the sales rep does the same.

This particular section of the course should show how customer service and CRM complement each other. You can have the best data in the world but if you have a poor customer service strategy and skills, you increase the risk of failure. Conversely, excellent customer service skills won’t help you if you have inaccurate data on a customer or constituent.

Don’t try to provide in-depth training on CRM here; that should be covered in a separate course.

Regards,

Glenn

Follow me on Twitter. I’m txglennross