The job description of a nonprofit leader is to guide, assess, build, strengthen, support, evaluate. And regroup. Always regrouping. It’s a never-ending game of whack-a-mole. Let’s be honest … it’s hard to find the time and inclination to explore what you should be doing when you’re so busy doing what you have to do.
This course will identify ways to proactively improve efficiency, effectiveness, and create opportunities that will help grow your impact. Just as preventative health measures are good for you, they are also good for your nonprofit.
There are so many components of a healthy – and effective – nonprofit that it’s hard to pay attention to it all. Where do you even start? And what do you do if you find a problem? The initial session of this programmatic trio will share a blueprint for exploring all aspects of effective strategies for your organizational framework. These will include governance, leadership, finances and fundraising, donor stewardship, succession planning, workplace culture, use of technology and more. We’ll ask and explore answers to hard questions … an organizational triage if you will. Sessions two and three will provide individualized plans for confidently addressing your organization’s specific needs.
Attendees will learn:
- The components of an organizational assessment. Who should be involved? What questions should you be asking?
- Understanding the diagnostics in each of the domains in which an organization needs to excel in order to be highly functioning,
- A roadmap to conducting their own self-assessment.
- An understanding of change management and how that applies to your work.
- A better understanding of when seeking outside help is the best option.
For more information about scheduling Nonprofit is a Verb for your nonprofit or group, please email Sue@SueKindred.com
Online Workshops
Leadership strategies for creating a safe workplace culture
Creating a workplace dynamic that truly lives up to the concept of teamwork is both essential and challenging. Before people can truly be at their best as an employee—or a volunteer for that matter—they require a sense of collective emotional safety. Creating an environment and culture where people can ask questions, offer ideas, or question the status quo without being chastised, ostracized, or otherwise demeaned or negated, is critical for nonprofits to create improved outcomes for their work. Too often, refrains of “we’ve tried that, and it didn’t work” or “we don’t do that here” are catch phrases that keep people and organizations stuck.
As we continue to work from home, or transition back to working and meeting in person, creating a safety net is critical to organizational success and resiliency. It is imperative that as community leaders, nonprofits take a close look at their workplace culture – including their virtual world – and ensure that they are not inadvertently creating and maintaining roadblocks to growth and, as a result, improved outcomes.
Attendees will learn how to:
**Identify instances of impression management and understand its impact
**Identify instances of blatant or inadvertent microaggressions
**Accept, acknowledge, and embrace uncertainty
**Ensure that everyone’s perspective is welcomed and becomes a valued part of the conversation
**Frame the work as a learning opportunity for everyone, including the leadership team
**Model curiosity and vulnerability
**Ensure accountability doesn’t go by the wayside
**Address behavioral challenges in upline leadership (i.e. what if your boss is the problem?)
Improve your ability to meet your mission by creating a culture of belonging
In her recent article in Forbes magazine, Dr. Pragya Agarwal—an internationally recognized behavioral and data scientist—defined workplace culture as the shared values, belief systems, attitudes and set of assumptions that people in a workplace share. This is shaped by individual upbringing as well as social and cultural context, heavily influenced by strategic organizational direction and management influences.
As any of us who have worked in both toxic and healthy workplace cultures know, mindfully creating positivity, equity, and inclusivity results in a model that is emotionally healthy and increases workplace efficiency, morale, retention, and productivity. Without these elements in place, organizations will struggle, taking time, energy, and momentum away from meeting their mission.
Making these kinds of organizational shifts when most, if not all, of your work is now online is equal parts challenging and frustrating. But it can be done. This workshop will help senior staff and Board leadership create a culture of belonging – even virtually – that not only supports but drives organizational success.
Attendees will learn how to:
**Listen to what’s NOT being said
** Understand the dangers of a “micro” focused work culture (including micro-aggressions and micro-management), particularly when the work is virtual or otherwise online
**Understand why the little things are really the big things
**Find ways that support and encourage speaking up, sharing new ideas, and embracing change
**Respect and show that people are not just employees … they have personal lives that impact their work world
**Deepen relationships that foster increased engagement and productivity
How to be the leader you would want to follow
Is your vision bold enough to be transformational?
Developing leadership skills is like building muscle. They can be honed and strengthened. Often, these skills are not intuitive, and strategies need to be learned and practiced. There is a distinct difference between leading a for-profit business where shareholders drive success and a nonprofit where stakeholders—including clients, volunteers, and staff, combined with meeting the mission—drive success. As master leadership guru Simon Sinek says, “We run an organization. We lead people. We follow those who lead, not because we have to, but because we want to.”
This workshop will identify the skills that senior staff and the Board leadership team need to learn in order to lead a healthy, thriving nonprofit, even when leading it from a virtual or online platform.
Attendees will learn:
**How leaders listen and process information differently
**What are the questions strong leaders must ask and what must they NEVER ask?
**How leaders plan for unplanned events
**What informed judgement is and why it is critical for strong leaders to understand it
**The paradoxes of strong leadership
**Why leaders should be wary of root cause seduction (and what is it anyway?)
**How transparency builds trust and why trust is crucial for leadership success
**The role of disagreement in creating healthy leadership strategies and resilient organizations
Is your vision bold enough to be transformational?
Is your vision bold enough to be transformational?
Nonprofits often feel constrained to keep their mission and vision “doable” or “achievable.” Hurdles and gauntlets often come in the form of restricted funding, stakeholders and donors who challenge spending, overhead, and salaries, programmatic limitations, and community perceptions. Overlay those every-day restraints with an out-of-the ordinary pandemic … well, the ability to set (much less seek) a transformative vision is not just hampered, it is squashed. Nonprofits are the stewards of our collective community goodness and as such need to be bold, visionary thinkers even when circumstances would suggest otherwise.
Attendees will learn:
**What’s required to transform organizational thinking from playing it safe to bold and courageous
**Strategies to shift the Board’s thinking from being in the weeds to the view from the helicopter
**Why funders often want nonprofits to stay small and play it safe
**How to use guiding principles and values as foundational work for bold thinking
**How a bold vision impacts fundraising, programming and stakeholder engagement
**Why if it’s not scary, it’s not bold enough
Refocusing your fundraising strategies through effective storytelling
Refocusing your fundraising strategies through effective storytelling
This interactive session will explore how nonprofits can use storytelling grounded in brain science to inspire giving, build stakeholder relationships, and convey mission impact. The session will help participants refine their messaging and delivery for greater fundraising effectiveness
Brain science tells us that storytelling is the absolute best way to plant ideas in the minds of others, help them shift their thinking or validate existing thinking and belief systems. And, fundraising is all about strengthening stakeholder relationships. This is done by helping donors see and embrace an organization’s mission, as well as validate and substantiate their own philanthropic beliefs by giving a financial gift to things they believe in. Nonprofits are currently facing more uncertainty around funding than ever before. With institutions under fire and federal funding being pulled, it’s vital that nonprofits expand their focus to fortifying and bolstering their donor and community relations. Storytelling is the magic bullet that helps that happen.
Attendees will learn:
**What fundraising looks like in 2025, 2026 and beyond and how to navigate an uncertain funding future.
**How to focus YOUR story when there are so many other worthy causes.
**The brain science behind why storytelling is so effective.
**What messages and stories to share with stakeholders/donors now AND later.
**The role of storytelling in helping everyone get their needs met.
**Why stories must not just be compelling—but effective—and how to make them both.
ADDITIONAL WORKSHOPS AND TRAININGS
The following workshops are offered from time-to-time, but all are available for personalized training for your team or your community. Please contact me for more information or to talk about scheduling a training, presentation or keynote.
Board Chairs Excellence Series at The Community Foundation
This three-part workshop is typically hosted in the spring and fall by The Community Foundation of Richmond, Virginia and includes insights into:
- The Chair’s Responsibility to the Board;
- The Chair’s Relationship with External Audiences; and
- The Chair’s Relationship with Senior Leadership.
For more information please contact Scott Andrews-Weckerly at
sandrews-weckerly@cfrichmond.org.
" As the board president, this class provided great information allowing me to better support my Executive Director and to guide the board. It was absolutely worth my time."
Strengthening Volunteer Relationships Through Storytelling
Story brings us together. It solidifies our place in the world, helps identify a common purpose, and provides meaning to our work of creating social change. When we infuse our work with meaningful and effective storytelling, the perspective shifts from simply raising funds for our organization, to helping all of our stakeholders, particularly volunteers and Board members, tap into their own goals for giving back to their communities.
This shift in thinking is necessary to create true social change and tap into a philanthropic spirit of generosity and compassion – even more so when we’re seeking the commitment of time and energy from our volunteers.
In this session attendees will learn:
- The role of story in building relationships;
- The brain science behind why storytelling is so effective;
- How stories are the bridge to help everyone get their needs met;
- Compelling versus Effective stories; and
- Developing a culture of storytelling within your organization.
Create Awesome Teams with Awesome Leadership Strategies
Awesome teams don’t just happen. They require strong and effective leadership. But, to be effective, leaders need a variety of tools and strategies as part of their skillset.
In this session attendees will learn:
- What makes a team member feel engaged and successful (as well as what makes them feel bored and useless);
- Ways to recruit, engage and integrate new team members into an existing model
- How to create innovative ways to set ground rules and guiding principles for effective meeting management
- How to foster deeper sharing and innovative creativity by creating a psychologically safe space
- How to lead through ambiguity and change
- Techniques to improve and strengthen existing relationships
- How to identify, support and mentor the next generation of organizational leaders
Using Storytelling and Blogs to Influence Impact
Workshop attendees will learn:
- Whether blogging is the right approach for your organization to tell its story
- How to use blogging and other storytelling formats to transform your audience from “lurkers” into supporters
- How effective stories influence decision making
- How to use the science behind creating a compelling story to persuade listeners to take action
- How and why to change your story’s perspective
- Where to find great story ideas
- How to create a story culture within your organization
