Resources
How to Ensure Your Nonprofit’s Culture Lives Up to Its Promise
You probably love to talk about the strength of your organization’s culture with job candidates, donors, and your board. But do employees and clients experience your organization’s culture the way you intend them to? If not, they may question whether they want to work for or with your organization. Culture might seem like a squishy … Continued
How to Maximize the Benefits of Hybrid Work
Many employees feel most comfortable in a hybrid work environment, where some work takes place remotely and some happen in person. The best strategy to excel in a hybrid work environment is one your team has likely used to excel in other areas: set and reiterate clear expectations, try new things, and adapt quickly when … Continued
How to Have Better Meetings
We’ve all attended unproductive or pointless meetings. Why am I here? When will this end? Why am I feeling frustrated and confused? But done well, meetings can bring emerging issues to the forefront, catalyze exciting ideas, build consensus, and form a sense of connection and partnership. Here are some ways to make your next nonprofit … Continued
How to Experiment with a Four-Day
Many workplaces are experimenting with some version of a four-day workweek to help address issues around work-life balance, burnout, and employee retention. Research on four-day workweek trials looks promising, but also identifies challenges. Here are some things to know if you decide to explore this option. Variations on a Four-Day Workweek The 32-hour, four-day workweek: … Continued
An Inclusive Alternative: Turn Walking Meetings into Strolling Meetings
Wellness experts tout “walking meetings,” in which participants walk while they talk. Movement brings health benefits and can catalyze creative thinking, offset boredom, and even help foster connections among participants. But not everyone has the same level of physical ability. The Nonprofit Technology Education Network (NTEN) encourages “strolling meetings,” welcoming to walkers at all mobility … Continued
How To: Foster Flow (Instead of Distraction) In Your Workplace
When was the last time a work task occupied your full attention? When you looked up and found that an hour or more had passed? This elusive state of being immersed in something, feeling creative and productive, is called “flow.” It’s difficult to find in today’s workplaces, with constant interruptions from various devices and other … Continued
Providing Mental Wellness Support and Services to Staff at Small Nonprofits
The pandemic made clear that nonprofit employers must recognize and respond to employees’ mental health and wellness needs. It also brought to light workplace patterns that take a mental toll on teams. Learn how to provide assistance your employees value and avoid common pitfalls. Listen. Staff surveys, exit interviews, and all-staff meetings can give you … Continued
3 Reasons Workplace Friendships Are Worth the Risk (and 3 Ways to Support Them)
“For our sake—to feel less burned out by our work (and therefore feel more energy when we’re away from work), we would be wise to foster supportive friendships at the very places where we need to protect ourselves from the effects of stress.” – Shasta Nelson, The Business of Friendship When you entered the workforce, … Continued
9 Steps to Foster Psychological Safety and Build a Risk-Aware Culture
If employees don’t feel safe sharing their opinions at work, any risk management effort is doomed to fail. It’s not always easy to foster a climate of psychological safety, a shared belief that it’s safe to take interpersonal risks as a team. But it can be done, and it will strengthen every aspect of your … Continued
Simple Steps to Infuse Your HR Practices with the Platinum Rule
An often-cited maxim for how to treat people is the Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. But in our diverse workplaces, our colleagues might want to be treated very differently than we do. Bring a more inclusive approach to your human resources practices by applying the Platinum Rule: … Continued
How To Be Age-Inclusive in Your Hiring
Age diversity can make your nonprofit team more creative and innovative. And if that’s not enough motivation, age discrimination against people over 40 is against the law.* Here are some tips to ensure your hiring is age-inclusive. Set a Foundation for Age Diversity Within Your Organization Share information about your nonprofit’s open positions widely within … Continued
How To: Become a Menopause-Friendly Workplace
More than 50 million U.S. women are in the age bracket (42-58) when physical changes due to menopause often occur. Many of those women work in nonprofits, where they lead key projects and play crucial roles. The global economic impact of menopause on productivity and health care costs is estimated at more than $150 billion … Continued
How to: Hire and Work with Neurodivergent Employees
Neurodiversity is a concept that acknowledges and appreciates the diverse range of ways people’s brains function, including neurological differences. Those differences can include dyspraxia, dyslexia, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), dyscalculia, autistic spectrum disorder (ASD), Tourette syndrome, and others. Some neurodiverse people identify as having a disability, while others do not. Research shows that organizations … Continued
How Hiring Employees with Disabilities Can Benefit Your Organization
Hiring employees with disabilities brings new perspectives to your nonprofit and helps you meet the needs of the community you serve. Many resources exist to help your organization become an outstanding employer of people with disabilities. Here are some of the ways that work can benefit your nonprofit. First, the basics: Federal law requires organizations … Continued
Building Meaningful Connections at Work
We spend much of our waking lives at work, but many of us have only superficial relationships there. That contributes to a broader loneliness epidemic that weighs us down and can even shorten lifespans. Connecting with colleagues doesn’t always happen easily, but the effort can benefit individuals and the organization, and make work more productive … Continued
Create a Safe and Inclusive Workplace for Transgender Employees
Transgender people may experience discrimination in many ways, including at work. Employers have a legal and moral responsibility to accommodate the needs of transgender workers and not tolerate discrimination. Here are best practices and resources to ensure a safe and welcoming workplace for transgender employees. NOTE: keep in mind that some of the practices below … Continued
A Happier Hybrid: Managing The Risks of Hybrid Work
By Rachel Sams You likely worry about how hybrid work affects your nonprofit‘s employees. Then you probably get pulled right into the day’s crises or priority tasks. Crafting a smart hybrid work approach that fits your nonprofit sounds daunting. But excluding digital security, the big challenges of hybrid work center around office culture, productivity, and … Continued
Cultivate Curiosity to Fuel Risk-Aware Thinking
By Melanie Lockwood Herman “The world’s biggest untapped source of energy isn’t in the wind, water, or sun. It’s inside established organizations. These organizations. . .are populated with people who, like all people, entered the world naturally curious and creative. That curiosity and creativity has been blunted and constrained, but it is there.” – Eat, … Continued
Innovation and Risk Management: Perfect Partners or Strange Bedfellows?
By Melanie Lockwood Herman My sense of self is that I’m hard-wired to be logical and stubborn. If I could re-wire my brain, I’d pick new wires associated with creativity and flexibility. I studied oil painting a few years ago and produced a couple of pieces that were passable for amateur landscapes. But in retrospect, … Continued
Call It What It Is: Organizational Trauma Isn’t Burnout
By Rachel Sams One night a client attacks another client at the nonprofit where you work. You don’t hear about it for days—and then only through office gossip. Your nonprofit’s leaders brush off frontline employees’ demands for paid leave. A constant low boil of anger simmers in the break room. Your boss says you must … Continued
Dream a Little Dream With Me: Channeling Chaos
By Melanie Lockwood Herman The word chaos has myriad negative connotations: confusion, disruption, frustration. Many risk leaders expect that evolving risk management capabilities will bring order, formality, and cadence. My team fields question after question about managing risk more effectively; no one has ever asked us to help a risk team create disorder from order … Continued
Fraud Risk: Every Nonprofit Mission is Exposed
by Whitney Claire Thomey The US Internal Revenue Service and international organizations have teamed up to call attention to Charity Fraud Awareness Week, which takes place in October. Fraud awareness and prevention are top concerns for nonprofit leaders. What’s more, with the explosion of cybercrimes, this is a risk that affects all nonprofits no matter … Continued
Safe and Supported: The Intersection of Psychological Safety and Fruitful Risk Practice
By Erin Gloeckner “My input isn’t valued here.” “My coworkers always reject my ideas.” “I feel so stupid around my boss.” “I have to pick my battles.” “It will be safer for me if I keep my head down.” “I wanted to warn them, but I couldn’t risk being ridiculed again.” “I told them … Continued
Workplace Culture: The Foundation for Sound Risk Practice
By Whitney Thomey Workplace culture has gone viral. In less than a second, Google will return nearly 400,000,000 results on the question “What is workplace culture?” From surveys to engagements, renewed values statements to grand-scale reorganizations, nonprofit leaders are focusing on how culture is defined, infused, and perceived throughout the organization. Workplace culture is central … Continued
Safe and Supported: The Intersection of Psychological Safety and Fruitful Risk Practice
By Erin Gloeckner “My input isn’t valued here.” “My coworkers always reject my ideas.” “I feel so stupid around my boss.” “I have to pick my battles.” “It will be safer for me if I keep my head down.” “I wanted to warn them, but I couldn’t risk being ridiculed again.” “I told them … Continued
Workplace Culture: The Foundation for Sound Risk Practice
By Whitney Thomey Workplace culture has gone viral. In less than a second, Google will return nearly 400,000,000 results on the question “What is workplace culture?” From surveys to engagements, renewed values statements to grand-scale reorganizations, nonprofit leaders are focusing on how culture is defined, infused, and perceived throughout the organization. Workplace culture is central … Continued