Trust Your Volunteers

This trusted docent holds the keys to our non-profit kingdom.

At almost any gathering of professionals from small non-profits you will find at least one who truly believes that her or she is the only one who can do his or her job.

In two recent cases these were directors of small museums.

They guard their keys like the Holy Grail.  Work weekends because apparently no one else can open the building and refuse to leave their volunteers in charge.

How sad.  And really how silly.  I love my job but it is not brain surgery.

We have about six trusted volunteers who have the keys and all the alarm codes and are very, very capable of running the show on any given day.

If you don't trust your volunteers to sit in your museum and greet visitors then something needs to change.

You might need to recruit better volunteers but more than likely you need to loosen your grip on the keys.

Lots of Hats

Last week I gave a Career Day talk to the students at my daughter's middle school.  I told them, truthfully, that my absolutely favorite thing about working for a small non-profit was that I got to do lots of different things every day.  In the world of cliches - this is called "Wearing Lots of Hats" or a little more negatively "Jack of All Trades and Master of None."  For me - I'll go with the hats.

The variety my job offers me is pretty amazing, from teaching five year olds in summer camp and learning to spin yarn with a drop spindle to writing federal grants, working with a top publishing company or cultivating major donors.  Every day is different and sometimes every hour is different.

Today I'm working on the newsletter, special event tickets, proofreading a book and drafting museum panels.  Later in the week I get to do a walk through of a 250 year old home for our upcoming House Tour.

I may always be a "Jack" and never a "Master" of all these trades, but the constant change and challenge of them all keep me very engaged and very grateful for the opportunity to grow.

What is the photo?  One of my favorite days at work - A Sheep to Shawl Camp.

Ask and You Shall Receive

If your mom was like my mom she spent a lot of time and effort teaching me not to ask for things.  It's rude.  Wait until you are offered.  Say no the first time and then if someone really insists you can finally take what is offered the second or third time.

My mom offers a lot.  Second, third, fourth time.  She is good at insisting.  You can politely refuse my mom a couple of times and still go home very happily with a cookie in each hand.  But not everyone is like my mom, and I suspect there are some very polite, very hungry, thirsty people out there waiting to be offered what they need.

I think there is certainly a grain of truth to my mom's philosophy.  No one likes to be around someone who is constantly asking for things.  And it does seem somehow more genteel to demurely refuse and then be talked into taking things.  But wouldn't it be easier if we all just politely asked for what we needed?

In non-profits the best way to get money is to ask for it.    And the best way to get jobs done is to ask for help.  Because we have such a small staff I need a lot of help and that means volunteers.

A few years back I learned the very important lesson of asking committee members to divide up all the wonderful ideas that get generated during their meetings and to actually commit to doing them.  Previously most of those wonderful ideas got added to the list of staff responsibilities.

For years, I've dreamed of an additional staff person on the days when I'm alone in the office.  I've been politely waiting for someone to offer their services and guess what - it never happened.  Last week I finally asked.  I asked about 20 people that I know love the Historical Society and might be willing to help and guess what - I got one!  A wonderful, professional retired woman is going to come in and be my right hand man every Monday.  Alleluiah!

I could still use someone on Tuesday and Thursday - and I'm going to keep asking.