Celebrating Philanthropy

Yesterday I celebrated, with close to 1,000 other San Diegans, National Philanthropy Day. I’ve got to say that with all the negativity out there right now, this was a great opportunity to celebrate what the nonprofit sector is doing and what amazing philanthropists there are in our city. It was also an opportunity to meet people and have some great conversations about what people are doing in these “economically challenging times”.

I had an excellent conversation with some people at my table about how a manager can really affect the attitude of an organization, especially in tough times. There is the “the sky is falling”manager, who basically inspires the sending of resumes. However, there are some organizations doing some amazing things. Some people shared some fantastic stories of how their supervisors were inspiring their team to continue their work and remember the value of their organization. One told me that the entire company is meeting at 9:30 on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday to share mission-inspired stories. Great stories about how their organization affected someone’s life. How cool is that? She said it is a stimulating way to start the day and really gets people excited about what they can accomplish. Someone else told me that their supervisor does a something similar in a daily email. They also had a brainstorming session one afternoon and had everyone write down the top 5 things that they think make the organization great. Awesome! These stories were really inspiring and it seems to be motivating their staffs too.

I’m not saying you should ignore that times are tough and things are much more challenging than they were six months ago. If you cannot inspire staff to stay and fight for the importance of your mission, you cannot expect donors to stick with you either. What is your organization doing to keep moral high and get your staff excited about their jobs?