Hello to all my followers.
I've been away for a bit but will resume blogging next week. In the meantime, I hope that you are all having a wonderful weekend.
Sometimes we need to take a step back and recharge our batteries. That is exactly what I have been doing. I will share with you all what I've learned during this time in posts next week.
Enjoy the day and remember....
La vita e' bella!
Life is beautiful!
Such an exciting journey, life. So many experiences to be had, people to meet, places to see and things to do. Every day brings with it the promise of great things. A clean page waiting to be filled, another page in your story. Every journey has its fair share of encounters with bumpy roads, dead ends and wrong turns. Despite these things we ultimately reach our destination, even if we're sometimes I bit late in getting there. The important thing is to keep going until you find your way to your destination, to your purpose. So it is with the journey of life. We must never give up on our quest to find our calling. While we are at it, let's remember to find the joy in every day. Even when the day seems dark. Even when the darkness stretches beyond a day, into a week, or a month. Believe in your ability to persevere. Believe in the journey, and see the good in every day.
If you’re using email as the primary means of communication with your employees about your charitable giving program, it’s time to rethink your strategy. One of the best ways to promote your program and volunteerism among your employees is via your company’s intranet. Your intranet is a powerful way to connect with your employees and to connect your employees to each other, especially if you are a global company.
Don’t just use text to communicate. Instead, consider more creative ways to get your message across. One of the most effective ways to communicate is via video. The fact that Facebook has now added a video feature is a testament to how wildly popular video has become as a way of sharing content.
Record and upload videos of your volunteers in action. One idea might be to record short video clips of your employees talking about their favorite community event that they participated in, or about a memorable moment as a volunteer.
In other words, you need to capture people’s hearts in order to keep their attention. Here are some things to keep in mind when posting content about your program on your intranet:
For more information on how to post content that gets noticed and shared go here:
Rise and shine, people! Positive mindset = positive outcome.
Let's get out there and make some AWESOME!
If you want to create an event that will unite your employees and raise a lot of money, consider doing one big fundraising drive across your locations. This is a really great way to raise money if you are short on resources and don't have a staff to run monthly or quarterly fundraising events.
The idea is to choose 1 day out of the year and designate it as your company's "giving day". You can select a special date, for example the anniversary of your company's founding. Or your founder's birthday. Whatever date you choose, before you announce any plans, be sure to partner with your Finance department to ensure that you have the proper processes in place to support a program on this grand a scale. It's important that you establish this up front because you never want to launch a campaign of this magnitude without the proper "checks and balances" in place form a finance and audit perspective. Once you have all your financial "ducks in a row", partner with your Marketing and Communications department to promote the heck out of it. You'll want to highlight the reason why you are doing this fundraiser, and which non-profits will be the beneficiaries of your giving. Be sure to tie it back to your company's culture and values. Create posters and a communications campaign around the event to keep employees informed and engaged before, during, and after the event. Post information about the fundraiser on your company's intranet with a countdown to the big day. Provide regular status updates on funds raised. If you have it in your budget, have shirts or pins made up that you can distribute to all your employees in commemoration of the event.
You can set a fundraising goal, or you can make it a fun "competition" between departments, divisions, or locations. It's a super way to engage your employees and raise money for our deserving non-profits.
Everybody wins!
Last Friday I attended a non-profit luncheon to accept a Corporate Leadership award on behalf of my company. While I was there, I heard several of the speakers talk about the challenges that non-profits face with regard to staffing. Government cuts in funding often leave these wonderful organizations with no choice but to cut their staff in order to be able to fund their programs. The issue with this, is that while reducing headcount may save dollars for programs, the programs are often not able to move forward because there are not enough people to run them.
Listening to these stories drove home for me the importance of volunteering. More than ever, non-profits are facing the very real possibility of closing their operations or suspending, even eliminating, some services that they provide due to lack of staffing. Skilled volunteers are as important as ever in their ability to provide the assistance to those they serve. So today, take a moment to think about your talents and how you can donate your time and expertise to helping your local non-profits. Reach out to some organizations in your community and ask how you or your employees can help. Volunteering is a key component of giving. I guarantee based on what I heard on Friday, that will not be turned away.
Happy Sunday!
If you grew up in the 80s, chances are you’ll recognize the title of this post as lyrics from the hit song “Words” by Missing Persons. In fact, the whole song revolves around being heard and today's topic – active listening. In my last post I wrote about the critical role that communication plays in maintaining harmonious and successful relationships. A key part of good communication is active listening and, like communication skills, most of us think we’re pretty good listeners when in fact we’re not.
Active listening is a term used in counseling and also human resources, and is defined as “a technique which involves not only listening to the words someone uses, but also taking into account their tone of voice, their body language and other non-verbal signs in order to gain a fuller understanding of what they are actually communicating”. This is not as easy as it sounds because it’s human nature to want to share our point of view and tell our side of the story, especially in a debate or a heated conversation. Sometimes we’re so focused on our own feelings that we tend to get defensive and start formulating our response while the other person is still speaking, which results in our missing half of what the other person was saying and adding “fuel to the fire” via confusion and frustration.
Understanding that it is just as important for the other person to be heard as it is for you to be heard is key. Resisting the urge to interrupt when someone is expressing their viewpoint is important. Wait to hear everything the other person has to say. Then, in your own words, repeat what they just said. This is beneficial in 2 very important ways. First, it demonstrates that you were actually paying attention to their words (that in and of itself will be viewed as a positive in their eyes). Second, it allows you to confirm that what you heard is indeed what the other person meant, which helps to avoid misunderstandings and confusion. We are all unique and have different ways of expressing ourselves. Expecting that someone will automatically know what we mean just because they’ve known us for a long time is not realistic. Many things influence the way we communicate with others. Our experiences, culture, upbringing, our environment all contribute to the way we share our thoughts and feelings. This is why active listening is so important. By being present and attentive, we avoid making incorrect assumptions which can lead to resentment, more questions, and hurt feelings. Over time, these feelings can grow more intense and can cause a rift to form between two people. In some cases this leads to irreparable damage that ends in the demise of the relationship altogether.
Here are some great links to more information and tips on active listening. As an added bonus, I’ve also included a link to Missing Persons' video for “Words”. Enjoy!
Forbes: 10 Steps to Effective Listening
WSJ: How "Active Listening" Makes Both Participants in a Conversation Feel Better
Welcome to my blog. You'll find tips and helpful information here on how to create and launch a corporate giving program that will go beyond charitable donations to engage your employees and create measurable and lasting change in the community. You don't need a million dollars to make an impact. A little goes a long way and small acts over time lead to big change. That's what we call "million dollar change". You'll also find my thoughts on leadership, and some of my favorite books, authors, and things. Views expressed here are all mine. You can view my older blog posts here: http://agivingculture.typepad.com/my-blog/.
