Non Profits and Motivation

In the non profit world one of the leading causes of problems is retention of qualified, well trained, and skilled employees. Non profits have to compete with not only each other, but with the for profit world in keeping their pillars of their organization.

One of the lessons we have learned in the past few months has been the importance of motivation in keeping employees, staff and volunteers satisfied to continue doing the hard work that is so necessary. We have had numerous ideas thrown around about what is most effective, but I think i can sum them up here quite succinctly.

First, get to know your staff. Your staff are more than the skills they bring to the office or organization. One of the most successful ways is to do an activity outside of the workplace that is purely for entertainment. Sustainable Seattle just had an event this last Saturday that was at Gas Works park. We played Soccer, Frisbee, and mostly just sat around and ate picnic foods and watched all the various wedding parties, family groups and a particularly large group of adult "Nerf" gun-players.

Second, find out what little things a staff member really enjoys either directly or through observation. I can't tell you the amount of loyalty is garnered when someone makes some cookies that are nut free in response to my asthma inducing allergy. Little things that speak to the importance of a person's presence can be as simple as a food product, small compliment, or even something like sharing a lunch break.

Thirdly, constantly let the staff and volunteers know that their time is appreciated. Nothing says to someone that you could care less about their dedication than either ignoring them or never giving them acknowledgment of their efforts. Do not waste volunteer's time. If you cannot find anything for volunteers to do that requires a bit of brains and elbow grease, then thank them for their commitment and send them home. Stapling papers or taking out trash does not a satisfied volunteer make.

What if we give it away?

I recently read a fascinating article about the Secret Society for Creative Philanthropy. You should read the whole article yourself, but in short it's a foundation in San Francisco that gives grantees $100, on the condition that they use it to do nice things for strangers. It made me wonder about a few things:

It can be surprisingly hard to give away money.
I suppose I shouldn't have been shocked by this--after all, the film based on this premise has been made at least 4 times (1921, 1935, 1945 & 1985)--but the reasons behind it are rather sad. It's all about trust and the complete lack of it between strangers in a city. Perhaps the people turning down free umbrellas in the rain really didn't want one, but I can't think of any other explanation bar suspicion for the people turning down dollar bills that were just being handed to them. It's understandable how this happens, when we live in a society where hardly anything is ever given without hope of something in return, and where almost everyone who approaches strangers in the street does want something, whether its signatures for a petition or money for their next meal. It becomes easier to just ignore everybody and retreat into a little bubble. No-one is a bad person because they do this, but as a whole the community of the city loses something when we get so stuck in mistrust. I always appreciate attempts to break this down a little, like the free hugs people or the Creative Philanthropy group.

Could we replicate this in Seattle?
$100 at a time is not a prohibitive budget - are there people in Seattle who might want to put a counterpart of this society together? If you think this is a great idea, why not try it yourself? And if someone gave you $100 to do nice things for strangers with, what would you do? I'd love to see some creative ideas in the comments.

What can Sustainable Seattle give away?
Unfortunately we have no spare money whatsoever. In fact we're entirely volunteer run while we try to secure stable funding, so one thing that the individuals who make up our organization have been giving away is our time and skills: 1500 hours so far this year. But as an organization, we do have some resources - we have a reputation, a website, a mailing list and a network of contacts. The great thing about resources like this is that we can give of them without diminishing them in any way, so we can keep doing it (a very simple kind of sustainability) and here are some of the ways we do that:

• Featuring other groups' work on this blog (please contact us if you'd like to be featured!)
• Adding other groups' listings to our advertising materials; for instance the STARs program mailshot that's going out tomorrow will include links to some interesting classes at Southside Commons.
• Referring people to the right place; for instance a prospective volunteer came to our office today, and when he described his interests it became clear that Northwest SEED are a much better fit, so we sent him their way (conveniently, up a few stories in the same building).

And finally, what can you give away?
Very few people have spare money these days, but if you think about everything you do have--time, contacts, skills, ideas--I bet every single person who reads this post has something they can give away, at almost no cost to yourself but great benefit to someone else. Take up the challenge, and let us know what you gave away in the comments.

Meet Sustainable Seattle

For those of you who are more visual, you can now meet some of the team at Sustainable Seattle. We have debuted our first video at the Environmental Film Festival and it is now available for your viewing pleasure.

Staff Volunteers | Viki Sonntag

Viki Sonntag is the lead for our B-Sustainable website and is a researcher and practitioner in developing healthy local economies. She joined Sustainable Seattle in June 2005 to head up a project researching local multipliers as a measure of community sustainability. She also works with small businesses and community-based organizations in implementing change practices based on sustainable resource use. From 1997 to 2003, Viki did research in the Netherlands, working with the leading practitioners and theoreticians of a policy approach to structural/system change adopted by the Dutch Ministry of Environment to guide their sustainability initiatives. In 2003, she received a PhD in economics for her research on sustainability and the role of strategy in adapting to change. Before this, Viki led the planning and start-up of two extension centers that have helped hundreds of small companies and community-based organizations achieve their goals. One of these centers – the Recycling Technology Assistance Partnership – became the national source for recycling technology related tools and information under her guidance.

Staff Volunteers | Sean Schmidt

Sean Schmidt is serving as an executive volunteer with Sustainable Seattle as our Director of New Initiatives & Acting Executive Director. Sean re-joined Sustainable Seattle in September of 2008. Sean was previously a Sustainable Seattle Board Member from 2001 to 2003 when he was the Sustainable Business & Development Coordinator at Seattle-based fashion retailer, Nordstrom, Inc. In 2003, Sean stepped down from the board to co-founded the Sustainable Style Foundation, an organization for which Sustainable Seattle served as initial fiscal sponsor. Sean went on to work at Harborview and UW Medical Center where, in addition to his Human Resource job duies, he helped two sustainability initiatives including Sustainability and Medicine (SAM) and the Multidisciplinary Efforts for Sustainability in Healthcare (MESH). Sean is now working towards his Master of Arts in Policy Studies from UW Bothell focusing on human health and environment policy. Learn more about Sean on his website: Sustainable Sean.