Latest / The Nonprofit Podcast / Ep 122| 5 Tips to Optimize Your Team Communication

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Ep 122| 5 Tips to Optimize Your Team Communication · The Nonprofit Podcast

• 0:04
  SPEAKER_01: The Nonprofit Podcast, powered by DonorBox.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_01: Healthy communication and a collaborative team environment are essential for achieving your mission.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_01: It's not always easy though.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to the Nonprofit Podcast.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_01: I'm Kara, a nonprofit leader and fundraiser, and I have the honor of serving as podcast correspondent for DonorBox.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_01: We're here each week with practical actions you can use today to increase donations and take your nonprofit to the next level tomorrow.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_01: Unfortunately, I've faced the challenges of fostering effective communication and collaboration with a diverse team.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_01: And that's why I'm excited to explore how open communication can transform your nonprofit success.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_01: Today, Adam Morgan is joining us on the Nonprofit Podcast.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_01: Adam is the managing partner with MVP Advisors, a philanthropy consulting firm, and he's my go-to to help keep my fundraising and leadership on track.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_01: So welcome, Adam.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_02: Hey Kara, great to be back.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_01: Well, thanks so much.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_01: I am eager to learn more about how open communication is crucial and discuss some tools and some strategies to keep teams aligned with the big missions that they're trying to accomplish in this world.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm hopeful that by the end of this episode, we'll all have some actionable insights to create a collaborative and connected team environment.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_01: So let's dive in.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_02: Let's do it.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_01: So, what are some ways to encourage collaboration and foster a healthy connection within your team?
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_02: It's so important to have that open communication part that you talked about.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_02: And I always go to trust and transparency.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_02: You have to have the trust.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_02: It's the first step to building your organization's culture or to you to rebuilding it, right?
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, the pandemic and COVID and so much that has happened over the last four or five years have really changed organizational culture in a lot of places.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_02: So if there's a low trust quotient, then everything else is gonna feel like an uphill battle coming off of that.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_02: And then for transparency, for me, it means that when you have the ability to be transparent with your vision, with your plans, with your process, with your objectives, that you do so.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_02: And that allows everyone on the team to see how they fit into the overall picture and then know what their role is, how they can best be supportive of the organization.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_02: The team will develop habits that you practice, not just the ones that you preach.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_02: So building that trust, and then to do that, you have to show that trust, right?
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_02: So be their champion, be their cheerleader, their role model, remove roadblocks from your team.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_02: I think we're in a culture of having a heavy load of internal meetings.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_02: So are they all necessary?
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_02: What can you do?
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_02: And and you would be surprised, I think, like you can remove roadblocks and time commitments that that can be a long way in rebuilding some trust.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_01: Lead by example.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_01: I love that.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_01: So you talked a little bit about open communication.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_01: Let's just define that for a minute.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_01: Or maybe how do you define open communication and then how is it helpful for your nonprofit?
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_02: So for me, open communication is making sure that to the extent possible, my team knows the things that I know, right?
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_02: I go back to the if I were to be hit by a bus tomorrow scenario.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_02: If it's important for me to know, it's likely important for someone else on my team to know.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_02: That helps with succession planning, that helps with making sure nothing falls through the cracks, that helps with making sure we put out the best possible product, either donor proposal or program plan or strategic plan, whatever it may be possible.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_01: That makes a lot of sense.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_02: And I know that most, if not all, nonprofits are operating with a less than optimal staffing situation, right?
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_02: So we all have things to do that are outside of our ideal skill set or our preferred tasks.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_02: So having that open communication is super important to validate that for people, to let them know that, you know, you're all working on things, but that you're here together as a team.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_01: Can you share a specific example from maybe your experience or someone you've coached where open communication and that transparency you talked about, maybe how it improved a project's outcome?
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I love this question because it really got me thinking back on different situations I've had to navigate and deal with.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_02: And one came to mind, we talk about communication and and there are so many tools that you can use now email, texting, Teams, and Google chats and video calls.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_02: So it really makes communication almost too accessible, some may say.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_02: I know we all probably check our phones at seven, eight, nine o'clock at night when we should be doing other things and you become tethered.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_02: So, but to a specific example, you know, I've done a lot of project management and nonprofit work.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_02: And even if you don't think of yourself as a project manager, if you're an event planner, if you're a major gifts officer, if you're, you know, a program director, you're likely managing projects.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_02: And so you have deadlines, you have budgets.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_02: Une time I uh was working with a coworker or partner who became really hard to get a hold of during the day.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_02: We were falling behind on deadlines.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_02: They would communicate inconsistently, you know, so very early in the morning or very late at night.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_02: And it just kind of made like staying in touch very hard.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_02: And so, like after a few of those missed deadlines and this going on for a few weeks, you know, I tried not to judge them or accuse them, but I did, you know, for lack of a better word, confront them about it.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_02: But really, I was just talking to them about it.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_02: And it came across and I, you know, approached it as coming across as, you know, is everything okay?
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I just checking in here, I've seen this erratic pattern of responses.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_02: We've missed some deadlines, it's very unlike you.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_02: Is there a better way for me to go about communicating with you?
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_02: Is there something you need from me?
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_02: And this does is it kind of puts the ball in their court to share what they need, what's going on.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_02: It recognizes that I might be doing something that on my end that they don't prefer.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_02: And so that opened the door to a really great conversation.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_02: And it turns out they had a new baby, it was their second child, and their daycare plans for the child didn't work out as expected.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_02: They locked their spot at the daycare facility, and that's a huge blow to any new and working parent.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_02: You know, no matter how much paternity or maternity leave you can take, at some point you've got to come up with those child care solutions.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_02: So it turned out he was spending his day taking care of his child, as you know, and he would encourage any parent to do, right?
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_02: And then he was trying to catch up on work in the times when he could.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_02: So really late at night, really early in the morning, erratically throughout the day.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_02: And as a work-from-home employee, he had some of that flexibility, but he acknowledged that he was drowning in his work and felt like he was failing.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_02: We talked through, you know, what happened, talked through his kind of long-term plan for child care, and and so we came up with a plan that was about a month long, adjusted some deadlines, got in touch with the other stakeholders we needed to get in touch with, explained the situation to them.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_02: So we were communicating openly as team members, and then we were being transparent with the rest of the everyone involved of what was going on.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_02: And then as soon as the childcare situation got taken care of, he jumped back in.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_02: He was enthusiastic, he had great energy, he was so grateful that we had had the conversation and we trusted one another, had empathy for the thing.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_02: And then at the end of the day, we met all of our project goals, we were on time with everything, so the the original outcomes weren't messed up.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_02: And it was just it was a good thing learning process for me in that situation to be just sometimes you just gotta ask, hey, are you okay?
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_01: We think of putting our donors first and and always prioritizing them, but maybe sometimes we don't think of our teams um at this the same level and and maybe don't put as much care into that and maybe take it for granted.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm guilty of that too, for sure.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks for sharing that.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_01: Making sure that everyone is aligned with that mission and the objectives of the project, it's crucial.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_01: It's really hard though.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_01: So, what strategies or tools do you recommend for maintaining this alignment, especially if you have a diverse team, maybe people are involved at different levels of engagement, or maybe they're geographically not located together.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_01: How does that work?
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_01: What tips do you have there?
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_02: Going a little bit back to what we talked about before, about you know, when you're transparent, you allow other people to see into your mind almost and to see where they fall into the broader picture.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_02: And as I was coming up and as I was a young professional and young fundraiser, I struggled with this at times because as you're going out and networking with major donors or community partners or corporate people or even clients for your nonprofit, I think it's so important for you to know where the organization is going because then you can kind of fit yourself into that plan in a way that, you know, of course, aligns with your job description and your roles, but also allows you to be a little bit more flexible and free thinking about how you approach things.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that that doesn't happen as much with some nonprofits and that everyone gets very objective and goal and fundraising driven.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_02: And that's okay to be driven by that, absolutely.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_02: But I think a lot of the work we do falls into that realm of project and program management and um making sure that we we reach those objectives, but we do so in ways that work for us, work for our team.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_02: You know, you think about a fundraising event or a gala, there are so many tasks, large and small.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_02: There are budgets, there are materials and collateral that need to be created, vendors who need to be contracted with.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_02: You know, it's a project.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_02: It's a, you know, you put those things together at any other corporate place or or manufacturing place, like that falls in line with what we think about project management.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_02: And I think the other thing is there's so many tools out there that you can use, you know, Trello, Asano, Teams, Monday, and and there are many, many more I know, but it's less I think about what the tool is and more about how you use it.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_02: And then using something that you're comfortable with and will actually use.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I've used almost all of those tools before, but I keep going back to a Google spreadsheet because that's what I'm comfortable with, that's what I know how to manage.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_02: And, you know, I tend to have worked on smaller teams.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_02: So in large teams, maybe those things with automation it works really well.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_02: And I've heard from large teams that they do work really well.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_02: So I think, you know, my biggest tip would be pick the tools that work for you.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_02: There's so many to choose from.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_02: So rather than having your mindset around, like, oh, we need a project management tool, if your project team is you and one of the person, you probably don't need a fancy tool.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_02: But if it's, you know, a whole group of people across many departments, then you know, that's that's definitely something to think about.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_02: And so just picking the ones that work for you, that work with your, you know, organization, your infrastructure, all that stuff.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, the most effective tool is the one that you'll actually use, right?
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_01: Can you describe a situation, maybe a challenge, where open communication maybe led to a successful resolution in a project, whether it's an event or a gala or a year-end fundraising plan.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_01: What are some elements that made that effective?
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_02: You know, you work to build a fundraising plan throughout the year and you get to the end of the year, and you always seem to be scrambling.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_02: I've got, you know, gotta make up revenue, gotta make up goals, gotta have income come in to meet the goals.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_02: Years ago, I started, I created my own personal fundraising dashboard.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_02: And so I started tracking my fundraising, both activity and revenue every month.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_02: And so I would take my annual goal, divide it up into 12 pieces, and assign a monthly goal.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_02: What that really helped me do is see where money was coming in throughout the year, when donations were coming in, what my pace was to meet my end of the year goal.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_02: And I would share this with my manager quarterly.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_02: And so we would be able to have a quarterly conversation about am I on track, am I ahead of pace, am I behind pace, where do we have to pick things up?
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_02: What has come in already that that we had planned for later in the year?
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_02: What hasn't come in that we had planned to come in at this point?
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_02: That has helped me think about my fundraising in a in a way that really allows me to adapt my plans throughout the year and be responsive and not reactive and be proactive, I would even say.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_02: Prior to doing that, I was struggling to hit annual goals every year.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_02: It was coming down to the wire.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_02: I didn't feel organized, I didn't feel like I had a good plan in place.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_02: But as soon as I made that switch, and this is a tip I got from somebody else for sure, it allowed me to do that, it allowed me to communicate with my director, allowed them to communicate with the executive director and the board.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_02: We ended up kind of making that a process throughout the organization, and I've taken it with me.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_02: It's uh again, it's a Google spreadsheet, right?
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_02: Like there's some manual things that have to go into it, but I'm so comfortable with it.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_02: I know that I'll use it.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_02: And so that has helped be me be like very effective.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_02: It has made it's easy to share out, it is easy to stay on track and adjust course.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_02: And of course, you can um, you know, do all the things you need to do to adjust your plans when you know where you are.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's easy to share and then ask someone to help you stay accountable incrementally, not just when it's all due at the end.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_02: And it's and it's great.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_02: I think we don't do enough about success celebrating successes either.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_02: So you can see in the middle of the year if you're doing a really good job and maybe you're having a great year and uh you're on pace, you're at a pace, and the you can elevate that to the board into a program team, and it may change how they approach the mission, right?
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_02: If they've got more resources than were expected, then that can also change a lot about how the organization is gonna operate.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, the plans they're gonna make.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_01: For sure.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_01: Just keeping that clear and in front of people all year long is important.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_01: I love that.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_01: Let's talk a second.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_01: We've talked a little bit about communication within teams.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_01: We've talked about, I call it nano communication, like between you and your supervisor, or you and a board chair, or something like that.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_01: But what about stakeholders?
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_01: So, stakeholder engagement is also really critical for nonprofit success.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_01: There's a ton of information out there about good communication, things you should do.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_01: But what are maybe a couple of things that could really hurt you when you're trying to engage with supporters, when you're trying to engage with volunteers, or even your team members?
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_01: What would you avoid?
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_02: That's great.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_02: First, I want to talk a little bit about stakeholders and say, you know, this could change for every organization, but think about not only your board members and your team members and your program members, like you said, but who from outside the organization has a voice that you want to listen to that is important, that you admire, uh, or that impacts your work?
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_02: Could be volunteers, could be former board members who are still involved, could be officials at the local, state, federal level if you have, you know, county grants or state grants or community grants.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_02: It could be program partners with external partners, right?
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_02: So other nonprofits who you partner with.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_02: So that term stakeholders casts a wide net.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_02: It's certainly going to change for everyone.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_02: But I think two things to avoid would be only, you know, especially for the donors who we consider stakeholders, so the major donors, taking their money and walking away, right?
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_02: And only talking to them when you need money, falling into that trap of being too busy to report back and to share your impact and to really give the proper stewardship or communication that they're due.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_02: Because if it's a donor, we certainly want to show impact and steward them.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_02: If it's a grant, we want to make sure we're reporting back on the outcomes of what we agreed to in that grant agreement.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_02: If it's a government contract, we want to make sure that we're keeping our government contacts informed with the items that in that contract that are outlined that we're supposed to be working on.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_02: So those are easy things to kind of miss, but going above and beyond that a little bit can help you build those relationships for future funding, future opportunities.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_02: And then another one would be, you know, like taking yourself too seriously, not being your authentic self.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_02: The best fundraisers I've worked with and coached are authentically themselves.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_02: They don't shy away from who they are, they don't shy away from their personality, from making things fun and engaging.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_02: I'm not to say that they're not professional and they're not serious when there is time for it, but being too formal can certainly be a turnoff for some people, I think.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_02: Um very few donors are professional philanthropists, right?
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_02: They're doing this in their free time because it's an activity that they enjoy that gives them immense gratitude when they do it.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_02: And in that same light, being too negative with the doom and gloom approach.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and not that can take the fun out of the room, that can present with the inability to look at a donor's generosity in a positive way.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_02: Um we certainly want to celebrate them and not say, oh, this is great, but the need is so huge, it barely makes a difference, right?
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_02: Nobody wants to do that whether they're giving five dollars or fifty thousand dollars, right?
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_02: They're they're making an impact on a mission, and so we should celebrate that.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_02: Even when there are serious issues that we're dealing with, there's still positive ways to approach it.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_01: And and like, and likewise, when you're being authentic, you can still be professional and authentic.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_01: Those are all really good pitfalls to avoid, and I will work very hard to avoid them myself.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks for sharing this with us, Adam.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_02: I'm so happy to be helpful, and you don't usually have things to worry about.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_02: You're feeling great at what you're doing.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_01: You're very kind.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_01: Well, you know, a lot of these things we talked about are easier said than done.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but I think after today they're a little easier to do.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_01: So thank you for joining me, Adam.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_02: Happy to be here.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_01: If somebody wanted to learn more about working with you or wanted to follow you on LinkedIn, what's the best way to do that?
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_02: MVP Advisors on LinkedIn or MVP MVPphilanthropy.com.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_02: And my email is Adam at MVPphilanthropy.com.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_01: Great.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_01: Well, thank you.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_01: I know I'll be reaching out for sure.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_02: Can't wait.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_01: And thank you so much for joining us on the nonprofit podcast.
• 17:32
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