In the nonprofit world, there’s a deeply ingrained belief in the power of bringing people together. We gravitate toward convening events—board meetings, workshops, conferences, etc.—believing that these gatherings will foster connection, spark ideas, and ultimately lead to meaningful outcomes. Events can do all of those things, though only if we design them to.
I’m thinking a lot about events these days after a meeting with a local nonprofit in which we scrolled through all of their archived events on their website. Our colleague was rightly proud of all they accomplished. There it all was: Conference 2019, Conference 2020, Conference 2021, Legislative Meeting 2021, Orientation 2023…. Lots of events, combined with a general satisfaction that the mission is being met because of them.
Events are containers. They answer where and when, not necessarily to what end. We can put flour and water into a measuring cup to produce a sludgy paste. (I have definitely attended events that felt like sludgy paste, have you?) If we add into that measuring cup yeast and a bit of sugar, a creamy foam blossoms, the pre-requisite for sumptuous bread. The product exceeds the sum of its parts, just like an event that’s been intentionally designed for learning and change.
So what’s the yeast? What’s the magical element that moves an event from where and when to “wow, was that powerful!”?
I think it is a mindset focused on outcomes over outputs. With this mindset, we ask: What will be different because of this event? What will we see or hear that shows a change in the people attending the event? How might we design our event to achieve this?
This mindset shift is at the heart of what our first series speaker, Julie Dirksen, will be exploring with us on September 26. (Her book, Talk to the Elephant, provides a roadmap for how we can design for behavior change). If we think about the recipe for behavior change, two key steps stand out to me:
- We begin by describing what we hope to see or hear as a result of our efforts. We begin with the end in mind. We hold onto this throughout our design process, regularly checking ourselves that our event, meeting, or curriculum (or whatever we are doing) achieves these outcomes.
- We anchor ourselves deeply in the people we are trying to move to action. Who they are, what they know, how they feel, and what motivates them will drive any solution we might come up with.
I’m certainly not arguing that we should abandon events—there’s tremendous value in bringing people together. (Make sure to download the free e-book that Mark Nilles and I wrote a few years ago about creating learning conferences). But it does mean being more strategic in how we design these gatherings. It means asking ourselves, “How can this event contribute to the behavior change we want to see… that our mission needs us to see?” rather than simply, “How many people can we get to attend?”
Please consider joining us on September 26 to learn more about how we can design for behavior change. Julie Dirksen is an internationally-known leader in helping practitioners like us understand and implement research-informed learning sciences. You are an important part of our learning community.
All this talk about yeast and bread– I wanted to make sure you had a Recipe Card to help you remember the recipe for action. Like bread baking, good design isn’t about spending endless hours but rather about allowing the right ingredients—planning, curiosity, and intention—to rise.
