I write to learn. Extracting an observation out of an experience gives me a way to improve my practice. I strive to “work out loud” and build community and connection around these ideas.
Topics related to learning most often capture my curiosity. Sometimes, however, I have to write about nonprofits because they are so fascinating, confounding, and central to strong communities.
BLOG
- What If It Actually Makes Perfect Sense?I recently encountered a word we don’t hear often in nonprofit work: counterfactual. The timing was interesting because I had been doing something similar in conversation—taking statements that “didn’t make sense” and flipping them to see what assumptions were underneath. In research, counterfactual thinking asks what would have happened if things had turned out differently. Evaluators use it to test cause and effect. You don’t hear the term much in nonprofit work because most organizations are focused on delivering programs, not studying populations that didn’t receive them. But the underlying exercise—imagining the opposite explanation—is a powerful thinking tool for revealing assumptions. In decision science, it’s called inversion: turning a problem upside down to examine the assumptions behind it. Investor and thinker Charlie Munger popularized the idea, borrowing from the mathematician Carl Gustav Jacobi, who advised (as translated): Invert, always invert. Jacobi’s advice turns out to be surprisingly useful in everyday conversations. Statement: “X doesn’t make sense.” Inversion: “X does make sense. Here’s why.” The point isn’t to prove the opposite is true. The point is to surface the assumptions hidden inside the original statement.
Why this matters
When we say something doesn’t make sense, we’re usually revealing a belief about how the world should work. That belief is a mental model. Psychologists call one part of this tendency confirmation bias—our habit of favoring explanations that reinforce what we already believe. In Thinking, Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman describes a related dynamic: once we construct a story from the information we have, our minds treat it as complete. He calls this “what you see is all there is.” Inversion interrupts that reflex. Flipping the statement forces us to ask: What assumptions made the original statement feel obvious? Once those assumptions are visible, new explanations—and better questions—appear. Inversion helps us change the frame long enough to see the system more clearly. Here are a few from my last two weeks.Example 1: Compliance training Statement People are too busy for compliance training. It takes time away from their work. Inversion Compliance training saves time, money, and risk. It is part of their work. What assumptions make the original statement feel obvious?- Training is separate from real work
- The biggest cost is the hour spent in training
- Compliance content has little operational value
- Compliance training is inevitably poorly designed
Example 2: Donors and outcomesStatement It doesn’t make sense that donors aren’t focused on outcomes.Inversion Donor behavior makes perfect sense.What assumptions are hiding inside the original statement?- Donors are rational.
- Donors give primarily to maximize impact.
- Outcomes are visible and easy to understand.
As long as we stay in the space of something “not making sense,” we limit our ability to identify solutions.The mental models behind inversion
Inversion doesn’t stand alone. It sits within a cluster of mental models that help us challenge assumptions and see systems more clearly. Together they form a small toolkit for questioning our understanding of things.Mental model Why it matters How inversion helps Inversion Learn more Turning a problem upside down reveals assumptions we couldn’t see before. Flip the statement: “X doesn’t make sense” → “X actually makes perfect sense.” Confirmation bias Learn more We tend to favor explanations that reinforce what we already believe. The original statement feels obvious because it fits our existing story. Map vs. territory Learn more Our explanations are simplified models of reality, not reality itself. “This doesn’t make sense” often reflects the limits of our mental model. First principle thinking Learn more Strip away inherited assumptions and rebuild from fundamentals. Ask: what must be true for the inversion to work? Double-loop learning Learn more Real learning happens when we question the beliefs behind our actions. Inversion challenges the governing belief behind the problem. [I wrote about Model Thinkers back in 2020. It’s still one of my favorite websites.]As systems thinker Donella Meadows argued in Thinking in Systems, one of the most powerful leverage points in any system lies in the paradigm behind it. Change the assumption, and the system begins to look different. Inversion is a simple way to expose those assumptions.A thinking habit
The next time you hear yourself say: “That doesn’t make sense.” Try this: Statement It doesn’t make sense that ______. Inversion ______ actually makes perfect sense. Then ask: What assumptions made the original statement feel obvious? You don’t have to believe the opposite explanation. The moment you question your assumptions, you begin to see the system more clearly. Once you can see the system, you can start to change it. - From Stuck to Engaged: Why Engagement is a Design Problem
I went down a rabbit hole, and what an interesting rabbit hole it was.
It started simply enough. Board leaders and executive directors asked for more ideas about how to increase board engagement. They wanted strategies and tools. The more I heard the request, the more I mulled what exactly we mean by engagement.
[As I’ve written before, clarity is necessary if we are to shift behavior.]
Turns out there is an ecosystem of thinkers who have long studied why people bring energy to their roles—or withhold it. Here’s what they agree on: engagement is not a personality trait. It is actionable information about the environment.
When people consistently struggle to show up, speak up, or follow through, the system is telling us something about how the work is designed. If one person is stuck, it may be personal. If many people are stuck in the same way, we have a design issue.
Understanding Engagement
Engagement is the emotional and intellectual commitment someone has to the organization’s mission. It is characterized by energy, meaning, and focus.
To put a finer point on it, people can be engaged with an organization or the job itself. We experience this regularly in the nonprofit space – a board member who loves the mission but is a no-show when it comes to committee work. High commitment to the cause, low commitment to the work. It is job engagement that moves our mission forward.
Here’s the actionable part: people engage when the environment makes engagement possible. When someone doesn’t participate, our instinct is to jump to some conclusion. They’re too busy. They’ve lost interest. They aren’t committed. But patterns of disengagement are predictable responses to conditions like unclear expectations, low authority, weak feedback, or cultures where it feels risky to speak.
From Individual to System
We can shift from individual to system thinking in two ways: (1) start from where they are stuck or (2) start from the building blocks of engagement.
1. From Stuck
People get stuck for many reasons. These reasons point to gaps in our structure or culture that we can address.
Every stuck point is a clue about structure or culture. Behavior is data.
2. …To engaged
Another way to think about engagement is through a balance of resources and demands.
Engagement rises when people have enough support, clarity, and confidence to meet meaningful challenges.
Engagement falls when demands feel like friction—pointless reporting, unnecessary detail, meetings where nothing moves, or responsibility without authority.
We might think of it as a balance sheet, with resources fueling engagement and demands draining it.
- Resources include structural support, clear decision-making, and the personal strengths individuals bring to their roles.
- Job demands can be both good and bad. A healthy challenge is that consequential work that makes someone feel their effort matters. Friction and boredom through dull meetings, pointless bureaucracy, or being stuck in unnecessary detail, on the other hand, drains energy and engagement.
This lens helps us see where support, readiness, meaning, or safety may be missing.
Now what?
Engagement is shaped by conditions, and we can shape the kind of conditions that support energetic participation in our mission. Four themes show up across the research:
- Purpose: Do people see a clear “line of sight” between what they are asked to do and why it matters?
- Safety: Can they raise questions, offer ideas, and disagree without embarrassment or penalty?
- Growth: Are they learning, stretching, and deepening their understanding of the work or the community?
- Connection: Do they feel part of something, or alone in the effort?
We can redesign our systems to create these conditions through:
- Clear roles so expectations and decision rights are visible.
- Feedback loops so people know their effort made a difference.
- Autonomy so individuals exercise judgment instead of simply complying.
- Support so participation feels possible, not risky.
- Opportunities to contribute meaningfully so time is spent on work that advances the mission.
When participation drops, we can change the questions we ask:
Instead of asking, What’s wrong with our people?
we can ask, What about our system makes contribution difficult right now?
Engagement is not magic. It follows the environment we create.
This article is informed by research on engagement and motivation, including the work of William Kahn on psychological conditions for engagement, Wilmar Schaufeli and colleagues on the Job Demands–Resources model, Edward Deci and Richard Ryan on Self-Determination Theory, and Julie Dirksen’s work on diagnosing barriers to behavior change.
- 2026 is the year we go all in on nonprofit advocacy
Advocacy shouldn’t be a standalone topic, separate from the rest of running a nonprofit. It’s woven through leadership, governance, programs, finance, communications, and fundraising—whether we name it that way or not.
In the nonprofit sector, though, we often talk about advocacy in ways that don’t actually help people advocate.
- We say it matters, but leave it out of conversations about boards, finance, fundraising, or philanthropic practice.
- We stay vague in talking about it: Engage in advocacy. Use your voice. Stand up for your mission.
- We get very specific—and very scary to the uninitiated: Lobbying. Politics. Testifying.
And context matters. Right now, advocacy is often collapsed into lobbying, lobbying into politics, and politics into something divisive or risky. Advocacy can feel radioactive—something to avoid, handle carefully, or leave to someone else.
If 2025 was about getting our feet under us, 2026 is about braiding advocacy into our everyday practice. Here’s how we’ve been doing that…
📕 Margaret Schulte and I just published 12 Ways to Build Your Influence, a 24-page booklet. Please download and share it.
🎙 Sarah Brooks and I recently recorded a Nonprofit Radio Show episode on advocacy habits—subscribe to hear it when it drops. We talked with advocacy expert Bethany Snyder last year.
🧭 We have refreshed Powerhouse Boards, being delivered next on January 14 & 21, to make sure it includes meaningful conversation about advocacy.
📍 I’m looking forward to talking at the Tennessee Nonprofit Network Nonprofit Advocacy Summit in Nashville this February 24.Underneath all of this work is a focus on how people actually change behavior. At its core, advocacy is about behavior change. As much as we may want people within nonprofits (and philanthropy) to engage in advocacy, people don’t change their behavior when expectations are vague or feel risky. They take action when the next step is clear, doable, and supported by their context.
Vagueness stalls action.
When people don’t know what a next step looks like—or how risky it might be—they pause, even when they care deeply.
“Use your voice” sounds inspiring, but it leaves people with unanswered questions, and that stops progress.
When nonprofit leaders don’t engage in advocacy, it isn’t a personality flaw or motivation problem. It is a design problem.
We can think about advocacy as behaviors and habits, not just actions.
An action is something you do once. A behavior is something you do often, because the system around you makes it possible—and expected. Actions are moments. Behaviors are patterns.
When we make this mental shift, several important things change.
- Advocacy stops feeling like a leap. If advocacy is an action, it feels like a big moment—high-stakes and visible. If advocacy is a behavior, it becomes something you practice in smaller ways, over time.
- Fear gives way to design. A behavior lens invites us to ask: What in the system is making this hard right now? Time pressure, unclear signals, risk aversion, or lack of permission all shape behavior. Changing those conditions—even slightly—often matters more than urging people to try harder.
- Advocacy becomes shared work. Actions are easy to assign to individuals. Behaviors are shaped collectively. When leaders model advocacy, boards make space for it, and staff and volunteers reinforce it, advocacy stops resting on one brave person and starts living in the organization.
- Small steps start to add up. Behaviors create feedback loops. Practice builds confidence. Confidence makes the next step easier. Over time, what once felt uncomfortable starts to feel normal—and normal is what gets sustained.
That’s the promise of thinking in behaviors and habits instead of actions. Advocacy becomes practiced, shared, and built to last.
We can name what advocacy habits look like.
Advocacy habits start with practices nonprofit people already recognize:
- Making time for advocacy in regular board or staff meetings
- Capturing stories from the field and sharing patterns, not just anecdotes
- Building relationships over time, not only when there’s an urgent ask
- Paying attention to policy without needing to become an expert
- Repeating one small outreach or learning behavior consistently
[Download 12 Ways to Build Your Influence for specific information on these habits and the tools that support them.]
When larger advocacy moments arise, organizations are far better prepared to respond when they have advocacy habits.
An invitation
Let’s go all in on advocacy together! Not to get specific, but we have an election coming up. Let’s…
- Integrate advocacy across all aspects of our work, rather than isolating it as a special topic. If you are a consultant or association, do a sweep through your trainings or learning tools to ensure advocacy is included.
- Embed advocacy even deeper into conference planning. Whenever people gather, you have an opportunity to build collective power.
- Apply what we know about learning and behavior change to advocacy—celebrating what organizations are already doing—and focusing on specific, doable actions, small habits, and practice over time
How are you prioritizing advocacy in your work? We would love to know.
- Conferences That Make a Difference: 2025 Edition Now Available
It’s Monday morning, and your inbox is full. Somewhere between a funding announcement and an invitation to take a survey sits an email announcing registration for a conference you might attend this year. You pause. You’ve been to so many conferences—some inspiring, others forgettable. What will make this one worth your time?
Download Conferences That Make a Difference That’s the question that drives Conferences That Make a Difference, the book Mark Nilles and I first released several years ago and have now updated for 2025. The new edition reflects what we’ve learned from designing and running conferences—large and small, in person and online—since that first publication. It brings together what works and what matters most if your goal is to help people learn and act.
What’s new in this edition
When we first wrote Conferences That Make a Difference, our goal was to help conference organizers move from planning events to designing learning experiences. This new edition builds on that foundation with fresh ideas, tools, and examples drawn from what we—and so many of you—have learned since then.
- Deeper focus on understanding your community. What do your community members really need from your conference? We share ways to use surveys, focus groups, and data from past events to design a program that helps your community make progress on their goals and challenges.
Actual survey feedback: “How did you know I needed that?”
Answer: Because you told us.- More ways to get participants and presenters ready for learning. We’ve expanded the section on priming—the work you do before the first keynote ever begins. You’ll find practical examples of how to prepare participants to arrive curious and confident, and how to help presenters design sessions that invite reflection and action.
- New tools to guide your planning. This edition introduces several ready-to-use resources, including a tool to help you determine where you are in your conference development. Whether you’re starting fresh or refining an established event, these templates make it easier to assess what’s working and where to focus next.
- AI, of course. We’ve added a section on how artificial intelligence can support conference design and ease the workload of planning —from drafting session descriptions to summarizing evaluations—without losing the human judgment and creativity that make gatherings meaningful and ethical.
Why this matters
A conference is often the biggest learning investment an organization makes each year. If we want conferences to be worthy of the time and money we are investing in them, we have to think like learning designers, not event planners. That means asking:
- What should people be able to do because they came?
- How can we structure sessions so people don’t just listen, but reflect, connect, and commit to action?
- How do we extend learning long after the closing session ends?
Let’s make every conference count
Good conferences spark ideas. Great ones change how we do things. If you convene people to learn—whether in a conference center, on Zoom, or somewhere in between—this book is for you. Tell us what’s helpful and share your own ways of making conferences learningful.
Download the 2025 edition of Conferences That Make a Difference and watch the short companion videos today.
- The Slide Illusion
At the recent Washington Food Coalition conference, I presented four sessions. Each one had its own workbook with core content, fill-in-the-blank lines, and space for reflections. By the last day, a food bank leader who had attended all four sessions came up to me with a smile: “I just loved the workbooks. They helped me process what I was learning.”
She didn’t ask for the slides. She valued the workbooks — tools designed for note-making, not just note-taking. They invited her to connect ideas, mark what mattered, and make sense of the content in her own way.
When our first speaker in our fall series didn’t share his slides, my training colleague Robyn Steely sent me two papers on slides as learning tools. They confirm what we’ve been teaching and modeling through our use of workbooks in lieu of slide-sharing.
What the research says
What the research says
A 2018 study published in Computers & Education tested students with three kinds of slide access:
- Full slides: everything on the screen.
- Partial slides: intentional blanks to fill in.
- No slides: students took their own notes.
The results:
- Students with no slides performed best overall.
- Partial slides boosted long-term retention compared to full slides.
- Quantity of notes didn’t matter. What mattered was “note-making” — the use of markers like bullets, arrows, and diagrams that showed organization and connections.
Interestingly, students still preferred having slides. (Those pesky preferences. I wrote about them last month.) Students believed slides helped them focus, even when performance data suggested otherwise. A broader review of studies since the 1990s shows the same pattern: slides can support attention but rarely improve understanding or recall unless learners actively transform the information.
What you can do differently
- Rethink full decks. Instead of sending 40 slides, provide a one-page checklist or a workbook that supports application. (Need an example? I was just looking today at this advocacy training and its workbook.)
- Use partial slides. Leave blanks for key ideas so learners engage in filling them in.
- Encourage note-making. Prompt participants to circle, underline, or draw connections in their notes.
- Honor preferences but explain. (Tips here.) Acknowledge the desire for slides while providing tools that better support long-term retention.
“Will you be sharing the slides?” is on every trainer’s BINGO card. What is a webinar without someone sliding it into the chat box. The question has become habit. The learning it offers has become illusory. The question isn’t going away — but maybe it can open a new kind of conversation about other ways we can help them learn, remember, and take action.
Join us for our annual series!
More information: https://www.tickettailor.com/events/nonprofitlearning/1793795 - Chocolate or broccoli?
No one ever says, “I have a better idea about how accounting should be done. I prefer to use a different currency every month.” Accounting is governed by standards, not preferences.
And yet, in the world of learning, preferences are everywhere.- “I don’t like breakout rooms—I prefer to learn on my own.”
- “I prefer slides that contain all of the information I need to know.”
- “I learn better by watching videos.”
Everyone seems to have an opinion.
The question is: should those preferences guide how we design learning? No.
First, who am I to begrudge a preference. It is natural for people to have them—I certainly do. We shouldn’t, however, design and deliver learning according to preferences. Our north star is what actually helps them remember, apply, and change behavior.
The research on learning preferences
The research on preferences is interesting. What people say they like is not always what helps them learn. Sometimes their stated preferences—like wanting no interaction or preferring word heavy slides—works against the very outcomes they came for.
For example, cognitive neuroscientist Carmen Simon studied how people engaged with information delivered live on Zoom compared with reading the same material in an eBook. When asked, participants expressed clear preferences. But brain data told a different story. During Zoom sessions, attention drifted more, fatigue set in faster, and participants’ memory suffered. With the eBook, people stayed more focused. The kicker? There was no correlation between what participants said they preferred and what actually helped them process and remember information.
It could have been an email instead of a Zoom meeting?
Learning expert Paul Kirschner uses a food analogy to make the same point. Ask children what they prefer to eat, and many will choose candy and soda. Not exactly the diet that will help them grow strong and healthy. Preferences may satisfy in the moment, but they don’t always nourish. He cites Ruth Clark’s ((1982) Educational Psychologist) research:“Learner preference was typically uncorrelated or negatively correlated to learning and learning outcomes.”
The ultimate preference in learning is “learning styles,” the myth that people learn better visually or auditorily, for example. Matching instruction to those preferences has no measurable impact on learning outcomes. In fact, it can even harm learning by reinforcing unproductive habits.
So what do we do with their preferences
It can be hard to redirect a preference, particularly when the learner is a paying member or course participant. We must still try. Instead of designing around preference, we can acknowledge it and explain the why behind your choice.
- “I don’t like breakout rooms.” → “I get that. It can be hard to meet new people. I’ll give you plenty of notice, and you’ll get more out of today’s session if you share your ideas with others.”
- “I prefer just to listen.” → “You’ll have time for that. And a little interaction makes it easier to remember what you hear later.”
- “I want all of the information on the slides.” → “I hear you. It is helpful to have all of the information in a handy way. That’s why we’ve created a handout with information formatted in a user-friendly way.”
- “Can’t we just have a checklist?” → “You’ll get one. And the context behind the checklist will make it more useful.”
- “I’m a visual learner.” → “You are, and the cool thing is that you are also an auditory learner, a kinesthetic learner, and every other kind of learner. I’m going to work hard to make sure we tap into all of those ways to learn.”
Validate the preference, then connect it back to learning that lasts.
I may prefer chocolate, but I’ll eat broccoli—because I know it helps me thrive. Learning is no different. Preferences may tempt us, but nourishment sustains us. Our job is to serve the broccoli… with a side of chocolate.Join us for our annual series!
More information: https://www.tickettailor.com/events/nonprofitlearning/1793795 - Neuro-informed teaching and learning
“To truly support people, lead teams, and design effective learning, we need a new prescription. We need a Neuro-Informed lens that helps us see the whole picture, not just the aftermath of harm.”
– Rick Griffin, Founder & CEO, Neuro Leadership Academy & Fall Series Speaker on September 30We don’t talk enough about our brains. I realized that when planning for our second Trainer Academy session on how to deliver an effective training. Every tip I had to offer anchored in one big idea: working memory.
Working memory is where we hold and manipulate information while learning. Its capacity is very limited, and it becomes easily overwhelmed. Bottom line for trainers: working memory is the bottleneck between information and memory. We can design and deliver trainings around working memory. Their minds should be top of mind for us.
To help us understand our brains better, Rick Griffin will kick off our fall learning series. Rick is a Master Trainer for Community Resilience Initiative (CRI), the nation’s first community resilience network. He is the former Executive Director of a trauma-informed therapeutic residential program for struggling teens and recently launched his newest endeavor, Neuro Leadership Academy, an innovative enterprise committed to using neuroscience to facilitate personal and professional development. Rick just started a Substack on neuro science and learning—check it out!
“To understand human behavior, you must understand the human brain,” Rick reminds us. That means trainers, facilitators, and leaders can’t just focus on content—they have to account for how the brain processes, filters, and stores that content. Neuro-informed teaching asks us to adapt our methods so that learning sticks, behavior shifts, and people thrive.
I grew even more excited to learn from Rick after one particular conversation in Trainer Academy. I shared a metaphor of a mountain waterfall to explain working memory (see video above). On a slide, participants read: Our job as instructors is to steward and protect working memory—because working memory is the passageway where information becomes knowledge.
How does this framing change our role as instructors? Participants named how it shifts us from being deliverers of information to architects of experience—protecting learners from overload, creating flow, and ensuring the right ideas reach long-term memory. That shift is at the heart of being a neuro-informed trainer.We warmly invite you to join our learning community during the Fall Series. Together we will make sure that every workshop and webinar is excellent, inclusive, and outcome-focused.
- Gatherings that teach, connect, and build community
I came across the book Potlatch as Pedagogy: Learning Through Ceremony in a small bookshop in Ketchikan, Alaska. In it, Indigenous educator Sara Florence Davidson and her father, Haida artist Robert Davidson, share stories from their family that weave together how potlatch gatherings build community collective knowledge.
Nine sk’ad’a (learning) principles emerge from these stories:
- Learning emerges from strong relationships
- Learning emerges from authentic experiences
- Learning emerges from curiosity
- Learning occurs through observation
- Learning occurs through contribution
- Learning occurs through recognizing and encouraging strengths
- Learning honors the power of the mind
- Learning honors history and story
- Learning honors aspects of spirituality and protocol
This is the second time that Indigenous methods of teaching and learning have captivated my attention, this time on the heels of running a conference. My last tasks before escaping on vacation in Alaska were to compile surveys and distill the conference day into an Impact Report, which we share back to the conference community and with partners and sponsors. I rewatched the conference video generously made by Time Magic Studios, reliving the day and why it mattered.
With my brain still debriefing the Conference and the Davidson book in hand, I began reflecting on its core questions:
How do we use gatherings to share and redistribute knowledge?
How might we implement a model for learning that is “holistic, relational, practical, and continuous”?
Sara Davidson shows us the way, naming these principles and giving us examples of how they’ve worked in the context of community and schools. They resonate with our conference experiences as well:
- Relationship building and networking were by far the most important reason people appreciated the conference. Through the lens of the book, I’m reflecting on how important it is to create a space in which individuals reflect on and refresh their sense of identity and collective culture.
- “Learning must be applicable to the students’ lives outside of school,” Sara Davidson reminds us in her explanation of authenticity. Conference learning must be applicable to the attendees’ lives outside the Conference space. I’m reflecting on how we support presenters to integrate the sharing and redistribution of knowledge into their sessions.
- Learning happens in context, one shaped by history, individual story, spirituality and protocol. The contours of a gathering reflect the contours of local culture and the context in which challenges and solutions emerge. This is as true for a conference as it is for any gathering. Through the violence of colonialism, Indigenous cultures were kept alive through gatherings, through narratives told and heard and shared further. I’m reflecting on how we use gatherings to share our stories while also changing the narrative that has limited our progress for too long.
In explaining her collaboration with her father, Sara Davidson quoted him: “We are all connected to the past by a thin thread. And when we come together as a group, then those threads form quite a thick rope.” When we gather, we have the potential to form something powerful.
I’m grateful for this book to inspire reflection, for the privilege of living on the traditional and contemporary territories of the Coast Salish people, and the opportunity to work with inspiring Native nonprofit leaders as a part of Native Action Network’s nonprofit learning network.
- Information Isn’t Action: Returning to Our Theory of Change
Forgive me if I sound impatient. The world is calling us to act—boldly and urgently—with every tool we’ve got. In my line of work, that means making sure that learning isn’t just informative—it’s transformative. It means refusing to settle for workshops that check a box or toolkits that sit on a shelf. It means designing for action, for performance, for the kind of learning that actually shows up in how people lead, decide, and serve.
I’ve been in a few conversations recently about content collections—those beautifully crafted documents full of best practices, frameworks, and strategies. They’re thorough. Smart people wrote them. And they hold everything one might need to know about a topic.
Your organization might have these collections of information. Take advocacy, for example. I know these collections exist because I’ve partnered with associations to produce three advocacy curricula in the last six years. They’re full of solid content: practical information, discussions to bring back to your board, and templates to put to use right away.
But last week, as the call went out to contact legislators, I found myself asking with a heavy heart: Is anyone actually using them? How much real-world change is resulting from these collections of information?
Learning expert Tom McDowall recently asked in his post, The Transfer Problem:
“What if only 10% of your training actually changes how people work?”
That would mean 90% is a waste of time. And Tom’s question isn’t hypothetical. That number is backed by data.[Read more here: Tom McDowall, The Transfer Problem]
The rate at which information-heavy training turns into action isn’t just a technical issue. It’s a wake-up call for all of us who create learning experiences and want them to matter for the mission-driven people we serve.From information to impact
This moment gives us a chance to return to what we know: learning is most powerful when it leads to action. That’s why I keep coming back to our learning-focused theory of change…
When information turns into learning—and learning turns into action—we help people do their jobs better, which yields stronger organizations and healthier communities.
Click here to download this as a PDF. To bring this theory of change to life, we need to act across three levels:
Training
Create learning experiences that are practical, relevant, and tied to real work. Training should go beyond content—it should equip people to take action.
Instructional Design
Design curriculum with transfer in mind. That means setting clear goals, sequencing ideas for retention, and embedding supports like reflection, feedback, and follow-up. It means building in opportunities to practice in real-world situations.
Learning Strategy
Zoom out to the system level. Are the right people learning the right things at the right time? Are structures in place to support and sustain behavior change? How do our learning programs connect with our communications strategy, our technical assistance programs, our conferences, and our peer cohorts. Do we know we are making a difference?
In a recent podcast episode, learning science expert Jonathan Halls posed a compelling question: Are we replicating a university model—or an apprenticeship model? Are we measuring success by what people know in the classroom, or by what they’re able to do in the real world?
If we want our learning efforts to matter—for boards, for frontline staff, for advocates and community leaders—we have to build for transfer. We have to design for action.
Increasingly, it is clear that our democracy may depend on it.If you need help turning your library of information into actionable tools, give me a call. I hope you can join us for The Trainer Academy in August. Together we will take action on this theory of change.
- There’s not one playbook: Teaching for real-world challenges
I’ve never been a big fan of the phrase “best practice.” It’s too transactional—like there is one right answer waiting on a shelf. Our social sector work is rarely that simple. It’s rooted in people, place, and ever-shifting conditions. What works beautifully in one organization or community might fall flat in another.
This past winter, we launched a new nonprofit curriculum for Whitworth University. As we designed the curriculum, I kept asking: What exactly are we preparing nonprofit leaders for? Participants are navigating shifting policies, staffing challenges, and crises that don’t fit neat templates. The context of our times needed to drive the content we would explore.
A touchstone throughout the creation of this new program was the Cynefin (kuh-NEV-in) Framework developed by Dave Snowden. Cynefin is a sense-making model that reminds us that not all challenges are created equal. While some are clear-cut, most of what our organizations face is shaped by timing, politics, relationships, and context. The right response depends not on a universal answer, but on an interpretation of cause and effect and how a response might play out.
Our job as educators is to prepare people for real-world challenges. It is not to hand over a fixed playbook but to help people build the skills needed to act wisely when the path may be unclear. Consider these four ideas:
1. Teach frameworks, not formulas.
Slide on board culture from Powerhouse Boards Different people in different contexts make sense of challenges in different ways. I commonly offer multiple lenses for understanding a problem—not just a single path to solving it. I then invite participants to choose the lens that fits their work, their context, their moment. I enjoy seeing the range of perspectives that emerge when people focus on what they need to be thinking about right now.
2. Build the skill of discernment.
One of the most powerful tools we can give social sector leaders is the ability to pause and ask: What kind of challenge am I facing? Cynefin offers four categories to help make that call:
- Clear: Is this a straightforward situation with an obvious solution? Apply best practices and follow established procedures.
- Complicated: Is expert input or analysis needed to uncover the right path? Bring in data or outside perspective to guide decisions.
- Complex: Are cause and effect unclear, and outcomes unpredictable? Try small experiments, observe what happens, and adapt based on what you learn.
- Chaotic: Is the situation unstable or rapidly unfolding, where action must be immediate? Act quickly to contain the crisis—then make sense of it afterward.
We can create space in which others (learners, board members, colleagues) engage in this discernment. We can build their capacity for sense-making, pattern recognition, decision-making, and change management. Too often, workshops involve an expert delivering information. Sense-making and skill building is what will stick over time.
3. Encourage learning loops
We are living in a time shaped by disruption. COVID exposed how fragile many systems already were. Now, with shifting federal priorities, funding uncertainties, and evolving community needs, nonprofit leaders are navigating challenges that are complex or even chaotic.
When we get it right, we make learning possible in motion—not fixed in place, but responsive and evolving. Instead of fixed answers we lower barriers to experimentation. We can:
- Name small, safe-to-try actions so learners don’t have to invent them from scratch.
- Provide discussion guides that turn those actions into team conversations.
- Equip leaders with questions that help them see patterns, reactions, or insights within the system in which they operate.
In Cynefin terms, we’re helping learners probe or act, then sense and respond. That sequence—where understanding follows action—is a new muscle we can help them exercise.
4. Connect with systems
When I sat down to create a lesson on volunteer management for our Whitworth course, I first thought about the usual lessons about the HR cycle: recruitment, engagement, support, etc. But what do we teach people to do in a time when national trends show a decline in volunteering? We must get more creative and design lessons about motivation, life stage recruitment, and work expectations. Read the room and respond appropriately.
Effective learning responds to the broader systems that shape nonprofit work—workforce changes, civic engagement patterns, policy shifts, economic forces. It also points to solutions beyond any one organization: networks, coalitions, and associations that create shared infrastructure. When we teach with systems in view, leaders begin to see not just what’s working for them—but how they might respond in coordination with others.
Design for the world we live in
The Cynefin Framework helps us design for the world in which we live—not by offering one solution, but by building our collective capacity to recognize the nature of a challenge and how to respond wisely.
Join us for The Trainer Academy in August
If you are interested in learning more about how we design and deliver effective workshops and webinars, join us on in August 2025 for The Trainer Academy: How to Teach In-Person and Online
In partnership with North Carolina Center for Nonprofits and Interim Executive Academy.
- Physics vs. Engineering: Why people don’t understand your model and how to fix it
I was recently talking with an Executive Director and asked about her program. She looked at me apologetically and said that the model underpinning her work was complicated. It was developed by a psychologist and integrated a few different bodies of research. Most of the staff didn’t really understand it. She was regularly corrected when she got it wrong.
“Weird, right?” she said.
Not weird at all. In my work, this situation—an expert-creates a model that staff can’t explain or implement accurately— is relatively common, which is perhaps why I get called in. The situation is inevitable when smart, committed experts in their respective fields operationalize their ideas in the form of a nonprofit.Fortunately, there’s a fix. It starts by understanding the difference between physics and engineering.
Physics is the study of how the natural world works.
Engineering is the application of that knowledge to design and build useful things.A model created by an expert is like physics—it’s grounded in research and explains how something works. In the case of nonprofits, most often it is research anchored in psychology, behavioral science, education, or social work.
For example, early in my consulting practice, a founder described a psychological treatment approach focused on the gradual exploration of a person’s experience—“like peeling back the layers of an onion.” Because it worked well in a therapeutic setting, she wanted to apply the same concept to staff training. A therapy vibe influenced their organizational culture, shaping how meetings were run, how feedback was given, and how conflict was addressed.
The research behind therapeutic approaches doesn’t necessarily transfer to staff training or organizational development where HR realities, financial constraints, and organizational goals come into play.
In other words, a research-based model provides a powerful foundation. But for it to be sustainable in a nonprofit setting, it needs to be engineered—translated into a practical philosophy that guides everyday decisions.
This can be hard for founders to understand. There is an existential commitment to fidelity to the model because it is the foundation on which the nonprofit was built. It is the “why” behind the organization’s “what” and “how.”
With care and creativity, however, we can turn complex models into clear, doable practices that staff understand, trust, and use.
How to make your model doable for others
1. Say it simply.
Boil the big idea down to one or two plain-language sentences. Summarize it in a logic model so there’s a clear causal connection between the parts. Sketch it. If you can capture the big idea and its parts on a piece of paper, you can probably explain it to someone new to the organization.
2. Make it practical.
Name where the model actually shows up in your daily work. This is where theory meets implementation. How does the model get experienced by clients or people served? How well do staff members reflect the model in their routine work? How does the model guide responses during moments of challenge? What is required within the model, and what is optional?
3. Get a fresh perspective.
Ask someone outside your team to repeat back what they hear. This helps reveal assumptions and clarify what needs more translation. As an outsider, I often resort to my instructional design mantra: If I understand it and can explain it, I can teach it so they learn it. (And if I can’t… we need to talk.)
4. Match the research to the setting.
Ask: Is this the right body of research for the work we’re trying to do? Sometimes the task isn’t simplifying the model but identifying the right research for the context. That means anchoring in adult learning research in learning settings, or organizational development research in organizational situations. And when research is missing or insufficient for your setting, it means there’s a gap to fill, and possibly new research to seek out or contribute to.
5. Allow the model to evolve.
This last point is the hardest because it introduces change. A model may begin with a funder, founder, or expert—but it won’t thrive unless others can make it their own. That may mean stepping back from an original framing of the model or expression of the theories upon which the model is based. Just as a grandchild reflects both the nature and nurture of a grandparent, a model lives on when its core ideas are adapted, adjusted, and renewed by those who carry it forward.
If a leap from theory to practice doesn’t happen, the costs are real. Staff get frustrated or burned out when they’re expected to implement something they don’t understand. Turnover rises. Training becomes an expensive and never-ending effort to re-teach what could have been made clear. Funders struggle to “get” what you do.
In an essay celebrating the life of A Contemporary Theater (ACT)’s former Executive Director Carlo Scandiuzzi, Kurt Beattie wrote: “[Carlo] had the wisdom to know that we are all temporary, but that institutions, if they remain vital, can serve generations of exciting artists and audiences beyond us.”
We need both physicists and engineers. We need the researchers and visionaries who build thoughtful, evidence-based models. And we need the practitioners who translate those models into real-world tools, routines, and relationships.
One builds the foundation. The other brings it to life. Nonprofits thrive when both are at the table.
- “Should” isn’t motivating: How to help boards step up
Boards are under pressure to “step up” as federal and state cuts constrict the oxygen that nonprofits need to breathe. Urgency, however, doesn’t translate to action. Much like a parent wanting a child to move faster, an Executive Director can’t will a board into action.
When it comes to board action—especially on technical topics like finance, risk, and compliance—we often frame the problem in terms of what board members should do.
They should read the financials.
They should understand risk.
They should ask good questions, like about cash flow or policy changes that will impact our mission.They should, and we get frustrated when they don’t.
During a Nonprofit Financial Commons webinar on April 29th, I shared five ideas on how to engage board members more deeply in finance conversations. These lessons are appropriate for any topic that board members might be reticent to engage with. You are welcome to download the slides and handout.
Let’s frame the challenge: 70% of the people on this webinar said that their organization’s finance leadership resided with executive staff. That means we have a lot of Executive Directors and staff-level finance leaders trying to get their boards to get up to speed.
Let’s frame the opportunity: Before I shared my five lessons, I asked participants to imagine they are a board member, and that it is that time in the board meeting when the treasurer begins to talk. You pull out your board packet and look for the document the treasurer seems to be referring to. There it is….
One Hundred Years of Solitude (in Spanish) by Gabriel Garcia Marquez.
It has one of the most famous first lines in all of literature.The document in front of you might as well be in a foreign language. A balance sheet might as well be in a foreign language for many board members. Compliance and risk-related topics too.
Our job is to be the translators and access guides for them. What an opportunity! Here are my five ideas on how to do that:
1. Meet people where they are
Prior knowledge drives future knowledge. What someone knows will determine what they can learn, remember, and use.
Researchers have studied the connection between experts and novices and have determined that experts are not fully aware of 70% of their own decisions and mental analysis of tasks… and therefore are unable to explain them.
We see this in the boardroom. Those with deep knowledge of finance talk about numbers without going into the connective tissue that holds these numbers together, like: context, how financial statements work together, historical trends, pet issues of board members, how restrictions work, and so much more.
Tips:
Know where your people are in their finance (or other) knowledge.
Invest in nonprofit finance learning. Other topics too.
Adopt a beginner’s mind to identify the 70% of information you aren’t telling them.2. Focus their attention on what matters
I recently wrote about saccades — how our eyes follow certain pathways. Saccades are rapid, involuntary eye movements that help the brain quickly scan and process visual information by directing the fovea—the eye’s area of sharpest vision—toward points of interest.
Our eyes follow pathways when we see a face. If you’ve ever ridden on a train, your eyes are drawn to the telephone poles you pass by—they are markers to look at.
We can help people know where to put their eyes.
In our finance training, for example, we teach people to look for four things on a balance sheet. We want to train board members to always look for these things as they build habits and confidence in their finance knowledge.
Tip:
Guide their eyes to what you want them to focus on. There’s an example of how to do this in the handout.3. Give them a chance to make meaning
Stories create meaning. They allow us to understand the world and ourselves better.
One of my favorite activities when I teach finance is our “Once upon a time” finance story activity. Using an income statement, I invite participants to settle into the numbers and tell a bedtime story to a child or friend. We often see ogres, dragons, princesses, talking frogs etc. in our story time. There is only one rule. Your story must be anchored in the numbers. If you say something is growing or doing badly or a moral problem, you must tell us how the numbers back that up.
Storytelling helps to explore three levels of understanding”
- Do they understand the numbers?
- Do they understand the business model “under the hood?”
- What myths or biases do they hold? Every good story ends with a conversation about overhead or pay equity, doesn’t it?
Tip:
Use storytelling to invite board members into conversations. Start with a financial statement or legal contract and ask what story it tells. Who is the protagonist? What is the setting? What is the problem, and what is the solution?4. Make it social
Adults learn best when they engage with others, sharing experiences, solving problems, and asking questions. Social learning deepens understanding and builds confidence.
Board conversations most often happen one to all. One person talks, everyone else listens.
How do we get more voices in the conversation? How do we hear from those who don’t feel as confident? How do we hear from those who are speaking this “language” for the first time?
Tip:
Use pairs and small groups to get more voices into conversation about whatever you want them focused on. Talk about scenarios, strategic questions, or my storytelling exercise.5. Tap into their emotions
“Emotions create habits. Not repetition. Not frequency. Not fairy dust. Emotions.”
BJ Fogg, author of Tiny Habits: The Small Changes That Change Everything
We all have a money story which holds emotional meaning for us. When I teach finance, I often hear about childhood poverty, money held in power over someone, or an experience stretching a paycheck to get to the end of the month. I also hear joyful stories… the power of earning your own funds, buying your first car, and that dollar bill taped upon the cash register in a new business.
I like to ask board members about their money story. I then like to ask what money story their mission needs from them now.
Tips:
Talk about board members’ money stories.
Anchor in why something matters.
Help each person know their role so they have an emotional connection to the outcome.To anchor these ideas in the research, learning transfer is how people take what they’ve learned and apply it in real-world situations. Transfer doesn’t happen automatically. It takes thoughtful design, practice, support, and a learning environment that makes application possible. You can find a helpful overview of learning transfer research compiled by Dr. Will Thalheimer here.
Instead of talking about what board members should be doing, let’s aim for motivation, namely moving board members to a place where they experience:
- Clarity (I understand it),
- Autonomy (I choose it),
- Relevance (It matters to me), and
- Confidence (I believe I can succeed).
For more at the intersection of adult learning and the social sector, read about how these issues relate to advocacy
- Learning lives in community
In March 2025, something big happened: a new evaluation curriculum designed for small nonprofits launched in Charlotte, NC. It marked the culmination of a year-long collaboration with UNC Charlotte’s Impact, Data, and Evaluation Academy (IDEA)—and the beginning of putting that curriculum’s lessons into practice.
For a year, I’ve been working with the Impact, Data, and Evaluation Academy (IDEA) at UNC Charlotte to develop a practical set of learning tools that would help small, grassroots nonprofits – and larger organizations that lack data and research expertise – to better achieve their mission through a powerful use of evaluation.
Two weeks later, I’m still energized by our two-day launch (and the day following with consultant colleagues in Asheville, North Carolina). I’ve been reflecting on three ideas that I want to share with you:
Curriculum as an act of optimism
Nonprofits themselves are acts of optimism—through them we shape a better world. The launch of a curriculum is similarly a sign of hope . It says: the work continues. Learning continues. Advancing our missions in the face of challenge still matters.
One participant stands out in my memory from the day we piloted the curriculum. She described her frustration trying to raise money for a program advancing equity for Black girls—three words that, in today’s political climate, each carry their own risk. And yet, despite the resistance she faced, she showed up fully—engaged, curious, and hopeful—because the session offered her a way forward. Around her, groups of participants worked together on their logic models, sharpening their stories and anchoring their strategies in the promises they’d made to their communities. The room buzzed with purpose, as each person connected what they were learning to the change they were working for.
AI as a writing partner
As Mike Taylor reminded us in his presentation during last fall’s learning series:
“AI is not a substitute for human intelligence; it is a tool to amplify human creativity and ingenuity.”
— Fei-Fei Li, Co-Director of the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence.That resonated with me as I worked to bring our evaluation curriculum to life. Like many curriculum designers, I needed a case study that felt real—something participants could see themselves in—and a data set robust enough to use throughout the lessons to show how data is collected, managed, and interpreted. ChatGPT to the rescue.
AI helped me read a vast amount of research and determine key ideas to bring into the lessons. It synthesized the feedback we received from a daylong event, helping me to re-sort it into our chapters. Just like Fei-Fei Li said, it didn’t replace my thinking. It made room for it.
Train-the-trainer as a core partner to any new curriculum
A curriculum doesn’t come to life on paper. It lives in the hands of facilitators who know their communities and can bring learning to life. That’s why we paired the curriculum launch with a train-the-trainer program. The day before the curriculum launch, a group of trainers spent the morning learning about adult learning and trainer skills generally. In the afternoon, we walked through the full curriculum and practiced facilitating specific exercises. The support continues as they prepare to continue the series this week.
From Charlotte, I traveled to Asheville to spend the day with nonprofit consultants working through WNC Nonprofit Pathways. The visit came just days before the six-month mark of Hurricane Helene’s devastation, and the damage was still visible along the rivers. These trainers and coaches were serving organizations in recovery mode—people with no time or money to waste. They need learning that is grounded in their experiences and immediately useful. What a gift to spend the day with them!
The learning goes on
In Charlotte, we launched the evaluation curriculum with joy and curiosity. The 30 or so participants in the pilot program represent what’s possible when we invest in learning—not just as individuals, but as a community. They’ll carry evaluation forward in ways that work within their community, and collectively they will be a force for good.
I am very grateful for the referral that connected me with IDEA team at UNC Charlotte! If you or someone you know is interested in building a curriculum or investing in Train the Trainer programs, please reach out. I would be delighted to learn more.
- Can you put that in a graphic?
On Monday, February 24, 2025, the National Council of Nonprofits shared a timeline of actions they had taken in January and February.
I love everything about this, including that it’s a graphic.
When we have a lot to say, we often rely on written explanations. But words alone don’t always provide the clarity we need. Words alone are often not memorable. Our missions depend on people understanding and retaining our message.
The Power of Creating Graphics
In my instructional design work, I’ve leaned on an important principle:
If I can draw it, I can teach it. And the opposite is also true:
If I can’t draw it—or somehow represent it graphically—something is either missing or in conflict with something else.
Take a recent challenge: trying to figure out worker-related laws and Native nonprofits. I’ve produced five versions of the graphic below, each iteration refining key details—like the role of tribal land or who is responsible for establishing the nonprofit. The process of trying to represent the law in a simple graphic has led to a lengthy conversation that is ongoing as we try to nail down exactly who has jurisdiction where.
This is a draft and may or may not represent our final version. Stay tuned!
Or consider a procurement handbook that was leading people around the world to do things wrong, at least according to an NGO’s finance office in the U.S. We studied the handbook and tried to draw the workflow. Several contradictory instructions and multiple drafts later, we finally landed on a visual that accurately documented expectations.
Even without reading the words contained in the workflow, you can imagine all of the places where people in various countries and cultures might follow the wrong path.
This is the first power of graphics: the act of creating them helps refine our own understanding.
The Power of Using Graphics
Once we create a graphic, it also becomes a more effective tool for others. For example, at my daughter’s graduation in Northfield, Minnesota, I saw this parking sign:
City planners could have written this:
“To park using back-in only reverse angle parking, first signal right to indicate your intention to park. Then, pull forward past the parking space and stop, positioning your vehicle at an angle for an easy reverse. Finally, shift into reverse and back into the space, aligning your vehicle within the marked lines.”
But they didn’t, thank goodness. Instead, they showed it.
We can turn to brain science to understand why this is effective.
The Brain Science Behind Visuals
Effective use of graphics is particularly important in a world of limited time and bandwidth. Visuals aren’t just more engaging—they’re more efficient.
Cognitive research supports why visuals work so well. Paul Kirschner and Mirjam Neelen, in Evidence-Informed Learning Design, explain:
“If information is offered in two different ways, it enables you to access more working memory capacity.”
Why? Because our brains process information through two channels—visual and verbal—and they work together.
- Verbal information is processed sequentially—one word after another.
- Visual information is processed synchronously—we can see the big picture and the details all at once.
Graphically said:
The second power of graphics is that they don’t just make things prettier. The effective use of graphics makes information easier to process, understand, and remember. When we offer the right combination of words and graphics, we get what learning experts call “double barreled learning.”
The theory behind “double barreled learning.”
Source: 3-Star Learning Experiences
One of my favorite thinkers on learning, Oliver Caviglioli, sums it up in two words: Visual Clarity.
Next time you’re struggling to explain something complex, ask yourself:
Can I draw this? Can I capture this information in a graphic?
Because if you can draw it, you can teach it. And if you can teach it visually, more people will understand it.
Our world could use more understanding around now.
- Listening
I was halfway through writing a different blog when I picked up Andrew McMaster’s new book, Listening Without Agenda. It’s a cold Sunday afternoon on a weekend framed by the Inauguration and Martin Luther King Jr. Day. The emotional liminality of this weekend makes Andrew’s wisdom resonate even more deeply with me. It feels fitting to spend time with this book.
Before diving into my reflections, let me say this: Listening Without Agenda is excellent. Andrew shares practical tips rooted in research and stories, designed to help us grow both personally and professionally. Andrew is a phenomenal teacher, trainer, and speaker—you can learn more about him on his website.
Andrew shares three ideas in Listening Without Agenda that have particularly caught my attention.
Saccades
I didn’t know there was a word for how our eyes move from one fixed point to another. Imagine being on a train with scenery scrolling past. Your eyes fix on a tree, then a house, then a light pole, missing the details in between. Andrew explains that listening is similar—we hear isolated pieces of information while often missing the gaps in between.
There are lessons in saccades for both speakers and listeners. Andrew invites us to fully commit to being listeners, fully present and paying attention to what’s happening in the gaps—the emotions, context, or subtle details that connect the speaker’s ideas.
I also think about how leaders and teachers can use this awareness of saccades to be better communicators. We can slow down to give people time to process what we are saying. We can name and summarize key points, essentially leaning into saccades and giving people memorable words or images.
Once you learn a new word, it is hard to forget it. I’m eager to put my new awareness of this word to action in conversations and classes. How might you use saccades in how you listen?
Sounding board, solver, or sympathizer
I appreciate Andrew’s invitation to think about why we are listening. He’s right—too often we listen to solve. Whether we’re Executive Directors talking with staff or teachers leading a webinar, we’re ready to jump in with answers.
Andrew shares two other reasons to listen:
- Being a sounding board to create space for someone to hear themselves. This allows them to think through their own solutions.
- Being a sympathizer to connect us to their emotions. As Andrew explains, listening for emotion helps deepen connection. Emotions are central to motivation, making this type of listening especially impactful.
I’m reflecting on how a shift in our listening mode can lead to better long-term outcomes. How can we better listen to empower others with their own solutions? How can we listen towards strengthening our relationships with them?
Scripts vs. improv
Andrew writes, “A paradox of acting is the concept of memorization of scripts. Actors memorize a script so when they are onstage, they can forget it.”
“In improv, actors practice the skills so much, when they get on stage it simply happens.”
This distinction captures the balance between what and how that every leader or teacher navigates. We master domain knowledge to deliver our lines – share information — with such ease that it seems effortless. We need to know our stuff! We also need to practice the skills of leadership and teaching, like inviting interaction and managing conflict. It takes practice to confidently facilitate conversation.
Maybe I’ve been sitting through too many webinars lately, but it feels like we overemphasize scripted content. Too often speakers push through information. We spend less time in the improvisational ambiguity that comes from dialogue and, ultimately, listening.
This has me reflecting on how we can balance scripted and unscripted time. How can we grow more confident in listening “without agenda,” to use Andrew’s term? How can we get better at the improvising responses that reflect what they said, not what we were thinking at the time?
Towards the end of the book, Andrew shares an exercise about listening for values. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about my values as a teacher and how they show up in my lessons and interactions. Valuing listening is a value unto itself, it seems. Andrew reminds us that beneath every word spoken lies something deeper—what people care about most. By listening with intention, we can uncover those values, build stronger connections, and create space for meaningful dialogue.
- How to Prepare Nonprofit Boards for Uncertain Times
I’ve been thinking a lot about boards lately. I was one of five petitioners in an unsuccessful school board recall effort. (If you are interested in knowing the details, this opinion piece lays out the data.) It would have been nice to win, but I take it as a win that so many people who’ve never thought about governance are paying attention and asking good questions.
Governance isn’t exactly a water-cooler topic. For many of us, governance (usually experienced through government) feels distant. Many of us don’t receive SNAP benefits or navigate the military or prison systems. We experience governance when something isn’t working: a healthcare system fails, a road is riddled with potholes, or, in our case, a public school system needs ethical, accountable leadership.
I certainly had to explain the fundamentals of governance to many over the course of my recall experience. [My favorite definition is: Governance is the structure used by a group of people to make decisions, maintain accountability, and lead on what matters.] It’s the accountability piece that so many find hard. This lack of prior experience with governance reminds me that nonprofits have a role to play in orienting new board members to effective governance and what it means for their role and responsibilities.
Of all the lessons I’ve gathered related to governance these weeks, the one I keep thinking about is this:A governance model is only as good as its ability to weather and learn from the stress tests that will inevitably arise. A board is only as effective as its ability to design a decision-making structure that upholds its duties and allows it to learn from what didn’t work.
A stress test, in this case, is a process used to evaluate how well an organization can withstand and respond to extreme or challenging circumstances. A lot of nonprofit boards are concerned about what the new administration will bring in 2025. We may again be facing “unprecedented” experiences that force us to change how we work.
Plausible stress tests include:- You experience a significant financial deficit that forces hard conversations about programs and facilities.
- You experience a significant increase in demand for services due to economic strife, an experience our food bank colleagues know all too well.
- You are doing important civil rights work, the Senate passes the “Nonprofit killer” bill, and your nonprofit may lose its tax-exempt status for political reasons.
- What would you add to this list of possible scenarios?
To evaluate and plan around these stress tests, you might ask:- What would the impact of this situation be?
- How ready are you?
- We can you do now to get ready?
- What do you need to practice or learn more about?
- What can you learn from others who have experience this or something like it?
Ultimately you need a way of governing that allows you the latitude to explore these questions. In my opinion, it probably won’t be a branded governance model like the Carver Policy Governance Model or the even more restrictive version used by the Seattle School Board, “Student Outcome Focused Governance.” (Someday I’ll write a blog post on feminist governance models that aren’t named or branded and just get the work done.)
Our boards are not fixed structures immune to the passage of time or the pressures of the world around us. They are living systems capable of evolving and learning. The key lies in our willingness to prepare for, adapt, and embrace change as a core strength.
The Dalai Lama gave us a reflection on change in a 2005 New York Times opinion piece about science and religion:“If science proves some belief of Buddhism wrong, then Buddhism will have to change. In my view, science and Buddhism share a search for the truth and for understanding reality. By learning from science about aspects of reality where its understanding may be more advanced, I believe that Buddhism enriches its own worldview.”
If a religion can change, so can our boards. By doing so, we will expand our search for the truth and ensure that we make an enduring difference.
- Using Science to Communicate Science
Too often, focusing on adult learning is sidelined as unnecessary introspection. This belief rests on the view that the experience of learning as a child somehow equips one to teach in future. This is nonsensical, especially as research shows adults learn differently from children. Conveying information so that it is understood and retained is not an intuitive skill. Applying the principles of adult learning to presentations means you stand a much better chance of getting your message out accurately— and acted upon.
Over the past six months, I’ve been honored to work with the advising team at the Science Philanthropy Alliance. The Alliance works to increase philanthropic support for basic science. They focus on discovery science, which is that early-stage scientific research that lays the foundation for, well, the COVID vaccine, the healing of the ozone layer, and diagnosing Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases. One of the topics that the Alliance team is focused on a climate science.
This is a story about $5-7 million investment in climate science that happened as a result of a deep dive into adult learning and behavioral science. Their story is one that any expert presenter can relate to. It shows the power of adult learning to change the world.
Philanthropy advisors at the Alliance have deep experience advising on a range of topics, both in life and physical sciences, including climate science. Often the advisee has a deep science background. With the rise of climate related events in the news, a different audience has asked for climate science information— philanthropists who are completely new to climate philanthropy and who require a unique level and type of advising.
Here’s how the Alliance developed a climate philanthropy presentation tailored to these newcomers.
First, climate science is vast and complex. Unsurprisingly, those new to it often feel overwhelmed by the many options to contribute to climate solutions. Given the Alliance’s expertise in basic science, the team decided their role would be to clarify basic science priorities and help prospective funders find their philanthropic focus. As Senior Director of Philanthropic Advising Sue Merrilees explained, “Everyone wants their funding to have the most impact possible, but it’s not always easy predicting chances for a breakthrough, especially in discovery science. Explaining that complexity is a balancing act.”
What the Alliance team wanted to avoid was the classic “novice/expert” problem. That’s where the expert presentation goes over the head of the novice, leaving them wide-eyed and silent. We see that a lot in the sciences. Alliance Research Analyst Andrew Golnar, Ph.D. noted: “The last thing we want to hear is, “This is way too complicated! We can’t take this on now.”
The team adopted a more accessible, audience-centered approach. In June, they spent a day diving deep into adult learning, behavior change, and presentation development for ideas on how to revamp not only the climate slide deck but also some of their other presentations. The training amplified the team’s natural strengths, creating an approach designed to be more engaging and supportive for beginner audiences.
Key takeaways included:- Use pre-reads and exercises to engage the audience before the presentation.
- Make learning effortful but not overwhelming to improve retention.
- Make the slide deck support the presentation, not be the presentation
- Elicit positive emotions to encourage decisiveness and action.
The Alliance team enriched their presentation by incorporating evocative imagery and emotionally resonant sections, making the science of climate philanthropy accessible and inspiring to a broader audience. Recognizing that negative emotions can be paralyzing, they emphasized the hopeful potential of basic science as a transformative force.
One way the team lifted up hopeful stories is through examples of basic discoveries that have leapfrogged costly or time-consuming technologies, emphasizing that while the path of exploration is uncertain, it is both exciting and essential. They included a success story about a long-running research station that tracked atmospheric data and detected changes in the ozone layer. This research attributed the changes to human emissions, sounding an alarm that led to an international ban on CFCs. Today, the ozone layer is healing—a rare hopeful story in climate change.
The team also simplified the content of the original presentation dedicating only one-third of the slides to the science itself, increasing information about science philanthropy to help put the science into a philanthropic context. They highlighted how little—less than 4%—of philanthropic dollars currently go to climate causes.
The redesigned presentation deepened the team’s connection with the audience, sparking meaningful dialogue and supporting real-time insights through interactive elements. They concluded the climate slide deck by determining next steps, addressing common obstacles to giving and how their advisory services help remove or reduce these barriers.
As for the Alliance’s new presentation’s impact, prospective funders found focus in several key areas. The advising team is now preparing sample portfolios for review, with a planned commitment of $5–7 million to climate science beginning in 2025—a testament to the power of an accessible, impactful approach.With gratitude to Sue Merrilees and the SPA team for giving me permission to share their story!
- The power of story to share context and create connection
In college we had an old-fashioned mailroom. Letters were sorted into rows of wooden slots, the front side of which were glass doors with dial combination locks. Letters were distributed by department, then name. The structure allowed for quick sorting and tidy workspaces. Everything had a place.
Stories provide a similar structure. Information is just information without context. A story creates a framework that helps us understand and remember information by situating it within a narrative. A story answers, among other things:
- Geography that either helps or hurts our journey
- Culture of the protagonist and the people around them
- Power structures that influence decisions
- Mindsets that reflect whether something is an opportunity or a challenge
One way that I’ve been inviting people to consider the story of their content is to share seven common narrative arcs: Comedy, Tragedy, Voyage and Return, Rags to Riches, Rebirth, Quest, and Overcoming the Monster. What is your topic? How does that type of story help you decide how you share information?
Here’s some examples:
- The person creating learning tools on climate change considered “Quest” and “Overcoming the Monster.” (Let’s hope it isn’t a tragedy!) How might his audience, potential donors, respond to each of these options? How do we need them to respond?
- Take nonprofit finance, an “Overcoming the Monster” story for too many people. What if we reframed it as a “Rags to Riches” story, connecting finance knowledge with successful fundraising? Or maybe it is a “Quest” anchored in curiosity and discovery.
Storytelling feels extraneous to many I speak with, like art in a STEM-focused world. This is where we have so much to learn from “high-context” cultures, to use anthropologist Edward Hall’s term. “High-context” and “low-context” exist on a continuum that explores how people relate to each other, how they communicate with each other, how they treat space and time, and how they learn. White U.S. culture is generally considered low-context. Many cultures of People of Color are high-context, generally speaking.
Modified from this source.
When we use story to convey information, we are not just making it more memorable and efficient on our brains as it sorts information into a structure that makes sense. We are also being intentional about de-centering White ways of teaching and learning for everyone’s benefit.
All of which makes me very excited to learn about storytelling in learning from Fawn Sanchez, our 2nd Fall Learning Series speaker. Fawn is Shoshone-Bannock from Fort Hall, Idaho, and is Carizzo-Comcrudo, an Indigenous tribe in Mexico. Fawn is a Learning and Development professional, having spent 11 years at Amazon managing learning strategy across several technical programs and global organizations. Fawn currently manages learning programs on Native American cultural awareness at Tribal Tech, LLC. A diversity thought leader, Fawn previously led the Indigenous Peoples ERG at Amazon for seven years. Fawn is an AISES Sequoyah Fellow, and a member of the Indigi-Genius AI Board of Directors, providing culturally relevant AI/ML educational programming to Native youth and educators. Fawn is also a third generation Army Veteran and served eight years active duty in the United States Army.
Think about a topic that you hope to teach someone. What kind of story is it? How can you use the narrative arc of a story – protagonist, plot, conflict, and solution—to invite that person in?
- A Mindset Shift to Achieve Real Change
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.
- 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.
- Are you ready to deliver nonprofit learning that makes a difference?
As long as I have worked at the intersection of adult learning and nonprofits, I have felt humbled by the responsibility entrusted to me. I have stood in many rooms, real and virtual, where the people facing me work tirelessly to feed the hungry, end domestic violence, protect our natural world, advocate for our rights, and advance all of the other causes that matter so much in our communities. These people have taken time out of their busy day to learn. I owe them an experience that leaves them ready to do things differently.I imagine you feel the same urgency to deliver.
There isn’t an obvious place for us nonprofit educators to hone our teaching practice. Sure, there are learning & development conferences and associations—and we can adapt lessons to our social sector reality. But there are some unique aspects to teaching both nonprofit people and the people our nonprofits serve.How do we make sure we integrate the latest adult learning research into our workshops or learning programs?
How do we make sure we aren’t wasting their time?“What doesn’t exist you have to create yourself. Even a dream can be plucked out of your head and shaped for a purpose.”
– Henning MankellThe Design for Deeper Learning series, now five years running, is a small attempt to give us a place to learn. It is a community of practice for nonprofit/social sector educators. Fifty or so nonprofit trainers, consultants, association learning leaders, and others come together to learn from experts in the field. Will you be among them?
I am grateful to be working in partnership with AZ Impact for Good, Maine Association of Nonprofits, Montana Nonprofit Association, North Carolina Center for Nonprofits, Wyoming Nonprofit Network, and Nonprofit Learning Center on this series. These associations are total rockstars when it comes to lifting up adult learning to strengthen our community organizations.
Will you join us on September 26? - Using adult learning to raise more money
I’ve just returned from San Francisco where I spent the day with the fund development team of an organization raising money for science research. Their success means that we’ll be able to better respond to pandemics, solve Alzheimer’s Syndrome, and advance climate change science in a way that changes the trajectory of our earth. Did you know 10% of people over 65 have Alzheimer’s Syndrome? The lifetime risk for Alzheimer’s at age 45 is 1 in 5 for women and 1 in 10 for men. We can solve this – retain the memories of our grandparents – with investments in basic science.
I was yet again struck by how important it is that we evangelize research-informed adult learning practice across the social sector so people like these fund development officers deliver more powerful, more memorable, and more action-focused learning experiences with decision-makers.
Bethany Snyder and I delivered adult learning tips for advocacy leaders in May. You are welcome to explore the resources shared in that webinar here.
Three topics felt most resonate to these folks raising money for science research:
1. Feedback
It is common for content experts to think in terms of presentations. I’ll share what I know for 45 minutes, and then we’ll open up the floor for Q&A. The challenge is that the presenter then has no feedback from the listeners as to their understanding of what is being said. An unknown term could have been used in the first five minutes, causing the listener to stop listening.
Learning must be effortful. If there are five things to know about Alzheimer’s, we must stop after each one and engage in a conversation about it. The presenter is checking for understanding, and the listener is sharing their experience or connection to the topic.
2. Emotions
Scientists tend to focus on content, yet when we talked through what they believed was holding decision-makers back, it wasn’t the content. It was how well decision-makers prioritized this issue, or how confident they feel advancing a decision within their organization. In short, it was often an emotion influencing success, not understanding of the content.
Ultimately people are motivated by their emotions. People have motivations related to the content (how they feel about climate change or degenerative brain disease), and emotions related to how empowered they feel to take action within their organization.
A powerful way to bring people along an emotion-rich journey is through story. Is climate change a story of “overcoming the monster” or a quest story? How you tell the story may determine how well the decision-maker wants to become part of the story.
3. Graphics
One of my favorite parts of the session was when one participant, well after we talked about the power of graphics to balance out content, shared his a-ha moment. If he used a visual of a researcher talking to university students, he could show how investments in STEM ripple across generations. He could essentially bring the funder into the classroom to “experience” STEM as opposed to talk about it.
If I could do one thing to improve teaching and training, it would be to amp down the content and amp up the use of graphics. Color, imagery, and navigational graphics lead to more memorable learning experiences.
A final thought. In preparing for this session, a scientist friend suggested I read Alan Alda’s If I Understood You, Would I Have This Look On My Face? Based on an improv exercise Alda describes in this book, I created a feedback exercise where participants had to practice eliciting feedback on their shopping list… and then their list of five things to know about their topic. I was struck by the number of conversations that pairs were practicing, getting ready for real conversations with funders. They shifted from talking to people to talking with people, and that is a powerful shift for us all to practice.
- Free is always good. Sometimes.
I recently attended a gathering where a fellow consultant mentioned a free webinar. She verbalized what many of us think: “Love a free webinar. Free is always good.”
Last week I delivered a free webinar with 98 registrants. Only 45 attendees attended the webinar, a roughly 50% participation rate. Sure, some might watch the recording later. If my own inbox of unwatched webinars is any indication, I shouldn’t hold my breath.
This led me to question: Is free always good? Maybe. Sometimes. There are definitely some pros to free, and there are ways to frame free to offset the cons.
Pros: Free is good.
1. Access: Free offerings remove financial barriers, making content accessible to a wider audience. The only requirements are time and an internet connection.
2. Reduced Administrative Work: With no financial transactions involved, the administrative burden is lighter, making the process smoother for organizers and participants alike.
Cons: Free is not always good.
1. Lack of Commitment: We feel the pain of losing something more than the joy of gaining something (loss aversion). When people pay even a small amount, they are more likely to attend because they don’t want to experience the pain of losing that money.
2. Perceived Value: In our capitalistic system, value is measured by price. Free is often perceived as having little to no value. A client who advises philanthropic clients on science investments, for example, struggles to be seen as an authority on her science knowledge because her advice is underwritten and therefore free. There are so many free educational offerings available that it is hard to determine which of them have value.
Solutions
When access matters more than recovering full costs—or a program is underwritten—there are some solutions to increase how participants value the offering:
1. Charge a Nominal Fee: In one program I’m running, we plan to charge $10 for a four-hour training session that includes lunch. Costs are covered by a contract, but this small fee can create a sense of commitment without being a financial burden.
2. Provide Equal or Greater Value: We’ve also talked about charging slightly more, say $20 for a day-long training session, and ensuring participants receive at least $20 in tangible value, such as learning tools and swag. This reinforces the idea that the fee is an investment worth making.
3. Tiered Pricing System: Another idea: implement a multi-tiered pricing model with the top price reflecting market value. Clearly communicate the market value and the subsidized cost available to participants because of underwriting. The subsidized cost could be as low as $0 if adequately explained.
4. Strategic Free Offerings: Sometimes free is the best way to go. In this case, offer free sessions occasionally to reach a broader audience, but be prepared for high no-show rates and lower perceived value. This can be an effective strategy if used sparingly and with clear communication about the value being provided.
Having said all that, I’ll gladly take a free ice cream any day.
- Make Advocacy Actionable
Free webinar on this topic on May 9th.
A recent email:
Did you know that less than half the percentage of nonprofits advocate or lobby today than were doing so 20 years ago? That’s an alarming finding in [our] recent research report.
When nonprofits sit on the sidelines of policy debates, we leave our power on the table and forfeit opportunities to educate leaders — particularly policymakers — about our missions, community needs, and transformative policy recommendations that improve lives and strengthen society.
You’re invited to join a diverse focus group of nonprofit leaders to share recommendations for policy and practice change….
How do you feel in your body when you read this?How motivated might the average nonprofit CEO or board member feel to engage with advocacy after reading this?
Bad.
Not.
Those are my answers to my questions. I feel depressed when I read all of these failing report card-like descriptions of nonprofits and advocacy. I can’t imagine that busy nonprofit leaders would read this and feel motivated to rally the troops to do something that most people aren’t. Behavioral sciences teach us to use social proof to encourage action: others are doing it, and you could be cool just like them. Why are some of the largest advocacy proponents doing the opposite: “Few are doing it, but you should do it anyway”?Here are three ways to get nonprofits to engage in advocacy:
1. Motivate them appropriately
There are two kinds of motivation: motivation to do and motivation to learn. Negative emotions might make someone angry and serve as a call to action to do (like vote or protest). It is much harder to use negative emotions to get someone to learn. Learning takes time and sustained effort. If our goal is to get nonprofit folks to learn about advocacy, our best bet is to invite them into an positive experience that will leave them feeling competent and confident.
2. Recognize brain capacity
Cognitive overload is real. How do busy nonprofit people remember what they need to know about lobbying etc. when it is complicated and not their day job? When we tell them everything, they remember nothing… except that they could get into trouble if they mess up. One of the rules we use in instructional design is to give participants “just enough information” to be able to take action on something. Too little information and they won’t know what to do. Too much information and they are overwhelmed.
I still love the graphic Meps Schulte created when we designed an advocacy curriculum in Washington State. Rather than think about the advocacy as a monolith, we can break it down into three parts and think of it as a house to be explored. There’s Everyday Advocacy, which is basically keeping your house tidy to be able to engage in advocacy conversations. There’s Urgent Advocacy when the roof has a leak or a neighbor offers a free refrigerator—or when a policy threat or opportunity emerges. There’s Step-It-Up Advocacy when you need to move from education to lobbying to get something more expansive done, much like a family might build an addition to welcome a new child. We can chunk information and share it only as needed, making advocacy approachable like coming over to a tidy house for a hot cup of tea.
3. Emphasize practice over knowledge
Finally, we can think more about the two elements that motivate people: the desire to feel competent and confident. So much advocacy training is focused on teaching what there is to know. Competence and confidence come through practice. We can create experiences and tools that support the practice of advocacy skills in all of the places nonprofit people meet: board meetings, coalition meetings, conferences, funder meetings, etc. As we’ve built advocacy curriculum for a few nonprofit state associations, we’ve focused on the small actions people can take to build their advocacy skill.
It’s been nearly 10 years since I first saw this “board members are failing to engage in advocacy work” storyline in the Leading With Intent report. Let’s spend the next ten years recognizing that nonprofit staff and board members are people who have courageously stepped forward to serve their communities despite all the challenges. When it comes to advocacy, we need them to do one more courageous thing—add a few advocacy tools to their toolbelt. Let’s reframe how we talk about risk, leading with the opportunities that may be afforded if they lift their voices. Let’s invite them to practice advocacy everywhere we can.
- Wonderfully irrational people
You may have read about the passing of Daniel Kahneman, a psychologist and Nobel Prize winning economist. His work—and the larger field expanding what we know about behavior change— is deeply relevant to how we design and deliver learning programs in the social sector space. Our goal is to influence how people do things over time. We can draw on psychology and behavioral science to create solutions that honor the wonderfully irrational human beings we all are.
Cognitive biases: Why people do what they do
Kahneman and research partner Amos Tversky introduced the concept of cognitive bias in 1972, capturing ways in which people aren’t always rational. When we know why people are behaving as they are, we can adjust how we respond.
One of my favorite activities with boards and others wondering why people are doing what they are doing is to share the Cognitive Bias Codex. In one graphic, you can click around the circle to explore 188 cognitive biases, grouped by how they impact thought and action.
Open the Codex. What cognitive biases do you possess? What biases do you see in others? 
I recently spent time with UNICEF’s excellent Behavioural Drivers Model, worth digging into if you want a more comprehensive resource on behavior change.
A GIFT FROM ME: Download a list of cognitive biases and how they relate to the nonprofit sector.
How to help people get unstuck
So how do we respond better?Julie Dirksen, author of Talk to the Elephant and Design for How People Learn, gives us practical ways to design for behavior change. I particularly find helpful this change ladder as we sleuth out why someone might get stuck. Which of these might be true? They…
- Don’t know about it (the behavior)
- Knows about it but doesn’t really get it (doesn’t understand why it is important)
- Gets it but doesn’t really believe it (aren’t convinced)
- Believes it but has other priorities
- Prioritizes the behavior but doesn’t know how to change it
- Prioritizes it but thinks it’s too hard
- Priorities it but isn’t confident
- Is ready but needs help to start
- Has started but isn’t consistent
- Has been consistent but is struggling to maintain
(Cognitive biases can show up at any level.)
I love this list because it showcases how behavior has little to do with knowledge alone. (This is particularly important for experts to consider– your knowledge won’t necessarily move them to action.) As many of my instructional design clients will recognize, this list invites as to ask:
- Who are we trying to move to action? Tell me about them.
- What is holding them back? (The context or environment? A tool? Their emotions about the content or themselves? Information?)
- What do they need right now to take the step most relevant to them?
- How do we need them to feel to keep making progress forward?
Take a moment to consider someone you are trying to move to action. Which of the statements in the change ladder most describes them? How would you answer these questions?
Giving Daniel Kahneman the last word
In Noise and Thinking Fast and Slow (among his other writings), Daniel Kahneman gave us an abundance of quotes to challenge our thinking about how we engage with the world. Each one contains a lesson that we can apply in our nonprofit/social sector work. I’ll share a few that resonated with me. Which one resonates with you?
“The test of learning psychology is whether your understanding of situations you encounter has changed, not whether you have learned a new fact.”
“Independence is the prerequisite for wisdom of crowds.”
“What you see is all there is.”
“The confidence that individuals have in their beliefs depends mostly on the quality of the story they can tell about what they see, even if they see little.”
“If there is time to reflect, slowing down is likely to be a good idea.”
“It’s a wonderful thing to be optimistic. It keeps you healthy and it keeps you resilient.”
And finally for my courageous nonprofit colleagues who have stepped forward to make the world a better place:
“Courage is willingness to take the risk once you know the odds. Optimistic overconfidence means you are taking the risk because you don’t know the odds. It’s a big difference.” - Life and death and everything in between
I aim to write once a month, sharing tips, tools, and insights at the intersection of adult learning and nonprofits. I apologize that I missed February. I’ll explain in a moment, but mostly I’ve been busy teaching and working on instructional design projects on such interesting topics: philanthropy, drug and alcohol recovery, fiscal sponsorship, and advocacy.
If I may, I would like to share what else is on my mind and lessons I’ve been reflecting on these past few weeks.
My mother passed away in January. I spent two weeks by her side, and she left us peacefully. We weren’t close (I’m okay), and yet my life had been lived until then with a next generation buffer between me and the inevitable. I was the lox in the everything bagel sandwich, between parents and children. Shifting into open-faced sandwich status brought a melancholy I wasn’t expecting.
I’ve been thinking a lot about place and how it shapes people. My mother was tremendously proud of her heritage as the great-granddaughter of the first settlers of South Dennis, a village on Cape Cod. She grew up, as I did, on the banks of Bass River. She had sand between her toes, she so often said.
This deep love of place is something I learned from her and appreciate about people in the nonprofit space. When you love a place, you seek to protect it, improve it, promote it—all of the things nonprofits do. So many people we meet in trainings or conferences give up so much to start or volunteer for organizations because they love a place so deeply. In many ways, nonprofits allow community members to act on their love of place as they volunteer or donate.
And a love of place can become one’s legacy. Like many Americans, my mother didn’t have a will, and she hadn’t thought in practical terms about her legacy. A recent study concluded that inviting conversations about a person’s legacy could increase the amount they pledge to good causes, and that was exactly my experience. We started by talking about movements and causes she cared about. We moved into organizations doing good work. We landed in a far more generous place than we would have been without talking about cares and concerns.
I know large nonprofits have planned giving departments. Small organizations can share websites like Freewill.com. Talking about dying can be awkward, and yet my mother wanted to discuss her legacy. These were some of the best conversations I ever had with her. I just wrote a newsletter article about our process for one of the organizations we decided to support to help convince others to (1) have a will, and (2) include nonprofits in it.
I spent two weeks in Copenhagen and Rome in early March. It was pouring rain as I stood at the top of Palatine Hill overlooking the Roman Forum—one of those tropical rains that scatters people to hide under bushes and overhangs. I stepped out enough to capture the moment (17 second video).
I’ve replayed the video at my desk a few times since because it reminds me of how truly awe-some our world is. It reminds me that the past is connected to the present to the future. It reminds me how grateful I am to be living the life I am in community with you. - Take time to define the words that matter
In 2021, Anne Wallestad wrote “The Four Principles of Purpose-Driven Board Leadership.” In 2022, Hubert Joly wrote the HBR article “5 Principles of Purposeful Leadership.” An internet search for “purposeful leadership” yields a long list of more articles, programs, and organizations with this kind of leadership at their core.
Purposeful leadership seems important. What is it? How does one know one’s purpose in a meaningful enough way to shape their leadership around it?
As Wallestad defines it, purpose is “the fundamental reason that the organization exists.” A great definition, so how do we apply it to our own organizations? We know our mission. What is our purpose? This is where the struggle begins, in my experience. We spend a lot of time in Powerhouse Boards helping board members land on the underlying why of their work.
Another word like this is govern or governance. We want boards to govern, but what does that mean?
We all know what government is—and so it is an easy assumption to believe that most people know what it means to govern. In reality, I’ve struggled to find a useful definition of nonprofit governance and resorted to creating my own.
These two words are critical to board member success. Purpose is their why and govern is their how. Pausing to help them develop a personal connection to their why and how is time well spent.
Clarity is necessary for communication. It is also imperative if we want to shift behavior. I’m asking a lot in my instructional design projects, “But what does that mean?” For all of these articles about purposeful leadership, if people can’t define their purpose, they can’t use it to inform how they lead. We can talk all day about governance, but nothing changes without practical verbs that everyday board members can relate to and do.
What are the words around you that could use a clear, shared definition? How might people change their behavior if they connected on a personal level with what these words mean?
We’ve been working on instructional design projects related to nonprofit basics, advocacy, fiscal sponsorship, philanthropy, and drug/alcohol recovery. We’ve expanded the Nonprofit Learning Center—my joy each morning is seeing who started a class last night. And we have a full schedule of classes and events.
Here’s a taste of what is coming up. Join us!
February 20 | Let’s Talk Money – finance for board members
March 19 | How to Raise Money – fundraising for new nonprofit staff and board
June 4 | Central Washington Conference for the Greater Good in Toppenish, WAAnd don’t forget about the Nonprofit Radio Show podcast. Latest episodes:
- Nonprofit Finance: What Hat Are You Wearing?
- The Superpowers of Small Nonprofits
- Three Buckets of Board Learning
Please reach out if any of this connects with what you are working on. I would love to hear from you!
- The One Degree Difference
At 99°C, water is very hot, but it’s not boiling. When the temperature increases by just one degree to 100°C, water begins to boil, transitioning from a liquid to a gas (steam). This one-degree change marks a significant state change with different properties and uses.
A plane that sets out from New York to San Francisco and deviates by one degree in its flight plan will end up in San Jose. This one-degree change lands travelers in a different place altogether, changing their lunch options significantly!
The “one degree difference” is a concept that illustrates the significant impact of small changes. Even a slight shift or change in approach can lead to disproportionately large benefits or different outcomes over time.
We’ve been translating this idea of small changes to our nonprofit learning tools. Here are two examples related to boards and advocacy:
Click on either image to download.
What change do you want to make in 2024?
What is the one degree difference that you could implement today? - Learning in the flow of work
When people need to know something, we tend to land on the idea that they need a training. (Board members aren’t doing their job, so let’s send them to a training.) When we have something to teach, we imagine the workshop or webinar that we might create. (I am an expert on leadership, so I’m going to put together a workshop to train others.) The training solutions happen on our time— or some scheduled time, not their time. People learn solutions outside the context in which information will be applied.
Learning in the flow of work is a concept that comes up regularly in the Learning & Development space. It invites us to think about the context in which a learner might need to apply knowledge or a skill. Learning in the flow of work is efficient because we solve a problem in real time. We give just the right level of information they need to move forward.
We learn in the flow of work all the time. Just yesterday I needed to figure out how to account for a credit card refund in Quickbooks, so I did a quick search and found a video that answered the question. I learned in the flow of work. (I’ll probably forget in the flow of work too.) When did you last learn in the flow of your work? I bet it wasn’t too long ago.
So how do we bring learning in the flow of work deeper into our nonprofits?
Because this kind of learning is so efficient and effective, my colleague Meps Schulte and I been working on ways to move learning into the flow of common nonprofit challenges. Let’s start with boards. Too much is written about board underperformance, and the solution isn’t necessarily more board trainings. Yes, I spend a lot of time delivering board trainings (please, dear board members—keep coming!). Yes, some core knowledge goes a long way for people new to the wonderful world of nonprofit governance.
But what if we could move the learning into the pre-service conversation so potential board members find out before taking the job what the job is before they even start? What if could provide 8 minutes of board orientation that new board members could watch and discuss as they are being oriented to a new board?Drum roll….
Welcome to the board (8 mins): A learning in the flow of work solution designed for new board members, to be watched individually or as a part of a board orientation. Click here to see “Ready to Serve,” our pre-service video (6 mins). These are free resources available through the Nonprofit Learning Center. The solutions don’t have to be videos. We’ve also created a board discussion guide that goes with the Nonprofit Board Certificate Course to see if we could move the “so what does this mean for us” conversation into the board room. There are many kinds of job aids that can help move people to action.
How might you use learning in the flow of work? You can apply the same process. Think about the person that you want to teach something to. When exactly would they use that information? Get as specific about the context as you can. Find ways to capture the learning in a way that they can use in that time and space. Chances are this won’t be a training. Increasingly I’ve been challenging my clients to imagine learning solutions where training is off the table. How might you offer teach someone something without a workshop or webinar?
- How will I know? An evaluation mindset
To the tune of “How will I know” by Whitney Houston
There’s a course I know, it’s the one I dreamed up
Workbooks and slides, bullet points I really love, mmm-hmm
Time—I lose control, can’t seem to get enough, uh-huh
When I reach the end, tell me, did they really learn?
Ooh, how will I know? (don’t trust your feelings)
How will I know?
How will I know? (it can be deceiving)
How will I know?
How will I know if they really learned much?
I send a survey at the end of class
4 out of 5, I think I passed!
I’m asking you what you do to measure learning
How will I know if they’re changed because of me?(Yes, you should watch the original video. You deserve it.)
I can’t be the only one who hums Whitney Houston when thinking about evaluation. How will I know that this investment in workshops, trainings, conferences, etc. yields anything different for the people learning or for our organization? How will I know if I gain the feedback I need to make the training better or provide the right follow up tools? How will I know if they really loved me?
I don’t know about the love part, but I can answer the other questions because I’ve adopted Will Thalheimer’s evaluation approach. Will will be leading our second session in the Fall Trainer Series on October 24. Just like Whitney, Will wants to get to the bottom of “How will I know?” when it comes to learning, and he has developed tools and strategies to get there.
I appreciate Will’s approach for 3 reasons:
It is focused on outcomes.
Will’s Learning-Transfer Evaluation Model (LTEM) reminds us to keep our eye on the prize, which is a sustained change in performance. For example, we lead board trainings so board members act on their fundraising responsibilities or ask different questions in finance conversations. They aren’t learning just to have general knowledge about their roles and responsibilities. When we are clear on the behaviors we are aiming for, we can reverse engineer how to get there—and better measure the difference we made.
It provides useful data.
Will’s survey method makes more practical sense too. Instead of a Likert scale, he guides us to use clear descriptions so we remove the ambiguity over what “4 out of 5” means to you vs. the next person. Ask baseline questions so you have a sense of what people who came to the training knew or were able to do at the start. Ask yourself what acceptable is. For example, someone who knows nothing about finance may come to Let’s Talk about Money and learn a lot. Great! A CPA may come to that same training and learn a little. Also great, particularly if what they learned involves how to engage more people in finance conversations.
It helps us improve.
It was in reading Will’s book, Performance-Focused Learner Surveys, that I began to see a survey as a significant learning tool for our own program development. A survey helps us to improve the training itself, of course. It can also give us the opportunity to ask about their confidence taking the next step and what kind of help they might need to take that next step. A survey can inform what kind of job aids or technical assistance we might offer beyond the training. It can show gaps in what is otherwise available.
Ultimately, “How will I know?” is a mindset. Whitney doesn’t find out by the end of the song if the boy loves her, despite her multi-octave attempts. For many of us, we may never know for sure if the people we teach applied what they learned and changed their organizations because of it. Fortunately, because of the research-to-practice tools developed by people like Will Thalheimer, we can approach evaluation with a clear understanding of what outcomes we hope to achieve and solicit feedback in ways that help us to better measure performance and create opportunities for our own improvement.
That’s enough to make me wanna dance with somebody! 💃
- What is the recipe to help people learn, remember, and take action?
“Learning new things for learning’s sake, without actually doing something new or different or better, is simply another form of entertainment.”
– Endurance Learning’s Training Activity Cookbook by Brian Washburn & Lauren Wescott
Our fall series kicks off on September 26 with training expert Brian Washburn leading “A Recipe for More Effective, Engaging Training Design.” Learn how to use four kinds of activities to help people learn, remember, and do things differently.
I had to read the quote above a few times to let it fully sink in. Without outcomes, learning is entertainment. There’s certainly nothing wrong with entertainment in our personal lives, but if you consider all of the work-related learning events you come across in a year—webinars, conference sessions, workshops, staff or board trainings, etc.—the idea that many of them are just entertainment with no lasting value is unsettling. None of us wants to think that the learning we deliver isn’t worth their time or money.
Fortunately we know the recipe for learning events that result in behavior change. A leader in our field, Brian Washburn, will be sharing it on September 26th. I love how Brian has organized activities into four categories: anchor, content, application, and future use. There are 42,000 possible combinations once you start mix-and-matching!
Above all, I’m excited to learn from Brian because his recipe helps us do four things:
Be accountable to the person learning. When we invite someone to a learning experience, we make a promise to them. We are committing to giving them the information, tools, and confidence they need to do something. At the very least, we are committing to not wasting their time. We may need to put in a little extra effort to fill this promise. Ultimately we are accountable to them and their success.
Recognize that life happens before and after that learning experience. It is so easy to think that time stops during that training. We teach who comes into the room. We make sure they have a good time while we are together. Once it is over, it is over. The activities that Brian includes in his cookbook help us to anchor learning in what came before and prepare them for what comes later, namely doing whatever we taught them. When you connect past, present, and future, you are more likely to create the change you want to see.
Shift the effort to the person learning. How many times have I told trainers that they are working too hard! This may feel obvious, but let’s say it anyway: learning is done by the learner, and learning involves effort on their part. To use a recipe analogy, we can’t talk to them for an hour about how to bake a cake and expect them to bake a great cake two weeks later. Some practice on how to separate eggs or how to recognize whether the cake is done would lay the groundwork for later success.
Get feedback. We’ve made a promise that they will be doing things differently after they spend time with us. How will we know we achieve that? Activities make space for the trainer (or whatever role you have) to check knowledge, answer questions, or fill in gaps.
Do we really have to do this? It is certainly more work to take that extra step and find an activity that will lock in what they are learning. It is easy to skip it—so many workshop leaders do. Which is why I appreciate this quote from the Training Activity cookbook:
“Some people argue that training doesn’t need all of these activities…. Isn’t a lecture more professional and dignified than using all these activities, anyway?
The short answer is no. There is actually nothing professional or dignified about wasting people’s time, delivering information that they won’t remember by the time they go home that evening…. The kind of training used and the design of that training matters.”
I’m looking forward to kicking off our 2023 Fall Learning Series with Brian Washburn on September 26th. Please consider joining us. Every participant in the session will get a copy of Endurance Learning’s Training Activity Cookbook by Brian Washburn and his colleague Lauren Wescott.
Here’s my “sketch notes” version of these ideas. Effective activities help us fulfill our promise to the people learning, recognizes what comes before and after the training, gives opportunities for them to exert effort in learning, and receive feedback. So much joy!
- Thinking out loud about learning across time
How do we apply lessons from the past to make progress in the future when things in the present keep evolving?
I’ve been thinking about this in the context of designing trainings, but it is applicable to fundraising, event planning, conference organizing, and nearly everything else we are doing in the social sector. It arose in working on lessons related to board practice and philanthropy, both of which are evolving significantly as we talk more about equity and systems for inclusion. The traditional method of articulating the framework that’s worked in the past and devising lessons to teach that “recipe” results in a curriculum that is out of date the moment it is done. A conference planner that takes past success and implements exactly that again may be missing what is needed in the moment we are in now.
This isn’t a new question. We are always grappling with how to take what’s worked and pull it forward into future programming. We have rightly moved away from identifying “best practice” to creating solutions that are responsive to context and culture. There’s more openness to moving away the framework – the formula for success – to a set of solutions that are malleable to the situation. And yet it seems like an open conversation about this question might help us to make more progress.
I’ve been drawing on a few ways to answer this question. What would you add to this list?
Purpose: Stay focused the why of the lesson, action, or event. It is the north star through all of the detail. Remind people regularly what the purpose is so they know that the goal is that destination, not the pathway they take to get there.
Values: Anchor the conversation in values. In philanthropy lessons, for example, whatever recipe I may give you for how to give your money away will be guided by a set of values that will remain true no matter which pathway you take. The exact structure used to organize a conference designed around learning, curiosity, and connection will evolve over time.
Levers: Rather than one framework, I’ve been using the concept of levers more than ever. I can’t give you the solution to your board, but I can give you a set of levers to try. Another way I often frame this: There are a few toys in the sandbox that we can play with. Which toy is most relevant to you? The lever framework (see what I did there?) invites people to enter the problem solving sooner because they need to identify their challenge in order to unlock a possible solution.
Humility: Being expert in something is evolving as our world evolves. It is increasingly okay to share the limitations of using past solutions for future action with the people around us, whether they are students, colleagues, or clients. Experts may have a toolbox of solutions that have worked in the past. They have a set of experiences that inform how we would approach the future. They recognize people who are expert at context or culture (so often termed “lived experience” these days). Ultimately we are finding our way together.
How do you apply lessons from the past to solutions for the future when things keep changing?
What would you add to this list?Please let me know. I’m happy to share out what we come up with.
- Show and tell: Projects designed to solve challenges
Summer is a great time to slow down and take stock of what we’ve been working on. Partners come to us with design challenges centered on how to help people take action on something. I want to share some of these challenges and solutions in case they might help you think about a challenge in front of you.
How do we strengthen nonprofit boards?
Community foundations and nonprofit associations have the challenge of training up board members, particularly after a few years of not meeting in a room together. This includes improving general board practice, as well as financial literacy important in making consequential decisions.
The Nonprofit Board Certificate Program has provided an off-the-shelf solution for the four foundations and associations that have licensed it, with many more boards working through the course on their own. In June, we released Let’s Talk Money: Nonprofit Finance Basics to get everyone up to speed and on the same page when it’s time to talk about financial statements, cashflow, budgeting, IRS Form 990, and internal controls. Both classes are also taught live, providing multiple ways for a community to strengthen their nonprofit boards. Visit the Nonprofit Learning Center.
How do we use economic data to strengthen our sector?
The Florida Nonprofit Alliance produces an Economic Impact Report that highlights the power of the nonprofit sector. It wanted to go one step further and show nonprofit leaders how they might use this data to strengthen their organization, connect with others, and grow their collective power.
We produced the Strength in Numbers Guide to help people navigate through a data dashboard and pull out relevant data that tells a story about their organization. We used a fish narrative to draw people through the content.
How do we keep volunteers safe and healthy?
During a webinar for food bank directors last year, a participant mentioned that she struggled with volunteer training. She’s busy, and volunteers come and go and don’t have a lot of time for training. In partnership with the Washington Food Coalition, we created flip cards on common volunteer safety topics, complete with a QR code that leads to a short video.
Flip through four cards here.
Visit the Nonprofit Safety Hero website .
How do we make a conference program worth keeping?
The Central Washington Conference for the Greater Good is focused on giving people the information, tools, and connections they need to contribute to their communities as nonprofits and as a community of nonprofits. The conference committee wanted to make the day one that provided reflection and concrete action steps, so we created a conference notebook in the style of a composition notebook. We included all of the worksheets for general sessions and lots of blank pages for other aspects of the conference. (Yes, we provided colored pencils on the tables.) See the whole program here.
These are just a few of the projects we are working on. If you see something here that sparks your interest– or have another design challenge you want to run past us, please don’t hesitate to reach out.
- A conversation about the Nonprofit Learning Ecosystem
Truth be told, I have never worked in the corporate learning and development (L&D, as insiders call it) sector to know for sure how nonprofit learning differs. I have, however, spent hundreds of hours participating in L&D conferences, attending workshops, and listening to podcasts, and the reality of L&D programs in corporate settings feels very different from the realities I experience every day advancing learning in the social sector.
I talked about the nonprofit learning ecosystem on one of my favorite podcasts, Instructional Designers in Offices Drinking Coffee (#IDIODC). Take a listen!
- People who manage people: Let’s set supervisors up for success
A free webinar on June 1 from 10am-11pm Pacific on how we can set people who manage people up for greater success
The staff turnover that has happened over the past few years—and it still happening in many workplaces—is taking its toll on our nonprofit leaders. Executive Director’s are tired restaffing and then training new people in supervisory positions. People in those new positions aren’t thriving because they haven’t been trained on how to lead teams or supervise staff or volunteers.
When the same topic comes up five times in a week, you start to think there is a system problem at play. Indeed, LinkedIn Learning recently cited upskilling and employee retention as two of their top focus areas. I won’t cite the many training and development articles that name the need for training and development as a core function to retain staff—of course they think their own industry is the solution. But isn’t it? Aren’t people more likely to stay in a job, experience the joy of improved performance, and generally be happier if they are given the knowledge, tools, and coaching they need to thrive?
Which brings me to June 1. About a month ago, HR expert and leadership consultant Skye Mercer and I had an email exchange about our common experience talking with nonprofit leaders about the need for supervisor training. We decided to take our conversation into the public space and offer an interactive webinar that dives into the why, what, and how related to implementing more intentional supervisor training.
Think about it this way: Imagine a nonprofit educator and HR expert walk into a bar They sit down on one of those revolving bar stools next to an exasperated food bank Executive Director who is discovering the knowledge gaps of a warehouse manager just promoted to a team lead position. What would they talk about?
A preview into what I’m thinking:
- Supervisor learning and development involves both the “boss” and the new supervisor. (I say “boss” because “supervisor’s supervisor” is clunky, and that person may be the ED or CEO or may be in a different role.) The magic happens when we go beyond formal training and consider the coaching and performance support that provides “just in time” feedback.
- We need to engage these new supervisors in effective, evidence-based training and development. This isn’t going to shock anyone here, but we know a lot about cognitive overload, memory, and behavior change to lean on. I think about Emma Weber’s work on learning transfer; we can integrate focus, reflection, and accountability into our approach so supervisors develop into effective team and organizational leaders. Let’s maximize the time we have applying what we know about our brains and bodies.
- Nonprofits can’t do it alone. Associations have a role to play in supporting supervisor development. Small nonprofits in particular don’t have enough professional development dollars to hire a leadership coach (sadly). And funders, you can support the causes you care about by investing in the development of the people rising into supervisory positions.
The webinar is June 1 from 10am-11pm Pacific. Space is limited, so register soon if you are interested. All registrants will get the recording.
Welcome to the conversation!
- Just don’t say the “S” word
Strategy. I said it. In one project, we danced around the word avoiding it valiantly because we didn’t want to scare anyone off. In two other projects, it became clear that the gerbil wheel of programming may need some “deeper thought and alignment” (did I avoid the word?). But no, we didn’t have time for a strategy—just focus on the work. Cue the gerbil. And then there’s the partner who told me simply that no one is interested in strategy. I’m starting to feel that this is true.
I imagine someone has studied the history of strategic planning in the nonprofit sector and can explain how it became so angstful. (The German major in me wants to ask how the nonprofit Zeitgeist became angstvoll, but I digress.) Haven’t we moved beyond this prevalent idea that a strategy is a dusty binder on the shelf? No one uses binders anymore. Our collective antipathy for strategy is doing us a huge disservice.
We can’t complain about having to work this hard if we don’t pause for reflection on what really matters.
We can’t wonder why we aren’t moving the needle on our missions when we haven’t considered the one thing that will give us a structural advantage.
We have evolved how we think about fundraising, equity, advocacy, and so much more. I believe that we can evolve how we think about strategy.
As many in this community know, I think a lot about learning strategy. We want to move _____ (person/type of person) to do ____ (action). We want our clients to access SNAP benefits or experience the love found within a safe recovery space. We want board members to engage in decision-making and legislators to vote for budgets that favor the communities we represent. We want volunteers not to cut their fingers off while working in the food bank on Saturday. (We have a training for that.)
For all of that to happen, the people we are trying to move to action need information, tools, and confidence. Our work demands incredible courage, which means we need creative spaces in which people can practice hard things. And when questions arise in the middle of the challenge, we need technical assistance to answer questions in real time.
Recently I’ve been referencing JD Dillon’s Modern Learning Ecosystem Framework with clients curious to imagine what strategy to move people to sustained action might look like. Instead of putting all our eggs in the training basket, we consider the nuances of push (required) and pull (desired) training and build an infrastructure of learning supports that moves us closer to where the work happens. What if we stopped all training tomorrow and focused instead on identifying who knows what in our community and pro-actively connected people with each other and well-curated resources.
Modern Learning Ecosystem Framework by JD Dillon. There are, of course, parallels in organizational strategy. The leverage would fall not in the programs themselves but the connective tissue between programs. We would focus on how well one message or outcome could be woven across audiences, events, relationships, partnerships, etc. Whatever your line of work is, I imagine there are tactics that range in availability and structure, as the Modern Learning Ecosystem Framework shows us above.
I’ve decided that the “S” word is much like broccoli to a child. The emotion triggered by broccoli feels disproportionate to the product, which really isn’t that big a deal. The spring purple broccoli at our local farmers market is actually pretty incredible! Let’s keep bringing up strategy – or “deep reflection and alignment” if that’s how we are going to hide it under the mashed potatoes. Our missions need us to leverage everything we got.
- Lessons from a camel
And other reflections from Morocco
Everything they say about time away is true. In March I was deeply fortunate to spend two weeks in Morocco with a group of college friends. I’ve been back for two weeks and think every day about how climate change is etching its impacts in every aspect of Moroccan life.
I’ve been reflecting on other aspects of my experience as well. Here are three thoughts related to learning and nonprofits.
1. You can’t expect people to know something they don’t know.
I never imagined myself riding a camel into the Saharan sunset, and yet there I was, adorned in a purple turban in a line of friends sitting on camels. At the conclusion of our ride, the camel driver ordered the camel to lower, which involved a collapse of its front legs followed by the back. I was unprepared for the 45 degree drop in the saddle. The handle caught my legs in a forward fall. The bruises just cleared, but the admonishment of the camel driver remains on my mind. Turns out I was supposed to scoot back on the saddle prior to the camel’s lowering.
As if I had any way to know that.
I’ve already written about prior knowledge and how it is the biggest determiner of future knowledge. When you know nothing about camel riding, there is nothing to build on. We can’t hold people accountable for knowledge they have no way of having.
But I’m thinking also of the recent email I got from a board member asking to explain more about financial statements and how to calculate a current ratio. So much about board practice is information that non-board members would have no reason to know prior to joining a board. Just as I have given myself grace for ungracefully dismounting from that camel, I’m thinking about how we can create plentiful, joyful opportunities for board members to learn information for the first time.
I also am reminded that there are some things we may not need to know at all. I have no future plan to ride a camel. I don’t need to know how to dismount one. I’m far more interested other aspects of Morocco (see next point). Similarly, there are a lot of aspects of nonprofit practice that board members or other members of the nonprofit team don’t need to know, or at least know well enough to perform. That laundry list of skills we so often hear — board practice, finance, fundraising, advocacy, and on and on. It isn’t realistic. My camel reminded me to celebrate what people know and want to know and let go of the rest.
2. Pay attention to what connects the parts. It is captivating—and holds important culture lessons.
One of the delightful aspects of Moroccan dress is the ubiquitous djellaba, a wool hooded robe often in earthen tones that keeps people warm and clean on dusty streets. There are male and female versions. If wool weren’t so impractical in Seattle weather, I think I would live in one.
It took me about a week to look closer at how these robes are constructed. In many, the seams were embroidered, not simply sewn as one might expect in a utilitarian garment.
I then started going into finer dress shops to see this embroidery closer up, and the simplest shirts featured intricate ribbons of embroidery that connects the cloth pieces together or trims the edges in beautiful ways. Camels may not be my thing, but I’m all in on learning more about this embroidery and how I can add this type of detail to my sewing projects.
The embroidery itself reflects Moroccan culture and reminds us about culture in general. An effective organizational culture is so easy to miss at far range, and yet close up we know the effort it takes to create an organization that others want to be a part of. I’m thinking about recent conversations about generational differences within our staffs and inclusion of diverse people that represent our communities. We weave together our values and norms to connect the functional areas of our work– HR, finance, fundraising, board practice, etc. — to create unique, joyful, meaningful, and impactful work spaces.
An effective culture is one that catches our attention, like that embroidery, and makes us curious to learn more. I’ve already checked out a book on embroidery from the library.
3. Awe is an important emotion, no camel required.
The week after I returned, “awe” entered my inbox in two ways. Hidden Brain released a podcast on awe with Dacher Keltner (author of Awe: The Transformative Power of Everyday Wonder), and then the British Psychological Society dropped their newsletter with the headline, “Kids help others more after experiencing awe.” Awe, to use Keltner’s definition, is “the feeling of being in the presence of something vast that transcends your current understanding of the world.” In a nutshell, awe makes us more connected, generous, curious, and a bunch of other positive emotions we need more of in our world.
This focus on awe gave me a word to describe what I experienced on the Sahara. I understood better why it matters so much that we have experiences that connect us with the vastness outside of ourselves. I appreciated Keltner’s reminder to find awe in our everyday world, from the seed forcing its way through the spring earth to the people we know who share with us new ways of being, expanding our understanding of ourselves.
I’m thinking a lot about how to bring awe into our nonprofit gatherings, from board meetings to conferences. How can we invite people into experiences that transcend their current understanding of the world? How can we create that beginner’s mind of seeing something again for the first time? How can we find joy in the vastness of our sector to advance the greater good?
We live in an incredible world.
- Learning styles are a myth… and why it matters to nonprofits
There’s so much magic at the intersection of adult learning and nonprofits. We can unlock our teams’ full potential when we look at how to reduce the information dump, tap into how spaced communications increase memory, or thinking about how our cognitive biases get in the way of making good decisions.
(Got some free time? Explore the Cognitive Bias Codex. Imagine if our boards identified one bias they have and how they might address it. 🤯)
I shared adult learning tips for nonprofits in my free webinar on Five Ways to Help People Be More Effective. If you missed it, you can watch the recording. Short on time? It’s only 29.5 minutes at 2x speed!
What isn’t helpful, however, are learning styles. When teaching about adult learning, I usually tiptoe to the topic and warn people that some may get mad at me. I’ll come right out and say it here: learning styles have been determined to be a myth. You aren’t a visual learner. Your partner isn’t an auditory learner despite listening to podcasts. Children of a certain race aren’t naturally kinesthetic learners, something I was once told by an Executive Director whose organization worked closely with these kids. People may have preferences, but there is no evidence that you actually learn better that way. (Citations at the end.)
The good news is that we all learn better when we mix learning methods together. (We talk about that on the webinar.) Think of it as a learning method cocktail—just the right level of auditory, visual, and kinesthetic learning blended together to produce something that is more than its parts.
Why do I bring this up? Why burst the bubble of something that has become as part of people’s identity as their equally-mythical Myers-Briggs letters?- The learning style myth wastes resources. One leader was producing the same material in multiple formats to appease these various kinds of learners. Mediocre trainings waste time by teaching to perceived learning styles. And then there are the children of that school whose leader was ill-informed about how young people learn. When we don’t leverage evidence-based learning and behavior change tools, we aren’t making the most of our limited time and money.
- It gives people false knowledge about learning. While we are putting our learning eggs in that basket, we aren’t exploring other evidence-based baskets to find practices that are helpful. One example is “dual coding” research which teaches us how to balance written, visual, and auditory input to move information into memory. It’s often called “double-barreled learning” because of its powerful impact. A quick lesson in dual coding can turn hum-drum presentations into something people won’t forget. (The lesson is on the webinar starting around minute 15.) And that’s just one example!
- It gets in the way of more helpful knowledge-related differences between people. I think about this quote from learning expert Patti Shank, PhD: “What we remember and can use… depends more on what we already know about the topic than what we see and hear. That’s because what we already know gives meaning to what we see and hear.” It’s not learning styles. It is prior knowledge that matters most.
So what kinds of prior knowledge might we consider? Let’s start with these four kinds of knowledge:
Explicit knowledge
Knowledge that is easily expressed, organized, or verbalized.
Examples: All of the printed materials that contain information, instructions, etc. Consider your handbooks, orientation tools, or other guides. We tend to focus on this kind of knowledge in the nonprofit space. We can fall into the trap that these lessons and materials contain ALL the knowledge there is.
Tacit knowledge
Knowledge of things we aren’t readily able to articulate and aren’t always even aware we know them.
Examples: How to drive, how to read, etc. We know we know it, but we may struggle to break it down into its steps. We may assume other people also have this knowledge. I think about how an Executive Director may know fundraising, but board members know what it is but not the steps to do it.
Dispersed knowledge
Information is divided amongst many sources.
Examples: Financial markets and the dispersed information contained within the network. Many non-White groups practice dispersed knowledge, relying on the group to remember stories and information rather than any one individual or source. This is the kind of knowledge to lean into as we center equity and non-White ways of doing things.
Inflexible knowledge
Knowledge stored in long-term memory but tied to surface structures only. Someone knows something in one context but can’t access that knowledge in a different context.
Examples: Knowledge learned in a workshop, meeting, or board room that can’t later be applied outside of that context. Knowledge learned to solve one problem that can’t be applied to an analogous problem. Think fundraising knowledge that someone can’t transfer to advocacy.As we create inclusive spaces and help others be more effective, we can tap into the diversity of knowledges that people bring into our organizations. Building on their prior knowledge helps them learn and remember. Diverse groups make better decisions. Engaging the diverse knowledges among us makes us collectively smarter. That’s the kind of differences in people worth thinking about.
What can you do to debunk the learning style myth and advance evidence-based practices?- Learn more about the research related to learning styles if you want to know more. Start here: Research related to learning styles and
Video “The Biggest Myth in Education” - Watch the webinar to learn about research-based practices that can help our nonprofits
- Choose one topic related to adult learning and learn more. Send me an email if you are curious about any specific topic. I can point you in the right direction.
- 🎉 Celebrate 🎉how effective our sector will be if we make the most out of every document, meeting, event, and interaction. We are powerful when we are focused and working together.
- The learning style myth wastes resources. One leader was producing the same material in multiple formats to appease these various kinds of learners. Mediocre trainings waste time by teaching to perceived learning styles. And then there are the children of that school whose leader was ill-informed about how young people learn. When we don’t leverage evidence-based learning and behavior change tools, we aren’t making the most of our limited time and money.
- Boards ready to serve
On any pre-pandemic day, there were board members serving any nonprofit that might benefit from a clearer sense of their role. Two years of Zoom meetings challenged the best run organizations, and now a constant refrain among the nonprofits I work with is the need for effective, practice-changing board education.
The research backs up the need. In a recent BoardSource webinar, the speakers cited conclusions from a recent survey:
- Board members are disconnected from the communities and people they serve.
- They are ill-informed about the ecosystems in which they operate.
- Boards lack in racial and ethnic diversity.
- Boards are pre-occupied with fundraising above all else.
The exciting news is that associations and networks are addressing the need for education in systemic ways. Through our new Nonprofit Learning Center, we have been honored to work with the League of Women Voters of Washington as they invested in our Nonprofit Board Certificate Course to make it available to every league in the state. Our statewide Leagues are doing heroic work on the front lines of our democracy. Their effectiveness will be amplified through a league-wide focus on board leadership.
We are similarly partnering with two other associations, providing licenses to the on-demand board course to make learning free for all of their members. From a social change point of view, powerful things can happen when cohorts of leaders within a movement or region have a common set of information on which to build their practice. Performance-based education means that they complete any training with concrete action steps that can be sustained over time.
Board education is most effective right now when it intentionally addresses two kinds of learners: those serving for the first time and veteran board members who think they know the job and yet are leading when circumstances have changed. (I’m drawing from the 5 Moments of Need by Bob Mosher and Conrad Gottfredson, also explained here.) Board service heading into 2023 is not even the same as board service 2019! We’ve tossed “best practice” out the window because it reflects none of the nuance that comes from authentic leadership based within communities, exercised by diverse people, informed by societal shifts, and occupied with the real task of governance.
To create the space to explore these ideas, we’ve been leading a 90-minute abridged version of the the Nonprofit Board Certificate Course that focuses on the four conversations every board should be having as we go into 2023:
Purpose: What role does our organization play within our community and the larger ecosystem? (What does leadership look like if we put purpose first?)
People: Who can ensure that we fulfill that role and govern our organization with accountability to the people we serve?
Culture: How do our board members work together and with others so everyone is valued and feels a sense of belonging?
Focus: What are the conversations of consequence that our board needs to focus on?Think of a board that you know: which of these questions should that board focus on?
More on boards
Sarah Brooks and I focused on boards for three Nonprofit Radio Show episodes this fall. Take a listen, and remember to subscribe!
Well-functioning boards: Ideas for board members
Well-functioning boards: Ideas for staff members
Upcoming board-related events
January 4: Build a Powerhouse Board (with Iowa Nonprofit Alliance 🎉)
Starting January 10: Powerhouse Boards (for Washington Food Coalition members)
Starting January 11: Powerhouse Boards with the North Carolina Center for Nonprofits (open reg)
January 12: Nonprofit Boards with Native Action Network (for Native-led nonprofits)
Anytime board learning: Nonprofit Board Certificate Course (in English or Spanish)
Nonprofit Board Certificate Workbook & Checklists (28 pages)
- Working Across Language and Culture
Early in my career, I taught English and social studies to students whose first languages spanned the globe. We understood that people learn best in their first language. Their second language acquisition builds off their first language knowledge. And language is nested within culture. Making education or information accessible to diverse audiences involved a curiosity and humility that taught us as much as we might have taught them.
Today, our communities are culturally and linguistically diverse. Our boards are diversifying, and our learning programs are expanding to fully engage people who may not prefer to learn within the dominant language or culture. We have opportunities to be intentional about how we create learning or meeting spaces that include this language and/or cultural diversity.
Over the past few months, over 60 people have been participating in our Design Learning Spaces for Belonging series. Roo Qallaq Ramos invited us to see equity work as an act of joy. Yes! Elizabeth Ralston pushed us to think about the 25% of people who have disabilities. Who are we leaving out if we aren’t making our programs inclusive? On Wednesday, November 16, Danielle Gines and Margaret “Meps” Schulte will share their knowledge, experiences, and tools on how to “Design Learning Spaces for Culture and Knowledge.”
In preparation for this class, Meps sat down with the translator/interpreter we’ve been working with to get his insights. Juven Garcia has simultaneously and asynchronously interpreted learning sessions, translated written materials, and advised us on projects. In this two-minute highlight, Juven shares some lessons learned. (Class participants will receive the full 30-minute video.) Building partnerships like we have with Juven has been a thread throughout the series.
I appreciate Juven’s reminder to think deeply about the people we are trying to reach. I think about this on the personal level—who are these people, and what are their knowledge, skills, and emotions related to this topic. I also think about this on the societal level—using census data to find out who lives within our communities (whether we see them or not), and how engaging them fulfills our mission. A June 2022 report, published in the Daily Yonder, cited a 20% increase in the portion of rural residents who are members of a racial or ethnic minority. Some of these people may have experienced a different first language or culture. They may be on your board, in your classrooms, or otherwise involved in the work you do. How can you be intentional in how you engage them?
We warmly invite you to join us for this final session in our Design Learning Spaces for Belonging Series.
I write this post with gratitude for my own language and culture teachers, most particularly Frau Weigl, Sou Digna women in Brazil, FIUTS international students, and Juven Garcia, who generously shared his insights for this project.
- The power of curiosity
Curiosity is a powerful thing. It motivates people to learn. It inspires the hunt for information, leading to better decisions. It’s been shown to improve performance. A curious mind remembers more.
(Look at the bottom of this article for the research behind these statements. When else today will you have the chance to read about dopaminergic circuits?)
Curiosity is something we want to increase as educators, leaders, citizens, parents, etc. So how do we help people to be more curious? Curiosity is an emotion, so we need to rephrase that question. How do we help people to feel more curious? Specifically, how do we help people feel more curious about what we want them to be curious about?
I began thinking about curiosity generally as a part of my work to get people thinking about how we can change what we do to help others take action. Emotions are a key element in our “aim for action” model. I’ve also been thinking about it in the context of our fall series, Design Learning Spaces for Belonging. In their session on racial equity, Roo Ramos invited us to be curious about creating equitable spaces as acts of joy. In her session on accessibility on October 27, Elizabeth Ralston will create a space in which we can be curious about ability and disability. (A few spots are still available.) A healthy dose of curiosity in each other and our own ability to shift how we show up will lead to more equity in the world.
It is not surprising that curiosity is the link to learning, memory, and performance since it is an emotion. We know that emotions are the door to motivation. One of my favorite articles, “Change or Die”, speaks to the power of emotions in behavior change. Behavior scientist BJ Fogg teaches us that people are motivated sensation (pleasure/pain), anticipation (hope/fear), and belonging (social acceptance/rejection). You can pique curiosity by a moment of surprise (pleasure), a gap in a story (anticipation), or a connection between the information and someone in the room (social acceptance).
Feeling more curious—and inviting that feeling in others—seems like an important goal right now. Luckily we can turn to what we already know about good teaching and learning to find our next steps. Start with “them,” whoever they are. Understand what they care about and how your content is relevant to them. Ask better questions. Listen carefully.
Your investment in curiosity isn’t a superficial act but a commitment to better learning, decision making, memory, and movement forward. What could be more joyful than that?
Some resource on curiosity
- The psychology and neuroscience of curiosity
- States of Curiosity Modulate Hippocampus-Dependent Learning via the Dopaminergic Circuit
- CuriosityBased (by Dr. Julie Pham) has many resources on curiosity-related topics
Fall series continues on October 27
Recent Nonprofit Radio Show episodes
What to do about inflation
Facilitation with Mike Beebe
Who to call when you need help
Our Good Things List
Well-functioning boards: Ideas for board members
Well-functioning boards: Ideas for staff members - Nekya’s Two Cents
Nekya Johnson is Director of Community Impact & Grantmaking and Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DEI) Diva at the Community Foundation of Snohomish County. She asked how should could help get the word out about our fall learning series that centers equity and belonging. I am very grateful that she took time to write a guest blog post on why this work matters.
I once heard someone say, “nonprofit leaders and stakeholders are the superheroes of the world because the world looks to them to solve everyday problems that government can’t solve.” Not sure how true those words are but I do know that most nonprofit leaders and consultants are White and hold power and privilege that influences who gets access to life changing resources. According to the Nonprofit Quarterly, more than 80% of U.S. nonprofits are led by White leaders. This chilling statistic means White nonprofit leaders and consultants cannot afford to “other” their diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) goals, mission, and work.
It is my hope that nonprofit allies like Nancy Bacon continue to push themselves to find innovative ways to leverage their privilege and create brave spaces to call in allies, call out White supremacy, and remove barriers. In case you did not know – racism, sexism, and ableism are not societal barriers that exist outside the nonprofit space which means there is no space for allies to “bury their head in the sand.” It is my hope that registered attendees for the Designing Learning Spaces for Belonging workshop series will come with an appetite to learn new strategies for centering their DEI goals and prioritizing their commitment to remove systemic barriers that hinder BIPOC, diversely abled, and underserved populations. After learning about new strategies and making time to unpack the lessons learned from the 3—part workshop series led by the following facilitators with lived experience: (Roo Qallaq (Racial Equity workshop on 9/27), Elizabeth Ralston (Accessibility workshop on 10/27) and Danielle Gines/Margaret Schulte (Culture and Language Diversity on 11/16). I am confident attendees will strengthen their “ally muscle” and walk away with tools and information to better support diverse, under-served communities in need of resources.
The series begins on September 27. Register today to save your spot.
- Do The Work
An invitation to join the Fall Learning Series that starts on September 27
Last month I picked up a new book focused on racial equity. Everything about this book spoke to me. Its title was action focused. Its pages offered lots of space for writing, coloring, and playing. It balances activities to do alone and ways to have important conversations with others. Its tone is one of empathy yet impatience.
The book is Do The Work! An Antiracist Activity Book written by W. Kamau Bell and Kate Schatz. It many ways, this book heartened me as I worked with colleagues to shape our fall learning series. You see, the paragraph at the bottom of the cover could be rewritten to describe what many people who train – or produce training events or any events at all – are experiencing right now.
Here’s the original:“For all of the people overwhelmed by racial injustice and white supremacy in America, who’ve taken some action and know they can do more, but don’t always know what to do or how to do it, or are afraid of getting it wrong or not knowing enough and are left wondering what do I dooo…”
Now swap out the fifth word — people — for whatever role you want to consider… trainer, teacher, program director, consultant, conference planner, etc.
“For all of the nonprofit educators overwhelmed by racial injustice and white supremacy in America, who’ve taken some action and know they can do more…”
Like you, I think often about how to integrate of racial equity into my work. I know I can do more.
Here are just two questions I’ve been thinking about lately:- How can we make sure our lessons acknowledge the privilege, power-reality, or White dominant culture that impacts the questions and solutions we are offering? I think about a recent curriculum project related to leadership transitions on how “best practice” is falling on its heels as we seek new ways to hire and support diverse people. We ended up by naming White culture as something for boards to understand and wrestle with. Should we be doing that more?
- How can we proactively support a diverse training corps? Too often topics like finance and fundraising are taught by White consultants or trainers while equity-related topics are taught by people of color. How do we as a sector diversify who teaches “bread and butter” topics so diverse perspectives challenge what people learn?
Roo Qallaq Ramos To change how we work, we need a space to work out what that means for ourselves, our organizations, our collaborations, etc. That’s why I invited our colleague Roo Qallaq Ramos to guide our learning and conversation related to racial equity in learning spaces. Roo is Iñupiaq (Alaska Native), an educator, and a nonprofit leader, currently serving as the Executive Director of the Spectrum Center in Spokane, Washington. Roo is a brilliant thinker on all things racial equity and a fierce challenger to the status quo. (For a sneak listen, hop over the Nonprofit Radio Show podcast where we interviewed Roo in 2021). Roo will kick off the Fall Learning Series on September 27.
Topics for “Design Learning Spaces for Racial Equity” include:Learning strategy
Community
Capacity
Curriculum & instruction
CommunicationsIf you represent an association or larger organization involved in training, let’s talk about how to get your members or team involved. One hunger agency has a team coming, and we are delighted to partner with the Maine Nonprofit Association and the North Carolina Center for Nonprofits.
Each of us can do the work better if we do the work together. Can we count on you joining us for the Fall Learning Series? We hope so!
- A frame helps them listen, think, and take action
Imagine you want to spend the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee catching up on your royal reading. You meander over to your bookshelf to find Paul Burrell’s A Royal Duty, and stand there… and stand there… where could it be?
That searching feeling is what a lot of people experience in trainings or meetings when we don’t frame the conversation. They spend a lot of brain power trying to find a hook to grab on to. You’ve heard the saying, “If you tell them everything, they’ll remember nothing.” Its auditory parallel is: “If they are expected to listen to everything equally, they’ll remember nothing,”
When we frame information, we put boundaries around a topic and tell people what to focus on. We do the thinking work so they don’t have to.
Why does this matter? People will use a frame to process information regardless of our actions. If we don’t provide a frame, they will create their own. Their frame may not be the one that we want them to have. (Cue the board member who starts talking about the photocopy budget when you were hoping to have a meaty conversation about a strategic decision.) In a training room, that means that each person is thinking about the topic through their own filter, which makes your job a lot harder and may mean they don’t solve their biggest challenges. I often get asked how to manage many different levels in one workshop or webinar. Framing is one of the tools I have in my toolbox.
Here are two examples from a recent board training.
Time
A word cloud created from crowdsourcing their biggest barriers. The number one barrier holding board members back is time, they said. Since I always promise to leave them with practical solutions to their barriers, I spent a lot of time thinking about time. How could I frame “time” to get them unstuck? I landed on a goal of finding three ways to address time—how to be more efficient (save time), effective (deeper use of time), and expansive (expand how many hours we engage in our mission). I shared this framing at the start of session two:
Time is a barrier holding a lot of your boards back. As we go through today’s session, I want you to ask yourself three questions. What can I take from this content to make us (1) more efficient, (2) more effective, or (3) more expansive in how we add hours to our reserve of time? We are looking for solutions that achieve these three goals. I’ll ask you at the end what you come up with.
When we checked in with our framing at the end, they had discovered ways to save time, make better use of time, and engage their larger community to add time. They were on their way to addressing their biggest barrier.
Expert vs. Novice
During day two of the class, we cover what every board member needs to know about finance. This is a high level, basic information that will put to sleep experienced board members or finance experts. Yet new board members tend not know this information, and they need to. Enter framing.
The framing of finance content for experts and novices. If you are expert, listen for how to support others. If you are a novice, listen for what you need to know. We are going to spend the next 30 minutes talking about nonprofit finance basics. We have a lot of diversity of experience in the room. I know there are veteran nonprofit leaders here—you already know what I’m about to share. And I know we have new board members here too—we are so excited that you are here with us! I want to frame what you should be listening for as we cover this information. If you are new to nonprofit finance, I want you to listen to WHAT you need to know. If you are an experienced finance person, I want you to listen for HOW you can support those who are new. Listen to both the information and how I deliver it because you might play the role of teacher within your board.
Framing prepares our audience to listen. It forces them to think as they answer those framing questions for themselves. If you have taken my Trainer Academy class, you’ve heard me talk about how framing questions at the start of a session helps learners focus their attention, sometimes more effectively than stated learning objectives. (Learn more about that here.) When people have to listen and think, they are more likely to act.
Ah, here’s A Royal Duty. Nicely framed so I can stop looking.
Please check out my new board training, now on-demand! Whole boards are taking the course as whole boards—imagine how powerful that is! It is available in English and Spanish.
- How do you know you made a difference?
Ultimately, we work this hard to make a difference. We are trying to move the needle on what people do. This is true for the trainers reading this who want to know if time in the classroom– or on Zoom– transfers into a change in approach or behavior. It is also true for you nonprofit leaders who run programs towards some outcome: expanded services, a protected environment, communities enriched through the arts, etc.
How do we know if we made a difference? How do we do evaluation simply given all of the demands on our time and the fact that too often, evaluation is not funded.
Fortunately, we have evaluation experts to turn to as we expand how we measure the difference that we are making. Learning expert Will Thalheimer recently released the second edition of his book on learning evaluation, Performance-Focused Learner Surveys. I regularly share his brilliant Learning Transfer Evaluation Model (LTEM) model because it succinctly demonstrates how we might move evaluation from perception to actual performance.
Evaluation expert Chari Smith, author of Nonprofit Program Evaluation Made Simple, provides a similar model for nonprofit programs. Her books tagline cuts right to the point of evaluation: Get your data. Show your impact. Improve your programs. Think about that word “show” and what it means. (I’ve been thinking about it as I roll out a new finance training, Show Me The Money, and plan for ways that people will show what they know.) Show means to make visible, no longer hidden or assumed. This model again moves evaluation from perception to actual performance.
Some reflections distilled from the work of these two experts:
- Evaluation as a tool to learn and improve is a culture issue that needs to be integrated into everything we do. It involves strategy, planning, and systems.
- Evaluation starts with the end in mind. What are you trying to change? What should be different because of that class or program? The answer to that will drive the ways that you can measure that change.
- Evaluation invites us to consider what questions we ask and how we ask them. Thalheimer challenges us to write “distinctive questions” (questions with description answers to choose from) over questions with vague Likert scales. I particularly like how he invites us to consider what is acceptable in terms of the responses we see. For example, if a CPA learns a little at a finance training, that is just as acceptable as a novice learning a lot. Our goal is not for everyone to learn the same amount.
- Evaluation is a team effort. Smith tells the all-to-common story of a grantwriter needing the data described in a proposal that the program manager wasn’t collecting. From a training perspective, the trainer can measure learning in the moment but not how it was applied without collaboration with the manager or organization. We have to work together.
- Evaluation can be simple and done well. We have all been in those meetings where colleagues chase every possible “interesting” data point. When we focus on what we need to learn to improve our and their performance, we can pare down that data to just what we need.
How do you know if you make a difference?
Upcoming learning opportunity
If you are looking to hone your evaluation skills, I encourage you to join Smith for Logic Models Made Simple… and Impact Models Too! on May 12. She will share simple steps to tighten up your evaluation practice. You will leave more confident about ways to build your road map to the kind of evaluation that helps you show your impact.
- Experts, beware
The research stuck in my head when listening to a Nonprofit Financial Basics webinar was this: “Experts are not fully aware of about 70% of their own decisions and mental analysis of tasks and so are unable to explain them fully even when they intend to support the design of training… or work.” Read the whole article
When I develop trainings on a topic, I seek out other trainers leading similar sessions to learn content and see how other people present information. One of my areas of focus these days is financial curriculum, so how sweet to get in my inbox the recording of MBA-educated nonprofit CPA (lots of letters) leading a Nonprofit Financial Basics webinar! Basics… what comes to your mind when you think about financial basics?
Out of the gate, the CPA referenced how a nonprofit would manage a cost reimbursement contract with HUD. How many small to medium nonprofits needing a basics class manage HUD contracts? The session stalled when a passing reference to in-kind donations yielded a flurry of questions about how to manage in-kind. The bread-and-butter of small to medium nonprofits are in-kind donations. I moved on with my day at this point, again reminded how tricky it can be for experts to lead learning sessions, particularly a basics class.
This 70% statistic is so interesting because there are two sides to it. Experts gloss over 70% of the information needed by someone less expert. But they aren’t talking less. That means they are including detail unnecessary and perhaps derailing for the person learning.
Not all experts fall into this trap. I work with incredible experts in finance and HR (and other topics too) who are top in their field and good at meeting learners where they are. In my experience, these experts have invested time and effort in honing their teaching skill.
We are all expert in something. I appreciated this reminder to slow down, spend time deeply understanding the needs and knowledge of the person in front of me, and support experts as they share their important knowledge with people who need to know a lot to serve our communities.
Now what…
If you are an expert — or work with one — and are thinking ahead to a workshop or webinar where that expertise will be shared, check out The Trainer Academy. This is our on-demand course designed to help anyone deliver an excellent learning experience that leads them ready to take action.
- Reflections for Association Learning Leaders
I’ve been working closely with several nonprofit and other associations over the past two years and have been thinking about association challenges and opportunities as we move through 2022. I’m sharing what I have been learning and pondering in case it helps you as you think about your work.
1. A learning strategy is more important than ever.
Associations were at various stages of building out a learning strategy when the pandemic hit. Suddenly the content focus shifted to survival, and it became hard to be intentional about how various modes of learning were deployed to move the needle on what mattered before.
The pandemic forced a deeper appreciation for asynchronous learning, online learning, and tools/jobaids to support learning. It has also reminded us how much we need each other to learn and create social change. 2022 is a great year to integrate approaches into a learning strategy that moves the needle on what matters.
2. Good curriculum is the foundation for all learning programs.
I am regularly asked to zhuzh up PowerPoints to make them more learningful. I start by backing up the truck to create an intentional curriculum that centers what people need to know and practice. I am leading seven curriculum development projects this spring, each effort starting with a review of what already exists. My conclusion: there is a whole lot of information dump out there, and sadly that doesn’t lead to learning.
Good curriculum is the cornerstone of an effective learning program. It contains all of the lessons, activities, tools, and jobaids you need to deploy in every different way across your program. It is the cornerstone of your financial and membership strategy too!
3. Investing in the capacity of trainers in your state or region makes your job – and the job of nonprofits in your state – easier and more impactful.
Good curriculum is design. Let’s talk about delivery. Teaching is a professional skill. It is the specialized application of knowledge, skills and attributes designed to help individuals do things differently.
Fortunately we have many strong trainers and facilitators in our sector. We need more. I spent last year observing too many webinars led by consultants with a false sense of confidence in their training ability. Imagine the power of doubling the number of effective teachers advancing your learning strategy.
4. We talk about the role of data and research in social sector solutions. We also have to stay on top of adult learning research as we offer learning solutions.
Learning styles aren’t a thing. Direct instruction is important in learning. Worked examples help novices gain skills. Experts leave out roughly 70% of needed knowledge. Our brains can only handle two channels of information at a time, a rule violated in many PowerPoint presentations. Equity workshops and webinars have very little impact on equity. Evaluations are best when they avoid Likert scales and create baselines for comparison.
It is hard to keep up with all of the adult learning “research to practice” interpreters out there. I make it my business to try, and I still have a stack of articles and books on my coffee table! Our 2022 reflection on curriculum and strategy invites us to dive deeper into adult learning research to maximize our influence over the busy people who attend our programs.
5. We are most effective when we shift our focus to where the work happens.
Many associations have a strategy based on synchronous learning events: workshops, webinars, and conferences. We exist, however, is to help people in how they do their jobs. I’ve been deepening my study of performance-based instruction over the past year, practicing how to move performance support (of which learning is a part) closer to the work flow. As one expert in the field wrote, “knowledge and skills alone can’t fix a problem.”
The simple question “What do people need to do as a result of this workshop/webinar/whatever?” invites a whole range of new possibilities for our learning programs: performance supports, tools, accountability networks, reflection gatherings, technical assistance, job aids, etc. I have seen two shifts in focus with this approach: work on the front end to create tools/supports means you offer fewer workshops and webinars; and a focus on building capacity within organizations and communities to hold the work. - The Deconstructed Conference
I have served on the team producing the Central Washington Conference for the Greater Good since its inception in 2014. This conference was held in person in Yakima for six years, giving local nonprofit leaders a place to learn without having to travel over mountains or vast distances. With one month’s notice in March 2020, it was moved online, replacing the conference hall with Zoom and a Facebook group. In 2021, we intentionally designed an online conference using a conference platform and Zoom. For 2022, we held our annual listening sessions that guide the conference design, and we heard from a variety of nonprofit leaders across Central Washington that they were tired of long days online. They wanted three things: relief from a few pain points, inspiration on how to make their organizations more sustainable and equitable, and to be in community together—in person, if possible– in a COVID-safe way. Read a more complete summary here.
Our model for a “deconstructed conference” evolved out of this feedback. It also responds to what we know about adult learning and behavior change. It is harder to explain than the typical “all you can eat” buffet-style conference, so let’s break down what we are doing and why.
First, let’s define a conference. A learning conference typically has:
- A keynote speaker(s) that inspires,
- Workshops that inform,
- Discussion groups or peer conversations that engage people in smaller groups,
- One-on-one meetings in the hallway, and
- Celebration, often delivered through empowering messages, music, and awards.
Ideally, behind these elements is a strategy move the needle on something because of the investment of time and money to get there. In Central Washington, our strategy—recalibrated every year—has centered on leadership, collaboration, and equity.
Our design question going into 2022: how do we deliver inspiration, information, and celebration in a way that honors people’s burnout and the unpredictability of COVID? Framed another way: with everything happening in 2022, how do we most effectively support these nonprofit leaders as they lead through challenging times, collaborate to solve hard problems, and prioritize equity inside and outside their organizations?
Deconstruct: To reduce (something) to its constituent parts in order to reinterpret it.
The answer for us was to reinterpret our conference. A typical in-person conference hosts people who come to one place at one time. An online conference removes shared space, at least in the physical sense. A deconstructed conference goes a step farther and removes the constraint of time. The elements listed above—the keynote, workshops, discussion groups, and celebration—take place in various spaces over the course of time, in our case two and half months (April-June). The parts get pulled apart and then intentionally woven together to create the whole. In doing so, we have reinterpreted the parts and the whole.
Before I explain exactly what this looks like, I want to share how a deconstructed conference puts into practice what we know about adult learning. Consider this interlude a reflection of my excitement about this technical aspect of the conference. For others, it is my attempt at hiding the broccoli under the mash potatoes before dessert. No matter, grounding our learning events in research is vital if we are going to move the needle on the biggest issues of our time.
Consider these three adult learning ideas:
1. Spaced learning—offering multiple presentations of a topic with a time delay between them—helps people remember because of more and deeper processing time. When people remember more and process more and more deeply, they are more likely to take action on something. Deep, rigorous reflection is what leads to change.
2. Content delivery and social interaction can be expanded and deepened when we leverage the benefits of online vs. in-person events. Online delivery, particularly of speakers from outside our area, is an effective and efficient way to deliver new information. It is harder to have casual conversations online. In-person events, particularly smaller events, are effective at fostering deeper peer conversations. When these conversations happen within a community, a common language forms and accountability teams take shape. Learning transfer (so application of learning back at the office) locks in when people share a goal, have opportunities to keep talking about the topic, and can join with colleagues to implement what was taught.
3. Learning is about doing. We might start learning with a formal event—a class or a conference—and then wander down a path of practicing, getting feedback, finding technical assistance, trying again, and then telling the whole story to someone, which is yet another step in learning. Learning has formal, informal, and social elements that a conference spread over time makes time and space for.
How is this all coming together with this conference?
Here’s how:
Or watch the 3 minute video version.
- Keynote speakers will lead 90-minute sessions via Zoom, framing our conversations for the rest of the conference.
- Community conversations will be facilitated using questions derived from the keynote talks. Ultimately the conversation will center on how those ideas could be implemented in their organization and community.
- Workshops address the two biggest issues cited as challenges and opportunities: HR and financial planning.
- Peer conversations will be facilitated by a peer, with a discussion guide related to the keynotes and two workshops provided. In the case of our financial topic, we have identified subject matter experts within our community who can support “how could we do this” conversations.
- “Get ready” and “for further thought” emails will be sent before and after all events to reduce forgetting and increase action.
This conference has evolved each year as its results bear fruit, and we respond to what people need at the time. This year, we are creating a conference that offers spaced learning, pulling apart content and social interaction to make time and space for reflection, accountability, and implementation. Fingers crossed that it all works the way we’ve planned.
==
RELATED LINKS
If you would like to read more about conference design, download the Conferences That Make a Difference ebook I co-wrote with Mark Nilles.
For more information about the Central Washington Conference for the Greater Good, visit our conference website.
- Small actions
I’ve always liked the quote from Dwight Eisenhower, “If you can’t solve a problem, enlarge it.” It invites us to turn technical problems into system change opportunities. So it is shift for me to be thinking a lot about how to make problems smaller.
More specifically, I’ve been looking at the big actions we want people to take and working out ways to reduce those actions into their parts. If you make actions small enough, even the most unmotivated person might move forward.
I think about small actions from two points of view. First, I am a teacher, eager to design and deliver experiences that reflect what we know about adult learning and human behavior. For example, I appreciate how small actions shift how people first engage in a topic. We can “prime” people for learning or a discussion by inviting them to think about a topic in advance. We can frame our content by asking open-ended or recall questions that get people thinking about the content. Short bits of content spread over time contributes to better memory. Practicing an action, even for a short time, builds muscle memory to repeat that action later on.
We can design and deliver learning experiences and gatherings with “small teaching” moments (to use the name of James M. Lang’s book on the topic).
Give it a try: Think ahead to your next workshop, board meeting, staff meeting, or gathering as a whole: How could you use pre-thinking (priming), framing questions, short bits of content spread out over time, or practice?
I also think about small actions from an outcome point of view. (This is what BJ Fogg explores in Tiny Habits.) What small actions do we want people to take as a result of our lessons or meetings? How do we break down our “ask” as small as possible to address barriers holding them back. Barriers such as:
Motivation. Someone highly motivated to do something may be inclined to “go big.” The rest of us may fall in the low the mid-level of motivation on an action. By making the action smaller, we increase their motivation.
Ability. Peoples’ ability to take an action may fall all over the map. By making the action smaller, we increase the likelihood that they are able to take that action.
Environment. People exist within a social structure and culture. By making the action smaller, we decrease potential cultural resistance to the action. We increase the likelihood that the action is sustained.
I made a list of advocacy-related small actions:
- Choose a specific date or time to start a focus on advocacy. That might be the January board meeting or the first staff meeting after summer holidays. Having a ‘fresh start’ helps you to refresh a commitment.
- Make it fun. Watch Schoolhouse Rock’s “I’m Just a Bill” (available widely on YouTube) together and talk about your experiences with legislation. Discover the policy-making stories of people on your team.
- Spend time imagining the benefits of advocacy for your organization so your team becomes more invested in that picture. If people understand why something is important, they are more likely to be invested in what needs to happen.
- Join one group. Start by joining one group. Become a member of at least one coalition or association to start building connections outside of your organization.
- Name one “value add” that you can contribute to the action of others. You may have one story, one data point, or one solution that would help a coalition’s advocacy effort
I’ve also played around with a small action list for nonprofit boards. It starts with:
- Include one pair-share conversation (people talking in pairs) in your next board meeting.
- Invite someone who is not the ED, board chair, or treasurer to lead the finance conversation.
- Start the meeting inviting people to describe what success looks like for that meeting.
- Pause during a meeting to acknowledge the emotions in the room.
- Go for a walk/have coffee with someone working in/with this nonprofit or a different nonprofit in your community.
- Read one article/book about the cause in which you are working.
- Write one thank you note.
I suppose Eisenhower’s quote is relevant. If we can’t achieve action now, we need to enlarge our commitment to offering smaller options. We work harder on the front end so they can learn more, remember more, feel more connected, and experience greater motivation and ability to move forward. Given that we are talking about nonprofit leaders and volunteers doing our communities’ most important work, the effort is worth it.
YOUR TURN: What “ask” do you have for someone in your life– a colleague, a child, a partner, a client, etc.? How small can you break that “ask” down?
- Nonprofit Radio Show: Sunshine for Small Nonprofits
One of the gifts of a new year is the opportunity to think about what brings us joy. I look forward to most Fridays when Sarah Brooks and I meet over Zoom to record another episode of the Nonprofit Radio Show. Just before the holidays, we shared our thoughts on how to KonMari your nonprofit (tip of the hat to Marie Kondo and her show on Netflix), and we just released Episode 42 entitled “Breaking the Rules.”
Many of you follow me and this blog because you are interested in adult learning. Others know me from my work leading training and discussions on nonprofit topics. The Nonprofit Radio Show combines both these passions to deliver a resource for rural and small nonprofit leaders who can’t easily access existing workshops or networks. We like to talk about sunshine because, well, Sarah experiences it in Eastern Washington, and I search for it through our many shades of Western Washington gray. We hope our conversations, based on decades of experience working within and with small, rural nonprofits, bring sunshine to the principles, strategies, and values that guide our work.
Often when we are talking about a topic, we fall back on asking about strategy. Whatever we do to raise money, engage our board, or plan for the future, it is important to have a simple strategy that aligns people and purpose. Our learning strategy with the Radio Show is this:
Lift up and celebrate the experiences and advantages of small, rural nonprofits. We talk in our sector about scaling up and building efficiencies in our impact. At the same time, small nonprofits have unique assets as communities working to strengthen community. We want to make sure our small nonprofit colleagues know they are special and see ways to lean into their strengths. We hope to illuminate ways that small nonprofits working together can be just as effective as any large nonprofit “gone to scale.”
Leverage the power of low bandwidth, portable learning. So much online learning depends on reliable high-speed internet, which isn’t a given in many rural homes. People living in rural areas often travel long distances as a regular part of their lives, giving them time in the car to learn. In naming the podcast, we imagined the old time radio shows of the past, and how people would gather around to listen and talk about what they heard. The Nonprofit Radio Show provides discussion questions for each episode to support further conversation.
Center our conversation in a few guiding principles. The body of knowledge contained within the nonprofit sector is vast. How is a volunteer executive director with a family and job expected to stay on top of trends and “best practices”? Start by letting go of the idea of “best practice” because practice exists within the context of the work. Identify a few core principles that serve as an organization’s and leader’s north star. Know your values and live them. Sarah and I named six principles that guide our conversations. As we all work through times defined by ambiguity and the unknown, what are your guiding principles?
Sarah and I warmly invite you to subscribe however you listen to podcasts. Please share the podcast with anyone you know who might be interested. Invite us to your next conference– we love doing live shows! I’ve listed some of our most popular conversations below to help you take a listen to a topic of interest to you.Recent episodes Conversations with guests Here we go again: Ideas for dealing with burnout
What and how: The difference matters
All things databases
Useful free or low cost resources for nonprofits
Create a culture that people want to be a part of
Fundraising metrics for every small nonprofit
Purposeful gathering
Advocacy: Your voice a little louderCentering equity (Qallaq Tara Ramos)
Program evaluation (Chari Smith)
Make the most of social media (Tom Lang)
Your website is your front door (Meps Schulte)
Smart HR in small nonprofits (Skye Mercer)“I’m sitting here stuffing envelopes for our year-end targeted mailing. Your episode on year-end giving inspired an idea that will work really well for our organization. Your advice is always spot on as it is grounded in years of experience. Thanks for sharing your knowledge, ideas, and warmth with the nonprofit world and for putting some sunshine in my day. I want you to know that I appreciate you all at Nonprofit Radio Show! Shannon Koller, WithinReach As you move deeper into your 2022, let me quote our closing line on the Nonprofit Radio Show. You got this!
- Hard out it of to is understand order words.
Hard out it of to is understand order words.
Read that sentence again, turn away from your computer, and recite it back. It is nine words. How many of them can you remember in the right order?
It is hard to understand words out of order. That’s the sentence if we rearrange the words. That sentence is a lot easier to remember because it makes sense. We can feel its truth if we have tried hard enough to remember its words as they first appeared.
As we arrange information to move people to action, we have to pay attention to that same rule: does it make sense? Does it connect with a real emotion? Does is provide the path of least resistance to the most behavior change?
Too often, the answers to these questions are no. We put information out expecting the receivers of that information to reorganize it into something that makes sense to them. We trust that people not expert in our topic are able to take information and apply it to their context, to do things differently without the benefit of practice. That is a big jump.
I know it is also a big jump for people who don’t live and breathe adult learning and curriculum design to innovate new solutions to how they deliver information. It means stepping out of information and into what you want to see or hear at the end. It requires reverse-engineering exactly the right information and practice needed to leave people ready to do things differently in their context. That calibration of content and engagement lies at the heart of a well designed set of resources.
Here’s a program to help. Registration is now open for the 2022 cohort of Design for Results: How to create curriculum that leads to change starting on January 27, 2022. Designed for learning leaders, program directors, consultants, and trainers working in the social sector, it leads participants through a well-tested design process that yields a ready-to-use curriculum (or whatever collection of lessons, tools, and experiences you need to achieve your goals). Participation unlocks a peer group, extensive resources, and one-on-one support available to you until you get where you need to go.
“This curriculum development class inspired me to jettison extraneous information and spend more time expressing my own story and values. The result is a more compelling, actionable experience for my participants.”
Christine scott, seattle conflict resolutionI began this email with the mixed up sentence opening after reading one “must read” book on nonprofit boards that meandered around in circles to the point of confusion. I then reviewed a training intended for action but designed for overwhelm. In both cases, I found myself sorting their parts into a more sensical order. That got in the way of me learning. Your work matters—nothing should get in the way of people learning what you need them to know to move forward.
- The Case for Graphics and Design
“It don’t care what it looks like. The content is there.”
“I’m not good at graphics. I use PowerPoint templates to create a slidedeck.”
“I’m a bullet-point junky. I can’t live without them.”Describe you? Someone you know? I hear versions of these statements regularly in my work with nonprofit consultants and learning leaders. We don’t need good design. We don’t know how to do good design. We don’t have time for good design.
The reality is that everything we produce has a design, whether intentional or not. That design can fall flat and be forgotten as soon as it is seen. Or it can serve as the wind at our backs, or more accurately, the wind at the backs of the people we serve. It can help them to better understand, take action, and learn from our publications and presentations. Graphics and design are a tool in our toolbox that we can choose to use to achieve our goals. Given how short on time and resources our nonprofits are, it seems like leveraging every opportunity we have is a good idea.
“Design is intelligence made visible.”
– Alina Wheeler, author of Designing Brand IdentityI’ve been reviewing the research. Here are some highlights:
- Graphics trigger emotions and attention, increasing engagement in learning. (Increased engagement means that people learn more.)
- Graphics, in combination with narration, increases processing because you are using both auditory and visual channels into the brain. That means people learn more when you appropriately use graphics and narration together.
- Graphics deepen the complexity of information that you can share without brain overload. That means that people learn more with a well-designed graphic over the same information delivered in writing.
- Graphics particularly help novices learn more. People new to something need the added boost to make sense of what you are teaching them.
Notice the repetition here…. “people learn more.” That’s what this is all about: learn more, remember more, do more of what you learn.
So what does all of this mean? Since so many people rely on the PowerPoint slidedeck to share their content, it means first that we need to stop producing “slideuments” (a term created by Garr Reynolds), which are documents disguised as PowerPoint presentations. You know what I mean… slides and slides of bullet points that a speaker talks through. You have alternatives: workbooks, tools, jobaids, or whatever you need to create to augment or support the presentation.
A second piece of low-hanging advice for the folks who hold onto the “branding on every slide” principle:
“I realize there is a strong belief in making sure that every darn slide in the entire deck has at least one company logo on it…. Is the point to make sure they don’t forget who you are? Hmmm, wouldn’t the audience be more inclined to remember you if (1) your presentation is clear and relevant, and (2) the handouts are terrific and useful and nice-looking so they will be kept and not trashed?”
– Robin Williams, The Non-Designer’s Presentation BookDesign ideas to consider:
- Color. Choose a color palette that is crisp, allowing for strong contrast. You can use your brand colors if that works. Remember not to rely on color for all navigation and information because of the 4.5% of the population who are colorblind.
- Text. Use sans serif fonts to ease reading. Avoid center alignment except for titles. Center alignment is the most difficult text to read. Left-aligned (ragged right) is the easiest to read.
- Repetition. On one hand, repetition reduces cognitive overload. For example, you don’t have to process how information is being delivered if every slide looks the same. On the other hand, repetition impacts memory. When multiple similar objects are present, the one that differs from the rest is most likely to be remembered.
- Big picture. Step away from your computer and invest time in instructional design. Think about what story you are trying to tell. What big ideas are important to this story? What information do you need to convey, and how could you do that visually?
- Edit. Remove any superfluous information or purely decorative graphics that don’t support your learning or communication goals.
A key tenet in our nonprofit learning community is that nonprofit people have a lot to do. Every experience in which they gather—whether a training or a board meeting– needs to be excellent and outcome-focused. Good design is an important tool to get us there.
“Design is the intermediary between information and understanding.”
– Richard Grefé, Executive Director at the American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA) - You don’t get compliance by talking about compliance.
We just wrapped up a nine-month project with an organization focused on increasing compliance related to procurement, ethics, and the safeguarding of vulnerable people. The organization has policies, and our goal was to increase the rate by which people followed those policies.
This wasn’t the first compliance-related project we have worked on. There have been the efforts to increase how nonprofits register as charities with the state, file the appropriate state taxes, apply for the right liquor license, and classify employees and contractors, among others. There are a lot of rules to follow. Our job as nonprofit educators is to create tools and experiences that encourage compliance.
Many compliance-focused efforts are built around the belief that people will do something if they know about it. Let me suggest four other ways to increase compliance for the long term.
1. Stand in their shoes.
We have written curriculum related to the work of at least five state agencies. From the point of view of each agency, their rules are important and clear. From the point of view of the small nonprofit executive director, however, state compliance rules are noise emanating from every direction. It is hard to know which agency is responsible for what and how to move forward. When time is short, it is easy to miss a deadline. That is why we start a compliance project standing in the shoes of the person we are trying to influence. The questions you ask and priorities you focus on are different when you take the point of view of the person implementing the rules.
2. Don’t make them think.
Part of standing in their shoes is understanding that they are not thinking about this topic 24/7. The easier we can make the task, the more likely they are to comply. In our recent ethics curriculum, for example, we wanted bosses to include conversations about ethics in their staff meetings. While ethical behavior may seem black and white in the abstract, there is a ton of gray when you talk about real situations. Even our subject matter experts went around and around for a while on one case, which led to a fantastic case study! If conversations start to become hard for bosses to manage, they are going to skip them. They have enough other agenda items to cover in that next staff meeting. We need to make it easy by providing the discussion guide and talking points. In other cases, we need to provide the checklist and phone numbers to call when they get stuck. We need to do the thinking so they don’t have to.
3. Go upstream.
If we are concerned about safeguarding issues—the protection of vulnerable people—we need to go upstream and make sure we are designing programs that prevent problems in the first place. We need to make sure we are hiring well. If we are troubled by how well our staff is adhering to our procurement policies, we need to go upstream and understand how work happens and vendors are sourced. If we are worried that nonprofits aren’t following liquor law, we need to go upstream to the issue—that committees often organize events, not individuals. When we go upstream, we de-silo the issue. We can teach the policy, but ultimate compliance happens in the flow of work.
4. Make it enjoyable.
The easiest trainings to deliver are those related to law, finance, or compliance. Participants have very low expectations. They are expecting to be talked at about numbers or rules. Cue the PowerPoint slides with a ton of bullet points. We can surprise them by talking about people, connection, stories, and practical applications of our content. We can be human in acknowledging that compliance issues can be hard, inconsistent, and sometimes in competition with what we are trying to achieve as an organization. To be clear—when I suggest making it enjoyable, I don’t mean inappropriate joke-making or point-less entertainment. I am not making a game out of embezzlement or human trafficking. I mean that people feel the deeper purpose of spending time on this issue beyond following a compliance rule. They understand their role in making a difference and feel valued.
All of these ideas are more difficult than adding a compliance checkbox to an HR profile. They take leadership and strategy. It’s worth it. The result will be more compliance and stronger organizations.
- Stairs, ramps, and curb-cuts: Designing for everyone
If you were constructing an entrance to a building and were resource-constrained, would you build stairs or a ramp? Stairs make the building accessible to individuals who are able-bodied. The ramp makes the building accessible to everyone. Often we build stairs and then later add on the ramp. What if we were to consider access in the original design?
This is a question that we can ponder as it relates to our own programs. Roughly one quarter of all people have disabilities. Some of these disabilities are visible, and some are not. Some are permanent, and some are temporary or life stage-related, such as the eye glasses we depend on at middle age. As accessibility expert Gwen Navarrete Klapperich reminds us, “Designing with accessibility in mind gives trainers the ability to reach diverse populations without making accommodations in the future.”
Accessibility expert Elizabeth Ralston offers us a different construction reference that expands our thinking beyond accessibility efforts to help the disabled. The Curb-Cut Effect refers to the effect that occurred after disability advocates successfully campaigned for small ramps to be cut into curbs so that wheelchairs could more easily cross streets in Berkeley, California in the 1970s. When curb cuts were implemented, everyone benefited: people in wheelchairs, parents pushing strollers, workers pushing heavy carts, etc. Ralston’s article about her work with arts organizations tells more about what we can learn from the impact of curb cuts and importance of universal design.Gwen Navarrete Klapperich and Elizabeth Ralston are partnering to lead Designing Accessible Learning on October 7, 2021. This class will provide a framework for thinking about how to help learners with disabilities learn in your online or in-person session. You will learn about Universal Design for Learning principles and how to maximize accessibility in your virtual learning programs. You will leave the session with a short list of steps to make your learning programs more accessible. Join us!
- I see you: how to build trust and connection online
Here we go again. In-person sessions are being moved online. Inevitably the person organizing the conference or workshop breaks the news with a sigh. “It won’t be the same.”
Perhaps it won’t be the same, but we have made a lot of progress over the past year on how to deliver online learning with a strong social presence. When COVID first hit and I was called on to teach people how to teach online, I shared the lessons of “Get Present: Build Community and Connectedness Online,” an article written by North Carolina Virtual Public School teachers who challenged us to look at five elements of engaging learners in their learning. Particularly helpful was the challenge to build community cohesion.
Over the past month, I have expanded my instruction on social presence based on Erica Dhawan’s four laws of digital body language, explained in her 2021 book Digital Body Language: How to Build Trust & Connection No Matter the Distance. While the book is intended to address digital body language in the workplace, not within learning programs, her four laws invite us to consider how we are deepening our practice to build social presence. (I put “digital” in parentheses because I could argue that these are the four laws of body language offline too.)
Using the slide above, I recently invited participants in my Trainer Academy course to translate these laws into practical guidance for an online trainer. This is what one group came up with:
What would you add to this list? Perhaps that conference won’t be the same—we can’t replicate the chatter at the coffee bar. But I’m excited for that online conference session anyway. I’m going to bring these four laws of digital body language into our conversation about how to build a powerhouse board or better prepare for a disaster. Their success matters.
WHILE I HAVE YOU:
I released the Nonprofit Learning Playbook last week. Download your free copy here.
The Nonprofit Learning Fall Series starts next week:
9/ 23: Beyond Workshop & Webinars: Tools to Move People to Action
10/7: Designing Accessible Learning Programs
11/9: Graphics and Design in Learning
Save by registering for the 3-part series - Communication and learning
Regular readers of this blog know that I use this space to think out loud. It is where I take shards of a theme that keep surfacing and see how they fit together into someone whole. Communications is one of those themes. It is a topic that we touch on in a variety of our courses, but not one to which I have devoted a whole class or blog post . Yet how we talk about a learning experience and what communication strategy supports our learning events are at the heart of our effectiveness. The words we use have the power to expand value, deepen engagement, and improve learning.
But first, there’s an abundance of nonprofit classes that exist to market consulting services or make money unrelated to mission. I’m focused on learning programs that center the needs and success of nonprofit people. I care about profit-making only as far as it sustains our work lifting up the work of nonprofit people. I care about training-as-marketing only if the training is good. My goal with communications is to improve how well people learn and transfer that learning back into their job. I know you value that too.
1. Naming
What has more value…
- A webinar or online class?
- A training, workshop, or class?
- A conference, symposium, deep dive, or day of learning and connection?
And while we are at it, who fills the room at these events? Registrants, attendees, participants, or nonprofit leaders?
The words we use to name our events and the people who attend them signal what people can expect. There isn’t a correct answer, but there are better answers based on the marketplace and who we serve. For example, the term “webinar” elicits for me a presentation where the speaker is showing PowerPoint slides with too many bullets. (Is it just me that thinks that?) A board member may not feel compelled to be “trained” and may prefer a “workshop.” Context matters.
2. Your promise
Nonprofit people are busy, so our learning events must be time efficient. Whether explicit or implied, we make a promise to participants that their time will be well spent. We express this promise through objectives. “By the end of this session, you will….” Learning objectives serve the instructor by guiding the content of the session and what will be practiced. Focusing objectives focus the participant on what will be covered and practiced during the time. Both are important.
Too often learning objectives are a sad list of vague ideas or verbs. “Understand” in all its forms is far overused. It is the universal fall back when a conference planner tells us that we need learning objectives. I have no idea what you understand, and I’m not sure what to do with “you will understand the difficult balance between safety, choice, and protection,” to quote an example that came across my desk this week. Towards what end do we want people to understand that? “Awareness” gets the silver medal for most overused. Awareness ≠ action.
My guidance on learning objectives has evolved over the past year. While problematic in several ways, the diversity of verbs available on the Bloom’s Taxonomy push workshop leaders to move beyond “understand” and “awareness.” (Again, only look at Bloom’s for verbs; don’t get caught up in the hierarchy or think that you have to move people from left to right. You don’t.)
Over the summer, I’ve been learning about Brenda Segrue’s work on objectives. Segrue’s model gives us five performance verb types to consider:
Procedure (task verb): can they do the task
Concept (identify or distinguish): do they understand the concept
Fact (recall or recognize): do they remember the facts
Process (troubleshoot, predict, or improve): do they know the steps in doing something
Principle (apply or predict): can they use the principle in a real wayBottom line, you communicate the specifics of your learning event through your objectives. Communicate boldly and then deliver. (And join us for The Trainer Academy in August or September if you want to here more tips about learning objectives.)
3. Before and after communication
An event begins at the first point of contact. Your participants start their learning experience with that marketing email that captures their imagination to learn more. You set the tone that this event will be interactive and outcome-based, if that is so. Once the event happens, you keep people learning by staying connected to them. Your communication strategy brackets the learning event to extend and deepen learning.
Here’s how this can work:
Before-event communication: Priming is the practice of starting the learning process before a lesson occurs. It can be as simple as a reflection question and invitation to download a workbook (example) or as involved as a video pre-lesson meant to cover material in advance (example).
After-event communication: Boosting is the practice of continuing learning after a learning event. It is human to forget, and the rate at which we forget varies based on how well we design our event around remembering. We can send post-event communication that reminds people about what they learned, rekindles their motivation to keep making progress, provides additional information that comes up in feedback (example), or invites application of key lessons. We’ve made a promise to participants that we will stand by them as they learn and apply our lessons. Post-event communication is how we live up to that promise.
The name of your event, the promise you make through your objectives, and your pre- and post-event communication extends learning and strengthens your brand. Do you have a communications strategy as a part of your learning program? Tell us!
Our fall learning series starts September 23. Join us for Beyond Workshops and Webinars: Tools to move people to action!
- Tools to help people take action
When you buy a piece of IKEA furniture, do you take a class in furniture making to know how to assemble it? What if you mess up and your Havsta cabinet doors won’t close all the way? Do you hire a consultant to convene the team around the shared goal of storage practice?
I bet you grab the assembly guide and follow the instructions. If you mess up, you search YouTube for an installation video, like this one. If you want to avoid the whole thing, you pay IKEA to receive the cabinet assembled. Or you live with the door not closing all the way. Yeah, we have one of those.
Why is it then when people in our nonprofit space don’t do something, we think they need a training? Board members aren’t helping us to raise funds, so let’s send them to a training. Finance staff aren’t following our fraud-deterring policies, so let’s send them to a conference. Policymakers aren’t voting the way we need them to on homelessness funding, so let’s lecture them on the whys, whats, and hows of our mission.
This is an expensive, time-consuming, and ineffective way to approach a performance problem or missed opportunity.
What if we got board members to help us raise funds by giving them a worksheet where they could fill in the blanks with a case for support. What if we got our finance team to be more fraud-minded by giving them a checklist or decision-making tree. What if we gave policymakers a directory of nonprofits working on the issue of homelessness with key data about who they serve. What if we gave our board members a directory of policymaker phone numbers and a script and texted them when to call? No training required.
Great tools help people to do their jobs, whatever that job is. Some tools are designed used on their own, such as checklists, reference guides, templates, or directories. Other tools support learning, helping people to reflect and transfer learning back to the job. These tools work in tandem with a workshop or webinar. I’m thinking about the workbooks that I frequently use to encourage reflection and discussion.
I think of tools as falling into three categories:
- DIY tools that allow people to do the job without help.
- Bridge-to-action tools that support learning transfer, often as a part of a workshop or webinar.
- Social tools that encourage conversation and collective reflection.
Our first class this fall will dig deeper into tools to support action and learning. “Beyond Workshops and Webinars: Tools to Move People to Action” on September 23 kicks off a series shaped around the Trainer Academy and topics that we don’t have time to cover there. It responds to what nonprofit and learning leaders have said they most want to learn about. Registration is now open. Join us!
I’m still think about that Havsta cabinet. Curiously, IKEA doesn’t provide an explainer video. The one I found was privately produced. IKEA relies on one somewhat cryptic document to help people assemble their furniture. I’m probably not alone with cabinet doors that aren’t quite straight. When we expand our use of tools, we give our people more ways to achieve success.
- The Nonprofit Learning Test Kitchen
We have some new projects brewing at the back of our stove. Our test kitchen is humming with activity as learning experts and technologists come together to try and find new ways to help nonprofit people do what they need to do. I thought that I would take a moment to let you know some of what we are working on.
New board resource designed from a workflow point-of-view
So many board workshops cover what board members need to know to do their job. I trained thousands of board members through “Boards in Gear” (a Washington-based board training) from 2015-2021. Most board members step up to serve without any formal understanding of what the job is, so these sessions can be powerful. Once they understand the job, they are more likely to do it.
Board learning The question we’ve been mulling, however, is how well a board member who attends a training integrates a lesson into the exact circumstance in which it applies. How do they apply information within their workflow? How well does anyone in our trainings apply what they learn and make it a regular part of their practice? The best way to design for learning transfer is to start from key moments in their workflow and reverse engineer what knowledge is needed, what skills need to be practiced, and what tools would support success.
We are working on a new board resource designed to be used in the workflow. It will draw on what we know about adult learning and behavioral science to nudge board members forward. We are hoping to have it available in the Fall.
Document generator
A multiple-choice question for you to consider:
Document generator If all nonprofits by law must have a written plan for something, and if most nonprofits (according to a survey) don’t have that plan, what is the best way to help them get a plan?
A. Run a workshop where they learn about the requirement
B. Record a video about the requirement
C. Send a postcard to all nonprofits telling them about the requirement
D. Provide a draft plan based on information the nonprofit providesOur team is working on D. Using a few plug-ins and a templated plan, we are piloting a new way to help nonprofits generate a document that they can customize to their situation. Once we deliver this for one client, we can imagine a whole lot of applications for this technology for other situations.
Low-tech on-demand learning
The technology du jour for nonprofit associations (and others) is a Learning Management System (LMS). Available at various price points with varying levels of features, a LMS allows an association to deliver on demand learning with quizzes and data tracking.
On demand learning We are huge fans of on-demand learning, but technology needs a methodology (to quote learning expert Bob Moser). We are working on good, outcome-based on-demand learning delivered through simple videos and a supporting workbook. With a client on a limited budget, we are putting our efforts into the learning methodology: graphics that reinforce key lessons, demonstrations on how to access resources, and other practical lessons that will help people to use the information we are teaching them.
That’s what’s bubbling along in our test kitchen. What are you working on? How are you experimenting with new solutions? We’d love to know.
- I got your back.
Robbie Kellman Baxter, in her book The Forever Transaction, poses an interesting question to organizations and associations: what is your forever promise? Think about the people you serve, whether they are clients, partners, members, or people in your community who care about your mission. What is your commitment to them? In other words, if they keep doing X, what do you promise to do or keep doing?
Read Baxter’s reflection on coming out of COVID
Watch a 15-minute interview where she explains moreI’ve thought about my forever promise in the context of nonprofits and the associations that serve them: if you continue to push hard on your mission, I promise to make sure the nonprofit learning experiences you create or attend are excellent and outcome-focused. It means that I do a significant amount of work for free, but the long-term impact is that the people I work with know that we are in this together. I’ve encouraged participants in our learning strategy course to develop a forever promise as a way to move from the transaction of selling a class to the transformation of being accountable to their people’s success.
Baxter is not alone in building community around building trust for the long-term. Over the past year, I became an empty nest parent while being COVID homebound, a perfect situation to try out “Yoga with Adriene.” What an amazing teacher Adriene is. She models empathy, invites us to make each situation our own, and demonstrates different levels of engagement for people coming to the practice with different abilities. Through it all, she reminds us that she has our back. Whether we can touch our toes or not, we will be okay. Adriene has over 7 million followers. Having people’s back is good for business.
We are in relationship with the people we work with. Relationships take time and authenticity. We need to believe in each other’s success. I appreciate the reminder once again that generosity is not only a good business strategy but a good mission strategy.
- What’s the hard work? Focus on that.
I started work on a new curriculum development project last week. This one is about human trafficking and sexual exploitation—pretty heavy stuff. Our goal is to make sure the staff and partners of this global organization protect vulnerable people. Difficult topic, but at the end of the day, this is a classic outcome-based curriculum. We want people to do things differently with their everyday life.
Trying to get my arms around this topic, I read through powerpoints and white papers from other organizations. Bullet point-filled slides explained the scope of the problem, the UN declarations these issues violate, and the psychological impact of human trafficking on women and children. Okay, I’m convinced—human trafficking is bad and widespread. That’s a training more relevant for university students, however, not international development workers expected to change the situation.
The third bullet point about 37 slides into one presentation caught my eye. “Make sure you train your staff how to spot human trafficking.” Now that is something to focus on. How do you spot human trafficking? The information until now was “why” and “what” information—what the problem is and why it matters. This nugget is a “how,” how someone can stop human trafficking if our prevention techniques fail. The “how” of something is what people really need to know and practice if they are going to do whatever it is we are hoping they will do out of our training.
I’ve talked in the past about the barriers that hold people back from action. We often get this wrong, thinking that people aren’t taking action for one reason when it is really another. We spend time on the context of the problem trying to motivate people, when they may really just need some practical tips.
As I talked with my colleague at the organization, we agreed that this step is where the rubber meets the road, and it is also really hard. Every situation looks a little different. You don’t want to mess up, such as calling in the authorities when you see an old man with a child only to find out he is her grandfather. But we can’t assume that managers know how to train employees to spot trafficking. We’ve identified the hard work. It is now time to dig in and provide some solutions.
“What’s the hard work?” is one of those Swiss utility knife questions—you can flip it open to address many different types of challenges. It is definitely a question for a training situation, but it also works with pretty much anyone you are trying to influence. Here’s some examples from recent projects:
Board members aren’t helping to raise money.
What’s the hard work?
Getting them to understand that fundraising is much bigger than asking for money.
Name and practice other ways that they contribute to fundraising.Staff members aren’t completing forms correctly.
What’s the hard work?
Remembering what goes in each field.
Create a job aid to remind them… or a template where the fields are already filled out.Nonprofits aren’t planning for disasters.
What’s the hard work?
Identifying the risk factors most relevant to that organization, then making time to talk with the board about that.
Give nonprofits a framework to think about disaster planning. Make sure it is flexible to be relevant to nonprofits in different places and situations.
What is the hard work holding back the people you are trying to influence? Focus on that.
“What is the hard work?” is one idea that we will be talking about at The Trainer Academy on June 15 and 22. If you want to learn how to design and deliver and effective workshop or webinar, join us!
- One year in: Reflections
I have officially been working as a consultant for one year. It was not my original plan to start a new consulting practice at the start of a global pandemic. Like the strategic plans of most nonprofits I know, my crisply crafted business plan of February 2020 became scrap paper by, well, March 2020. Nevertheless, I have been fortunate to be busy with unanticipated projects, many stirred up by the sudden need to get learning online.
Anniversaries offer opportunities for reflection. Here are three lessons that I have reflected on and that motivate me as I enter another year of service.
1. There is a growing movement to bring adult learning deeper into the nonprofit sector.
The role that research-based adult learning practice plays in the nonprofit sector has not been clear. Corporations spend many millions on learning and development with data to track performance outcomes. The nonprofit sector has been spending a whole lot of money too, but with no data or even overriding commitment to track how things are different because of a sub-industry of workshops, webinars, and conferences.
That is changing. More and more association leaders and consultants are committing to the power of research-based program design and delivery. The concept of a learning strategy is catching on as people grow impatient for progress and see the power in having a plan. An increasing number of associations are designing conferences around that core question: what do we want to move the needle on? Collectively, we are building a movement at the intersection of learning and nonprofit leadership.
2. There is still much to be done to bring a research-based adult learning practice deeper into sector strategy.
With any movement, we can see the need for our work all around us. You probably receive just as many emails as I do inviting you to join webinars structured around monotone bullet-point slides or sessions that talk about engagement without actually engaging anyone at all. Learning myths—like learning styles and goldfish-length attention spans— find their way into nonprofit workshops, proving to be more of a distraction than real learning. (Learning styles have been debunked, and as has the notion that people can’t focus longer than a fish wink. Anyone who has binge-watched a Netflix show knows that.)
All of which makes this work so exciting! Yes, a few people seem willing to go to the mat to defend their identity as being a visual learner. (They are not.) But there is nothing sweeter than watching someone shrug off their bullet-point addiction and explore what a participant-centered learning experience might look and feel like. (Curious? Join us for The Trainer Academy in June.) Two cohorts of association and consultant trainers went through our curriculum development course. Several hundred people joined us for sessions on how to teach online. We are making progress.
3. Nonprofit leaders are amazing, demonstrating a humbling amount of empathy, competency, and resiliency. They are even more amazing together.
We already knew nonprofit people were special before COVID. Who else would step into hard problems, unsolved by the private or public sector, (many as volunteers!) to put their knowledge, resources, and resourcefulness to work on causes that matter? What has struck me as nonprofits have faced unprecedented challenges is how much nonprofits want to collaborate and how many structural barriers get in their way. During our Reemergence learning series in Central Washington, nonprofit leaders told us that they were collaborating on small scales but needed ways to share information across the region towards a more efficient use of resources. In preparing for a conference workshop on collaboration at the end of April, nonprofit leaders celebrated the innovative partnerships they created to address human services related to COVID. But boards serve organizations, not the larger problems being addressed. Funders fund organizations, not systems finding solutions.
This leads me to two thoughts. First, our job as learning leaders is to go beyond teaching people how to operate in the nonprofit sector as it is. We must also create spaces in which nonprofit people can challenge “best practice,” a term that too often reinforces a practice based within a power structure that needs to change. Second, social change happens within communities. A community holds the right to decide what issues they most want to build change around. Our job as learning leaders is to listen… and then design learning programs that make a difference to the people living in the communities we work within. We serve a larger mission—lifting up equity, humanity, and environmental vitality—at the same time that we serve our clients and colleagues.
You don’t start a business without a team, a community, and awesome clients. I am grateful for everyone who has journeyed with me this past year. Here’s to more adventuresome travels in the years to come!
- Tools to plan for that next disaster
In April 2021, my colleague Margaret Meps Schulte and I released a new nonprofit resource: Disaster Planning for Nonprofits. Sponsored in Washington State by the Non Profit Insurance Program (NPIP), Disaster Planning outlines what nonprofit people need to know to get ready for the next wildfire, earthquake, tsunami, or whatever may be coming your way. We know the climate change is impacting our communities in new ways, and we created this resource to help nonprofits get ready.
Disaster Planning is light on information by design. Information is not typically what holds people back from disaster planning. Rather, it is the feeling of overwhelm, the dispersed leadership where no one feels ownership of the challenge, and a lack of tools to use in data gathering and problem solving. You know you need to write everything down, gather key documents, and put all of it in a central place. Getting started is what can be so hard. With Disaster Planning, you have checklists and downloadable, formatted excel worksheets into which to type your various inventories of stuff, people, and partnerships.
Another key element in disaster planning is the Continuity of Operations Plan, sometimes referred to as a COOP. COOP-building is really just running through scenarios and documenting what you will do so everyone knows. This resource provides three ways to approach what might happen. First, we lay out a way to plan for what you will do in the immediate, short-term, and long-term aftermath of a disaster. This is about how you will serve your mission. Second, we share a method to prioritize and manage your key tasks, such as payroll, bill-paying, communications, etc. This is all about the back-end functions of your office. Third, we invite you to consider how you will integrate a regional understanding into your planning. A tsunami at the coast, for example, will impact inland food banks, just as a wildfire or hurricane in a rural area will impact roads and food systems.
We believe effective learning design can help nonprofits thrive. Disaster Planning for Nonprofits is our latest project to combine what we know about behavior change and taking action with relevant nonprofit topics. Let us know what you think!
We will be launching Disaster Planning for Nonprofits at the Central Washington Conference for the Greater Good from April 27-30, 2021. Disaster Planning for Nonprofits is sponsored in Washington State and for its members by NPIP, the Non Profit Insurance Program. If you would like to learn more about how to license Disaster Planning in your state or about the curriculum design process behind it, contact Nancy Bacon.
- Move the needle.
Nonprofits do a lot. They run programs, convene people, and build community around important causes. Nonprofit boards do a lot. They meet, make decisions, and raise money. Nonprofit associations are busy too. They deliver trainings, produce conferences, and advocate for nonprofits. There is no question that the pace of work has increased as nonprofits and everyone associated with them have tried to keep their head above water this past year.
What nonprofit people haven’t had a chance to do lately is ask the one question that could lift our heads up and see a better path forward: What do you want to move the needle on?
The question is bold, inviting vision and courage. It roots in purpose and seeds an emotional connection to the work. It demands conversation to make sure you hear the diverse voices of your community.
It looks something like this:
Nonprofit leaders, how do you want to change the situation in which your nonprofit works? What could you do today to make your organization more financially sustainable a year from now?
Nonprofit board members, what is your larger purpose as an organization? What role do you want to play within the larger cause in which you work?
Nonprofit learning leaders, what do you want to move the needle on in the nonprofit sector? How does that drive your learning strategy? Your conference strategy?
When we think in terms of “moving the needle,” we have to focus our goals and activities. We can better prioritize what to do and what not to do. It also invites us to operate with an “infinite game mindset,” to use the term popularized by Simon Sinek in The Infinite Game. We worry less about competition, positionality, and short-term metrics. We are instead motivated by a vision, inspired by our values, and informed by diverse partnerships that similarly center this kind of transformational change. After a year with our noses to the grindstone, that could be something that refreshes our focus for the work ahead.
What do you want to move the needle on? What difference do you want to see or hear one year from now? What do you need to do today to support that kind of change?
- Behavioral science: Another set of tools to draw on
Kristine Scott runs Seattle Conflict Resolution. She is focused on how to reduce conflict through a proven non-violent response that works with even the most hostile people. Kristine reduces violence through a robust training program, and she wants to make sure her trainings are effective over time.
Recently Kristine shared a challenge with me. After a learning event, some people stall out. They don’t step into the power that they have practiced in her session. What they know doesn’t necessarily transfer back into the actions they take.
Kristine had already immersed herself in adult learning and the design and delivery of excellent learning experiences. Beyond that, what tools can she draw on?
Behavioral economics is the study of psychology as it relates to how people make decisions. As an economics major back in the day when all people were considered rational, I see behavioral economics– and behavioral sciences in general– as a second set of tools for teachers and trainers to draw on. People aren’t rational for really good reasons. We step it up a notch as trainers when we honor their humanity and draw on what we know about why people do what they do.
Here are some behavioral science ideas that I draw on:
- Fast thinking/slow thinking. Let’s start with Daniel Kahneman’s invitation to slow down and bring reflection into our practice. We’ve put so much of our behavior on auto-pilot. By inviting people to walk through a conflict situation, they may notice assumptions, reactions, and habits that happened under the surface before. They can slo-mo walk through scenarios to make sure their actions align with their intention.
- Prime positive identities. We can assume people want to be their best selves. We can invite people to step into an identity that they hold for themselves, such as being courageous, curious, or a peacemaker. When we remind them of this identity and give them opportunities to show their courage, curiosity, or peacemaking, they experience success.
- Frame choices around gains and losses. People feel the pain of losing something more than they experience the benefit of gaining something. We experience more (negative) emotion when we lose the $20 dollars we had than the (happy) emotion we experience when finding $20 on the street. That tells us to emphasize what our participants will lose if they fail to act over potential benefits if they do.
- Use social proof and social influence. We look to others to know how we are supposed to behave. When we share how others are behaving in the face of a decision or challenge, we give people the chance to anchor their behavior to that.
- Use public and private commitments. When we verbalize that we are going to do something, we are more likely to do it. Personal commitment contracts in health programs have shown an increase in completion rates. We can encourage people to state what they are going to do when faced with a particular situation. One step further, encourage them to make that commitment within a team to hold each other accountable.
I shared some of these ideas at a board conference five years ago. Attendees wanted to know how to get board members to do what they needed them to do. One person challenged the use of behavioral science, voicing the concern that we are manipulating people when we draw on psychology and behavioral science, etc. The cardinal rule is always do no harm and always work in the best interest of our mission and the people who serve our missions. But by ignoring the research, we fail our mission and the people we serve by making this work harder on everyone.
- The hard questions a strategy answers
Who has time for a strategy? We are so busy working, pushing out programs, or delivering on our mission. A strategy of any kind is a luxury that we just don’t have energy for now. And what is a strategy anyway? It feels so academic at a time when we are scrambling inside a reality that is hard.
Yes. We are working very hard. Yes. A strategy can be an intellectual exercise that leads you nowhere practical. Now is not the time for those kinds of strategies. I want to focus on the kind of strategy that answers hard questions in one sitting. I want to dwell on the kind of strategy that helps you to prioritize where you and your team should put your effort. I want to elevate the kind of strategy that allows you to work less hard to get more done.
Those of us working to help people do things differently need a strategy that answers hard questions, helps us prioritize, and eases the workload. I’m thinking about consultants, association leaders, advocacy folks, and nonprofit people who support people to change their behavior, either inside or outside their organization. I’m talking about a learning strategy, though to be clear, we use “learning” as shorthand for whatever it takes to move people from where they are now to where they want or need to be. We can move people to action if we slow down in the way that Daniel Kahneman (author of Thinking, Fast and Slow) invites us to do, reflecting on our practice to change it.
A learning strategy answers three hard questions:
What are we trying to move the needle on? Particularly in a pandemic, it is easy to fall into a state of trying to help everyone everywhere. This is exhausting, especially for a team. Ultimately, we want to see big things happen. We want nonprofits to advocate, board members to make good decisions, and funders to loosen their grip on how we fund change. We want our people and partnerships to work together, not in conflict. When we focus on a goal, we can align our system behind it.
How do we work less, or at least put less effort into learning? The “fast thinking” response to someone not doing something is to give them a training. The “slow thinking” solution may remove the barriers actually holding them back. We may not need to work as hard if we expand our toolbox.
How do we make money or fund our learning program? The business side of learning often gets short shrift. We bring to market various products with various level of strategy behind the pricing or offering. Or maybe we don’t see the value that we add to a product because we are too close to it. By looking holistically at our body of work, we can build a business model that increases revenue.
A learning strategy is a bridge that reflects your best thinking about both you and the people you serve. How do you get from here to there in the most efficient and effective way?
What hard questions impact how you support people taking action? How could “slow thinking” help answer those questions for once and all so you can move faster during the course of the year?Join us on March 9, 2021 for Building A Learning Strategy to Expand Reach, Revenue and Impact
- Online planning: How to engage your whole board when you have to meet online
Sarah Brooks and I co-host the Nonprofit Radio Show, a podcast centered on the topics that matter most to small, rural nonprofits. In early February 2021, we shared an episode on Purposeful Gatherings, a topic that is particularly relevant to nonprofit leaders as they try to make progress in online meetings. This episode led a listener to write to us for advice. Here’s the question, our answer, and how you can hear more of our conversations.
Side note: These are the kind of questions we’ll be answering at Nonprofit Radio Show Live on Friday, February 19. We have received a lot of fundraising questions… can’t wait to dig in! Now back to the question.
==
An email from a wonderful nonprofit leader in Eastern Washington:
Nancy and Sarah,
Our organization is looking to finish up the strategic planning we started last year. We are jumping back in to finish where we left off, with new information and strategies we’ve identified during COVID to add to our documentation. Our Education Committee met via Zoom and went through the Education Plan line by line. That was doable but challenging! Now how to relate this to the whole board?! I am looking for advice on how to address strategic planning documents via Zoom, without the big write-erase boards, without the group conversations and breakout sessions, and without the printed materials. I’d love to hear how you have done this.
Nancy:
Great question! I have two online facilitation tricks in my online pocket that may help here:
1. I use the annotations feature in Zoom often and in several ways. Zoom gives you stamping options, which is great for “voting” or opinion expressing. I use the text aspect of annotations to gather word information, or to take notes on the screen. I have used a totally blank white slide in my slide deck purely to be able to write on it like a white board. What works nicely is to do that …. capture information… and then if you need to get feedback about it, have people stamp what they like.
2. I use editable slides as a different kind of white board. This is a little tricky at first– you can only write on it when your presentation is running. Once you get the hang of it, it is really helpful.
So all of these tools depend on what exactly you want to accomplish in your session. The tools here are great for note-taking and feedback. You can toggle between have screenshare on and off so you can have discussion in between.
Sarah:
Just so you have options, we had a sort of mini-strategic planning session with our staff via Zoom and realized that for our very familiar-with-each-other group, using Zoom’ screenshare meant we were looking at mostly writing, which actually made discussion harder. People stopped looking at each other, and it felt like more of a brainstorm dump than a discussion about what we wanted to prioritize. Based on that experience, you might consider this idea:
1. Send out materials ahead of time and provide a written worksheet with the questions you want people to think through and encourage them to write their answers out before the meeting.
2. At the meeting, lead a discussion without sharing your screen — and remind everyone to be in Gallery View so you see everyone (and so no one feels like they can be doing email or texting in the conversation!). Assign one person to be the notetaker and assure everyone that you are capturing all that is said.
3. Then, either at the end of each question or at the end of the discussion, have the notetaker share their notes on the screen. That way, only the last part of the conversation happens when there are words on the screen.
Nancy:
That’s a great idea. And Sarah reminded me that I have seen a regular paper flip chart or white board directly behind the speaker being used with no screen sharing. It can work well if you have a good camera.
What works for you? Let us know! And you would like to hear more conversations about meetings, listen to our October 2020 episode about online meetings. During Nonprofit Radio Show LIVE on February 19, 2021, we’ll be talking with small, rural nonprofit leaders about what is most on their mind. Click here to learn more.
- 3 Ways to Deliver a Learningful Conference
Conference season is about to be upon us again. Associations are busy testing platforms and scheduling speakers. They are devising ways to create connection, whether through an opening day t-shirt contest, care packages of tea and goodies, or that avatar thing where you literally bump into people in a virtual world. People who play video games have an advantage in that last one, in my experience.
While exploring the frontiers of technology, don’t forget these three ways to make sure your conference is learningful. By learningful I mean that the conference leads to new knowledge, skills, and action that makes a difference over time.
1. Listen
It can be so easy to get so immersed in conference planning that we don’t spend enough time listening to the people who attend the conference…. or who we want to attend the conference. In any design process, there is a time for divergent thinking where we open ourselves up to any and all information that we can find or hear. There is then time for convergent thinking when we start to cull information to what we can handle. In my experience, conference planners jump too quickly to convergent decision-making and skip the deep listening that informs planning.
Colleagues and I recently held a conference listening session with people who haven’t in the past felt a strong connection to our conference. We convened this group separately because we wanted to create a safe space for honest conversation. We learned what they need to hear in marketing, learn in sessions, experience at the conference, and have reinforced after the conference to be successful. By taking extra time to listen before finalizing the program, we heard what we needed to know to design a conference that is learningful for everyone who attends.
2. Strategy
In our book, “Conferences That Make A Difference,” Mark Nilles and I talk about how a conference is one event within a larger constellation of events that any association produces. It is therefore worth asking: what issue is strategic for your organization? How can this conference move the needle on that issue? If your organization is trying to get more nonprofits active in advocacy, how might your conference move that forward? If your organization values equity, how does your conference link knowledge to action?
Like any strategy, a conference strategy is all about alignment… between your organization and event… between your event and your partners… between your programming and the participants.
3. Good workshops
At this point, you have listened deeply to know what people need. You know what you are trying to move the needle on. You line up great workshops, either through a proposal process or by reaching out to people in your community. These people are expert in their field, so job done, right?
Not too fast. Delivering a great workshop involves two sets of skills, one related to content and a second, equally important skill to deliver that content in a learningful way. Expertise in one actually can have an inverse relationship in the other. And even those who have effectively delivered conference sessions many times in the past may not be ready for this audience or this technology.
Here’s a workshop strategy to consider. Offer a master class in session delivery for all of your workshop presenters. Record it for those who can’t attend. Consider it a professional development gift for presenting at your conference. (Here’s a 14-minute version of a “get ready to present” session I delivered last year for associations.) Then schedule a one-on-one with each presenter to talk about the specifics of their presentation. Give meaningful feedback about their design and delivery. Practice any technology skill needed. You may find, as I have, that there is one speaker in your roster who needs a little more attention. Don’t be afraid to provide it.
These three ideas will turn your event into a learningful event. Good luck! And watch out for those avatars.
- Reinvent the wheel
How unfortunate we see the wheel as our symbol of sticking with the status quo. The wheel has been at the center of innovation gobs of times since first appearing as a potter’s tool in 3500 B.C.E. Its purpose, construction, and cultural relevance has evolved in ways that have fundamentally changed the wheel and the people using it.
I began ruminating on the wheel during a recent curriculum design class. The question was raised: why develop a new board curriculum when “that wheel” has been invented? It is true. Just as a wheel is round, turns on an axis, and serves as a tool in some way, there exists board curriculum that is available, covers board practice, and serves as a tool to improve what people know about the job.
All wheels are not the same, however. I would prefer not to drive through Seattle with four round stones tied to my chassis. All nonprofit curriculum is not the same as well. Too much nonprofit learning is focused on information transfer with little stickiness beyond a workshop or webinar. At its best, nonprofit learning takes what we know about adult learning and psychology to center behavior change, habits, and action so people actually do things differently.
Our sector is full of wheels that need reinventing. Let’s reinvent meetings to make better use of our limited time. Let’s reinvent HR practices with an eye to equity. Let’s reinvent fundraising to address the balance of philanthropic power. Let’s reinvent how we collaborate so we get more done in a reasonable schedule. Without a doubt, let’s reinvent that board curriculum so the people who lead our organizations are ready for 2021 challenges. We can learn from the wheel’s story to see how purpose, construction, and relevance can guide new ways of being. Reinventing the wheel might be exactly what we need to evolve to be the kind of organizations our diverse communities need to thrive.
- What? How? Why it matters.
I recently joined a webinar on an important topic and found myself talking out loud to the very able presenter, who couldn’t hear a word I was saying because of the universal mute button. “Stop telling me what to do,” I said. “This is difficult stuff you are leading us through. Tell us how to do it. Tell us how to deal with the board members who don’t want to go there. Tell us about the hard decisions you made and the principles you used to make them. Tell us what could go wrong and how you would help us prepare against that.”
It was an interesting webinar, but I don’t have a next step. There wasn’t enough meat for me to dig my vegetarian teeth into. Which is unfortunate because it was an important topic.
I decided to write about this experience and then paused. I usually find myself guiding nonprofit people to tell me what they do, not how. Ask a nonprofit person to introduce themself, and they could well start listing all of the things their organization does. That’s great that they run those 21 programs, but what ultimately do they do and why?
As I thought about it, nonprofit practitioners tend to skip what and focus on how. Nonprofit trainers tend to dwell on what and leave too little time for how. Fixing this matters.
What frames our conversation. It tells us at a high level the goal and scope of the work. It invites us to decide if we care.
Nonprofit practitioners often need to pause after telling the what to wait for that invitation to dive deeper into how they do what they do. Nonprofit trainers do not. They received that invitation the moment we show up for their class. We attend workshops and webinars to learn how to walk across that bridge from information to how we can efficiently and effectively act on that information so our organizations thrive.
How lays out the principles the trainer uses to do what they are training others to do. It explains key decisions and how choices were vetted. It describes the hard work and how to navigate through it. It offers reflection on where people often fail and steps that someone could take to avoid that result.
Getting clarity on what and how matters. Nonprofit practitioners need to be seen as the movement leaders, knowledge bearers, and community conveners they are. They need learning experiences that they can count on to be excellent and outcome-focused. The rural nonprofits that I spend a lot of time working with need help figuring out how to right-size the advice they are getting.
Here’s an example from a colleague working at a small, rural nonprofit. She attended a international fundraising conference where an expert talked about how they used postcards to build awareness in a fundraising campaign. But postcards don’t really fit our culture, thought my colleague. She now needs to do the thinking on how to transfer that idea into her context. Lesson over? Often. How would that have been different if the expert explained the underlying goal, named the options on the table, and described how they decided on postcards? What if they explained how they arrived at their markers of success and how they deployed their staff or volunteers? Far more helpful.
I would be careless if I stopped at saying what I saw the problem to be without giving you tips on how to fix it. How awkward if you started talking to this blog post when I can’t hear you! The simple answer is to slow down. If you are involved in running or working with a nonprofit, start with your mission and speak to the high level “buckets” of work you do. If you are training others, reflect on how you do what you are teaching them to do. What steps did you take? What decisions did you make (and how did you make them)? What was hard? What are signs of success?
Once you sort out what and how, you’ll know who is on first.
- How to let someone else do the thinking
I was having a drink with a friend outside on the porch the other night. As I sat snug under my lap blanket sipping a guava cider, she said that she was trying to figure out how to take “use it or lose it” vacation days and not end up working on those days anyway. “Be careful about Parkinson’s Law,” I said, sounding particularly erudite. “You’ll use the time you have no matter how you allocate vacation days.”
I had just read about Parkinson’s Law on the Model Thinkers website, a growing collection of mental models that describe how we think and behave. This is the type of website you didn’t know you needed until you find yourself going back to it on a daily basis. Arun Pradhan and Shai Desai have brilliantly taken the “big ideas from the big disciplines” and put them all in one place for us to help us work faster, smarter, and with greater impact.
Their timing is perfect. We’ve been hearing from nonprofit leaders that they are exhausted. They are suffering from many kinds of fatigue (discussed recently on the Nonprofit Radio Show), but mostly from having to think so much. Model Thinkers gives us a “think hack” so we can use other people’s thinking to move ourselves forward.
Here’s an example. It’s no secret that nonprofit people work hard doing hard work. So let’s slow down our thinking to imagine new solutions to complex problems. Let’s engage in double loop reflection that allows us to reframe our challenges. This is particularly important if the challenges are complex or chaotic, without clear answers. Over time we could develop a latticework of new mental models that shifts how we see problems, therefore solutions. We would expand our circle of influence to bring unlikely partners into our work.
If we did all of that, we would be putting to work five research-based models: Fast and slow thinking (Daniel Kahneman), Double loop learning (Chris Argylis), Cynefin framework (David Snowden), Munger’s latticework (Charles Munger), and Circle of concern and influence (Steven Covey).
I particularly appreciate this idea of the latticework. Visualize a wooden lattice made of small pieces of work interlocked together. Vines grow up the lattice until one day a rose blossoms at the top. In our work, intentional ways of thinking support new ideas, practices, or collaborations.
Let’s see how this hack might save time for nonprofit folks:
How do program leaders settle on the best options to deliver the great impact? Try the RICE Score to see how the reach, impact, and confidence balances with effort. Consider Dave Gray’s Impact Effort Matrix as a reminder to stay away from the fillers and focus on the projects that will make a difference. And you don’t need to give people too many choices after all. The Paradox of Choice (Barry Schwartz) reminds us that too much choice leads to unhappiness and dissatisfaction.
How can we increase our policy influence? Beyond Steven Covey’s Circle of Concern and Influence, the ADKAR Model (Jeffrey Hiatt) gets us from Awareness to Reinforcement that the change sticks. (I’ll let you look up the D, K, and A steps in between.) Dunbar’s Number (Robin Dunbar) reminds us that we can only handle a fixed number of close partnerships. The Minto pyramid (Barbara Minto) gives us the outline for communicating with busy people.
Nonprofit people are holding two truths in their hands right now. They know that things need to be fundamentally different in 2021, finding a new normal where everyone thrives. They also know that they are tired and lack the thinking power to imagine what that new normal might look like. Model Thinkers might help.
Check out Model Thinkers. Choose your favorite mental model and share it back with us! If you want bonus content, considering subscribing to support Arun and Shai’s work on this project. There is a 25% discount if you join in 2020.
- 3 Tips to Produce Memorable Nonprofit Learning
On Wednesday, we launched a new “Disaster Planning for Nonprofits” curriculum. An emergency planner in attendance ended our session with an unsolicited endorsement:
“That was a really good class. You got a lot of good information out to these people in a short period of time.”
He then implored people to take action: “Take what she said to heart,” he said.
Without intending to comment on the curriculum development methodology, he highlighted the goal of a nonprofit curriculum: good information, efficient with time, and connects with the heart. My goal is not to flood someone with information but rather to carefully curate what they need to know and present it in a way that helps them to take action. This is as much art as it is science.
How does this happen? Three tips:
1. Dive deep and then snorkel at the top: It is true that I haven’t swum in warm waters in a long time, thanks to COVID. Let’s take a mental vacation for a second to think about this idea. In developing curriculum, start by diving deep. Look at all of the fish darting from reef lobe to open water. Examine the reef itself and all of the forms of life that it supports. In other words, document everything there is to know about your topic, no matter how big or small. I often read many other interpretations of the content to see how other people have sliced and diced it, and I fill a big piece of butcher paper with all of the knowledge, skills, tools, perspectives etc. related to my topic.
Once you dive deep, spend time at the ocean’s surface to see what rises to the top. What is visible when you aren’t distracted by the detail at the bottom? With your butcher paper filled with information in front of you, take a colored marker and circle the highest-level ideas. You should have five or fewer. Everything else gets placed hierarchically under that. Disaster planning, for example, has three main things you need to do: document, gather, and problem solve. Board practice has five main chunks: purpose, roles and responsibilities, recruitment, operations, and fundraising. Whenever I see lists beyond 10 items, I pull out my marker and start bucketing into categories.2. Stand in the shoes of your audience: What you need to know depends on you. Are you an expert or novice? Are you professional staff who gets paid to attend trainings or a volunteer who nips and tucks time around family and work? Do you have any emotion on this topic going into learning? You would not be alone if you felt fear with finance or overwhelm with board practice. However much I know about this topic… however much literature I can find that provides all sorts of fun facts about this topic… however much I want you to paint the Sistine Chapel with the crayons you have to work with… curriculum design starts with the person you are trying to move to action.
3. Build a toolbox that supports action: This is the difference between planning for a workshop and building out a full curriculum. When I talk about curriculum, I’m talking about anything that bridges someone from where they are now to where we need them to be, and often that means checklists, templates, flowcharts, a directory, or reflection questions to bring back to a board or staff. Don’t stop at teaching information since information alone won’t support a shift in habits, behavior change, and long-term growth.
These are just three tips. I’ll be sharing my full curriculum method in an online curriculum development class starting January 14, 2021. (Doesn’t it feel great to be writing the new year!) “Design for Results” is a cohort program limited to 20 people. Through learning sessions, asynchronous support, peer feedback, and one-on-one guidance, you will be able to produce a draft curriculum in time for spring.
Nonprofit people don’t have time to waste. Let’s work together to make sure you get good information out to people in the short period of time they have to spend.
And if you are interested in knowing more about “Disaster Planning in Nonprofits,” it will be widely available in January 2021. Email Nancy if you would like to schedule a workshop in your community.
