Non-Profit Chas

When I was a kid, I wanted to be a magician. Somehow I ended up getting a Japanese major, starting a web design company, becoming a marketing guy, and writing a non-profit blog. Go figure.

So when I was asked to contribute to the project over at Creating Gen-Y Magic telling stories of how Generation Y can be leaders and visionaries—I was a little stunned. It seemed like a risk.

Magic!

Greg Rollett, a fellow Brazen Careerist writer, asked me to contribute. As I told him, I really struggled to write this piece. What’s so special about what I do? What lessons can I impart on fellow Gen-Yers? Who really cares?

After stalling and rewriting the piece several times, I finally gave in and sent it. In the end, it’s a story about investing in yourself by taking risks and facing challenges with the hope of seeing a return on your investment. It features one of my favorite tales of how Camp Fire has made a difference.

Read Creating Gen-Y Magic with Non-Profit Chas

Some thoughts on recruiting 20-somethings to your non-profit cause. As a member of both a non-profit board and Generation Y, this is what I have to say about my peers.

• We are passionate.
• We are independent and challenge authority.
• We usually have a lot of debt and manage money poorly.
• We are generous with what we do have.
• We are online a lot and often prefer online communication to phone, email, or in-person meetings.
• We work hard and demand a lot from the people we work with.
• We are risk-takers and get frustrated with slow change.
• We care about both aesthetic and function.
• We have a hard time seeing other perspectives.

Volunteering: Pushing the Chips All In

The quickest way to lose a volunteer is to overwork them and fail to show gratitude. When recruiting Gen-Y volunteers, consider that you’re competing for our time. We’re often building a career and working well over 40 hours a week. We’re also trying to maintain a social life, traveling, or have new families to care for. Asking too much is a sure-fire way of turning us off to volunteering.

We’d love to help, though. So create entry points with specific tasks and roles for us. We’d love to help manage that marketing project or organize the food for that fundraiser. If we get really interested, we’ll let you know we want to help out more.

Don’t forget to thank your volunteers, of course. If we don’t think we’re making a difference, we’ll give up.

Cradle to Grave: Donors of Tomorrow

I heard from a non-profit marketer recently that their organization was considering Gen-Y and how we fit into their overall strategy. The head of the group argued that Gen-Y doesn’t have any money and isn’t worth his time. He’s right, but not for the reason he expects. His skill is in working with major donors. He can raise more before breakfast than all of the Gen-Y gifts combined. But that’s not the point.

Gen-Y is the major donor base of the future. Your major donors and volunteers were 20-somethings once. They built companies and careers and wealth, just as the current batch of recent college graduates are trying to do. They will often take a different path to get there, but they’ll build their wealth over time. As they do, you’ll wish you started engaging them earlier and developing your relationships from the beginning. Cradle to grave.

Consider also the thousands of small gifts that some political candidates have sought. A gift of $50 is a lot easier to get than $50,000, and when you get 1,000 donors to give the $50 it’s just the same. And then you’ll have 1,000 donors to grow and cultivate into larger investors in your mission.

Gen-Y opens a lot of doors

It makes a lot of sense to recruit from Generation Y. So go on and sign up for a Facebook account. Ask your recent college graduate nephew to organize a project with some friends. Or work with a local college to find interns or service groups. The passion we bring to our work will help uplift your organization’s spirits. We bring new networks of potential volunteers and donors. We have a different perspective on the things you’ve been doing, which can lead to innovative programming and marketing. And as we develop our resources, you’ll have access to those as well.

I found a bit of circular humor in my feeds today.

Recently, I was invited to join a blog network called Brazen Careerist. I’m excited about this for the potential exposure, the network of intelligent bloggers with whom I will be able to converse, and the expertise of one Penelope Trunk. (Penelope is the author of a book, Brazen Careerist: The New Rules for Success.)

She recently wrote:

This is something I’ve learned in the last two weeks. For those of you who don’t know, I never look like my photo on my blog. First, my hair is never that organized. I try to remember back to when Yahoo had the photo taken and I don’t remember hair like that, so maybe it was never like that and it’s all Photoshop. That wouldn’t be too outlandish an assumption since my skin also never looks like that, or my lips, and it might actually not even be a photo, but a Yahoo rendition of what a photo might look like.

The only reason – and I honestly mean the only reason – that I haven’t accepted the offer to join the network is that I don’t have a headshot that I’m happy with. Seriously, look at the arrogant beach bum in the upper right corner. That’s not really me. I’m cocky, but I’m not some frat boy on a pub crawl in Redondo Beach (which is more or less what I was in that photo, visiting my brother in LA).

I’ve had the draft of the acceptance email in my box for weeks now, and I keep telling myself to suck it up and send whatever photo I have. I’m sure I can change it later.

I’m usually not this conceited. I think Penelope’s post might be enough to knock me off the vain train and pick a stinkin’ headshot.

When I joined the board of Camp Fire USA River Bend Council, I was warned by a mentor: “If you’re a workaholic, you’re going to be a volunteeraholic. Be careful.”

Eight months later, I agree entirely. Don’t let yourself get burned out.

Three of my favorite bloggers just wrote about a particularly sensitive spot for me: reactive email time.

Yesterday, I tweeted about trying to get down to inbox zero. After two hours, I was down under ten emails, but had run out of time. Some of those emails have been sitting for weeks now, waiting for my response to move them ahead. And the problem I still find is that the emails come in faster than I can respond.

Katya, Beth, and Seth all write about the destructive, depressing, and demoralizing effect of spending your day simply reacting to emails as they come in. Too many days I feel that all I do is play switchboard operator, connecting emails from one person to another. I might only have to answer five-second questions, but those five seconds add up to hours throughout the day. By the end of the day, I can’t figure out what I accomplished and I feel depressed about not getting anything done. Since I track my time, I often end up with deficits…only accounting for five or six hours each day. This is even more frustrating; I know I worked hard all day and am stressed out for some reason, but I can’t even get credit for that because my hours look like I slacked off. If I’m only going to get credit for six hours, I might as well come in late and leave early.

To counteract this effect, I work from home once a week. No phone calls, no walk-ins, no meetings. I use these days to clear my inbox, get my proposals done, and actually do work. In one day, I get a week’s worth of work done. The rest of the week is reacting and meeting.

I need to find a way to flip this on its head: one day for reaction, four days for work.