 In episode 30 of Mission: Impact, some of the topics that Carol and her guest, Hilary Marsh discussed include:
Important Guest Links:
Carol Hamilton: Welcome Hillary. It's great to have you on Mission: Impact. Hilary Marsh: Thank you. It's so good to be here. Carol: So I love to start with just finding out what drew you to the work that you do. What motivates you and what would you describe as your why? Hilary: Well, that's a great question. The story of how I got into content strategy, I will leave for another time. But the thing that led me to work with associations on an ongoing basis is that I had worked for a very large association starting in 2005 and I learned. Really that associations are content machines that really the products, programs, services, everything they do manifests itself in the world as content. And so they're, if content is how they show their value and how they do their work, then the better they can do that. The more successful they will be at their goals of attracting and retaining. So that's I guess, my why? Carol: So, as you mentioned, you focus on content strategy for associations. Can we, can we start with a definition? What exactly is content strategy? Hilary: Okay. Gosh the first definition I learned back in the day, which was all the way back in 1999 was the content strategy is the who, what, when, where, why and how of publishing content online. So yeah, that's expanded a little bit to be the act of. Planning creating publishing, maintaining and governing content, and specifically for associations, that is content that comes from every department. And so that it wants to make sure that they're part of that, that it's content that's usable, meaning people can use it, that it's useful, meaning that it's relevant to them. And then it's effective, meaning that it's got a clear, explicit and measurable audience, right. Carol: And how does this relate to content curation? Are they, is that, are they synonyms of each other? Hilary: Sorta different? And so curation, is that the idea, the notion that well, there's sort of two aspects to it. The first is the content that an association's audiences are looking for. Might be created by the association, or it might be created by another organization. And regardless of who creates it, it's selecting and surfacing the right content. That's going to help the person reach their goal. So I wrote a white paper last year with Elizabeth Engel, which might be why you're asking about curation and certainly Came up then, and back in the day associations were gatekeepers for information. Well, now Google's a gatekeeper, but not right because Google will surface everything. There is. So no one has time to read everything there is, and everything in there isn't necessarily relevant to the person. But what an association can do is select or curious. The content that is relevant. Oh, the other side of that is that because associations do create so much content it's choosing the right things that the association itself creates. So it's not only external things that might be internally created by the association. Carol: Not just a long list of things that could possibly be of interest, but also giving some context and connecting it to just, as you said before, making it useful and relevant there might be something from another industry, but then it's relevant and, and connecting it with, with a particular audience of that associates. Hilary: Yeah. So the idea of curation comes from the world of museums. So a museum has a huge storehouse, typically in the back of 2000 artifacts from China. But if they're creating an exhibition about ancient Chinese art, they're not going to show you 2000 artifacts because that's overwhelming. They're going to pick the 10 or 20 or 50 that will best tell the story. And they're going to create labor. That explained why they chose these things, why these things are important, what you can learn from them. And so Elizabeth and I created a content curation maturity ladder. And the top of that maturity ladder is not only choosing the right things, but telling the person why this is relevant to them and how it's going to help them. And that's the unique piece that the association can, can offer really, but it requires skills. It requires people and time, all. Carol: And I feel like over the course of probably your and my career, we've, we've seen that shift from what you mentioned before of the association as being the sole source of credible information for the field to be in one of mine. And the way that the internet has just opened everything up and enabled individuals, they might be volunteers with that association. They might be the recognized subject matter experts, but then they may have their own platform as well. And I remember. I haven't had conversations with a boss of mine, you know? And he was still in that mindset of, we are the credible source I'm like, but the internet happened. So you need to adjust Hilary: Well, yeah, part of the things that I often do as part of an association’s content strategy project is to do a comparative audit. So let's look at that. nature and quality of the content that other associations might be creating that serve your audience or other publications or other for-profit audiences. And what I often find is that the association provides content that's better, could be better written and also unbiased. So a for-profit publication. In specific, it is going to have a bias. They're going to have sponsored content. They're going to have content from, from other industry sources who have a vested interest in putting out a specific point of view. And that might not be what the association's members do. Yeah. So the association has a huge opportunity anyway, but they need to do it, they need to create their content or make their content decisions based at least in part on what else their members are seeing and getting. Carol: So it's almost a matter of Helping members see the distinction or the differential between all the different sources of information and the information and the content that the association has provided. Why would, why, why would you say the content strategy is particularly important to organizations? Hilary: Well, I mean I don't tend to work with product organizations. I tend to work with content rich organizations. And so if, if all of an association's advocacy work it's courses, it's conferences, it's publications, any initial research, clinical practice guidelines, industry standards, all of that work that the association does is content. And so. Because associations are so busy and prolific, whether it's the staff creating the content, as you mentioned, or volunteers, because they've got so much of it, they tend to just share everything, but nobody can consume everything. And so and not only that and associations deepest subject matter experts don't necessarily have. Practice or training and how to translate or communicate their really good work to an audience who doesn't have the expertise that they have. And so I'm usually good content strategy requires a partnership between people with expertise in a subject matter and people with expertise in, in Producing and sharing, presenting, and sharing content with an audience. That is the work that the association needs to do. It's already, typically at least in the people I see really good on the smart side of creating good, valuable, deep material. But if they don't present it to the audience in a way that shows its relevance, that shows its benefit, people might pass it by where if they only knew how amazing it was, they would use it. They would see it, they would talk about it and they would really see that additional or the maximum value from their association. Carol: And it's interesting what you were saying in terms of subject matter experts and them being able to, they have deep expertise and knowledge and want to share that. And yet depending on what audience they're, they're talking to, whether, someone. Newer to a field, a more of an emerging professional. I know I was working with subject matter experts and we were putting together workshops and training programs and whenever we were working on the beginner one it was. A struggle for the experts to really be able to hone in on what were those basic things that a beginner needed to know. And they were, and I kept coming back to, we got to do the 80% that happens in your cases. You're fascinated by the 20% or even the 5% of the really interesting, complicated exceptions. But what's the 80% of the cases that beginners are going to be dealing with? And the challenge is of course, from someone with expertise is that they've honestly literally forgotten or it's so embedded in all of those preliminary steps that. They don't even think to mention them. So yeah, it takes another person to help them translate. And, and again, depending on the audience, cause it could be that they're, their audiences of is a very experienced and seasoned group that already knows all this stuff. So going over the basics actually wouldn't be helpful. So you really tailor it Hilary: So there's jargon involved and so jargon is fine when it's expert to act. Every field has jargon, certainly content strategy itself as a field has plenty of jargon. And, yet to do that translation of the jargon for the people who may not know it, because even someone who is experienced in a profession may be coming to a topic that is new to them. So that's a matter of structuring your content too, so that you're creating. It is sort of in layers so that the person who doesn't even know what they don't know or isn't sure whether this topic is actually what they're looking for can just skim the surface. And those who want to dive more deeper can, can do that. I want to come back to something that I glossed over briefly, which is this idea of success. And often associations think, especially subject matter experts. That success means I published it to a task force, a working group, a committee that thinks content success is that I got it out there. And so I try to help my clients shift the conversation to one of like four with the committee or task force or whoever is creating that content. What do you imagine the impact of this content is going to be, or who's the audience and what we're still do you want to happen and then craft the content explicitly with that result in mind and promote it and publish it with that result in mind because otherwise your content, your website is your file cabinet. Otherwise your website contains everything that you've ever published with. No. Way to make a decision about how long should this stay live or, or why should it come down or what should it be grouped with? So their success metrics, there's, taxonomy that needs to glue content together from different departments and the conversations also then have to provide that goal. From one piece of content to the next, because it is all connected, but the people who work tend to lose sight of that because they have the deep expertise and they have their marching orders and they go forward and create that and they forget to bring it back to that bigger content. Carol: Yeah, I think that's a great question to ask, first who, who you're doing this for. Who's the audience? And then what, what action do you want them to take? What impact, what results do you want to have happen based on this work? Yeah, it's very easy to get into, we've been giving a charge committee and the last thing is publish. And so check we're done. So, yeah, I appreciate that. You mentioned a term, a taxonomy. Can you say a little bit more about what you mean by that and how that plays in? Hilary: Sure. Taxonomy is a very daunting sounding term, but it's actually pretty clear and straightforward. It's basically tagging whether it's tagging content for an audience or tagging content by a topic because Computer systems are not smart. So a computer system can't know that a term that has a slightly different spelling or a slightly different variation is actually the same as another term or another audience grouping. That's sorta different. So you have to make one single list of all the terms for your topics, for your audience groupings, for your locations, anything else that, that somebody might need to group or sort that content by so that they can create they can create related links, they can filter, filter and sort on search all those other kinds of things that will connect the content. If you're interested in this, you might also like that. And so in the, yeah. Awesome. Carol: So, what would you say gets in the way of an organization having an effective content strategy? Oh Hilary: gosh. The first thing is that people don't know each other, they don't talk to each other and they don't they don't work in those bigger contexts. So they, they. think beyond the goal of getting something successfully published. They don't, they don't know their audience as well. So they think they know their audiences. And I think associations have a particular challenge in this term of audience because of the committee structure. So when you have a volunteer who has worked really hard, or a group of volunteers, really, who worked really hard to give back to the profession to serve on standing committees for years, often, many years, and work closely with the association staff to determine initiatives, programs, all of that. They forget what it's like to be a regular. What do they call them? Checkbook members who just join, pays peripheral attention to the association and then goes on with their lives. And those people are not your focus group. They're not your typical average member and they can't be your audience anymore. So how do we engage them? Rest of the staff, all the people who create content, the volunteers for that matter too, in remembering who it is we're creating content for. And what is their life like? What is the context that those people live in, that our content fits into where people think that the audience is just sitting around waiting for their content or for their program or for their. Offering and we see it in how it's manifested. Right. We see the email newsletters that say, guess what? We have a new video. Okay. That's nice. How is it going to help me? How's it going to help me make more money? How's it going to help me advance in my profession or do what it is that I need to do? Everyone is self centered and that's not a bad thing. It's just the reality that we work from our own lens and our own perspective. Carol: Yeah. So even taking the step from here's our new video to just telling people what the topic of the video is, is a step forward, gives them gifts. It gives people a chance to say, am I interested in that or not? Hilary: Well, and, and, sometimes people go a little far, the more marketing focused people in the world will have the 10 steps to make more money from this video approach. And I don't really recommend that, but, but why did you decide to create this video? Oh, we decided to create this video to retrace our steps. We decided to create this video because somebody has got something to say really? Why does, why would someone care about that thing to say, well, because what they're, what they've gone through, somebody else can learn from, oh, now tell me more, and getting to the root of why that content was created in the first place and that passion for whatever it is, not only the content, but the initiative that it's part of that, really is that passion. Carol: And you mentioned in, in what you were talking about the sense of people working in isolation, or maybe they're on a small team, a committee, a task force, or a department within an organization, but not, not necessarily being aware of the wider context that all of this information is being offered to, that member that, that may or may not open that, that email newsletter. Hilary: Right. So that's really sort of an old, older fashioned way of thinking, back before the internet existed, that was all that people could do. Every department, I used to draw the lanes with my hands and every department had its own sense of the audience and created and delivered content to that audience independently. Cause that's all we could really do. And maybe it came together in a print newsletter, but, but maybe it was, they were a collection of separate brochures or a collection of separate things. And when the internet came along, Those differences really became that much more apparent. And not only that with the ongoing digital world that we live in, people expect a seamless transition from your website to the phone, to an email, to video social media. They expect all of that to just mesh and, and in order to deliver that unified omni-channel experience. You have to be unified internally too. And not only that people have to have the skills to, to take their raw subject matter expert and take at least part of the translation to that user benefit forward. So they need time for that and skills. So it's not only that people aren't willing. To communicate, which is certainly part of organizational culture. It's that there, they don't have time and they're not rewarded or motivated for behaving in that way, because of that sort of older fashioned ways that many associations are even structured, they're structured by, by a content type in a way. And then they're budgeted by content type too. So a lot of it is about how people are. Carol: So a website, a web team, a publishing team, a training team, a conference team. They're all working separately and yeah, I've definitely been in those conversations trying to cut across those, those departmental lines to come up with a comprehensive or a unified just starting with that word. Taxonomy. I, I worked in an organization where I. I don't know how long, maybe two years before with sporadic meetings to try to finally come to an agreement around how we were gonna, what the list of words were and the terms, and, and some have some commonality across how people were using it in, in all of those different varieties of service offerings or products. Products, programs, et cetera. Hilary: And everyone is doing their best to do an amazing job. And they don't, it's just a new approach. And the organization has to be clear that we want this new approach for the benefit of them. Carol: And, folks, folks often talk about tearing down silos, but the truth is you're always going to have some sub organization, some ways that you organize staff. If you're beyond five, 10 people And there are lots of different ways to do that. And it could be by, the old, old way would have been, the training department and the conference department and the publishing department and the advocacy department. But even if you were to say organize it by parts of your member audience, you still end up with divisions. And so you just still then have to create some. Cross cutting work groups that actually have the people see value in that can produce something that has some authority to, to, bring that comprehensive and unified thing together. Hilary: So part of that's a question of tools. I mean, a shared content calendar goes a really long way. But it has to be required. So you have to make sure that people put in the shared calendar, whether it's a spreadsheet, a Google calendar, Trello, I mean, there's an infinite number of tools for that. But that people put their content in there and they then are, would have to look and see, oh, who else is publishing content on my same topic. So it could be a topical work. And so that if you're creating a course about a topic that you make sure to look in the magazine, to see what articles they've done on that topic, or look and see the advocacy on that topic, et cetera, et cetera, because why reinvent the wheel? So it's a matter of efficiency and also member benefit, for sure. Carol: So what would you say helps an organization be successful in this area? Hilary: Yeah. Can you ask, like, so content strategy is figuring it out, right? So you're figuring out who are top priority audiences. What do they want from us? What are we delivering? What's missing? And then how do we, how do we address that? It's figuring out the content life cycles or success metrics. It's putting the tools and communication and HR stuff in place so that people who will have these responsibilities that it's explicit. And it's not something that folks are supposed to do in their spare time, because we all know that no one has any spare time to do it in. And it's also that it becomes operational, that it becomes part of the way things work. In the association, the roles and responsibilities for content creation, planning creation, as I said, publishing promotion maintenance, an expiration that all of that is known and that everybody understands their part in that. And it becomes clear and part of how things work, you also need. So this is all called content governance and governance is such a tricky word and association because it has that whole other meaning, but in the bigger world, it's called content governance or digital governance and operations. So operations are, yeah, it actually happened. So not only writing down, like when I left. Content strategy back in the day, I thought you create a document and you're done and magically, it just happens. And the more I do the work, the more I realize that the document or the rules or guidelines and policies and all that are just the beginning of figuring out how to put them in place so that people know what they are. Understand that they have the trust in their colleagues. All of that is operations. So that's what's required to be successful. So I wrote that I did a study a couple of years ago for the ASAE foundation with Dina Lewis and Carrie Hayne about content strategy, adoption and maturity in associations. And we found associations of all sizes and natures, whether it's trade or professional. There's a lot of associations doing various amounts of content strategy work, and we grouped them into a maturity model. So when we learned that there are different levels of work going on, we looked to see whether the associations were doing more. Had things in common than those who were doing a medium amount or, or only a little. And, we did find that there are differences and it gets to culture. It gets closer. It gets to how operational your content is. And it gets to do the collaboration level, right? Because organizations who are at that more advanced level already know, oh, well, this is. All mine to do is figure out what I need to work. And I want to work with those people over there who have the companion expertise to mind. And that's what it's going to take for my program together. The impact and reach that it deserves. Carol: Yeah. I think that shift that you talked about I thought was just writing down the plan and having the, the, the shared calendar, but really it's about shifting towards a more collaborative work culture which can, can be a big shift in house. How organizations work together. And so being able, and, and then exactly what you talked about that trust that needs to be built so that those staff division barriers will come down and people will share and coordinate and collaborate. It's really important. Well, I like to end each episode where I play a game where I ask one random icebreaker question. So, which piece are you when you play monopoly? This of course assumes that you play monopoly. Oh my Hilary: gosh. I haven't played monopoly since I was a kid. Carol: Well, which one do you remember what you used to pay? I, Hilary: I'm sorry. I do not. Carol: I think it's a, the top hat and the dog and the shoe. I think there's an old fashioned car. So, what would you choose today? Hilary: Let's say, whew. All right, cute. They're cute. And they go, they go neatly from, from square to square. Carol: So neatly from square to square. I wouldn't say that the monopoly, she was particularly cute, but so what's, what are you excited about? What's up next for you? What's emerging in your work? Hilary: Well, I was thrilled to also do a chapter also with Dina Lewis. Latest edition of professional practices and association management. And that makes me so happy to see you. The prospect of content strategy incorporated and adopted by even more associations. So I was really excited about that in terms of what's next. I'm working with an association now to try it. Really get to the bottom of these very thorny questions about things like what the audience needs is this content filling, which is a very difficult question for them. And a very difficult question for lots of associations. And I'm, I'm always excited to do that work with an association, help them know the answer to that. So that next time when they are creating more content, they already do it with that information in mind. Yeah. Carol: All right. Hilary: Well, thank you. And just thanks. No, just joined the summer and hook, getting back maybe to normal. Carol: Maybe it will say time. We'll see. All right. Well, thank you so much. It was great having you on. Thanks a lot.  In the special 1-year anniversary episode of Mission: Impact, Carol Hamilton discussed the following:
Transcript: Carol Hamilton: Welcome to mission impact the podcast for progressive nonprofit leaders who want to build a better world without becoming a martyr to the cause. I'm Carol Hamilton, your podcast host and nonprofit strategic planning consultant. This is an exciting episode for me. I've been podcasting now for a year. So this is my one-year pot of nursery, and it's been so much fun doing this podcast. I've had a lot of great guests, wonderful conversations, and have really appreciated everything that I've learned from everybody that I've spoken to. And I launched the podcast back in August of 2020, but actually started doing interviews for it. Even at the beginning of the pandemic, starting in March. And so this has really been a pandemic project, although I will continue. I intend to continue on after that. Hopefully there will be an after at some point But I certainly have learned a lot. I've learned, heard a lot about how the pandemic has impacted how folks do their work, how they approach their work. And it certainly had a lot of impact on how I approach my work. The default before the pandemic for strategic planning was of course, to have some in-person event where you did the planning of one day retreat, a one and a half day retreat. Where you brought the key stakeholders together, got them all in a room and had a series of conversations that helped them make decisions about the future of the organization. Other parts of the process certainly have been done online though. Video conference, focus groups, listening sessions, interviews over the phone, et cetera, but that main crux of the process where you bring together the planning group has always by default, been done in person. And of course we had to shift that overnight to working online. Now I had a head start because I'd been doing online events since the early two thousands, I in fact organized my first virtual conference in 2004 and had been producing a number of different online experiences over the course of those years. And so it was pretty easy for me to switch up how we were going to do strategic planning, but what's been so interesting to me over the course of this period. As I've done over 10 different processes with 10 different organizations is actually to see the benefit of doing it online, doing it in a, in a remote setting. And most folks think, well, how can you really make good decisions if you're not all in the same room? And the thing that I've really noticed is that when you do that intensive retreat oftentimes right, when you get to the point of making a decision. With the group, they have hit cognitive load. It's three o'clock in the afternoon, four o'clock in the afternoon. They've been thinking hard all day processing lots of different information brainstorming and they are worn out. And that is the point in the agenda often. When you need the group to make some important decisions. In the virtual environment, there's no need to have that intensive long eight hour experience. You can take that eight hours or 10 hours, whatever amount of time you might've had at that retreat. Pace it over a number of sessions, two hours here, three hours here, and with a contained set of goals that you're trying to accomplish in each one. Then beginning each the next one with, this is what we did last time, and this is where we are in the process. But what I've seen is that groups really benefit from having a little bit of time to do one piece of the process and then process that integrated, to think more about it. Be able to kind of mull over the conversations that they had to then bring all of those new, all of that thinking into the next session. With a little more pacing over the period of time, I find that groups are able to get further quicker. In some ways it takes a little bit longer because you have a little bit of a gap between those two or three hour sessions, but in the same amount of meeting time, I'm able to get groups further with more clear and more refined goals than I might do if I were working with them in person. Pacing also allows strategic planning or other leadership groups to do refinement between the large group planning sessions with time, for back and forth. So people really feel like their perspectives have been taken into consideration. And then with the pandemic, of course, everyone has thought it just has brought to the fore how unpredictable our world is. And can you really plan in this VUCA world volatile, uncertain, chaotic, and I can't remember what the, a stands for (ambiguity). And it was always unpredictable. It's just more obvious now. I always tell folks that a plan is just a plan. It's not set in stone. They aren't tablets from on high. There's something that you created yourself, but the process itself brings clarity and alignment by creating an opportunity to talk together and explore issues together. Another thing that I'm seeing a lot about recently with people writing about and considering whether they're going back to the office, whether they're going to stay remote, the method they might do, a blended version is talk about that you can't have culture unless you're all together in the same office. And the truth is that any organization always has called. There's always an organizational culture, whether you've named it, whether you've explored it or not. It really more, a matter of, are you clear about it? Are you explicit about it? Are you, do you have a type of culture that you want to move towards? That that feels healthier, that you're trying to work. And just bringing everyone back into the office is kind of a de default. It's a default that allows that culture to kind of be there by accident. It allows folks to maybe not pay so much attention to it. I think one of the blessings in disguise is actually working remotely. That we really have to pay more attention to what the expectations are? How are you working together? What are those guide rails in terms of how much flexibility folks have and their schedules and, and how they're doing their work, what are they expected to produce in a particular week, et cetera. And so it's, again, it may be more of. Are the managers in your organization? Do they have the sufficient training and tools for how to, to manage in this remote and. And so in-person can be such a, just a substitute for giving folks the tools and training that they need to really build that intentional culture and manage well within a remote or a blended context. So this provides you with an opportunity to shift their culture in a positive direction and get everyone in gray involved and envisioning and working towards and creating that new future instead of just favoring the preferences of leadership and defaulting to. Whether you continue remote or go for a blended schedule, all you have to do is decide if you all have to go back to the office together. Think about what you've learned in this past year, past a year and a half. What do you want to keep? What do you want to let go? There's lots of opportunity there for being more intentional, more and more in clear and more explicit about the type of organization and how you want it to feel to work within your organization. Thank you for listening to this episode. I really appreciate the time you spend with me and my guests. Again, we're excited to be celebrating our one year anniversary and as with every episode you can find show notes and links and resources at missionimpactpodcast.com/shownotes. And you'll also find transcripts for each episode. I'd like to thank Nora Strauss-Riggs for her support in editing and production, as well as April coaster of a hundred ninjas for her production support. Please take a minute to rate and review mission impact on apple podcasts or wherever you listen to your podcasts. It helps others find the podcast and we appreciate it. Thanks a lot. And until next time.  In episode 28 of Mission: Impact, some of the topics that Carol and her guest, Peggy Hoffman discussed include:
Peggy Hoffman is president of Mariner Management, an association management company which is home to two associations and provides an array of support and training to associations and most importantly member volunteers. Peggy has provided training and counsel to dozens of global, national and local membership associations over the past 30 years. She often draws on her own team’s research on volunteerism, member communities and association innovation. Peggy not only enjoys working with association volunteers but is an active volunteer for her professional association – including serving as a chapter past president – so she’ll draw from experience on both levels. Read her full bio at MarinerManagement.com and connect with Peggy on Twitter @peggyhoffman or LinkedIn. And ask her about triathlons, dance or living with three sons. Important Guest Links:
Carol Hamilton: My guest today on Mission: Impact is Peggy Hoffman. Peggy is president of Mariner Management, an association management company which is home to two associations and provides an array of support and training to associations and most importantly member volunteers. Mission Impact is the podcast for progressive nonprofit leaders who want to build a better world without becoming a martyr to the cause. I’m Carol Hamilton, your podcast host and nonprofit strategic planning consultant. On this podcast we explore how to make your organization more effective and innovative. We dig into how to build organizational cultures where your work in the world is aligned with how you work together as staff, board members and volunteers. All of this is for the purpose of creating greater mission impact. Peggy and I talk about why volunteers and chapters are the heart and soul of associations and yet a somewhat neglected aspect of working in a membership organization, how the role of geographically based chapters is undergoing so much change, and what implications the rise of online professional development has for local chapters. Welcome Peggy. Welcome to the podcast. Peggy Hoffman: It's great to be here, so appreciate you inviting Carol: Yeah. Should be fun. A fun conversation. We've been in the same circles for a long time and it'll, I'm really excited to dig into the work that you do in associates. Space of associations, but I really like to start each podcast with what motivates you to do the work that you do? What's your why? What, how, what drew you to this particular aspect? And we'll get to this in a minute, of the work that you do with organizations. Peggy: Okay. So I guess. I'm going to start by saying that once I stumbled into associations, one of the things that I gravitated towards was membership and specifically working with chapters. So I landed at a trade association that had these incredible state groups or regional. And I began working with them and realizing that there were just, they have so many challenges in front of them. So when we decided to start our own business, it was as a management company specifically to be a management service for chapters. So we didn't want any national organizations, but we just wanted to work with chapters in our area. And that business, it was amazing. I mean, they don't have big budgets, but they have big hearts. So naturally because of that, I've spent so much time working with volunteers because they were hiring me to be their staff. Right. So the wonderful journey of trying to support these geographic components of larger organizations meant really getting hands-on with how volunteers operate and think. And I don't know if that's just pretty exciting to work with people who are giving time. So I guess my, my, why is if I can support somebody who's giving their time, that's like a bonus. Carol: , the volunteer and the chapter, I feel like there's so much at the heart and soul of so many organizations, and yet I feel like it's really a neglected aspect of association management and it's so critical for member engagement. It's so critical for people to be able to connect with people locally. First maybe, for listeners who are maybe less familiar, can you just describe those two arenas, how you, how you define that. Peggy: Yes, that's a great question, actually. And what I really love about that question is that we are in this tremendous mode of change. I know we've heard that. But what's really interesting is there's so many structures within associations that are challenged and that challenge is leading to some really cool innovation. And when you talk about the bucket of volunteers and you're talking about the bucket of the bucket, we call chapters or components the same thing. What is a component in the context of what we're talking about? We're talking about the component of geography. Cause really components are a way of members connecting and it's usually around an issue and interest, a discipline or a geography. So we're really. We're focused more on the geography question. And so it's any entity that allows a subsection of members or key stakeholders within a membership-based organization to collect. So that means some of these groups are completely independent, but carry the same or similar mission name. Sometimes it needs an absolute integrated subsection. There's there, there's relationships where there's charters and there's mostly, but there's affiliation or groups. So lots of different ways of doing that legally, but at the core it's meeting the same member who could be met nationally. It could be. Locally. And sometimes the membership has contingent in. Sometimes it's not mean I can be a member of both or neither or a combination. So the chapter is a, is a, is a moniker. If you will. That may, that means that we're collecting a subsection of our members into that geography. The interesting thing is the traditional model, which was born in a time when we didn't have the internet, is the problem right now because we're, we've, with the legacy systems and for many of these organizations, the key work of it is done by the volunteers. Now we know that about associations, but the chapter level I think it was. The recent benchmarking it's you have to assume that less than half of the chapters out there have staff. So it is largely the will of the passion of volunteers and a volunteer is any stakeholder in an organization, membership based organization. That opps to give time freely and I mean also free. Yeah. Yeah. And I think most people think of chapters as those regionally based Entities. And yet, you can also slice and dice memberships often through an interest around a particular topic, whether it's whether the organization calls some special interest groups or communities of practice or cohorts, there are different ways that people describe that. But, and, and, and in each case there, that volunteer component is just so important. Absolutely. Absolutely. And it's really, really interesting because of one of the dynamics that- What's really interesting about the comment that you just made about this idea of the coagulating. Issue interests, discipline or geography is that one of the changes that is slowly happening, it needs to happen with more with more Gusto is this idea of not siloing off the geographic components from the other ones, you'd see pretty much the communities of practice, the SIGs, those things that have been more baked in and the chapters have oftentimes can be an arms length. And what we began to understand is that the models. percolate to the top for many associations, not all are going to be the, the, the less structured geographic components, which means they're going to begin to act even more like the other components. Carol: And so interesting. I did, of course the pandemic and everything moving online just, just changed everything overnight. And I did an event for a regionally based association. So one that is the Mid-Atlantic of the thing, the Mid-Atlantic facilitators network and they were doing webinars. So of course that has no geography limits to it. And it was just a very pertinent topic, right. At the beginning of the pandemic of how to facilitate effectively online. And they had people from around the world and this was a local association. So in some ways it feels like some of those things, maybe aren't as relevant as they used to be. And of course, People are still gonna want to be able to meet in person and, and, those geography challenges, we're not going to always do everything online. Peggy: It’s both, but the blurring of the geographic boundaries is huge. It's it's. It's going to be, what's going to be the catalyst to either kill a chapter or have a chapter thrive, but it's also the catalyst for more competition and we know how nonprofits sometimes butt heads. And I think we're, we're, we're in a situation where that can happen. So the savvy association is going to jump out in front of it right away. Right. And say, okay, how do we begin coordinating the services, our programs, or our, our chapters or components are offering in a way that creates congeniality, right? Bridging all of it for everybody versus feeling like you're in a state of competence. Exactly. Exactly. And I think we do know that the Delta variant aside and other elements aside, we do know that people are going to get back together again, which is actually delightful and, and, and, and. Gonna be well received by, by many folks, but we also think, and Carol, this is the interesting thing. We think that it's going to change the nature of getting together for chapters. In other words because I can get online education so much more readily. And in the case of the one you just talked about, I can be in an online thing. That's perfect to many of us, but get the perspective from, from a different, different area. Right. Then maybe the importance of the chapters is less about education and more about the other elements, whether it is how do we grapple with a very local issue or how do we do networking or how do we do career development or career pathway development, or how do we, how do we really reach the students? Right. So it could shift some of the priorities for our geographic components, which I. It's not a bad thing at all, but we have to be aware of it. Carol: I know for me thinking about going to in-person events the bar is just way higher for what we're actually doing in person is the event actually designed to leverage the fact that we are in the same room together. And if it's not, I'm not going to travel two hours, cause even in a G, even in the DC area, it's going to take me an hour there, be there. And then an hour back it's half my day. so the bar for me is just way higher. Peggy: And so now think about that because of the implication there, and I don't think you're alone and I'm certainly the same way. So there's at least two of us in this world. Right? So here's the thing: think about how we are currently resourcing and training volunteers. Because it's still largely volunteer. And even if it's not volunteer, if there's a, if there's a skeleton staff for a chapter, it's often an admin person, right. So how are we resourcing and training them for that new reality? We've been talking in some of the trainings I've been doing, because we do a fair amount of the chapter leader, training chapter staff and chapter volunteers. We've been talking well, at least I've been beating the drum for at least two years on. You've got to do something different at your events. You've got to create events that are experienced. You've got, you've got to stop thinking that I can just fill a room and, and in class, in classroom style and have somebody, screaming, scream at you. Lecture, you Carol: talk nicely to you, but I haven't, so Peggy: bam, I get now you're absolutely right. It becomes way more. So am I leveraging, I liked the way you put that. Am I leveraging the fact that I'm in person on this event design? Yeah. And I think it's, it's not just a matter of going back to the way it used to be, because, maybe those networking events worked for a few people, but they actually never worked for a lot of people. So how can we think about those things differently? How can we help, help people have conversations? have, give them a little bit of structure. I mean, people had learned how to do this in, in the online space, through zoom, et cetera. Just a little bit, just a prompt question to get people started can really be helpful. Exactly. Exactly. So it's good. It's going to be really interesting. It's going to change. It's going to change how we train, how we resource it's going to also require in some ways, a refresh to the volunteer pool. Right. And that's such a critical thing because I think it's one of the biggest ones. Big challenge. Carol: I don't know if the biggest challenge you can tell me with any volunteer-led organization or one that depends a lot on volunteers is that oftentimes those refreshing recruitment cultivation of some pathway to leadership they, most groups don't, don't have it, don't know how to do it. And so then they wonder why, the 20% are the, are doing the 80. Peggy: Exactly. And that is one of the, definitely one of the top. Challenges for these member components is getting the volunteer workforce that has been a problem that's been really growing in the last I'd say five to almost 10 years. And, and the, the, the. Challenge is now is that because we're in this murky area of what really is the value prop at the local level, it's harder to articulate why it would be great for you to volunteer for this organization. So we've just put things on top of each other. Now, all of this makes of course, Carol, this sound like doom and gloom. On the other side of things there is there's real opportunity for local volunteers, local chapters, local members, and the COVID is one of the coming out of COVID. One of the silver linings is we saw some of those in action, right? We saw, for example, I'm in Texas and this is not, this is not an exception by any means at all, but in Texas, one of 'em AGCS, that's the general contractors groups, did this amazing pivot and went from this basically, education. Forced development to a source for PPE and set up and turn their office into a collection zone and, and an incredible member value point. Then you have, you have some folks out in Ohio for the dental hygienist and that group Basically got the most important legislation or regulatory changes around the protection of, or of dental hygienists on the job. And then another one of their chapters actually was managed on Facebook to get a vibrant post of yours, the temp job that you, that you need filled and post that you're ready. And they did this incredible moment, matchmaking for folks in the area. So what we're, what we're seeing is that being local to it's like it is just like with health care, it's just like with everything being local became the ability to answer the immediate need of a member. So. The real question is do we, is it time to take those checklists of you did this, this, this, and this, and throw it away and begin saying what the member needs at the moment? Because I think honestly, we saw it and I think chapters can step up because they're driven by volunteers. That's the huge thing. That's the passion that allows them to pivot. If they've been given the permission and some resources. Yeah. There's often, I feel like there's often a tension between a regionally based or a locally-based chapter and the national organization. And, maybe some of those checklists are, are part of it. Why would you say you often see that, or at least I've certainly experienced it in the organizations I've worked in that tension between the two. Well, I think it's, it's really interesting. How are we just, so in, in terms of the work that Marriner is doing we are just, we just began this next iteration of the chapter benchmarking study. And we started with two CEO round tables, virtual round tables. Brought CEOs together to have a conversation around what is this thing about chapters? And, and, we basically were asking the question you just asked. Carol: Now we did start by saying, what are the orthodoxies around chapters that are just so, what would you say some of those are? Peggy: So that was the, that was the, Chapter four, the third rail chapters are our political minefield. The problem is that you've got these groups and often too way too often. The leaders that you have sitting up here, making decisions come from that group, and while they put the national or the global hat on, they never take off the chapter hat. So. They see that they see through a lens that is a little bit clouded, a little bit myopic to a certain degree. Right. And so if you start to say something needs to change, well, my chakra was barred or I, and, and meanwhile, you're talking, you're having to convince volunteers to vote members to vote on change. And they don't like to do that anyway in too many cases. It's politically fraught. And so it's easier to kick the can down the road than it is to make a substantive change. But the other critical element is these CEOs bless them. Could not with one, maybe two exceptions. Could not articulate the value of chapters because we have no data around what the chapters are bringing that we can put on our balance sheets. We can put in our operations, we have the expense side. Oh yes. Because we have. That's assigned to it. We might have a chapter leader conference. We might have a shared relationship. We might have a revenue sharing relationship around events or activities. but on the income side, we're not doing any good data collection and data analysis that shows us how that contributes to the value proposition? That generates those important dollar driven pieces, membership, acquisition, membership, membership retention fundraising goals, all those things. So, most of the CEOs have this political problem and they have no data. And so what happens is you get this, you get all these people in the room. Chapters are so important. I came up with it. I wouldn't have been a member or all that stuff. And so, that anecdote becomes the data and we all know, and if it is not data. So that was the key. The other orthodoxy which I thought was a sad orthodoxy is, well, chapters are good and they're mostly bad and that's just the way it is. And you'll live. And that to me is sad because that goes back to, I don't know what the ROI is and therefore, and it's politically difficult, so I'm just gonna live with this. And, and, and, and the assumption is it can't get better. So that's the other orthodoxy we have to live with. It's bad. We can't get better. And one, several members of these two CEO round tables said if they had their druthers, they would just ditch them. And so. Would that be an ortho, what that an, of a mindset it's going to be competitive because you're not in the game together you're surviving alongside, and even the most open-minded of the CEOs. And there were many open-minded CEOs in the effort of figuring it out. All of those really good, important answers didn't seem to, it seems so insurmountable. And so I'm just going to wait and hope that because I guess, because I see some good things, like 1 group said, when it comes right down to advocacy the states that have really rolled up, rolled their sleeves up and, and, and talk with us on a regular basis, we're able to make some significant headways.So they, so they do, they do glean onto that. But the competition comes because we don't know, and we're just living, living next to each other. The other thing is, there's nothing worse. Carolyn, absolutely nothing worse than having your leaders who have to make important decisions, be your members because they will whine the entire time. And so the members are notorious, they think they're not getting a good deal and members who are volunteering for chapters have that double, double down on that. And so they create their own negative language that pushes along this competition. Carol: And yet you gave a couple examples about how that locality of those chapters, they were able to just jump on needs that were immediate, that would have taken a national organization. There's so many layers of decision making and all of that. They were able to just move really quickly, especially because in this case, I think that volunteer. Group. It can either mean that you're moving incredibly slowly or yes, you can also move very quickly. Peggy: Right. And the other interesting thing is we did a so ma Marriner and bill highway the highway being a software tech company that does have a banking solution in this space, in any case. We've been doing a series of webinars, monthly webinars for chapter organizations. And I bring this up only because one of the things we keep doing is I say, we look for the bright spots. But we're looking for where our system's working. And one of the, and what, one of the pieces we did was the trickle up and what we were talking about was we were going at it and we were finding where there were successful national programs that actually had been born and bred at the local level. So. PMI is an outreach program and is a great example. The education I'm going to call the action. The education theater group developed this. They had when the floods came through in Houston and the schools were decimated, their theater props and programs were decimated by another group, another state nearby did a match list. Do you have something extra? There's a school there. It needs it. That program is now a school to school support program that went national. So, and, and, and you look at what the landscapes or landscapers have done. So in other words not only can they pivot quickly, but they can also be some pretty good R and D. And by the way, you can do a, you can do an ROI on all of those scenarios. Carol: Yeah, absolutely. And you've been doing some research recently on what you call the volunteer learning journey. Why, why would you say this is important for those who work with volunteers or our volunteers and trying to cultivate other volunteers? Peggy: One of the things that we have done so I'm gonna, I'm going to first point back to a couple of, of. Of good resources. One is the mutually beneficial volunteering study done in 2017 with the ASAE foundation in which we talked about the readiness of volunteers and that impact on associations, then we did. Now to a chapter benchmarking study, I alluded earlier to the fact that we're in the third iteration now, and we did the CEO's and we're going to be going into the actual survey piece just shortly. But yeah. In the two previous ones one of the issues that came up was volunteer readiness, right? And then we've also over the last 10 years I have worked with thousands and thousands of chapters through chapter training programs and constantly come back to volunteer readiness. And so one of the things that, and we did was a series on financial problems for chapters in which we have looked at fraud, security, risks, those kinds of things. And what's the, what's the, what's the bottom line behind that, the preparedness or readiness of volunteers. So you see this theme that, if the volunteer is the key workforce for the chapter programs, and we're not properly preparing them, what's the issue, how do we resolve that? Carol: How would you, how would you define volunteer readiness? Peggy: So I would define volunteer readiness. Excuse me. I would define a volunteer readiness based on their ability to successfully complete the job at hand. So I'm going to be treasurer of a chapter organization. Not only can I, do I know, how do I know? Do I know how the organization is financially set up? Can I read a peanut? Can I make good decisions? Can I make good financial decisions based on risk analysis? Right? Because I mean, I can spend this money and I've got these reserves, like it's been over here, there's just, how do I invest these dollars? And, and how do I. For example, let's look at, look at the pandemic. Cause the one group that we manage, I mean, the first thing we did was the treasurer and I sat down and we pulled up and we did what's plan B, how do we, what's our scenario planning for this year because we don't know how it's going to unfold. So scenario planning. So as a treasurer, when I, the first day I'm in that job, Do I have that set of skills and that ability, and if I don't have the exact set of skills, do I at least know? I don't have them and can seek, can ask the questions because you're not going to know everything you need for every particular. That's okay. Right. But do I know, do I know? So, so readiness is about my ability to do that job and not even stellar. I've just, I just call it success. Like if my goal was this and I'm a volunteer, can I get us to this? Would it be great to get here? Fine, but I'm ready as I get to where we have to get? Not where we necessarily want to get. When we started figuring out why are volunteers not ready? Or why do we get volunteers? the whole, the whole thing. And we need a president and nobody's hand raises and someone sneezes. Oh, good. Peggy. You're going to be president now you're president, but you're not ready. Right. But, there's no other choice. Right. So we kept looking, so all of these associations are offering varying levels. But, it's hard to get volunteers to, to really buy into that support. And that's when I saw something that Christine matters with the crystal lake partners. I had done it with, she had talked about learning journeys for getting beyond basically the concept of the journey map, which by the way, you've done some fabulous work on taking that, I think, and applying it to the learner. Is there a learner journey and I'm looking at this going, is there a volunteer learner? So she and I got together, we pulled together a brain trust of folks, looked at how they were doing it, looked at what we understood about volunteer readiness and realized that the missing piece, as we looked at this, is tying that training to the volunteer motivation. And that's of course what learning journeys do, right. They say, what, where is it? You want to go? What's your motivation for getting there? What, what, and so tie it. So that's really where it came out of. It was trying to find how to take these two issues? where's the, where's the puzzle piece that puts them together. Carol: And one thing that I appreciate, and we'll, we'll link to the resource that you're talking about. Cause it's really a wonderful piece on working with volunteers. And this could, this, there are so many applications to this. You did this within an association context, but I was looking at it and I haven't yet. On the leadership development committee of my congregation. Right. And so we're thinking about volunteer cultivation and how do we give people some baby steps and not say, oh, you're a new member. Let's get you on the board. No, we don't want to be in that position. And how do we help people take those steps? So I really liked how you broke it down with, maybe that first step. And I can't remember exactly what the categories were, but then, then. They need these couple of competencies and, or this interest. And so that's going to match to more of a micro volunteering or an ad hoc role. And, and I think that that is a hard thing. Where folks are. So organizations are so used to these big roles that people have traditionally had. And how do you break it into smaller chunks that are more manageable and in people's lives today? For a million reasons, folks just don't have the bandwidth that they have available. I don't know, 15, 20 years ago when people were able to step into a board role for three and four years and things like. Peggy: So there was a lot of stability in people's lives. Obviously, in comparison, a lot of stability, you were in jobs and there's a lot of middle management opportunities there until you were in jobs and you're pretty steady. And you didn't, you weren't looking to change jobs unless something really happened. And the employers there, they, they gave you a little bit more leeway on a lot of things. So volunteering and not only that, but there were generational things. So the boss had volunteered and been on the board. So it's natural that you're going to do that. Right. And lava fell, all those things changed, which is why there is the bandwidth issue. But I think the other thing that we completely underestimate is. Everything we know about volunteers, particularly what we do when we start looking at volunteers over the last 10 years. Okay. Everything we know is that there is this critical importance of connecting with what's in it for me. And I don't mean that in a negative way. Gotta go to my motivation and my motivation is going to be tied to something. I can see an outcome. And so much of our volunteering does not have a demonstrative outcome and it does not plug directly with the motivation. So we can't get people to be on the board because what it looks like is sitting in meetings and it's just keeping the organization going well, I don't want to just keep your organization going. I don't want to do anything. All of a sudden if, if, if we can start making, even that board position looks and demonstrates how there is an outcome we're going to get folks to do that? The reality is that busy people always have time but they have time for the things that match their motivation. One of the things I tell real quickly Carol is we were looking for a treasurer at the local level. It's a Maryland based chapter and we were looking for a treasurer and we were having. Difficult time. That's not an easy position to fill because there are, that's one of the board positions that actually has some key competencies, right? So there was an individual who I, who I knew could do this and would do a good job. And Talking with this individual and they didn't want any more board positions and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then he just happened to say to me, “How come we didn't give out a student scholarship this year?” Cause we always gave that student scholarships and I said, I'm going to give it a student scholarship. Because, and I, and I went through the whole thing and I, it was basically a financial decision, right. And I said, we were there and we fell down here and here, and I just said free, frankly, the right treasurer would get this going and we can rebuild that account and we'd have the giving out student scholarships. And so the neck, I think it was the next day, got an email from him and said, okay, so when does a treasurer position begin? Why? Because now he saw a reason he was, and he did, he did. We got the student scholarship program back up and running. Carol: Well, yeah. And, to help people think through, especially in a professional context, what are some things that they're going to be able to learn through volunteering that they don't have the opportunity to do in their day-to-day jobs? So, thinking again, I mentioned my congregation and when I first joined people asked me to do lots of different things that I didn't want to do. So I was, I felt like I was like, no, no, no, no, no. So I was like, I got to figure out what I'm, what I want to say yes to. And they were doing their first strategic plan and I was like, Ooh, I want to do that. And of course, that's actually what I do now. Right? This was 20 years ago. And so in my day job, I have no opportunity to be involved in the strategy of the organization. But in this volunteer role, I was going to be able to be a leader. And develop, explore that and develop all sorts of skills that I just wouldn't have the opportunity in my day-to-day. So helping people, whether it's skills or Networking is just such a big amorphous concept, but how is this going to help you build and get connected with people who can help you sponsor you, mentor you and help you solve problems. But yeah, to take what these things are. Jobs or even smaller ones and how people think, well, what are the components that, that that I can connect to, that's going to move me forward, from that professional point of view or. I just moved here and I don't have any friends that I want to make some friends with and let me do that, through, through volunteering. Peggy: You know what, it's just like the fundraising when you first get called to give, let's say to in my case, my NPR station is WAMU. WAMU. And the first gift that you're asked is, is 25 bucks or five bucks or whatever. And then they, they wrap you up. And pretty soon you're an annual giver of a substantive chunk of money. And I keep telling chapters and national organizations that you, you, you, you gotta do the fundraising model and, and microbes. Get you into it. you had mentioned, you had referred to that, the pathway in which we talk about the emerging volunteer, the learning volunteer, and then you get into leadership. And one of the things that we saw in the mutually beneficial volunteering study, which actually reflected the results from the earlier volunteer study way back in 2008 that ASAE did, which is one of the, one of the. Five reasons for not saying yes is not seeing a picture, not seeing the pathway. And so part of that work came out of this idea of let's paint a password for let's paint. Let's paint the picture and demonstrate a pathway. And there's some really exciting things because if you take that pathway you see, for example, wraps, which is the regulatory professionals they've done this and they're not alone. Other groups have done this. I believe PMI is amongst them, but you take that pathway. And then you start doing digital badging based on that. Right. And now you're actually, you're actually connecting people to the, to a recognition that they can carry with them really from a CV perspective. Right. But then you take someone like NAGP, they're building out a as, as part of their learning management system and they're making some changes right now, but they're building it. Levels of training for volunteers at wraps is doing something similar. So you and I talked to one of the magicians who was looking, who just was looking at that model and saying, wow, you mean, we could do like many, many certificates, right? As I get through this level. So all of a sudden you see what that, that pathway does. It professionalizes the volunteering in our associations and nonprofits. And by professionalizing it, that boosts the motivation to get the learning and the education that you need to be successful in the job. So we're all we're, we're, we're coming at this from all these different directions. Carol: Yeah, for sure. So on each episode, I like to play a game where I ask one random icebreaker question. And since I think I've known you long enough that I can ask this question. So who are the three people you would want on your team? If there was a zombie apocalypse? Ooh. Peggy: Okay. Carol: Ah Peggy: Mark Shropshire who no one knows, except that he is my personal trainer. And I mean, strong and, and, and not, Sufficiently un-empathetic that he could destroy anything in the way. So that's good. So definitely, definitely that I'm gonna go with maybe a strange strange one. And I, I'm going to actually go with an association professional. I know Lindsay Curry and you might say, well, why, why would you pick her. I have never seen anybody able to get around a topic with such dexterity and in a way to come up with the question and I have seven feelings if they were, it was Zombieland. She has a way to get them to go now. What are you asking us there? And I need a really strong, another strong, no, you know what, you know what I'm going gonna, I'm gonna also go with my husband. And you might say why, and it goes, if something happens, I think I would just assume that it happened to both of us, but I would throw them out there first just to be on, to be doing the real side. But, having somebody close to you that knows you that knows your vulnerabilities and your strengths. And in that moment can say, can call on your strengths so that you can get past your vulnerability. I think that would be priceless. Carol: That's awesome. That's awesome. So what are you excited about? What's coming up for you what's what's emerging in your work these days, so, oh Peggy: My gosh. There is actually a lot of really exciting work. I'm going to mention three very quick things. One is the chapter benchmarking study because we have brought the CEO voices. And so we're going to do the CEO voice. We're going to do the traditional CRP. That's the component relations professional. That's the association staff position. And you can opt in to have us then go to your chapter leaders. So it's a 360, if you will approach a conversation around chapters, chapter values, chapter optimization. So we're very excited about that. We just launched the ASAE foundation Research, which is going with an incredibly robust brain trust of association CEOs. We're going to design the set of models that will work for associations for volunteerism. So in other words, we're asking the question. What is effective and what model brings out effectiveness for what organizations. So there's not going to be one mile. So, those are two kinds of research projects, but, but listen to those, those are like innovation, right? They're changing. The other thing I want to mention. Just getting started with camp to program camp is the California marriage and family therapist. We're doing a chapter coaching pro program, which I think is going to be really cool. I get a chance to work one-on-one one-on-one with chapters. So those were the, those are the three exciting things. But I, I want to, I guess I want to mention that. there's a balance in life. And so the other exciting thing that the other journey I'm on is I started in January learning titles. And when you put yourself in a place to learn something new and you can screw up with that, anybody like, you don't feel bad about it. it's just you during this learning space and it's a really, really wonderful mind, body centering thing, but also all of the elements about this there's There's w one of the elements is constantly keeping your knees bent and being grounded so that, you can move in any direction. Right. And giving in yielding, and yet being a spring strong anyway, enough of that. But that's, Carol: That'll help you with the zombies too. Yes. I love it. I love it. Well, Peggy, it was great having you on thank you so much. And we will definitely link to those resources that you mentioned. And then let us know when the newest benchmarking study comes out and we can include it for folks. So definitely appreciate all you all you have to offer. Right? Peggy: Well, thank you for your time today. This was a fun conversation. It's always good catching up with you. And it was fun today, too. Carol: Excellent. I appreciated the perspective Peggy brought on the volunteer learning journey. Whether your organization has chapters or has volunteers in other programmatic elements of your work, thinking through their learning journey could be really useful. We will link to the resource that Peggy’s group created about this and it provides a really useful framework for thinking about how to cultivate and develop volunteers. And how to have them move from volunteers to leaders within your organization. From a new volunteer that is just getting familiar with your organization and the work you do – what are the skills and competencies they need? How will your orientation and training program help them develop those skills? How might you be able to break down what used to be a large role into smaller more doable parts? Is it clear for someone wanting to get involved what the steps are? Whom they should reach out to? What support can you provide your volunteers as they become more engaged and encourage them to step into new and larger roles within your organization? Have you built a ladder people can climb? Or a pathway for them? The clearer you are able to make the pathway, the more likely people will say yes when you invite them into volunteering. Thank you for listening to this episode. I really appreciate the time you spend with me and my guests. You can find out how to connect with Peggy as well as any links and resources mentioned during the show in the show notes at missionimpactpodcast.com/shownotes. I want to thank Nora Strauss-Riggs for her support in editing and production as well as April Koester of 100 Ninjas for her production support. Please take a minute to rate and review Mission Impact on Apple podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts. It helps other people find the podcast. We appreciate it! |
HostI am Carol Hamilton, nonprofit consultant and podcast host. My passion is helping organizations cultivate healthy, inclusive cultures that live their values, fostering learning, creativity and results. Find me at Grace Social Sector Consulting and download free resources. Archives
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Grace Social Sector Consulting, LLC, owns the copyright in and to all content in and transcripts of the Mission: Impact podcast, with all rights reserved, including right of publicity.
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