Joe,
Hudi's experience is a typical one for most volunteers in non-profit
agencies. I'm not sure they enjoy that process, so much as they see the
lengthening of the process as a way to build understanding and
perspective. If you spend only one to three hours a month with an
organization, it is difficult to really know what is going on. Staff are
usually too busy to communicate effectively with volunteers and board
people. So the result is that meetings seem long, and always covering the
same material. I run into this with every non-profit with whom I work.
What is the answer? I think negotiating the amount of time given to
topics at the start of meetings. For example, the other night, I was
working with a collaborative group of organizations seeking to get
themselves ready for a capital campaign. As the fund raising consultant
to the group, I knew that their case was not ready. It was too blue sky,
vague and not directly related to the building they want to build. The
chair asked for me to lead them through a brief visioning process, twenty
minutes max. Well that twenty minutes turned into an hour and a half
because they had to go through the process of coming to grips with their
situation. It couldn't be effectively done in a third of an hour.
Finally, I see issues of process as issues of communication. And with
many non-profits their channels of communication are inadequate. So
decisions which in a for-profit office would take 5 minutes to an hour,
could take 5 hours to 5 months in a non-profit setting. A lot of this is
determined by the leadership of the organization, and having some
effective volunteers who know how to bring clarity to issues for the sake
of decision making.
Thanks for bringing up a very relevant topic. I plan to share with others.
Ed Brenegar
Leadership Resources
brenegar@circle.net
--"Edwin R. Brenegar III" <EdB3@classic.msn.com>
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>