Category: Blog

Becky’s Blog, Developed for Clients and Friends of Rebecca Schueller Training & Consulting, LLC

Invest in the most important step to your strategic planning success.  Over the past 30 years, I’ve participated in strategic planning for my workplace, my volunteer passions, and occasionally for external organizations that were looking for broader community input into their own planning process. I’ve been impressed with a number of different facilitators, tools, and approaches.

But nonprofit work is challenging. Our clients needs are more complicated than ever…poverty, complex trauma, racism, mental health, addictions, and the growing divide in our country between rich and poor, which I think of as “the opportunity gap” as college becomes increasingly unaffordable. Bureaucracy, regulation, and reporting requirements are also increasing exponentially for organizations, which saps energy for both staff and board members. In this context, Strategic Planning sometimes beckons as “salvation” or can seem like an enormous chore on your already over-full plate.

Before making a decision to engage in planning, it’s extremely helpful for Executive Directors and Board Members, especially the Board Chair, to do some research. This research doesn’t start with finding your consultant, although that’s also important! Your research needs to start with your understanding about the purpose and process of strategic planning. This will help you decide what you want. If you’re going to invest a few thousand dollars (or more!) in an outside facilitator, food, meeting space, etc., it’s important to know what you want on the front end.

My #1 recommendation: Before you go to the effort to hire a consultant to help you with strategic planning, wait 30 days. During this time, give yourself permission to take 2 retreat days. These are like a day-long coffee date with yourself…off-site with no cell phone or email or human interruptions. You can bring your laptop…if you must…but leave email off…not minimized…off. (Hint: Don’t do this at your favorite coffee shop or lots of people you know will come over to chat.)

I’m recommending that you bring two books with you to your day-long coffee dates. Mission Control by Liana Downey and The Nonprofit Strategy Revolution by David LaPiana (FYI – LaPiana is about to release a new edition of his book in August 2018). These are the two of the most useful books I’ve read in a long time. You’re going to ask, “If I just have time for one, which one should I get?” Get both – it’s important to consider different perspectives. Each book has some similarities but also different areas of emphasis and different tools…you want to think about what will be most helpful for your organization.

Warning: This is going to annoy you. If you don’t have the time to take two days to retreat and review these books, you don’t have the time for strategic planning! Yep – strategic planning takes time. Check these books out on Amazon and choose a “like new” used copy. You’ll pay under $50 for both books. Your agency should pick up the tab…buy two copies – for you and your board chair.  This is much cheaper than the cost any other two-day training you’d attend.  (Note: I do not receive affiliate benefits of any kind from Amazon or either author, and I have no relationship to either author.)

Both books have highly useful exercises that your organization should consider undertaking as part of strategic planning. If you don’t make the time to do some of these exercises, you will be frustrated during your planning process…and will end up with the proverbial door-stop (a strategic plan that warms a shelf in your office but doesn’t actually make your clients lives better or help your staff and board work more strategically). These exercises can be consultant-led or internally led by a volunteer or staff member who has strong group process skills and the time to do some follow-up. Yes, novel idea here. Consider using your internal staff and volunteer resources for planning. Do note: Some organizations are able to do this process internally and some really appreciate using an outside facilitator. If you’re having challenges with your board and/or staff, consider using an outside facilitator. But…do your “process” research first and then decide which is the right fit for your organization.

You’ll realize a couple of things after you read these books: 1) you probably know many of the answers to your challenges…you just need to put the information together in the right way; 2) there are things you haven’t been doing that you probably need to do…reminding yourself of these things is one of the reasons for the retreat time; and 3) there are other strategies besides SWOT…although, in fairness, a good SWOT process uses some of the tools identified by Downey and LaPiana.

Get together with your Board Chair after you’ve both read the books and compare notes. See if you’re on the same page…or nearing a “thought merger” on the direction you think will be most helpful for your organization. Talk about whether there is someone internally within your agency who can lead the process. Ideally, this individual shouldn’t be the Executive Director or the Board Chair. If you don’t have an internal facilitator or don’t think that’s the best use of time, discuss and agree on a rough budget range for your planning. Ask a few other agency directors who have completed planning recently what they paid.

And, you might decide you don’t need a full blown strategic planning process. Maybe you just need to do a few of the exercises recommended by Downey and LaPiana. Or, maybe getting some outside problem-solving expertise is enough.

Regardless of whether or not you decide to move forward with planning, you’ll be better prepared to tell your consultant what you want. And, even if you decide you don’t actually need a full strategic planning process right away, your board chair will think you’re really smart! The conversations you have about the ideas in the books may also improve your working relationship with your chair by giving you a common language and helping develop some “common thinking” about what your organization needs.

Understandably, you may have an initial reaction of: I do NOT have time for these steps. This is a typical stress reaction to an overly full plate! After you get over feeling overwhelmed, I strongly believe you will feel more hopeful. And, in the busy-ness of our fast-paced world, we can all use a boost to our strategic thinking.

Happy Reading!

P.S. If you like the idea of a retreat date with yourself, consider doing it once a month. The next book I recommend is Good to Great by Jim Collins and his companion booklet on Good to Great for the Social Sector. I have re-read chapters many times and always pick up something new. Have a book to recommend that’s been helpful to your work? Share the title and author in a comment…and set a coffee date to re-read your favorite chapters.

Becky Schueller consults, coaches, and trains through her business, Rebecca Schueller Training & Consulting. She works with boards, managers, and staff in nonprofits, counties and cities, tribes, schools, and businesses. Contact Becky to schedule board development training, train your board or staff on basic goals and tools for strategic planning, or for other training or facilitation needs. Visit her webpage at www.bemidjiconsulting.com, follow her business Facebook page, or contact her at Becky@bemidjiconsulting.com to discuss your needs. Initial consultations are always free.

Before You Start Strategic Planning

Invest in the most important step to your strategic planning success

Over the past 30 years, I’ve participated in strategic planning for my workplace, my volunteer passions, and occasionally for external organizations that were looking for broader community input into their own planning process. I’ve been impressed with a number of different facilitators, tools, and approaches.

But nonprofit work is challenging. Our clients needs are more complicated…poverty, complex trauma, racism, mental health, addictions, and the growing divide in our country between rich and poor, which I think of as “the opportunity gap” as college becomes increasingly unaffordable. Bureaucracy, regulation, and reporting requirements are increasing for organizations, which saps energy for both staff and board members. In this context, Strategic Planning sometimes beckons as “salvation” or can seem like an enormous chore on your already over-full plate.

Before making a decision to engage in planning, it’s extremely helpful for Executive Directors and Board Members, especially the Board Chair, to do some research. This research doesn’t start with finding your consultant, although that’s also important! Your research needs to start with your understanding about the purpose and process of strategic planning. This will help you decide what you want. If you’re going to invest a few thousand dollars (or more!) in an outside facilitator, food, meeting space, etc., it’s important to know what you want on the front end.

My #1 recommendation: Before you go to the effort to hire a consultant to help you with strategic planning, wait 30 days. During this time, give yourself permission to take 2 retreat days. These are like a day-long coffee date with yourself…off-site with no cell phone or email or human interruptions. You can bring your laptop…if you must…but leave email off…not minimized…off. (Hint: Don’t do this at your favorite coffee shop or lots of people you know will come over to chat.)

I’m recommending that you bring two books with you to your day-long coffee dates. Mission Control by Liana Downey and The Nonprofit Strategy Revolution by David LaPiana (FYI – LaPiana is about to release a new edition of his book in August 2018). These are the two of the most useful books I’ve read in a long time. You’re going to ask, “If I just have time for one, which one should I get?” Get both – it’s important to consider different perspectives. Each book has some similarities but also different areas of emphasis and different tools…you want to think about what will be most helpful for your organization.

Warning: This is going to annoy you. If you don’t have the time to take two days to retreat and review these books, you don’t have the time for strategic planning! Yep – strategic planning takes time. Check these books out on Amazon and choose a “like new” used copy. You’ll pay under $50 for both books. Your agency should pick up the tab…buy two copies – for you and your board chair. (Note: I do not receive affiliate benefits of any kind from Amazon or either author, and I have no relationship to either author.)

Both books have highly useful exercises that your organization should consider undertaking as part of strategic planning. If you don’t make the time to do some of these exercises, you will be frustrated during your planning process…and will end up with the proverbial door-stop (a strategic plan that warms a shelf in your office but doesn’t actually make your clients lives better or help your staff and board work more strategically). These exercises can be consultant-led or internally led by a volunteer or staff member who has strong group process skills and the time to do some follow-up. Yes, novel idea here. Consider using your internal staff and volunteer resources for planning. Do note: Some organizations are able to do this process internally and some really appreciate using an outside facilitator. If you’re having challenges with your board and/or staff, consider using an outside facilitator. But…do your “process” research first and then decide which is the right fit for your organization.

You’ll realize a couple of things after you read these books: 1) you probably know many of the answers to your challenges…you just need to put the information together in the right way; 2) there are things you haven’t been doing that you probably need to do…reminding yourself of these things is one of the reasons for the retreat time; and 3) there are other strategies besides SWOT…although, in fairness, a good SWOT process uses some of the tools identified by Downey and LaPiana.

Get together with your Board Chair after you’ve both read the books and compare notes. See if you’re on the same page…or nearing a “thought merger” on the direction you think will be most helpful for your organization. Talk about whether there is someone internally within your agency who can lead the process. Ideally, this individual shouldn’t be the Executive Director or the Board Chair. If you don’t have an internal facilitator or don’t think that’s the best use of time, discuss and agree on a rough budget range for your planning. Ask a few other agency directors who have completed planning recently what they paid.

And, you might decide you don’t need a full blown strategic planning process. Maybe you just need to do a few of the exercises recommended by Downey and LaPiana. Or, maybe getting some outside problem-solving expertise is enough.

Regardless of whether or not you decide to move forward with planning, you’ll be better prepared to tell your consultant what you want. And, even if you decide you don’t actually need a full strategic planning process right away, your board chair will think you’re really smart! The conversations you have about the ideas in the books may also improve your working relationship with your chair by giving you a common language and helping develop some “common thinking” about what your organization needs.

Understandably, you may have an initial reaction of: “I do NOT have time for these steps!” This is a typical stress reaction to an overly full plate! After you get over feeling overwhelmed, I strongly believe you will feel more hopeful. And, in the busy-ness of our fast-paced world, we can all use a boost to our strategic thinking.

Happy Reading!

P.S. If you like the idea of a retreat date with yourself, consider doing it once a month. The next book I recommend is Good to Great by Jim Collins and his companion booklet on Good to Great for the Social Sector. I have re-read chapters many times and always pick up something new. Have a book to recommend that’s been helpful to your work? Share the title and author in a comment…and set a coffee date to re-read your favorite chapters.

Becky Schueller consults, coaches, and trains through her business, Rebecca Schueller Training & Consulting. She works with boards, managers, and staff in nonprofits, counties and cities, tribes, schools, and businesses. Contact Becky to schedule board development training, train your board or staff on basic goals and tools for strategic planning, or for other training or facilitation needs. Visit her webpage at www.bemidjiconsulting.com, follow her business Facebook page, or contact her at Becky@bemidjiconsulting.com to discuss your needs. Initial consultations are always free.

Becky’s Blog, Developed for Clients and Friends of Rebecca Schueller Training & Consulting, LLC

Thanks to all the highly committed Board Chairs who play such a vitally important role in the nonprofit sector. When organizations achieve great accomplishments over a prolonged period of time, it’s usually because there’s a strong board in place that has attracted a high quality executive director (ED) and staff.

The board chair role is unique. It can be time-consuming, is high profile, and involves a unique mix of skills that are usually honed through experience. And, the board chair role requires a lot of COURAGE. The Board Chair is responsible for leading the board to govern the organization so that it meets its mission and creates impact for constituents, follows applicable laws and regulations, and provides a healthy workplace for employees and meaningful roles for volunteers.

The board chair oversees the organization’s strategic plan to maximize organizational impact, ensuring that the board monitors ongoing progress and leads the “Call to Action” when it is time to consider a new strategic planning process.

The board chair leads an annual performance appraisal of the ED, focused on highlights of performance in the past year and goals for the coming year, as well as addressing any areas of concern regarding performance. The board chair ensures that compensation is discussed, recommended, and implemented during the process. The board chair also leads an annual Board self-assessment in which each board member evaluates their own role on the board and the collective accomplishments of the board.

The board chair oversees the organization’s financial health and legal compliance issues by ensuring that the board a. approves an annual organizational budget; b. reviews financial statements (revenue & expense and a balance sheet) monthly; c. conducts an annual audit (or financial review if the board is too small to meet audit threshold requirements); d. reviews, approves, and sends in the annual 990 Form within 4.5 months following the end of the fiscal year or to ensure an extension was requested (i.e. usually by May 15 if your year starts Jan. 1).

The board chair creates a sense of “community” among the board at meetings, sets healthy boundaries and standards for how board members interact with each other, with the ED, and with agency staff and other volunteers. When behavior is not in accordance with agreed upon standards or violates agency by-laws or other legal requirements, the board chair leads the “exit process” for board members.

The board chair sets the expectation for board giving. One option is to tell a story at the beginning of a board meeting about her/his thought process in deciding upon his/her personal contribution to the agency and hopes for the programs/services/impact the gift makes possible.

Here are the “nuggets” that make up the leadership role of the board chair. Your job is:

To be a “Thought Partner” for the ED and meet regularly with the ED. When asked for advice, ask “strategic and exploratory” questions and help the ED clarify concerns, issues, and opportunities rather than giving advice. (This is from Consultant Joan Gary)To plan board meeting agendas with the ED

“To remember to let the ED manage the staff…all the staff…all the time.” (This is from Consultant Joan Garry)

To lead the board member recruitment and orientation process (but invite the ED to be part of it)

To lead the ED hiring, annual evaluation, and exit process (if needed)

To make the “call to action” for strategic planning

To encourage other board members to give to the organization

To know how to tell the Organization’s story to donors, volunteers, partners, and other audiences

To role model “good board behavior” for other members

To interrupt inappropriate behavior by other board members

To lead the process to “fire” board members when necessary

If you found reflecting on these roles helpful, you might enjoy blogs by Joan Garry and Simone Joyaux. Check out www.joangarry.com and www.simonejoyaux.com.

Becky Schueller consults, coaches, and trains boards, managers and staff in nonprofits, counties and cities, tribes, schools, and sometimes businesses. Do your supervisors need training to supervise effectively and conduct annual performance appraisals? Contact Becky to schedule training on Supervision & Performance Appraisal for your managers, supervisors, and HR team. Follow Becky’s business Facebook page (Rebecca Schueller Training & Consulting), visit her webpage at www.bemidjiconsulting.com, or contact her at Becky@bemidjiconsulting.com to discuss your needs. Initial consultations are always free.

Becky’s Blog, Developed for Clients and Friends of Rebecca Schueller Training & Consulting, LLC

Annual performance appraisals are often dreaded by both supervisors and staff. While some anxiety is normal, when regular weekly or bi-weekly supervision meetings have been lacking, both parties can become highly anxious over the “unknown.”

When I train on Supervision & Performance Appraisal, my first rule about annual evaluations is that they are not the time for supervisors to realize it may be prudent to terminate. The one exception is extreme situations in which you recently became aware of a gross violation of agency policies, procedures, or unacceptable or unsafe behavior.

Annual evaluations are also not the time:

*For a supervisor to have a bad day…especially if it’s because you haven’t adequately prepared for the evaluation and are feeling understandably nervous.

*To deliver performance improvement feedback you haven’t previously given. If you find yourself in a position in which you need to do this, acknowledge that it should have been provided more promptly, apologize, and commit to the employee that you will be more timely about this in the future.

*To discuss an incident you haven’t previously talked about with the employee. Again, if you believe you need to do this, acknowledge that the feedback is not timely, apologize, and commit to being more timely in the future.

The focus of the annual performance evaluation should be to:

*Review and update the employee’s job description so that you are clear on how your employee is spending their time and any new areas of responsibility they routinely handles (sometimes when life gets busy, it’s easy to lose sight of these tasks)

*Determine if your employee has the supplies, tools, equipment, other resources, and training needed to perform optimally

*Assess patterns in your employee’s performance over the course of the year

*Point out strengths and tasks/duties/responsibilities the employee routinely does well

*Note areas in which the employee has made significant improvements

*Share concerns if there are areas of performance where the employee does not meet expectations or needs to improve

*Discuss new responsibilities or areas of growth in performance you’d like to see in the coming year

*Ask about professional development goals for the coming year and training the employee may want to pursue…and yes, share your goals and training ideas for your employee as well

The goal of regular supervision meetings, whether weekly or bi-weekly, is to give timely performance feedback, support, and assistance when an employee needs tools/resources/supplies/equipment or training to do their job well. It ensures that supervisors and employees are both on the same page, which should lessen anxiety over the annual performance appraisal.

Unfortunately, many supervisors have never received quality training regarding how to structure effective supervision meetings with employees. As a result, when life gets busy (and it’s always busy), supervisors avoid these meetings. Yet one of an employee’s highest priorities is usually quality time with his/her supervisor to ask questions, discuss ideas, make suggestions for how the job is performed or on other organizational/company practices, and to receive performance feedback.

And, ideally, these weekly or bi-weekly meetings generate a folder with notes about your discussions to review prior to the employee’s annual performance evaluation.  It gives you high quality information to use to assess patterns in performance, while also providing specific issues, tasks, and accomplishments to refer to in the evaluation.  To make your weekly supervision meetings helpful to you during annual evaluations, send yourself an email following these meetings with highlights:  issues discussed, what’s going well, what needs to improve, goals for the coming week, things your employee needs to do his/her job.

One of the easiest ways to make these regular supervision meetings happen regularly is to schedule them when a new employee is first hired. For the first 6 weeks, it is advisable to hold these meetings weekly to start the employee off with maximum support to succeed in the position. If things are going well and the employee is responsive to feedback, for the next 6 weeks you may wish to cut back to bi-weekly meetings.  But do continue weekly or bi-weekly supervision for the duration of your employee’s tenure in your organization.

It’s not too late to start this practice with your existing employees. If you face resistance, instruct your staff to bring their questions, ideas, and issues for discussion. Listening first and then sharing your agenda items helps generate employee buy-in.

Becky Schueller consults, coaches, and trains managers and staff in nonprofits, counties and cities, tribes, schools, and businesses.  Do your supervisors need training to help them feel effective in their roles and support their ability conduct annual performance appraisals with professionalism, dignity, and respect?  Contact Becky to schedule training on Supervision & Performance Appraisal for your managers, supervisors, and HR team.  Connect with Becky on Linked In, follow Becky’s business Facebook page, visit her webpage at www.bemidjiconsulting.com, or contact her at Becky@bemidjiconsulting.com to discuss your needs. Initial consultations are always free.

Becky’s Blog, Developed for Clients and Friends of Rebecca Schueller Training & Consulting, LLC

Every county, city, tribal department, nonprofit organization, and business should conduct annual performance evaluations for all full- and part-time employees. In this era of mushrooming legal liabilities, it amazes me to hear that some employers are not doing this. It is even more surprising to me when I hear that local units of government are failing to complete this most basic task for employers. Local Units of Government are stewards of taxpayers’ money, and it is simply irresponsible to risk a claim of wrongful termination because of a failure to conduct annual employee evaluations.

Annual evaluations are a basic protection for employers and a basic right for your valuable employees. Every employee deserves to know where they stand with their employer. An annual performance evaluation is essential to communicate this. While I am not a lawyer, I have participated as an employer’s agent in several Administrative Law Hearings regarding Unemployment Benefits. Imagine that you have a hearing with an Administrative Law Judge or are taken to court over a claim of wrongful termination. A basic request of the judge and court will be the Employee’s Personnel File. What do you think the judge will say upon learning that you don’t conduct annual performance evaluations? One possibility is that your organization or business may be found guilty of wrongful termination if you did not clearly state to the employee that there is a need for performance improvement and give the employee a reasonable amount of time to make such improvements.

Annual appraisals provide employees with a clear understanding of what they are doing well, what they need to improve, and identify specific performance goals for the coming year. Appraisals are not a replacement for regular weekly or bi-weekly check-ins with a supervisor, but they are likely to be the clearest written document that is consistently found in a personnel file that identifies the employee’s pattern of performance with your business or organization.

A best practice is that annual performance evaluations are completed in a timely manner each year at a regularly set time (usually one to two months prior to the close of the employer’s fiscal year). This timing allows evaluation ratings to be used in determining any merit increases that an employer offers for the coming year. Because it is difficult to keep track of date of hire anniversaries for multiple employees, it is advisable to put all employees on the same annual schedule for performance evaluations. This helps ensure that annual evaluations are not missed for employees.

Conducting a High Quality Evaluation

Scheduling & Advance Notice of Expectations: Set a time for each employee’s annual evaluation at the beginning of the year so that this date is in the employee’s and supervisor’s calendar. Ideally, the Human Resources Department will monitor this process and provide reminders to supervisors when evaluations are due. Give your employee a copy of their annual evaluation form at time of hire so they know their performance expectations and what areas will be reviewed during the year-end evaluation. Two weeks before the evaluation, remind the employee to review his/her job description and note any changes or additions to duties or new responsibilities they have assumed.

Self-Evaluation & Supervisor’s Evaluation: Request that the employee complete the evaluation by rating themselves and noting performance goals for the coming year for different categories on the evaluation form. The employee is essentially conducting a self-evaluation using the same form their supervisor will use. Let the employee know that you will discuss their self-evaluation during the actual evaluation meeting, at which time their supervisor will share his/her ratings and performance goals for the employee. Make it clear that while the supervisor will consider the employee’s feedback and may adjust some ratings based on the feedback, the supervisor has authority to assign the final rating.

Evaluation Cover Page: Consider adding a cover page to the evaluation that asks the following basic questions:

How is the job going?

What is the most rewarding or what components of the job do you enjoy the most?

What do you find the most frustrating?

Are there any suggestions you have for improvements to communication within the department, organization, or between supervisors and their direct staff reports?

Do you have the tools/supplies/and equipment you need to do the job?

Is there any training you’ve identified that will help you in your job?

Are there new responsibilities you’re interested in learning or taking on in the coming year?

Do you have any other suggestions/comments/concerns or feedback on the business/county/tribe/nonprofit agency?

Again, give this cover page to the employee with the copy of the evaluation form and ask that they make some notes in advance of the evaluation meeting and bring the completed forms to the meeting. Similarly, the supervisor should complete the evaluation form in advance of the actual evaluation meeting with the employee and should review and edit the form before bringing their final draft to the actual meeting. Supervisors may accept employee feedback about ratings and choose to change some ratings…or they may stick with their assessment of the employee’s performance for specific sections of the evaluation.

Categories to Rate: The evaluation form should include categories for: specific job duties/standards of performance, interpersonal skills, attendance and use/abuse of leave time and PTO, level of supervision required for the employee, employee acceptance of supervision, employee’s compliance with employer policies/practices/procedures, and an overall rating. Include performance goals for the coming year under each section. Some employers accept rating scales with Excellent, Very Good, Average, Needs Improvement, or Unsatisfactory. Other employees require a numerical scale. Consider adding a numerical rating to your existing “Excellent and Very good Ratings.” The highest rating would be a 5 and the lowest rating would be a 1 or 0.

Performance Improvement Requirements: The form should include a section for narrative description of required performance improvements (i.e. things the employee must do to be considered proficient at their job and to keep their job if performance is not at an acceptable level). Include a specific deadline by which time such improvements need to be made. Note: Performance improvement requirements are different from performance goals for the coming year.

Overall Performance: Last, the form should include a section on “overall performance comments” which addresses their performance over time. The first sentence should clearly indicate the employee’sr current status with the employer. For instance, “Shannon continues to be an excellent employee” or “Jason is struggling in this position.”

Signed Copies: The evaluation should be signed by the employee, the supervisor, the Human Resources Director, and perhaps the CEO or Chief Administrator (depending upon the size of your organization or business). The employee and supervisor should sign the evaluation right away upon conclusion of the meeting. Employees should be provided the opportunity and encouraged to submit their own comments about the evaluation and any accomplishments that may not have been included. A timeline of 5 to 10 business days should be given for the employee to submit their written comments. Limit comments to 2 pages.

After the employee’s comments are submitted, the supervisor and employee may choose to meet again to review and discuss the employee’s comments. The supervisor may (or may not) add some of these comments to the evaluation form and may (or may not) revise some parts of the evaluation. At this point, the form should be re-signed by both parties and attached to the original evaluation. The employee should receive a copy of the evaluation, the supervisor should scan and save a copy of the evaluation to review during regular check-ins with the employee during the coming year, and a copy should be sent to Human Resources for the Employee’s Personnel File.

If there is disagreement over the evaluation, it might be helpful to have the supervisor and employee sit down with a Human Resources representative for an additional level of review. The final evaluation may or may not change after this meeting. The purpose of this final review is to provide the employee an opportunity to meet with a neutral party and his/her supervisor jointly to discuss areas of concern.

Becky Schueller is a consultant and trainer to nonprofits, counties and cities, tribes, schools, and businesses.  Do your supervisors need training to conduct annual performance appraisals?  Contact Becky to schedule training on Supervision & Performance Appraisal for your managers, supervisors, and HR team.  Follow Becky’s business Facebook page, visit her webpage at www.bemidjiconsulting.com, or contact her a Becky@bemidjiconsulting.com to discuss your needs for assistance with conducting an annual Executive Director or CEO evaluation, developing forms and processes for employee evaluations, training for supervisors, or other management concerns.

Dear Board Chairs,

I invite you to contact me if you’d like to discuss how to proceed with the feedback you received from staff during your recent Executive Director evaluations.  Or, if a prior evaluation caused you to abandon the practice for a few years!  I was an Executive Director for 16 years and an Associate Director for nearly 10 years before that.  Recently, I had the pleasure of working with Executive Directors from throughout the region in a two-day workshop called “The Executive Tool Kit:  Practical Skills to Build Leadership Capacity.” I have also worked with and talked to many executive directors over the years and received very direct input about their experiences with their performance evaluations.

If your staff turnover is not unreasonable for your field of work and your pay scale, and if you are generally satisfied with your organization’s direction and performance, then have your HR Director (or someone with some level of neutrality) collect staff feedback and invite your ED to develop his/her own performance goals regarding it.  These goals would be shared with the Executive Committee (or the committee that conducted the ED evaluation) and reviewed again periodically just like other evaluation goals.  This feedback doesn’t need to go to the board in any level of detail unless there is an ethical, policy, or legal or compliance violation involved.  And, all organizations should have a separate process established for Whistle-Blower and other serious violations that may involve the Executive Director.

Let me clarify…I do believe that it is important for Executive Directors to have access to feedback from their staff.  It keeps us on our toes…and humble!  If possible, however, it’s usually better that this go through a process that is run by the agency’s HR department and is transmitted to the Executive Director without identifying information about individual staff contributors.  When staff feedback goes to the board, unless it is glowing, it usually makes the board feel somewhat anxious and responsible for “fixing” the situation.  While most ED’s (and most supervisors!) have room for improvement, this is not the highest and best use of the board’s time.  It is something that can be handled by the ED and HR.

Executive Directors have to hold hard and firm to certain performance standards and have to generate “performance anxiety” to ensure that the organization is regularly moving forward to best accomplish its mission and serve its clients and constituents.  It is not uncommon for there to be some staff, and even board backlash and/or negativity, when it’s suggested that new standards or procedures need to be implemented so that the organization can operate at full effectiveness in accomplishing its mission.  Hardworking, underpaid, passionate nonprofit staff may or may not appreciate this, however.  This is particularly true if they do not fully understand the Executive Director’s role and responsibilities.  And, the process is even more complicated if the ED recently evaluated the very staff who are now giving feedback on his/her performance.

Too many boards dive into the muddy waters of micro-managing the ED based on how well staff “like” the ED. This undermines the ED and puts the ED in the role of trying to “please” staff. The ED’s responsibility to staff is to have a process for gathering feedback on the organization’s work and direction, to support reasonable structures and policies that promote staff retention, and to advocate for staff compensation and benefits. The ED’s role is not to try to “please” staff, and the annual evaluation process should not be about whether staff “like” the ED. Instead, the board should ask the following:

*Are staff proud to work for the organization? Do they believe the organization achieves positive impact for clients and constituents and meets its mission?

*Are there regular opportunities for staff to give feedback on ideas, issues, and concerns about the organization on a regular basis during the year?

*Is staff turnover in your organization reasonable for your field and pay scale?    

That’s it.

And, separately from the ED’s evaluation, it’s useful to have regular staff feedback processes about the organization which ask: Are there specific policies or structural changes that staff recommend? Have these been discussed in staff team and subsequently in management meetings? Has the Personnel Committee reviewed the final recommendations that came out of these recommendations?

Again,

You are not evaluating if staff “like” the ED.

And, you are not evaluating if staff think the ED is doing a good job (they may or may not understand the ED’s full role…that’s your job as a board!)

The Executive Director evaluation is a hard process for many boards.  And, boards often find the annual ED performance evaluation to be an unpleasant task, which is why it sometimes gets delayed or put off for several years.  Kudos to those courageous boards and organizations which undertake this difficult process every year.

Becky Schueller is a private consultant and trainer who works with organizations, tribes, and local government agencies in North Central and Northwest Minnesota.  Contact Becky at Becky@bemidjiconsulting.com if you’re interested in board development training, strategic planning facilitation, or assistance with the Executive Director evaluation process in your organization.

Check out “Supervision & Performance Appraisal Skills to Help You Keep “The Right People,” on March 15 & 16, 2018 (9:00-4:30 both days) in Bemidji.  Visit www.bemidjiconsulting.com/training for details.  Becky travels throughout Northwest and North Central Minnesota to train.  Contact her at Becky@bemidjiconsulting.com if you’d like to request this training be brought to your organization or tribe.

Strategic planning should be rewarding…not a chore. It should leave board members and staff re-energized and re-invested in the essential, life-changing work of your organization. And it should give everyone, particularly the Executive Director, a short-term direction for the next 12 months and a longer-term direction for the next 3 years.

Linked In features many comments on multiple tools for strategic planning including a basic SWOT (Strengths/Weakenesses and Opportunities/Threats) analysis, Lands Growth Curve (S-curve), EOS-Traction, Product-Market Matrix, and Force Field Analysis, etc. These may be exactly the right fit for some organizations. If you’ve never heard of any of these tools other than SWOT, don’t worry. In strategic planning, the issues organizations confront should be complex, not the tools! We don’t want board members and staff feeling stupid (and less likely to participate fully) because they are intimidated by a tool they don’t understand.

For the vast majority of organizations, a simple process is best so that the complexity of the organization’s work can be the focus. I believe strategic planning should focus on the triumvirate of mission, impact, and sustainability. The most important questions are: 1. What is our impact and what does our data teach us? 2. Do we need to course-correct with our mission, or programs and/or services to deliver more powerful impact for our clients & constituents? And, last, how do we guarantee our sustainability (i.e. our ability to guarantee our impact over the long-term)?

The strategic planning process should identify the 3 most important goals for the next 3 years, and break these goals down into the 3 most important action steps that can be taken in the next year. These should be revisited in a brief strategic plan check-in during a half-day retreat each subsequent year of the strategic plan. During this check-in, you will ask 1) Do we need to course-correct on our strategic plan? And 2. Identify the 3 most important goals and action steps for the coming year. This brief annual check-in is essential as course corrections may need to be made depending on a) what you learn as you implement the action steps, b) if things don’t go as planned, or c) if new issues/opportunities/threats have emerged in the past year.

Strategic Plan goals can also be assigned to board committees for discussion, progress check-ins, and review at regularly scheduled meetings so that there are sound issues to bring to the table at the annual check-in retreat. It’s helpful for brief strategic plan updates to be provided both verbally and in writing to the board and staff each month. Yes, each month. Action steps need to be kept in front of both board members and staff for effective implementation to occur.

In conducting Grantwriting Readiness Workshops this fall, I gathered Assessment Data on a variety of issues from 70+ individuals throughout Northwest, North Central, and West Central Minnesota.  These individuals represented small, mid-size, and large organizations ranging from food shelves and senior nutrition programs to tribal health, grantwriting, and planning departments, a tribal homeless shelter, public health departments, a city, a watershed district, community action programs, and Soil & Water Conservation Districts. What was common to many of these organizations, whether nonprofit, tribal, or public agencies, was that only 50{fc6ceb31d80ec6fabac42d0f5acbad593f1794ee702287db734e3a34db1da57f} (or fewer!) included their line staff, clients/constituents, community partners, and funders in their planning process.

The Strategic Planning Group on Linked In has been besieged with questions about strategic planning, how frequently it should be done, whether 3 or 5-year plans are advisable and useful in today’s swiftly changing world, and how to encourage organizations to follow through on their plan’s goals and action steps.  Strategic plans are very helpful for setting organizational direction and creating a plan that can be widely shared so that an organization’s key stakeholders know where it’s headed.  But perhaps the single most important reason to do it is to gather feedback from your stakeholders, especially clients/constituents, line staff, community partners, and funders.  This is a golden opportunity to review impact data and assess satisfaction with your services, partnerships, and funder relationships.  It can even provide opportunities for your major donors to give feedback on what they value most highly about your agency.  As a donor, have you ever had a CEO or Executive Director call you to ask your opinion on the organization and its direction and services?  No?  You’re not alone.  As a client or consumer of medical or other services, you’ve probably received a customer satisfaction survey.  But have you ever been asked to participate in the provider’s strategic planning process?  No?  Again, you’re not alone.  Requesting feedback during strategic planning is a simple way to engage your stakeholders…and let them know that their opinions matter to your organization.

Funders know that your line staff are the reason your clients return for services.  And, they also know that length of participation in services is closely tied to positive outcomes.  This is especially true in communities facing multi-generational poverty and historical trauma such as those we serve in Northwest, North Central, and West Central Minnesota. So, what does it say to funders if your line staff aren’t included in your strategic planning process?  More importantly, what does it say to your staff?  We need to think of our staff as stakeholders, too.  Even though we pay our staff, in mission-driven nonprofits, our staff are also stakeholders.  Treating them like stakeholders improves job satisfaction and morale.  Strategic planning processes that primarily involve executive and senior management and the board aren’t nearly as useful to your organization (nor as interesting to funders) as more widely inclusive processes.  While their voices are important, senior managers and your board are the people in your organization who already make most of the decisions.  Funders want to know that you are taking planning feedback from stakeholders seriously and that you have done all that is possible to include the voices of your clients/constituents, community partners, and others in your planning process.

Luckily, there are tools like Survey Monkey and focus groups that can be used on an almost free basis.  Most people are willing to complete short surveys.  Focus Group facilitation for your clients can sometimes be bartered or exchanged with one of your skilled community partners so that you use a neutral facilitator who doesn’t control client/consumer access to agency benefits and services.  At the staff level, you may want to invest in paid facilitation or use a Survey Monkey tool, which guarantees anonymity.  Regardless of the approach you choose, do include your agency’s stakeholders in your planning process.  It’s hard to course-correct if you’re missing essential stakeholder feedback. And, it’s an incredibly powerful argument to make to a funder when you can state that all stakeholders in your organization provided the feedback that led to the programmatic strategy or initiative you’re asking them to fund.

Do you have a question you’d like to ask but are feeling reluctant to use your limited funds for paid advice? Contact me at Becky@bemidjiconsulting.com with your question, and I’ll consider blogging about it if I can make a meaningful contribution. Or, if it’s a really super question, and other nonprofit and tribal colleagues can also benefit, I may develop a training to address it! Feel free to contact me, it’s free.

In fall of 2017, l I worked with 70+ participants who attended Grantwriting Readiness Workshops in Bemidji, Crookston, and Detroit Lakes.  One of the most significant “take aways” the vast majority of participants commented on was the Internal Grant Review Panel.  We reviewed a state funder’s scoring criteria as well as a grant review template I provided.  This template can be used internally with a group of staff, volunteers, and community partners to help review, edit, and score grants prior to submission.  There are paid services you can hire to do this, including Rebecca Schueller Training & Consulting.  But, the truth is that for most grants you don’t need to pay for an outside review. Save your money for paid outside reviews for those major state or federal grants that are highly competitive for which you know you can’t afford to lose points.  The internal agency grant review panel represents an opportunity to develop staff and volunteer capacity in your organization. Public and private agencies and tribal organizations have tremendous untapped staff capacity for grantwriting support.  Often grantwriting expertise and responsibilities are concentrated in the hands of a few, most commonly an Executive Director and/or a Resource Development Director. In larger agencies, program directors often take on this role. There are many roles besides the actual writing that go into effective grants, including needs assessment data, internal outcome results and client demographics, partner support letters, gathering current copies of required electronic attachments, and more. Staff are much more invested in helping when they understand the tremendous work that goes into proposals.

We also need to remember that staff and volunteers become good grantwriters in part through the process of reviewing grants and seeing grants reviewed through the eyes of peers and colleagues.  It is a tremendously useful process when it is done well…meaning the process is organized and has a good facilitator (who is not the grantwriter!). It is also an opportunity to expand the knowledge and understanding of your staff and volunteers regarding the amount of work and complex content that goes into grants.  One of the most rewarding comments I read from workshop participants was a young staff member who said, “Now I understand what my supervisor needs when she asks me for help with grants.”  This is why I love this work.

Do you have a question you’d like to ask but are feeling squeamish about using your limited funds for paid advice?  Contact me at Becky@bemidjiconsulting.com with your question, and I’ll consider blogging about it if I think I can make a meaningful contribution.  Or, if it’s a really super question, and other nonprofit and tribal colleagues can also benefit, I may develop a training to address it!  Feel free to contact me, it’s free.

In a recent Grantwriting Readiness Training in Crookston, a participant asked:  “Should the grant budget zero out or should it show a surplus or deficit?”  My reply is that there is a difference between your organizational budget and the budget submitted for a project or program grant.  Propel Nonprofits in the Twin Cities makes the incredibly important point that “Nonprofits need capacity, which includes leadership, infrastructure, and systems.” They note that this requires a surplus in your organizational budget, which becomes an operating reserve at the end of the year.  [Visit www.propelnonprofits.org for great budget, merger, and other resources] It’s helpful to include a note at the bottom of your organizational budget explaining why you show a surplus and what your agency reserves are used for.  In a program or project budget, I believe it works best to zero out your budget or show a reasonable surplus.  If your surplus is too large, funders will ask why you need their support.  If you show a significant deficit, funders will question whether your organization can implement the project or program without full funding. I always recommend that your program and project grant budgets include full costs for your management and administrative support, as well as occupancy, phone, internet, a share of your audit, liability insurance, and other costs.  If the grant isn’t large enough for you to include these costs, show them as in-kind support from your agency…but do show them.  It’s often more compelling to funders when you can show multiple revenue streams for your proposed program or initiative.  Your agency’s in-kind support counts as a revenue stream.  And, it’s important for funders to understand the true costs of your projects and programs…and for you to understand also!  Seeing true actual costs laid out in your budget can be a great visual reminder.

When you’re feeling stressed over your budget, just remember what another nonprofit colleague said at the Community Resource Connections Networking meeting earlier in December:  “Budgets are like the weather forecast.  They’re a guideline.”

Do you have a question you’d like to ask but are feeling reluctant to use your limited funds for paid advice? Contact me at Becky@bemidjiconsulting.com with your question, and I’ll consider blogging about it if I think I can make a meaningful contribution. Or, if it’s a really super question, and other nonprofit and tribal colleagues can also benefit, I may develop a training to address it! Feel free to contact me, it’s free.