This past Wednesday was the third anniversary of my father’s death. I wrote his obituary, and I included the almost obligatory, “in lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the Boy Scouts of America”, which then asks for a check. It occurs to me now that this is a terribly inefficient and outdated way of … Read more
This evening I’m running practice for my son’s Little League T-Ball team. The regular head coach has to be somewhere else, so I’m subbing. It got me thinking of the first time I volunteered to coach a Little League team, back in 1998. I think there’s a pretty good lesson to be learned from it, although … Read more
The Problem How would you like to be able to create custom items like hats, shirts, mugs, or even jewelry for your organization with absolutely no inventory? What if you didn’t have to have anything on hand at all? This comes up because of a discussion I was having with an old friend, and the organization … Read more
Summertime Recruiting – The Season of Yes Summertime recruiting is one of the great opportunities for reaching a lot of people that most groups tend to let slip away. The first month that I was the District Executive for Boy Scouts in Aroostook County, Maine, the temperature never got about zero. I thought of this as “the … Read more
Holding a successful recruiting campaign For membership-based groups, recruiting is the key to surviving and thriving. In order to do so, you need how to run a successful recruiting campaign. This will be the first in series on all aspects of growing your organization. Setting the Date First of all, you need a date for … Read more
One of the keys to non-profit success is a connection to your community – and not your community in the abstract. But specifically, who are the leaders in your community? Who are the people who know everyone? Who’s involved in everything? Who do you need to be talking to in your community in order to … Read more
Your Mother’s Day Facebook Message This Sunday is Mother’s Day. So you still have a couple of days to get a card. You also have a couple of days to get your post ready for your organization’s Mother’s Day Facebook Post. Since you aren’t paying your volunteers, recognition is your main currency. You want to thank … Read more
Volunteer Prospecting Recruiting volunteers is a daunting task. Most people would rather do just about anything else rather than ask for something “for nothing.” So the key to success is volunteer prospecting. Most people would also much rather take the easy way out. They know they need money, so they want to run to the … Read more
I Hate Passwords! I hate passwords. Don’t get me wrong, I like the idea of passwords, I like having my data secure. I don’t want someone hacking my bank account or my Facebook. But I hate remembering passwords. They suck. And now they’re getting more complicated. You need an uppercase letter, a lowercase letter, a … Read more
Effective Facebook Recruiting Event Promotion Facebook is a great way to reach a lot of people in a short period of time, for an extremely low cost. As of the fourth quarter 2016, there were 1.86 billion people on Facebook. There are also thousands of people and pages competing for space in the feeds of … Read more