First of all, what is a “nonprofit offsite” and why have one?
Held outside the usual workplace, a nonprofit offsite (or, nonprofit retreat) is an event at which all members of a nonprofit come together to achieve specific objectives.
Duration is up to you, but it can run anywhere from a single day to a full workweek.
Traditionally, for one reason or another, nonprofits have long suffered the tail end of technology.
For example, most fundraising goes toward programs or services. And many nonprofits are forced to air their low percentage of donations used for infrastructure as a badge of honor.
Moreover, some also believe that using more than rudimentary technology reduces a personal touch with their donor base.
However, if you have any desire to grow, none of this should be.
After we facilitated a one-day nonprofit board retreat, here’s what one attendee shared with us:
"We all enjoyed the retreat immensely. I’ve heard nothing but great things from our board."
In this article, I’ll share what made this board retreat both productive and enjoyable, including engaging icebreakers, a well-defined agenda, and interactive activities so you can have a successful offsite.
If yours is like most nonprofits, virtually all mission-related tasks are handled by your in-house team.
In effect, your organization is an internal agency, a service group much like an ad agency or a law firm. Except instead of billable hours, you deal in productive hours (see Chapter 13 in my free book).
Your team does its best to ensure those valuable hours are used wisely for, say, a specific donor campaign or a live fundraising event.
On April 11th, CauseMic held an in-person event to launch my new free book, The High-Growth Nonprofit.
What a great turnout and a chance to meet a lot of terrific, cause-driven folks. Along with us handing out copies of the book, I gave a short presentation on how to grow your nonprofit during times of economic uncertainty.
If you’re a nonprofit leader looking for real growth, drop in on Dan Bruton’s PDX Executive Podcast with CauseMic leader Matt Scott as they discuss Matt’s free book, The High-Growth Nonprofit.
Along with experiences from his pre-CauseMic days, Matt’s book captures 10+ years of tips, successes, and lessons learned helping cause-worthy groups achieve exponential growth. Dan and Matt discuss some of the contents, beginning with the all-important high-growth mindset.
I’m happy to say my new bookThe High-Growth Nonprofit is hot off the press.
I kicked off the book’s launch on the Nonprofit Radio yesterday by noting why reading the book makes sense for nonprofit leaders everywhere:
Nothing centers your focus on things you’ve learned in your career like writing a book about them.
Unless you launch into some stream-of-consciousness, rambling mumbo jumbo, it forces you to categorize your knowledge into specific chapters that make sense.
But within each chapter, it’s easy to succumb to the notion that future readers will hang on your every word, even if it’s Gone With the Wind, Volume II. They won’t.
So you have to be succinct enough to get to the actual heart of the matter, even if there seems to be many hearts of many matters. I had to follow my own advice: Be decisive—pick something and run with it! (Thank you, page 49).
I learned these things (and others) while writing my book, The High-Growth Nonprofit.
Boiling it down to two
All nonprofit executives recognize strategy is important. But it’s a safe assumption that most also find the creation of their organization’s strategic plan to be daunting, sometimes scary. When making decisions on the path ahead, you will cut off other possibilities and opportunities. Those choices become a reflection of you as a leader and what if they don’t pan out?