Learning Leadership

My Passion to Teach Others

As I grow older I am learning more about my passion of teaching the Bible and possibly some giftedness that I have in doing it.

In previous blog posts I have written about my experiences teaching a Bible study for new believers on Sunday afternoons and on Tuesdays teaching three men about leadership from the Bible. Through these experiences as part of my internship, I am learning that I enjoy studying the Bible in order to teach it effectively and that I seem to be pretty good at it according to the feedback from the people who participate in my teachings.

Each time I teach a Bible study I put a tremendous amount of hard work and effort into studying the text and topic we are going to work through. Then I organize it into a way that will be simple to understand, and I try to find a creative way to teach it so the participants can apply what they learn to their own lives. Because of this process that I work hard to go through before every teaching, I believe I have delivered some pretty good teachings. Knowing I have done a good job to teach God’s word gives me satisfaction because the participants seem to be learning a lot from the teachings.

The plan God has for my life still has many elements to be revealed to me, but I feel He is possibly showing me a plan teach others.

Question: What is your passion? 

 

Followers Lighten Their Leaders' Load

Last week I created a blog for Church Assistance Ministry (CAM) as a way to advance CAM’s mission to equip church leaders around the world. When my field supervisor and I met for me to show him the blog, I walked him through the entire process of how to create a blog post, how to publish it, and what it should look like when it is finished.

After the meeting, Steve knew exactly how he can compose, post, and publish blog posts to the CAM blog. However, after the meeting I realized that I had made a mistake. I failed to offer my help to Steve by posting content on the blog for him. My role with CAM is to help advance their mission by lightening Steve’s workload. I should have told him that I am glad to post content for him on the blog if he provides it to me. My hope in creating the blog is that Steve has a bunch of content he has already written/created that can be posted on the blog to reach more people. If Steve or the other CAM members have content that can be posted with my help, then I need to do that work for them (especially for Steve).

As a follower, my main job is the lighten the work load of the leader above me. With CAM, Steve is my leader and almost everything that I do needs to revolve around lightening his work load and furthering CAM’s mission.

Question: How do you lighten your leader's load?

 

Feeling Alone Because of Faith or Leadership

Latelty I've been spending some time reading a devotional called, Bridges to Contemplative Living.  In it, Thomas Merton writes, “The Christian in whom Christ is risen dares to think and act differently from the crowd” (pg. 35). Further explaining Merton’s thoughts, Barbara Brown Taylor (author of the book, Leaving Church) also emphasizes this point when she talks about the difference in her life she notices when being in ministry and wearing clergy clothing versus when she is no longer a minister and dresses in plain clothes.

Both of these people know that the life of Christianity causes us to live differently than most people. And this means we might not be accepted by others or might be seen as an outsider, and often we feel that way too. This is part of the reason that being Christian can be difficult.

I personally have been experiencing this most of my life—before becoming a Christian—and afterwards. In high school I often found myself not connecting with classmates and had difficulty developing a deep relationship with long-term friends. I was working hard to earn a golf scholarship and spent time doing schoolwork and practicing my golf. After becoming a Christian, I noticed this feeling of being “outside the norm” to be even more obvious. When with people, my values are different than most. Even now, I see friends doing things they know are not ethical and Godly, and because of that, I have trouble connecting with them on a deep level.

You too, as a leader or person of faith might feel alone because of your faith. When you take a stance on an issue or make a tough decision, you might feel alone in what you have had to do. This takes toughness and courage to do.

It is easier to feel alone in the world knowing that I am honoring God and living like Jesus. I just need to stay focused on that instead of allowing myself to be influenced by what the world says I should do or look like.

Question: When you do feel alone because of your faith or role as a leader, what do you do to deal with it? 

6 Ways to Improve Your Communication

The past couple of years I have done a lot of public speaking.  Last year I gave 108 talks and the year before gave 118.

Most of these were shorter talks from five to ten minutes, but they were talks where I needed to prepare a message and deliver it to an audience.  Some of my audiences were as large as 120 people while others were as small as four people.

Along the way I've learned some key facts about communication that I've had to implement.  And you, as my Learning Leadership readers get to read it first before anyone else.

1) Prepare Yourself - I never go to a talk that I haven't prepared myself for.  I need to make sure I've slept enough the night before, that I'm well groomed, and I have my outlined prepared.

2) Research the Audience - This is where I get to know my audience by doing research on the company or the audience I'm going to be speaking to.  If I'm talking about United Way to a group of potential donors at a company, I research that company to see if they have any prior experience with donating to United Way or other charities in the area.  If they have donated to other charities, then I can lean on those other charities as credibility by referencing how we partner with them.

3) Arrive Early and Connect - Arriving early to give a talk is something I learned from Mark Sanborn.  When I'm there early I get to shake a few hands of the people I'll be speaking with. I smile and gesture that I'm there as a friend who's speaking to them, not someone there trying to get something out of them. 

Arriving early also allows me to get a feel for the layout of the room, where I will be speaking from, and any lighting or noise distractions that I might have to combat.

4) Talk Clearly and Short - Longer isn't always better when it comes to giving a talk.  You have to be short, sweet, and simple.  And I've found the best way for me to do that is to enunciate clearly and limit my talk to as short of time as possible to get my message across.

If you have trouble enunciating clearly, try reading a book out loud for a while and exaggerate the movement your mouth.  Since a teenager I've always had trouble with mumbling my words because I don't open my mouth and move my lips enough with I speak.  Reading out loud from time to time helps with this.

5) Focus on a Purpose - At the top of every outline I have I write a purpose statement.  It goes something like this:

Purpose: To teach how United Way's 2-1-1 help line can be beneficial to them and their family.

The purpose helps me get rid of anything in my talk that might take away from my message.

6) Talk to Them, Not at Them - This is an issue of your attitude towards people, not necessarily the way you communicate.  To be an effective public speaker you have to have a healthy view of people as inherently good and worthy of respect.  If you look down on people and see them as a way to get what you want, there is no way you can treat them with respect and encourage them.

Question: What are some tips and communication thoughts that have improved your public speaking?

Guest Post - If Making Money From Home is All You Can Do, You Must Do It

Today's article is a guest blog post from Brandy Olsen.

As a writer, leader, and nonprofit staffer, I believe that we all need to do what it takes to make ends meat. At times, that means we need to work from home, and the following post is an opportunity for you to learn some additional information about how you can earn some extra income from home if you are in need of it.

As always, tomorrow I will be back to posting leadership content for you. In the meantime, feel free to give this post a read and pass it along to someone you know who might need to earn some extra income from home.

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If Making Money From Home is All You Can Do, You Must Do It

"He who works his land will have abundant food, but he who chases fantasies lacks judgment." – PROVERBS 12:11

If the Good Lord wants one thing out of us it's work. We must work to please Him and work to please one another in order to share a blessed coexistence. But God wants us to want these things and not do them solely for obligatory reasons. Just as much as we must love to serve God and do so willingly, we must willingly love to serve one another. An honest day's work should not be considered a curse but a blessing. Above all it should be considered a necessary aspect of being one of God's children and something we should always aspire to do no matter what.

There are those among us who lead lives of minimal labor from home. Whether our bodies are weak or our minds fearful, we often rely on the laborious efforts of others to live happily. While God isn't demanding that the disabled and disenfranchised die trying to help make ends meet, He certainly wants the able to be willing, no matter what they're able to do. Making income at home is often a great way for those unable to find or gain outside employment to get a chance to make a contribution to their household. It isn't exactly easy to find a profitable means to make money from home and fraudulent offers are rampant, but if you're currently contributing little to nothing to the household, yet are at least able to operate a home computer, then the honest truth is that you should be trying no matter what.

So what kind of options are there? Online auctioneering and second-hand selling is a good start though it's hard to make significant amounts of income without exerting physical effort toward packing and shipping goods. There are an abundance of free lance writing, editing, and media-editing jobs out there that often pay-per-gig and while nominal in fee can add up to big bucks if you build up enough of a reputation that folks return to you time and time again. There are also scores of online home moneymaking solutions offered by services such as IncomeatHome.com. These demand particular vigilance to avoid falling prey to a scam but many of them such as the site I just mentioned are noted for their honesty.

Honestly making money online from home is not particular easy relative to the money you get, but if you are in the position where employment outside the home is not an option, yet have the ability to operate a computer, you should certainly consider it. Only you and God know whether or not you have the ability to truly make the effort to help your family make some money. Work it out with Him privately, and then see whether or not there's an opportunity that's right for you.

Fundraising is Key

Today is the final blog post in my series featuring sections from chapter 5 of my book, A Day of Hope: Leading Volunteers to Make a Difference in Your Community.

I hope you have enjoyed reading (for free) sections of my book. It is for sale on Amazon in case you know of someone who might benefit from reading it. The book is ideal for anyone who works at a nonprofit organization, someone who volunteers, is involved with churches, or has a general desire to make a difference in the community.

Thank you for reading and enjoy the final section.

FUNDRAISING IS KEY

No matter what types of fundraisings and food collection you do, it’s very key.  You need to dedicate a large amount of your time to gathering food and raising funds for your cause.

 

 

Workin' at the Car Wash

Today's post is part 9 of chapter 5 of my book, A Day of Hope: Leading Volunteers to Make a Difference in Your Community. I realize that some of these posts might not be exactly related to "leadership," but I believe they are relevant. Feel free to pass them on to someone you know who works at a nonprofit organization or church.

WORKIN’ AT THE CAR WASH . . . .

Since I have an extreme amount of experience leading car washes, I’m going tell you how you can do a fundraiser car wash.  I use the following procedure and I recommend you use it if you decide to do a car wash to fundraise for your project.

FIND A LOCATION

The most important element of a car wash is its location.  No location, no car wash.  Find a busy intersection or busy road and start asking businesses with large parking lots if you can hold a car wash there.  We hold our car washes at a local bank parking lot.  Some cities require you to have a permit for a car wash, so make sure you check with your city government before you hold one.

RECRUIT VOLUNTEERS

Recruiting volunteers is key.  You can’t have a car wash without lots of volunteers to actually wash cars.  Start by calling people you know who might like to volunteer.  My friends with kids are always a good place to start because parents can drop off the kids to volunteer and kids love to wash cars.  Anytime they can do something other than homework and chores they are ecstatic!  Plus, parents love to get their children involved in volunteering to serve people in need in the community.  Kids get to be outside playing with water, and parents get to feel like they are teaching their kids the rewards of helping others. 

I’ve found that I need to have at least eight volunteers there at all times to wash cars.  We do our car washes from 9:00 AM to 7:00 PM at night.  So if I want to have eight people there at all times, I need to have at least fifteen volunteers committed to come help for a few hours of the day.  Not everyone will be willing or able to wash cars for ten hours.  So we often have people who come for five or six hours, get tired, and go home. 

There also is the “flake factor” which says you’ll need to assume at least 10 percent of the volunteers who commit to come and won’t show up. You’ll talk to them the day before the car wash and they’ll say they are going to come and volunteer.  Then the next day they never show up.  Plan for those unexpected changes in people’s schedules that keep them from volunteering that day.

GET NECESSARY MATERIALS

To run a car wash you’re going to need a source of water, hoses, nozzles, buckets, soap, sponges, signs for the road, and a bag to keep money in.  The most important material of all is—lunch!  Washing cars burns a lot of calories, so get lunch for the volunteers along with sodas and snacks.

MAKE IT FUN

I underestimated the importance of fun when I first started doing car washes.  When people volunteer, they want to have fun.  I had to make car washes an enjoyable experience for everyone who was attending.  I made sure that we had positive, up beat music playing the entire time.  I noticed that if I kept my energy level high, stayed positive, and kept being encouraging and passionate, that seemed to translate to others who were at the car wash too.  Soon I found myself being the life of the party and was an energy maniac who was always saying something to someone and always doing my best to keep the troops energized. 

Car washes can be a great way for you to fundraise.  It raises money for you, allows you to talk to volunteers who might be able to help with other projects, and it’s a time to tell normal, everyday people about what you’re trying to do.

Question: Have you done fundraiser car washes in the past? How did they work? What tips do you recommend for holding a fundraiser car wash?

Food Drives

Today's post is part 8 of chapter 5 of my book, A Day of Hope: Leading Volunteers to Make a Difference in Your Community. I realize that some of these posts might not be exactly related to "leadership," but I believe they are relevant. Feel free to pass them on to someone you know who works at a nonprofit organization or church.

FOOD DRIVES

There are many formats and methods you can use to gather donated food for your project.  The one we’ve found most successful is our Charity Food Bag Drop.  This is where we drop off a paper grocery bag to the doorsteps of homes in Turlock on a Saturday with a flyer saying we will be back the next day to pick up the bags if they want to donate food.  The flyer lists specific foods needed.  If the home owner wants to donate food, they just need to place the bag filled with food on their doorstep by 1:00 PM the next day, and we pick it up from them as a donation. 

It takes a lot of time and effort to coordinate the Charity Food Bag Drop.  This is an example of how I focus my time and effort in one area of my strengths.  Working with volunteers in an organized way towards a common goal matches right up with my strengths as a leader.  That’s why I dedicate so much time and effort to this project, and it’s probably one of the reasons that the event is so successful—not because I am involved, but because leading the event matches up very closely with my strengths.

In 2009, we distributed almost 10,000 paper grocery bags to homes in Turlock and used nearly 100 volunteers.  The volunteers prepared the bags by stapling a flyer to them, got maps to neighborhoods ready, delivered the grocery bags, picked up the filled grocery bags, and then got the food back to our storage facility.

The first step in coordinating the Charity Food Bag Drop is to get the necessary paperwork done for liability.  For us, we had to let our fiscal agent, CSU, Stanislaus Foundation, know that we were planning to do the event.  There was a liability release everyone was required to sign to make sure we were covered in case an accident happened. 

Once you’ve got that covered you need to set some dates to do this.  We always do the Charity Food Bag Drop over two weekends in November, usually the first two weekends.  Each weekend we usually spend Friday night stapling flyers to bags, all day Saturday delivering empty grocery bags to homes, and Sunday afternoon picking them up. 

You’ll need to get paper grocery bags to use for the Charity Food Bag Drop.  You can purchase them at some stores like Smart & Final, but only purchase them if you can’t get them donated.  Sometimes local grocery stores will donate paper grocery bags to you if you simply ask.  Ask to talk to the store manager or assistant manager, tell them what you’re trying to do, and ask if they’d be willing to donate some grocery bags.

When delivering the bags on Saturday, I have all volunteers meet me at our church where I give them a map with highlighted areas designating the areas they’re responsible to deliver the grocery bags.  I use Google Maps to print out a detailed map for each part of the city and then highlight the areas I want.  I exclude businesses and apartment complexes because most businesses aren’t open on weekends and apartment complexes make it difficult to retrieve the food because of the amount of walking you have to do.

I send volunteers out all day Saturday in teams of two to four people so they can have fun together.  Once the volunteers have their map and their team, they grab a stack of bags with the flyers already stapled on them.  The more bags we get delivered to homes the better!  I have volunteers deliver bags until 6:00 PM at night, and the only reason we stop is that it gets dark.  Make sure you receive the maps back from the people who help deliver the bags on Saturday because you’ll need those on Sunday when you send volunteers back out to pick up the food.

We include on the flyer that we will return to pick up the food by 5:00 PM on Sunday, so people just need to set the bagged food on their doorstep the next day.  The goal is to send volunteers back out to the same areas where they dropped off the bags and have them pick up the food.  When volunteers pick up food I have them go in groups of two or three so one volunteer can slowly drive down the streets while the other volunteers in the car look for a grocery bag on the doorstep of homes.  The process of picking up donations is much faster than delivering the bags because only about one out of every four homes will donate food. 

Be ready for some follow up work from the Charity Food Bag Drop because you always have people who call you later in the week wanting to donate food.  Either they didn’t see the bag on their doorstep on Saturday, or they say they put a bag filled with food on their doorstep and no one came to pick it up.  Usually they’ll ask if you can still come pick up the food or if they can drop it off.

It’s hard to give you a perspective just how much food we gather from the Charity Food Bag Drop, but I can tell you that it is our most productive event.  We gather more food from the Charity Food Bag Drop than any other event, fundraising idea, or outreach effort than we’ve ever done.

Question: Do you have any experience with doing food drives in your community? Have you served as a leader in food drives? (Please share in the comment section.)

Fundraising Events

Today's post is part 7 of chapter 5 of my book, A Day of Hope: Leading Volunteers to Make a Difference in Your Community. I realize that some of these posts might not be exactly related to "leadership," but I believe they are relevant. Feel free to pass them on to someone you know who works at a nonprofit organization or church.

FUNDRAISING EVENTS

There are lots of different fundraising events that you can do to support your cause.  The important thing is to identify your strengths and make sure the fundraising events you do match up with those strengths. 

The range of ideas for different fundraising events is almost limitless.  You can do car washes, poker tournaments, crab feeds, spaghetti dinners, bunko nights, wine and cheese tasters, golf tournaments, walks, marathons, etc.  The list is almost endless.  To demonstrate the amount of ideas which can be generated, I went to a meeting agenda we had when we met in July 2007.  Here is a list of the fundraising ideas we generated and how much we hoped to earn:

• Car Wash - $300
• Fundraiser BBQ at someone’s house - $200
• Get big companies involved in an event such as Target, Safeway, Wal-Mart – We have decided that we will do some kind of a food drive if we pursue this avenue.
• Softball tournament - $200
• Baseball home run sponsor, donation per home run
• Desert Auction – has to be paired with Wine & Cheese
• Workplace competition to see who fundraises the most money, and that person gets a spa treatment.
• Jack Doo – Putting a barrel at Liberty Market for people to drop off food and leave it there
• Brownie Walk – This is a good game that we can have at another fundraiser
• Walking door to door like we did last year except with some more planning – This raises a ton of food
• Flyers on cars in parking lots
• Pumpkin sales for Halloween - $300
• Haunted food party
• Walking around the local college’s dorms again – This will get us about 25 baskets of food
• Chi Delta Beta men’s auction fundraiser - $750
• Yellow bag on doorsteps with a note that we’ll pick up the food from their home in a couple of days
• Poker Tournament - $1,100
• Pizza Party
• Radio station idea with a drive in food drop off – competition between cities
• Golf tournament with sponsors - $10,000  
• Get the Sacramento King, Oakland A’s, San Francisco 49ers, and Oakland Raiders to donate some memorabilia to auction at our Golf Tournament
• Hit up authors Seth Godin, Mark Sanborn, and Tony Robbins for donations as well as Todd and Michelle at Anthony Robbins Foundation to get some books to auction off
• Talk to Michelle at the Modesto Bee about any fundraisers that we are doing

Lots of ideas isn’t it!  That’s one of the beautiful things of gathering lots of people together in a room where you talk about fundraising—they generate lots of ideas.

When trying to decide which ideas you will focus on to fundraise, choose just a few and do those few exceptionally well.  You can only do so many fundraisers because if you do too many, you’ll wear out the people who regularly come to donate.  One of the events we did for A Day of Hope a few times was a card tournament at California State University, Stanislaus for college students.  We did the event with limited success, and we maybe did one other event where we wanted to engage college students, but that was it.  If we had tried to do too many events that involved college students, it would have been a mistake.  We can only ask them to do so much with the limited amount of time and money (very little money) they have.

When you fundraise, you need to establish what you are going to “raise.”  When we wanted to do a card tournament for college students, it would have been ludicrous to ask them all to pay $50 to play.  They don’t even have $5.  Instead, we made the entry fee two cans of food.

After the card tournament in the spring we go to a different demographic of people for summer—normal drivers who are on the road for fundraiser car washes.  That is a deep pool of people from different parts of the community such as college students, college professors, business CEOs, writers, stay at home moms, etc. 

No matter what type of fundraiser you hold, there are certain elements to the event that you need to piece together for the event to be successful. Here’s a quick list:

• Time – Planning fundraising events takes time and effort!  Event fundraisers don’t happen magically; they are lots of hard work and take dedication to make happen.  
• Volunteers – You’re going to need volunteers to help plan and work the event.  Volunteers with different skill sets are needed to help make your event successful.
• Sponsors – If you’re doing a large public fundraising event, it always helps if you can have at least one large sponsor to attach their name to the event.  This gives your fundraiser credibility and allows people to see a familiar name in relation to your event, for example: A Day of Hope’s Spaghetti Fundraiser presented by McDonald’s. 
• Marketing – This is the key, and it’s where the rubber meets the road.  Marketing takes volunteers, time, and money.  You have to distribute flyers everywhere you can, tell your friend about the event, send information to local newspapers, and post the information on your Facebook or Myspace page.

One important tip is to not do too many events close to the Thanksgiving holiday.  In my experience, we’re always working hard in the last two weeks of October and the beginning of November.  We’re busy preparing to actually deliver the food by gathering it, sorting it, and getting maps and information ready for the families we plan to serve.  Trying to do a fundraising event in the middle of all that work is difficult.  If you do decide to pursue it, then make sure you have some volunteers who can help you.

Most of your fundraising events should be throughout the summer, in September, or the beginning of October.  Here in sunny California you can do car washes all year, but I always intentionally schedule our last car wash the third week in October.  This allows us to focus on collecting food and getting ready to actually deliver the food to people for Thanksgiving.

Question: My position on fundraising events is very clear. What is your experience and do you see value in them? 

In-Kind Donations

Today's post is part 6 of chapter 5 of my book, A Day of Hope: Leading Volunteers to Make a Difference in Your Community. I realize that some of these posts might not be exactly related to "leadership," but I believe they are relevant. Feel free to pass them on to someone you know who works at a nonprofit organization or church.

IN-KIND DONATIONS

What’s in in-kind donation?  It’s a donation of an actual good or service.  It can be a great way to receive donated food you can use for your cause.  An in-kind donation can be a donation of frozen turkeys from a local grocery story, a donation of canned cranberry sauce from a local Del Monte cannery plant, or a bunch of boxes from a local warehouse to put the food in to deliver to the families.

The main way we use in-kind donations for A Day of Hope can be found in the last section of this chapter entitled, “Food Drives.”  So I will not go into the mechanics of food drives here, but I’ll share with you how to get in-kind donations from local businesses.

The key to fundraising for in-kind donations is to find a company that has something you’re in need of to feed families.  An example for us is Foster Farms.  Foster Farms sells thousands (if not millions) of frozen turkeys during the Thanksgiving holiday across the country.  When I was looking to receive some donated turkeys from them, I did a little research, identified them as a possible prospect, sent a letter, and waited for a reply. 

Doing research and sending an in-kind donation request letter is one method of doing in-kind donation fundraising, but there are many others.  Preferably, like most areas of this book, you want to find out who you know personally who might be able to help you.  Do you know someone who works at a company that can provide the food you need for your project?  Do you know someone who knows someone at a company that an provide the food you need for your project?

If you can identify someone, try to make a phone call, send a letter, or set up a meeting over coffee.  Do whatever you can to open the conversation in a way where you’re able to tell them what you hope to do with A Day of Hope and how they might be able to help.  People don’t mind being “pitched” when it’s for a good cause.

Online Fundraising

Today's post is part 6 of chapter 5 of my book, A Day of Hope: Leading Volunteers to Make a Difference in Your Community. I realize that some of these posts might not be exactly related to "leadership," but I believe they are relevant. Feel free to pass them on to someone you know who works at a nonprofit organization or church.

ONLINE FUNDRAISING

Online fundraising is where you can really make some progress for a small program.  You might need to be computer savvy, but if you have the ability to run a computer once it’s on and the ability to learn, you can use the internet for some effective fundraising for your organization.

I’ve used several online mediums to support our cause with information and fundraising efforts, so I’ll outline what I’ve used successfully and how I used it.  Then I’ll share with you other ways you can fundraise online that I know about but have not had personal experience with.

SENDING EMAILS

One of the first things I did to start spreading the word outside of talking to people in person was to send out emails to people in my email database asking them if they’d like to help with what we were doing.  This later became a monthly email newsletter that we send to over 300 people.

SQUIDOO.COM

This is a free online platform where anyone can create a single web page about anything.  On the web page there are ads and things for sale.  If those ads get clicked on or items get purchased, you receive a percentage of the money earned as a donation.  Over the past three years, we’ve probably received over $4,000 in donations from Squidoo.com.  It’s a great company that is designed to help charities advocate and to empower volunteers to create web pages that donate to local charities.

FACEBOOK

It took us a long time to figure out how to receive a good response from Facebook.  We found that we received donations on Facebook in the month of November when people were in a giving mood for Thanksgiving.  And we found that people would donate to someone who created a birthday wish for our cause.  A birthday wish is when I ask my friends not give me a gift for my birthday but to make a donation to a charity on my behalf.  I did this last year for my birthday, and we raised $225.  In two years of using Facebook, we have raised over $1,000 from people who joined our cause and wanted to support our work.  People only donate after you’ve spent a considerable amount of time educating them and teaching them about what you do.  So every other week I post a bulletin (an update email that is sent to every person who joined your cause).  After posting lots of those bulletins to inform people about what we do and how, people started to donate.  I found that the more I inform people and the more I teach them about the great work that we do, the more they want to donate. 

WEBSITES

A Day of Hope has had a website almost from the beginning.  It’s a simple website with only five pages on it.  You can view it at www.adayofhope.org.  We keep the site updated with information on when we started, what our basic mission is, what we’ve done, and what our goal is for the year.  Websites don’t have to be fancy.  Just focus on sharing information on who you are and what you’re trying to do.

TWITTER

Right now we have over 1,700 people who follow our updates on Twitter.  We use Twitter to inform people about who we are and what we do.  Every once in a while we’ll ask our followers to donate or volunteer with us.

BLOGS

I have a blog where I write about leadership and share what I’m learning in life.  Here’s my shameless plug—you can visit it at www.christopherscottblog.com.  If you do a blog dedicated to your project, it would be a great way to keep people up to date and informed on what you’re doing.  You can post pictures, share stories from families, have people post their experience volunteering, and share videos from your work.  A blog can be a great resource if you use it correctly and post to it often.  You’ll need to make blog posts at least twice a week if you expect to have anyone read it regularly.  You can set up a free blog with a service offered by Google called Blogger.  Just go to www.blogger.com, sign up, design your blog, and start posting content.  I use www.typepad.com to host my blog, but I’ve been told www.wordpress.com is one of the best blogging services out there.  My suggestion: use Blogger first because it’s free.

PAYPAL

We used Paypal for a limited time but stopped because of certain nonprofit laws regarding online fundraising.  Using Paypal to fundraise for your cause will be something you have to investigate on your own.

MYSPACE

Myspace seems to be popular also.  We’ve never gotten too involved with it, but if you have a bunch of friends who are on Myspace, that might be the place to start. 

Question: What experience with online fundraising do you have? What has been successful or has been a failure?

Financial Donations

Today's post is part 5 of chapter 5 of my book, A Day of Hope: Leading Volunteers to Make a Difference in Your Community. I realize that some of these posts might not be exactly related to "leadership," but I believe they are relevant. Feel free to pass them on to someone you know who works at a nonprofit organization or church.

FINANCIAL DONATIONS

Financial donations from individuals and companies can be the easiest donations to receive.  Sometimes they are the smallest donations, but they can lead to other personal connections, volunteers, and support for your cause that you wouldn’t receive without them.

Financial donations were the main way I began fundraising for A Day of Hope, not because I did it on purpose, but because it was how people wanted to support my work.  If they didn’t want to volunteer or donate food, they would offer to give me money.  At the time I didn’t have an official process to follow for fundraising, but I soon developed one because so many people offered to donate.

If you’re looking to fundraise money from individuals and/or companies, simply start by thinking of the people you know.  Think of the people who are close to you and who might have the financial ability to donate to your cause.  Who might that be?  For me it was two of my former bosses.  They knew me well and knew that I wanted to sincerely help people.  So I asked them first.  Start with the people you know.  When looking for people to donate personally to A Day of Hope, I believe there are five categories of people you can look to.

1. If you know the person as a friend, co-worker, or family member
2. If you know the person donates to other organizations
3. If you know the person attends church
4. If you know the person volunteers at any organizations
5. If you know the person is good hearted and compassionate

Take these five categories and think about people who might fit into one of them.  If some people come to mind, you’ll need to plan what to say in asking them for a donation.  Here’s some text from what I usually say when I’m asking for a donation.

Me: Hi John, this is Christopher Scott, how are you doing?

John: I’m great, how about you?

Me: I’m doing good.  I wanted to chat with you about something.  Do you have a few minutes?

John: Yes, wassup?

Me: I’m volunteering with this program called A Day of Hope here in Turlock where we’re trying to feed people in need for Thanksgiving.  We’re trying to raise some funds to purchase turkeys for these families.  Do you think you would like to make a donation to support our work?

Then the conversation goes from there.  Sometimes they will say yes and offer to donate right there on the spot.  Sometimes they will say that they need to think about it and that you need to call them back.  Or they might ask for some more information on your project or a place where they can do some research on their own.

If you don’t feel comfortable calling someone on the phone to ask for a donation, don’t sweat it.  You can do other things to fundraise money.  For instance, you can send letters to people if that makes you feel more comfortable.  Letters are not as effective though because people gets lots of mail every single day. 

The best tactic I’ve found is to send a letter and make a phone call.  This takes a little more time, but it dramatically increases your effectiveness as a fundraiser.  Some people are auditory learners while others prefer to learn by reading.  So when you send a letter to someone to ask for a donation and then follow up the next week with a phone call, your chance of receiving a donation will dramatically increase.

When sending a letter, make sure that the letter is clear and concise, quickly gets to the point of why you’re writing to them, and talks about what you’re trying to do and why you need their help.  Makes sure you include a pre-addressed (but not pre-stamped) envelope so they can easily send back a check.  I’ve included a sample letter in the appendix.

The timing you send letters in is very important.  It needs to be close enough to Thanksgiving to give a sense of urgency to send in the donation but it also needs to give enough time to consider the idea of making a donation.  I always send two sets of letters.  I send the first round of letters on October 1^st, which is plenty of time before the actual Thanksgiving holiday.  Then about November 10^th or 15^th, I send a second letter.  This letter only goes to the people who have not yet made a donation to A Day of Hope.  

 

How do you know if you should ask for a donation?

Today's post is part 4 of chapter 5 of my book, A Day of Hope: Leading Volunteers to Make a Difference in Your Community. I realize that some of these posts might not be exactly related to "leadership," but I believe they are relevant. Feel free to pass them on to someone you know who works at a nonprofit organization or church.

HOW DO YOU KNOW IF YOU SHOULD ASK FOR A DONATION

The tough question about fundraising is to know who to ask for the donation.  Do you ask for donations from friends, family, co-workers, Oprah, political leaders, etc?  You have to come up with the answer on your own.  I will give you my personal experience and what works for me, but you’re a different person with unique skill sets and abilities.

In addition to asking individual people to make donations, there are several other ways to fundraise money. There are event fundraisers, in-kind donations, and financial donations.  Let me start with financial donations.

 

People Donate Because They are Asked

Today's post is part 3 of chapter 5 of my book, A Day of Hope: Leading Volunteers to Make a Difference in Your Community. I realize that some of these posts might not be exactly related to "leadership," but I believe they are relevant. Feel free to pass them on to someone you know who works at a nonprofit organization or church.

PEOPLE DONATE BECAUSE THEY ARE ASKED

Many studies have been done on fundraising to discover what causes people to donate.  Do you know the number one reason people donate to an organization?

#1 Reason people donate to an organization: They were asked.

Here’s the flip side of the question.  Do you know why people don’t donate to an organization?

#1 Reason people don’t donate to an organization: They were not asked.

Make sure you are asking people to donate.  Don’t be scared.  Don’t chicken out.  Step up to the plate and ask for a donation.  You can’t control whether or not people will donate to your cause.  The only elements you can control are if you ask and how you ask.  You can control how you ask by asking in person, over the phone, or by mailing a letter.

Sometimes People Doate to the Person, Not the Cause

Today's post is part 2 of chapter 5 of my book, A Day of Hope: Leading Volunteers to Make a Difference in Your Community.

SOMETIMES PEOPLE DONATE TO THE PERSON, NOT THE CAUSE

In my fundraising experience I’ve found people don’t always donate to the cause; sometimes they donate because of the person who is asking on behalf of the cause.  This is very contrary to what you might commonly think.  It would be nice to think if you ask people to donate to a cause they are passionate about, they will give, but that’s not always the case. 

There are over 1.6 million charities in the United States, and sometimes the only difference between you and those 1.6 million charities is the relationship you have with a potential donor.  Some people are going to donate to your cause simply because of who you are.  I’ve had people donate to A Day of Hope when I really didn’t think they would, but because we were good friends and they trusted me as a person (my heart and my integrity), they decided to donate.

Just because you have a great cause, it doesn’t mean that everyone you ask will make a donation.  There might need to be a personal relationship in place first; then the donations may come later. 

 

Chapter 5 of my book, A Day of Hope

One of the things I enjoy doing for you as a reader of my blog is to give away free content. So, for the next couple weeks I am going to be posting chapter five of my book, A Day of Hope: Leading Volunteers to Make a Difference in Your Community.

I hope you enjoy it. 

PROGRESS

Building Momentum with Fundraising

I’ve worked hard up to this point to equip you with the information you need to get A Day of Hope up and running.  Hopefully you’ve learned some good things and I’ve helped you to generate some ideas on what it looks like to lead this effort and to help people in need.

As we dig a little deeper, we’ll go through what you need to know to actually “do” the project for A Day of Hope.  This chapter and the final chapter will deal more with the actual activities of A Day of Hope and I’ll teach you everything I know about fundraising and making all the pieces come together.

FUNDRAISING

If there’s one area where I feel that I can really pour everything I’ve got into you, it’s the area of fundraising.  My professional job (where I actually get paid) is at the United Way of Stanislaus County where I work every day as a fundraiser.  We fundraise from local businesses and individuals to support local programs that serve people in need.

When I teach someone about fundraising, I’m able to offer two perspectives.  One is from a large, well run organization with a large staff of people.  I’m also able to offer more grassroots advice from the perspective of A Day of Hope, which has no staff and no administrative support.

I think fundraising is like mixing water colors.  Do you remember using water colors when you were a kid?  You got about six different colors, a cup of water, and a brush.  Even though you and your friend both had the exact same colors, brush, and water, you both ended up with different colors.  You still painted something that looked nice (at least that’s what your parents told you), but it looked different from your friend’s painting because he added his own unique perspective to it.  Fundraising is similar to water colors because there are a few key ingredients that everyone has but once you mix those ingredients with your own personal style, it will look very different.

Fundraising is tough.  Most people cringe at the idea of asking someone for money, so if that’s you, don’t worry; you’re like most people.  I fundraise professionally, and I still get a little nervous when I have to a call someone to ask for money.  Sometimes I ask someone to donate and I am 99.9 percent sure he will donate.  Then he says, “No” without even considering the idea of donating to A Day of Hope.  On the flip side, I might ask people and be certain they won’t (either because they don’t have the money or don’t seem interested in helping people in need), but they surprise me and make a large donation.  Fundraising is full of these little surprises, which is what makes it fun and exciting.

In my view, fundraising is like any other sport, skill, or ability.  There’s a process you have to go through as you start it:

• Everyone starts out as a rookie with no experience.
• The first time you try it, you’re terrible like everyone else.
• With practice you start to notice that you’re improving.
• Some people find that they are naturally a little better than others.
• You’ll be nervous the first few times that you try it.

One of the main principles I operate from in my fundraising is that I only want people to donate if they actually want to donate.  I never try to force people, coerce them, or put pressure on them to donate.  People already have enough of that from sales people, bosses at work, and spouses.  They don’t need one more person putting pressure on them to do something they really don’t want to do.  Hence, I always communicate to them that we’re looking to raise funds to help people in need, and if they’d like to help us in our work, we’d be grateful for their support. 

A couple years ago I called the owner of a local Christian book store about bringing him some information on a seminar I was doing at my church.  When I called him, I accidentally informed him that I was working at United Way (it was just habitual since I was at work when I called him).  When I announced that I worked at United Way, he immediately interrupted me and replied, “I don’t give donations over the phone.”  The reason I was calling him was to bring him some information on a seminar I was helping with at a church, but he immediately thought I was calling to try to convince him to donate to United Way.  It was a learning experience for me because I realized that other people try to fundraise in a forceful way. 

I want everyone who donates to A Day of Hope to feel that it’s a joyous experience.  When people make a donation they are giving away part of their hard earned money, and it should be satisfying for them to see that it goes to a good, honorable cause.  So try to talk to people about donating to A Day of Hope because they want to, not just because you want them to.

Happy 4th of July

Happy 4th of July to you and your family.

I hope you enjoy your day with family and take some time to rest. Today I will be doing a little writing and working throughout the day (but nothing too stressful) and will be spending the evening with family.

Enjoy your day and thanks for reading the Learning Leadership Blog. 

Jesus was a Leader

So, who is Jesus?

Is he a leader? A teacher? A savior? A chosen one? A servant?

I believe, based on my reading of the gospels and my personal experience of Jesus working in my life, that Jesus is a leader. He is a leader of many things, but most of all he is a leader of the heavenly kingdom here on earth and unlike the expectations of the people at that time when he lived on the earth, he is not a positional leader. While here on earth he did not have a formal position as a leader or priest or king, but he held tremendous influence among the people at that time. Jesus had that influence as a leader because he cared for people, he taught them, and he sacrificed himself for them.

Jesus is a leader because he cares for others.
One of the things that encourages people to follow a leader is when he shows a sincere and genuine care for others. When people know you care about them, they will trust you and follow you. An example of this comes to mind when we read John 4 about Jesus’ interaction with the Samaritan woman at the well. Jesus reached out to someone who never would have expected to even be spoken to, and he went beyond that by speaking into her life about her sin and teaching her about the kingdom of God and what it means to worship. He showed her kindness and love at a time when it was uncommon to even speak to a woman, and even more uncommon to speak to a Samaritan woman.

A leader stretches, grows, and brings along the people he leads by teaching them. 
Who can forget the teachings of Jesus which have marked the gospels of Matthew, Luke, and John?  And in Jesus’ case, he taught them as much by what he did as by what he said. Two examples that stick out in my mind are the miracle he did to contrast the Sabbath in Luke 13 and his teachings from the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5-7. The Sermon on the Mount was one of many examples of teachings and stories he gave that taught people then (and now) how to think differently, look at our world differently, and begin to see heaven differently.

Ultimately, leadership is sacrifice.
If we look at leadership through the lens of sacrifice, Jesus was the ultimate leader. He sacrificed himself and everything that he was and did for the people whom he led. He loved you and I so much that he gave himself for us. Even though he might not have understood everything that was going on and why he died, he still sacrificed himself because it was God’s plan. Jesus sacrificed himself so that we, who are not perfect, could join him. He died on the cross for your sins and my sins so that one day we could be joined with him in heaven. That is the ultimate testimony of what it means for a leader to sacrifice for the people he loves and leads.

Jesus is a leader who cares for the people he leads with love and kindness, he teaches them through his actions and his words, and he sacrificed himself for the betterment of the people he leads by dying on the cross for our sins. If there was ever an example of what a Christian leader should look like, Jesus is that example because while he was here on earth, he led an effective ministry which spurred on a church planting movement that still takes place with new people committing their lives to Jesus every single day. Today, over 2,000 years later, his love, teachings, and sacrifice still impact people and that is the true testament that Jesus is a leader.

Question: Now that we know Jesus is a leader who cares for you, teaches you, and sacrificed for you, what do you do with that? What can you do because of what Jesus has done for you? 

Contrasting Writing and Preaching

For a long time, I have realized that I deeply enjoy writing and creating content in written form as a way to encourage and teach others what I have learned throughout my own life. The process of sitting down with a pad of paper and pen to get content organized, then moving it into a professional typed form, and passing the finished copy along to someone else so they can learn and grow has been a great joy to me for many years. Because I enjoy this process and see the value of it, I have learned to practice it regularly.

Since being more involved in my internship with CAM, I am doing more teaching through public speaking and Bible studies. Instead of sharing content via written form, I am learning to enjoy and appreciate the different elements of sharing content in a public forum such as:

• The creativity that is available when leading a Bible Study.
• The last minute changes and improvements I can make to a talk just before I give it.
• The hard work of having to know my content very well in order to teach it without much of an outline.

In the past I was slightly fearful of having to teach content publicly through giving a talk or teaching a Bible study. But as I am learning to do it more and more, I am learning to enjoy the different aspects of it and its advantages which are not available to me as a writer.

Questions: What do you believe is the difference between writing and teaching? Do you like one better than another? Why or why not?