In my recent blogs, I focused on different aspects of contracting and dealing with your staff in the workplace. They were all very serious, as they should be, of course, given the topics. But as you know, managing staff is something that also requires a light touch at certain moments. And one of the moments you could grab is Valentine’s. So, tell me, what are you planning for Valentine’s Day?
Is that appropriate?
Traditionally, Valentine’s Day celebrates romance and love. You may wonder whether it is appropriate to approach your team as if you were romantically involved with them. And, yes, I’d say that would indeed be inappropriate. So that is not what I mean.
Love & Appreciation
In recent years, Valentine’s has moved away from a focus on romantic love (with those anonymous postcards with declarations of love, remember those?). Nowadays, celebrations focus more widely on love and on appreciating someone. And that someone could be your mother, your friends. And yes, why not your team? Or your donors?
Appreciating your team
Valentine’s is a good moment to tell your team members why they are special for you. What talents do they have that add value to the work your organization does? Which creative ideas have they shared that helped solve a problem? What characteristics do they have that have helped build the team? Choose one special thing of each of your team members and tell them about it. Write them a card. Or make them a video message. Or send them a voice message. Just be sure to make it personal and genuine.
Appreciating your donors
Spreading the love to your donors is always a great idea. And Valentine’s is perfectly suited for a warm message of appreciation to your donors, too. Tell them how special it is that they are supporting you. Show them what they have helped accomplish. Let them know what that means to the people who were touched by this impact. Make a personal message for each of your donors. And make sure it is clear that it is a personal message, instead of an automatically generated one. You should aim to touch their hearts, the same as their contribution has touched lives.
Top tips
My top tips for you:
- Be personal. And make it look and feel personal.
- If you are blessed enough to have a great many donors, engage your team and use tools where possible to make personal messages for each of them.
How I can help
Want to receive my Monday Motivations & Tips? Make sure you’re subscribed to my weekly Monday Motivations and You will receive an email from me every Monday with a story or a tip about nonprofit management issues and a link to my latest blog post: https://www.changingtides.eu/newsletter-subscription/
Check out these free resources I crafted for you:
- A free mini course Build a Solid Base for your nonprofit: https://www.changingtides.eu/3-steps-to-a-solid-base-for-your-nonprofit/
- Ten Tips to Make Clever Project Budgets: https://www.changingtides.eu/10-tips-to-make-clever-project-budgets/
Here is how I can help you set up your nonprofit finance and admin professionally so you can stop worrying about this:
- If you would like to know what admin steps you need to design and implement for proper donation management, my workshop Donation Received – Now What? Can help you. You can get that here: https://www.changingtides.eu/donationnowwhat
- If you have your donation policy and SOPs for managing donations, and you’d like my professional opinion, I create a personal video review for you: https://www.changingtides.eu/reviewdonationssops
- If you would like simple steps to set up and organise your finance & admin foundations guidance by me, you can get a bundle of six simple and short workshops here: https://www.changingtides.eu/financeandadminbundle
If you want to learn about setting up and maintaining a good HR system for your nonprofit, join my course Practical Labour Law & HR for nonprofits
Want to know more and ask questions?
If you want to discuss this more – jump into my nonprofit support community and get input from a wide range of peers and from myself!
Here is how you can join my free nonprofit support community
You can join my free nonprofit support community on the Heartbeat platform here. This group is a safe space for open exchange and discussion on potentially sensitive topics like boards, nonprofit management, fundraising, etc.
You can visit the community via a browser or via an app. Here is the link to download the Heartbeat chat app in the Google Play store.
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