Episode #091 – 6 New Years Resolution Ideas for Nonprofits
Tobi: Welcome to the Volunteer Nation podcast, bringing you practical tips and big ideas on how to build, grow, and scale volunteer talent. I’m your host, Tobi Johnson, and if you rely on volunteers to fuel your charity, cause, membership, or movement, I made this podcast just for you.
Hello everybody. Welcome to another episode of the Volunteer Nation podcast. I’m your host, Tobi Johnson, and I’d like to talk about New Year’s resolutions, not just for ourselves, but for the betterment of our nonprofits. And I want to meld a little bit some of our self-care with also higher productivity.
And so, I’ve curated a few areas, six different areas for New Year’s resolution ideas for nonprofits. And then I’ve got some more specific ideas under each it’s that time of year. It’s the time of year where we set goals and aspirations for the new year. We start to think about things we might tweak to make our lives a little bit easier. We think about weight, things we shouldn’t be doing anymore. Things we want to let go of, things we want to do more of, things that we want to live into and lean into.
It’s actually a really nice time to think about annually – What did we like about the last year? What went great? What did we love about it? And what just wasn’t working for us? And with that spirit in mind, I’m going to get right to it. And I’ve got some New Year’s resolution ideas for you. So, I hope this will inspire you to think about things.
I’m not big about setting huge resolutions that are hard to reach and that we end up beating ourselves up about for not reaching. I’m not about that at all. I’m about aspiration and intention. We want to do our best, the best we can to do things that we know are already good for us. And so that’s what I want to cover today.
So, let’s start out with New Year’s resolution idea number one, and it is to focus on wellness. I think nowadays we’ve all got to do a little bit more self-care. We need to have a little more balance because at the speed we’ve all been running lately, it’s just very hard to be resilient and bounce back.
So, there are three different subcategories or areas that you might set some intention around. One is to block out white space and me time on your regular weekly work calendar. Now I’m not talking about once in a while vacations or taking a holiday or taking a three day weekend. I’m not talking about that.
I’m talking about regular every weekly “me” time. And whatever that looks like for you, the best way to make it happen is to put it on your calendar. I know that when I actually put, let’s say I want to go out and go for power walks, if I put them on my calendar, they get done. If I don’t, maybe they’ll get done. Maybe they won’t. If I put taking time off for lunch and not eating at my computer, if I put that on my calendar, it’s more likely to happen than if I leave it off and just hope that I get there. So, block out that white space in the meantime. Set up your ideal week and set aside time for yourself.
Second thing is to create a wellness program for you and your volunteers. Now, that’s an interesting concept. Wouldn’t that be interesting? And I’ve written about this in the past and I have a fantastic blog post I’ll link to in the show notes called how to prevent burnout for yourself and your volunteers. It’s on our VolunteerPro blog. I will link to that in the show notes.
I give you lots of practical ideas that you might set New Year’s resolutions around, but think about it in today’s world, wouldn’t that be a great perk for volunteers? We do a wellness program for volunteers. We knew mindfulness work. We are mindful of the work life balance volunteers need to strike even when they’re giving of their time. All kinds of things you could do about that. And it sets you so apart from the other organizations that are seeking volunteers in your community. Think about it.
Third thing, do more of what lights you up and less of what brings you down. Can you delegate more of some of the things that you just hate doing? Now, of course, we can’t not do all the things. There are a few things we have to do in our jobs that we don’t, may not be our favorite things, but if you can align more of what you’re good at and more of what you like doing in your work, the more you can do that the less likely you’re going to be burned out and the more likely your work is going to light you up.
So, there are things that you do that might be able to be delegated to a volunteer, for example, and it might be something they love doing. So, think about that. And that’s a way you might be able to focus a little bit more on your wellness, on your own development, but also just doing things that let you up. So that’s my New Year’s resolution ideas for focusing on wellness.
All right, another area I want to talk about for New Year’s resolutions, and it is to spend more time away from your desk. Now there are a lot of reasons to do this. I know people set New Year’s resolutions about working out and going to the gym and doing yoga, etc.
But you know, there’s something really simple we all need to do and I am probably one of the people who’s probably the most guilty of this is saying sedentary all day long. I go down I walk from my upstairs area down to my office I sit down in my office and I’m in my chair. I can be in my chair just getting up once in a while but working for 10 hours straight And that’s just not good for our bodies.
It’s not good that we’re not outside. We need the vitamin D from the sun. We need the fresh air. All these things actually really matter. And the more sedentary we are, if you don’t use it, you lose it. So, there are some things you can do to get yourself out from in behind your desk. And I want to talk about three that I think might be helpful, might be interesting and fun for you.
One is to set regularly recurring social events. So monthly, for example, a monthly birthday party for volunteers. What if you just had a single day of the month, maybe it’s the third Thursday afternoon, where whoever’s birthday it is in your volunteer corps, you’re going to have a cake and it’s going to be in the, in the meeting, in the conference room and you just do it every year or every month and you just get together and celebrate. That gets you up from behind your desk, interacting with volunteers, interacting with staff, and just chit chatting and it’s good for you. That social interaction is good as well. So, spending time away from your desk.
Another way you can spend time away from your desk is to do some management by walking around or MWA. And all that is just cruising around saying hi to people, especially if you’re leading volunteers to just check in with volunteers. Hey, how you doing today? What’s been going on? And that can be half an hour out of your day or 15 minutes out of your day and can make a huge impact on the relationships that you have with your volunteers, their experience. They feel like they are seen and heard and thanking people. But it also gets you out from behind your desk. And you know what? We’re not robots. We can’t, we don’t thrive sitting behind a desk for 8 or 10 hours a day. It doesn’t work. So that’s one thing you can do.
Another thing you can do to spend more time away from your desk is to conduct walking meetings or regular lunchtime walks. Like maybe you’re like, every Tuesday we go walking at lunchtime. Anybody who wants to join us, volunteers, staff, we’re going to be out there. Here’s where we’re going to be walking. And you just do that regular time.
Or you have anytime you have a meeting with folks, you do it as a walk. I used to do this with our HR Director and it was a lot of fun. We would go walking for about half an hour and it was just nice to get out of the office and we didn’t need to be in a room sitting around a table to get our meeting taken care of. That’s New Year’s resolution idea number two, spend more time away from your desk.
Another area of New Year’s. resolution ideas is to expand the gratitude you give. So, one thing you could just set as an intention is to thank individually at least one volunteer a day. Now, that doesn’t necessarily mean you have to verbally go up to somebody face-to-face because you may not see all of your volunteers, but you may decide, okay, if I see somebody today, I’m going to thank them in person. If I don’t see them, I’m going to write a handwritten thank you note and, or I’m going to send an email or I’m going to send a video. So, just doing that once a day, imagine if everybody in your organization, all the paid staff thanked one volunteer a day.
Imagine that. Tsunami of love and caring. How would your, how would that change your volunteers experience? How would that make? So, expanding the gratitude is good for not only the people you’re thanking, but also for yourself.
You can also start a daily meditation practice to set intentions and reflect on what you’re grateful for. And so, I used to do this where I would meditate and then I had a journal, and I would write down three things I was grateful for. And you know, when you’re having a bad day, sometimes it’s hard to come up with those things. So, you gotta get down to the basics. I am grateful that I am breathing right now. If that, if I’m having a really bad day, that’s about where I’m going to be. I’m grateful I’m breathing. I’m grateful I have a kitty cat who loves me.
If you’re having a bad day, sometimes it’s hard, but the practice of it day in and day out, that practice helps you get better at it. It helps you get better at seeing positivity. and finding positivity. And so, a daily meditation practice of gratitude. There’s loving kindness meditation. If you’re a meditator already, you probably know about loving kindness meditation, where you’re thanking and wishing people well. It’s a good one.
And then the third area of expanding gratitude is gratitude to yourself. I don’t think we thank ourselves enough. And the way you can thank yourself is by identifying a win, small or large, every single day. What is a small win? And again, sometimes these have to be really small. Hey, I made it to work today. I was really exhausted, or I had a bad day, or I’m not feeling well, or whatever it is. Now, of course, if you’re not feeling well and you’re ill, you need to stay home and rest. But sometimes we, some of our wins, hey, one of my wins is I had a difficult conversation with somebody today and it didn’t destroy either of us. That’s a win.
Now, wins could be big too. Hey, we just finished the quarter with 20 percent more volunteers than we thought we would have. These wins can be small and large, but the practice of identifying one a day is something that you can, again, change your negativity bias.
Human beings have a negativity bias. We tend to look for the difficult and hard and negative and things that aren’t working in our lives, but we can train our brain to see and find the wins. And this is a tough one. It’s a skill set. And I can’t tell you how many times that I’ll jump on a call with our VolunteerPro members. I’ll say, okay, where are we winning guys?
Or any other students I’m teaching I’ll ask, what are your wins? Share them in the chat. And it’s crickets. I said, gang, you know what? This is a skill set. We’ve got to get good at this. The other thing is the more you notice your wins, the more you’re going to do more of those things that create those wins. So, you have to be self-reflective as leaders.
Alright, so those are three. I’m going to get to three more right after the breaks. Oh, so let’s take a pause for a quick break from my talk. New Year’s resolution ideas for 2024 for nonprofits. Don’t go anywhere. And I’ve got three more for you right after the break. I
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Okay, we’re back with my top New Year’s resolution ideas for nonprofits in 2024. I started with three before the break. The first one was focus on wellness and I gave you some different ideas around that. The second was spend more time away from your desk. Gave you some ideas about how to do that. And then expand the gratitude you give not only to other people, but to also to yourself.
So, let’s continue with three more areas that I would love to share with you. Here’s a New Year’s resolution idea about automating. Automate a repetitive or inefficient task. Now what does that mean? It means let’s not keep doing the same thing over and over again. We can save time. Plus it’s boring and aggravating, isn’t it? To send the same email over and over again, to retype it over and over again.
So, there’s a few different things, a couple are around email. First one is, use folders and email rules to automatically send emails from a specific sender to specific folders for better organization. So, one of the things you can do is set rules. If things come from this domain, please send them to this folder. And it can help you organize, especially if you’re on vacation or out of the office. But all of the time you can do this. So, think about that.
You can also create standard email templates or macros is what they call them for common responses to volunteers. So, there’s a lot of email that goes back and forth between volunteer coordinators and volunteers or staff and other staff and create some macros. Look into your email software and see if you can create things that are already written that with a few keystrokes you can add to an email and just make a few tweaks and then send it along.
Or just put them in a Word doc and be able to, or an online doc, and just be able to cut and paste them. Just saves tons of time. You don’t have to rethink the wording, the spellings already checked, all that good stuff. So that’s another way.
The other way to save with repetitive tasks is really to have a way for people to book time with you for them to find time on your calendar. So, I use Calendly, for example, to book discovery calls with potential clients. And I love it because I get to set the parameters for when I’m available. And so, I’m not going back and forth multiple emails to set up a time with somebody. I just send them to my booking link and say, Hey, find some time on my calendar.
And this also helps you set good boundaries. So, people aren’t setting meetings with you whenever you have specific days and times that you’re available. It also helps you manage interruptions because nobody’s popping into your office, Hey, let’s set up a meeting. No, actually, please go to my booking link.
And it may take a little time to train people in this new way of doing business, but it is really much better for everybody’s sanity if you do it this way. I have a podcast episode on the Volunteer Nation podcast that might interest you. If you haven’t listened to it yet, it’s podcast Episode 46 Save Time With Better Volunteer Management Systems. And that gives you some more ideas around how to save time with different technology and systems. So, check that out if you want to learn more about productivity and my favorite hacks for productivity.
All right, New Year’s resolution idea number five, practice setting healthy boundaries. Now I don’t know about you, I’m a people pleaser in recovery. I have over the years realized that I was putting everyone else first. And you know what, sometimes I still do that and it’s okay to be compassionate and care about others. Gang, if you’re not taking care of yourself, you’re not very good at taking care of other people. You’re just not that good at it. If you’re burned out, you’re not good at taking care of other people because you only have so much juice in the tank.
So, think about when you think about practicing healthy boundary setting and setting some guidelines about how you want to be treated and what you’re willing to do and what your non negotiables are. You want to think about those, but I also find that it helps to create a mantra that guides your choices every day because almost every day you have to set a boundary with somebody, especially in the nonprofit space. There’s so much gray area.
There’s so much work to do and often not enough people to do it. And if you’re the people pleaser, all the work is going to end up on your plate because you’re simply not saying no. And we’ve got to be able to work within our lanes. That’s our zone of genius. That’s our responsibility.
And, so we’ve got to be able to do that. So, it helps to have a mantra, especially when you’re starting out, because when you start setting boundaries and you haven’t been, it feels really awkward. And you have to get over that. So, a mantra helps.
So here is a, here are a few mantras that you can feel free to steal. Here’s one. No is a complete sentence. Now, you’re not telling this to other people directly. You’re saying it to yourself. These mantras you’re saying to yourself, this is your inside voice cheering you on every day to set. healthy boundaries, okay? So, No is a complete sentence.
Now, if your kids are driving you crazy, then maybe you will tell your kids No is a complete sentence. I remember I used to tell my nephew and he would whine too much. I would say, Pee-wee, the whining light is off. He would look at me and he’d stop whining. But you could, maybe No is a complete sentence you could tell your kids, but not at work. We’re not telling, that’s their inside voice.
Okay, another mantra. I am worthy and deserving of maintaining boundaries that serve me. Isn’t that good? That’s just really calm and to the point. And you can write this on a post-it note, put it on your mirror. I am worthy and deserving of maintaining boundaries that serve me. That’s a good one. I like it. And it’s to the point. So, we’re telling ourselves, we’re giving ourselves permission. We’re writing ourselves a permission slip that says, yeah, you have the right to do this.
The third one you could use is a mantra to keep you going through the messy middle of learning how to set boundaries. I can hold a space for others to work through their problems without taking their problems into my own hands. In other words, I’m not responsible for solving your problems. Right?
And we often in the nonprofit space, really take on this idea that and we accept this idea that we’re responsible for everybody else. We’re actually not. Even our direct service clients, we’re not responsible for them. What we’re responsible for is providing resources, advice, encouragement, whatever the role is in the program. And that person is making the decisions.
Now, if you’re working with children, it’s a little bit different. But with adults, make their own decisions. You do not make decisions for other adults, right? Okay. So those are some mantras.
Now, the other thing you can do, the second area of practicing setting healthy boundaries, aside from choosing a mantra, is also creating your go to No.
Your go to No is the phrase you will say when you can’t add more to your plate without compromising your productivity or your wellness. So right, the reason we’re saying no is because we would compromise our own productivity or our own well-being or positive outlook or our own wellness. So, we have reasons why we’re saying no, right?
So, one of them is, here’s a phrase you can use. Again, you can steal these. The timing right now isn’t good. Can you keep me in mind for next time? So, you can just say, you know what, I’m sorry, the timing right now isn’t good. Can you keep me in mind for next time?
And by the way, if you check out our transcript, you can just cut and paste these. If you go to the show notes for this episode and you click on transcript, you can go to the page where the transcript is, and you can cut and paste these.
All right, let me give you another go to No. Sorry. I’ve already committed to something else. I hope you understand. That’s it. Sorry. I’ve already committed to something else. I hope you understand. That’s it. You don’t have to give any excuses. You just, Hey, I’ve committed. I’m already committed. Here’s another one that’s a little more leading with a little bit of graciousness that for some people might be important. So, think of your audience here. How thoughtful of you. I appreciate your offer, but this time I’m simply too busy with other deadlines. So, you’re softening the blow a little bit with how thoughtful of you, I appreciate you.
And then the fourth go to no you might use is, I’m sorry, but I can’t handle that task today. I’m currently prioritizing a project with a tight deadline. So, you’re basically letting people know that, hey, I’ve got other things going, but I’ve got things I have to get done, priority things.
So, think about your go to No. It doesn’t have to be one of these. It could be something else that you decide you want. Write it down. Use it over and over again. Perfect it. Tweak it. And pretty soon you’ll have something that just, that trips off your lips and it’s easy to say.
And people are not used to people saying no in a classy way. Most of the time people are pretending, saying, might people get to it later? I don’t know. Or blowing people off. You know what? You’re not that person. You can just be direct. All right? So those are your go to’s. Figure out your mantras. Figure out your go to No’s.
And one more thing you might want to do in setting healthy boundaries is to talk to friends about it. People you trust. Now I’m not talking about venting. I’m talking about when you feel like you need to set a boundary, but you haven’t been good at setting boundaries up ‘til now. Sometimes we just have to check in with somebody else and an outside observer and say to your friend, you know what? This thing is going on. I feel like I don’t want to do it. Am I a bad person?
And usually your good friends, the people, your trusted advisors, they’ll tell you point blank. And usually they’ll tell you, no, you’re absolutely not crazy. And you do need to set a boundary around that. Sometimes we need reassurance and that’s okay. Just make sure you pick someone you trust and someone who is wise.
And remember when you’re checking on a boundary and you’re checking, you’re just double-checking. It isn’t a venting session. It isn’t about talking about why the other person is wrong. It’s all about you. The discomfort and the worry that you have that this ask that someone’s making of you or the way that someone’s treating you is compromising your wellbeing or compromising your productivity. That’s the litmus test.
If something’s compromising your well-being or your productivity, then you have a right to set a boundary about it. But sometimes we got to check people, got to check with other people on it. All right?
All right. I’ve got one more New Year’s resolution in my list of New Year’s resolution ideas, and that is learn something new, but not just learn something new, learn something new in community with other like-minded people.
Learning is fine on your own, but I am actually a fan of learning with other people. I think social learning is more fun and I think it’s really important to building relationships and keeping us healthy as humans.
Our default is to be in society with one another. Even if we’re introverts, if there’s anything that the COVID pandemic has taught us is that it is natural for us to be in community with others. And when we’re not, it negatively impacts our health, our mental health, our learning outcomes, you name it, we need to be with other people. Again, even if we’re introverted, we need to be with other people in maybe shorter stints or with smaller groups.
So, there’s a few different things you can do here around learning with like-minded people. One is to start a book club and these could be reading readings about volunteer management, they could be readings about fiction, non-fiction, novels, doesn’t matter. Figure out a reading, reading book club.
And I will have my volunteer leadership book, my new book for volunteer leaders out early next year and that would make a great book club read for volunteers who lead. And you could, if you’re a volunteer coordinator, you could lead a group of volunteers who lead in reading the book. And I’ve been thinking about, do I want to do a book club guide for folks to lead with the book? So, stay tuned for that. But it doesn’t have to be my book. It could be anybody’s book. Learning through together, through reading, through a book club, that’s learning with like-minded people.
Another way of learning with like-minded people is to start a volunteer advisory group. So, a volunteer advisory group’s job is to advise you on current policies, procedures, et cetera, programming at your organization, but also to give you ideas on upcoming ideas, either projects or initiatives that you have going or things that volunteers might recommend. And it is a learning experience, not only for you, but also for each volunteer that’s part of that group because they’re learning from one another. So again, that’s a learning experience that also benefits your organization.
And then the final way to learn something new with a community of like-minded people is of course, one of my favorites. And that is. Become part of the VolunteerPro Membership Community. Our membership community has been around since 2015. And even though we’re online, there are members that have been members with us for years that I feel like I’m friends with. And then if I were to see them in person, and I hope I do, one of these days that hugs would be given all around.
We are learning together. We’re a group of like-minded people who really care about exceptional practice around leading and engaging volunteers. And it’s a great group of people. And so there is some joy in that and there’s some joy in having support around taking risks and going through the messy middle together, not easy to do always when you’re just sort of out there, you don’t want to, people don’t want to be vulnerable and But in front of a bunch of people, they don’t know.
And so, inside the community, we just had a coaching call this afternoon and we were reviewing folks strategic plans and I was giving feedback and ideas. And this strategic planning and writing up a strategic plan is not volunteer management 101. It is an advanced skill set. And I reminded everybody that it takes time to learn how to do this well.
And things that come off the top of my head only do because I’ve been doing it for so long. And many of our members have been in this field for a long time. And so, we’re all trying to get to the next level. And so many of the things that we teach in the community are more advanced level. Although we have some beginners in there as well that are learning alongside. So, it’s a great place to learn.
You’ve heard me talk about it time and time again on this podcast. So that’s another lovely way to learn something new as a community, to stretch yourself, to grow with like-minded people who are also stretching themselves. And I’m pretty proud of our members and the way that they have evolved as leaders. Some people I’ve known for years, I know some of our VolunteerPro members that have been with us for five, six years, and I’ve seen them grow as leaders, and it’s pretty wonderful to watch.
So those are our six New Year’s resolution ideas. We started with focus on wellness. Then we went to spend more time away from your desk.
Then I talked about expanding the gratitude you give. Then I talked about automating a repetitive or inefficient task. I then talked about practicing setting healthy boundaries. And actually, not only practicing, but doing it. And then I talked about learning something new as a community of like-minded people.
I hope something today has given you some inspiration. Again, I’m more about intention setting. I’m not interested in setting New Year’s resolutions that are uber difficult to achieve and that we will most likely fail at and then giving ourselves a hard time about it. Life is too short.
Plus, life is challenging. We’ve got a lot going on in our lives. But if we can choose one thing that not only can improve our lives, but can improve the lives of others around us, and can make our lives easier in the long run, those are the kinds of resolutions that I really like, that I think are the bonus New Year’s resolutions you can set.
So, I hope it’s been inspiring. I wish you the best. Happy New Year’s. I hope you have a prosperous new year. I hope everything goes your way. I hope you get to spend more time with the people you like and less time with the people you don’t like. How about that? All right.
So thank you for joining us for this episode of the Volunteer Nation. If you believe that this could be helpful to a friend, please let them know about it. Also, if you would, if you’re on your phone right now, just scroll to the bottom and give us a rating. Of course, we like a five star rating. Of course, we do. And if you leave us a review, it really helps. And we’d like to reach more and more non-profit professionals just like you. All right. I will be here next time, next week, same time, same place on the Volunteer Nation. Happy New Year, everybody.
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