I started my job with Project Partners in January and am loving being a part of this fabulous team. I quickly learned that even though we are a small company, we maintain a very large project portfolio! One thing that has allowed me to jump right into all of the incredible work with our clients is the fact that our files are robust, well-organized, intuitive, and easy to access. During this era that has been dubbed “the great resignation” it seems that staff turnover feels inevitable. However, encouraging your team (and yourself!) to keep impeccable records can ease the pain of losing someone special, while also shortening the learning curve for anyone new to your staff. Some specific examples to keep in mind:
Meeting notes
Keeping notes for board and other high-level meetings is second nature. It is just as important though to keep good notes on internal meetings as well, no matter how incidental they feel. Good notes can allow you to get reacquainted with a project that you may have stepped away from for a short time. Or it may allow a colleague to get brought up to speed if they are added to a project late in the game. Good notes tell the story of your work to date. The most effective meeting notes are concise, include clear action items, and identify the team members tasked with moving things forward.
Event timelines
If events are a part of your organization’s fundraising or engagement strategy, having a clearly written planning timeline can be invaluable. For the first couple of years, this may be a very fluid document. You will make adjustments as you learn what works and what does not. To easily build an event timeline, list each month in a bulleted list then start dropping in dates and additional detail as you work. For a large event, it is not unreasonable to have a timeline that encompasses the entire year. And it should not end with the event itself. Remember to include those post-event tasks like returning rented décor, writing thank you notes, entering donor data, and reporting out the results of the event to your team and Board. Event timelines are a great tool to not only keep yourself and your team on track every year, but they can also help quickly orient a new board or committee member to the work at hand.
The importance of dates
When in doubt, add the date. Having access to shared electronic files full of documents is counter-productive if it is not possible to identify the most current version quickly and easily. Adding tags to the file name that include words like ‘latest, version 2, final, FINALFINAL’ is a recipe for disaster. One quick remedy is to adopt a policy of adding the date to the file name when saving. To allow for quick sorting, add the date to the front end (ex: 02.10.22 Program Budget.xls). Adding the date to the header or footer of documents is also a great tool to ensure that everyone is working from the same printed version of documents in meetings.
Tell your story
One of the biggest, but most common, mistakes I’ve run across while working with nonprofits is a lack of recording program metrics and outcomes. So many organizations are doing phenomenal work in the community but failing to write it down. It is critical that your organization has the ability to effectively tell its story. Who are you serving? How many have you served? What does that mean in terms of positive impact? Successful fundraising relies on the ability to demonstrate your effectiveness, both in the application and reporting phase. Every time your organization delivers services without recording any of the details, it could be a wasted opportunity to really shine on your next grant application.
These recommendations might sound simplistic, but I’ve learned first-hand that they can be a game changer. Writing things down within a system, as a matter of policy (and not on a rainbow of post-it notes that gets thrown away at the end of a project!) allows for increased collaboration, eases transitions within your team – and saves the most valuable commodity of all – time. After all, you and I have none to waste as we go about our business of advancing community causes!
I so look forward to this work together and to sharing more good advice from the unique perspectives we are privileged to gain as we team with public, private, and nonprofit organizations across North Texas. Please let me know how we can help. Thanks for all you do!