Out of Step
Clearly, I’m out of step. I’m not excited about re-entry. Not that I loved this pandemic—I emphatically did not. But, to be totally transparent, there are things I did love:
Not driving all over creation to have meetings that took less time than the amount of time I spent driving to get there—and back to my office.
Having more time to provide better work to my clients
Seeing lots and lots of people, walking and exercising outdoors
Meeting neighbors I never met in the 30 years I’ve lived in my neighborhood
All the new outdoor places to eat and meet up for coffee.
For a long time, I loved the quiet and the lack of traffic; that changed long before re-entry and that makes me sad.
There is much I don’t want to end. While I like my clients—or most of them—I really don’t want to get back in my car and drive the freeways. It didn’t make me a better consultant nor did it serve them well. I actually like training online, though I will go back to in person trainings, just not in the “nanosecond” I thought when the pandemic began.
More than what I want personally, there is much that I hope the nonprofit sector has learned”
That events are not the necessary way to raise money; there are other alternatives that cost less and net more for the work the organization does.
Most of my clients found that board members came to more meetings and were more engaged. They, too, learned that driving to a meeting may not be as effective as zooming from wherever you happen to be.
Nonprofits started reaching out more to their donors—checking in on them and letting them know what was happening at the organization they so generously support.
Stewardship became an every day thing rather than sometimes that too often got left behind.
Many organizations learned to be more efficient with their time—and with the time of their donors. Instead of cultivating for months, many found that two focused meetings could bring the donor and the organization to an agreement on what the donor would support at what level.
Foundations allowed their nonprofit grantees to use their grants in ways they needed rather than for projects too often dictated by the Foundation. Ways of measuring success were loosened, giving the nonprofits time to do the work rather than focusing on evaluating what they then had scant time or resources to accomplish.
Funders also gave out more than the required 5 %, providing more resources for nonprofits whose services were ever more needed.
Donors found creative ways to give. Not all of those were great, but many have been and it would be lovely if some of those remained.
I hope that this time next year will bring good news: a pandemic put to rest, people back out shopping and eating and making the economy strong again. But I also hope that lessons we have learned, and ways we have discovered to make our work better remain. And I fervently hope that I am not filling up the tank in my car two and three times a week.