You can use strategic planning to streamline operations in your nonprofit, allowing you to focus on your mission, vision, and values. Clarie Crum and her team assist nonprofit and social entrepreneurship organizations in optimizing their operations by utilizing the resources they already have.
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Hey, welcome to the show. I’m sitting here today with Claire Crum from Calm Ops. Claire, how are you today?
I am doing good, Travis; thank -You for having me; how are you?
I’m doing fabulous. The sun is shining. I think all the bad weather is in the Midwest in your neck of the woods and not in mine. So, I’m pretty happy about it. I heard there were huge storms like in Shreveport and all that stuff last night.
There was some pretty big stuff here in Kansas City too. We have crazy wind, and it’s kind of dreary. And that’s alright; we need moisture and springs around the corner. So, things are looking up.
It’s a great day to be on a podcast. I tell you what! Hey, tell the audience a little bit about you, who you are, and what it is that you do, Claire.
So, I started in the nonprofit sector 15 plus years ago, and I was in event planning, volunteer management, and general cat-herding because that is kind of what you do when you work in a small startup nonprofit. The first one that I worked for was one and a half employees, and I was the half, so I’m very familiar with the situation where folks are wearing all the hats.
And when you’re in a position where you must be your most efficient self because there are lots of things pulling you in all directions, I had several years where I was blessed to be able to stay home with my kids and do a lot of volunteering in that time. Today I worked again with nonprofit and also social enterprise organizations with my team to help them optimize their operations using the resources that they already have.
Well, I find that I believe about 95% of that. There’s no way you’ve been doing this for 15 years. Were you like 10 when you got started?
You are such a doll. We will leave it at that. Yes, I am.
Just you know, people listening, she told me that, you know, in our little prior interview, and I was like there’s no way you’re even over 30. Really, I’m mistaken, but she’s OK with that. I like to be wrong just by as many times as I possibly can be.
So, what is Calm Ops, and what is it that you all do?
Calm Ops is our operations support agency. We work with the organizations that we work with that are all doing well. So, my passion is to put more good out into the world, and I never wanted to be pigeonholed into doing that with just one cause because there are so many things that we need to be doing to be helpful in this society that we’re in.
So, we work with lots of different mission-driven organizations to help them move forward, primarily in the areas of planning and projects. We work with organizations on strategic planning elements in a tactical way to make sure that they are on track to hit their objectives on a week-by-week basis. So, we get really into the nitty-gritty when we do that with our organizations, and we do a lot with processes, so we come in, and we help you create, optimize, document, and do all the things that help you do what you do so that you are doing them in the most efficient way possible.
Which means that you’re stretching dollars. You’re stretching the team capacity. You’re making a bigger impact without more output, and when we help with projects, that is because oftentimes we work in these other capacities.
We find that organizations could use a little extra help with different things, and so we aim to be available to help with those projects. We don’t want to be an extra thing to do on somebody’s list. We aim to work in parallel with organizations so that we’re moving the needle as much as we can in our time together.
Oh, I like that! Yeah, you come alongside and take a lot of the heavy lifting out of the equation so they can focus on what’s important. I know that a lot of startup nonprofits, even heck, even a lot of solopreneurs out there, really have an enormous number of things to do in a day. So many hats to wear. You know, if they wrote their own book, it would say, “janitor and CEO, my journey through the whatever it is that they’re doing because it’s really what it is you’re doing so much. You’re wearing all the hats, and it’s just so hard if you don’t know exactly what it is that you’re doing and how to do it to do all the things.
And even if you can’t do all the things, you’re so darn tired at the end of the day; you don’t have any energy left for your family or for fun. And those are my two favorite endeavors: family and fun, which must be prioritized.
Yes, absolutely. It’s all about intention, right? You have to know why you’re doing what you’re doing. Not only for the organization but what you are here to do, and what are all of the different pieces in your life that are a priority, and how can you make that happen?
And there are many, many demands on us as humans, particularly in this sector, and so it really takes some puzzlement to figure out how you can be most effective in those areas that are a priority. Thank you.
Oh yeah, without a doubt. I know what type of person I am. I know that I’m the bigger picture guy, the visionary, and the face of my organization. I don’t do my own editing. I’ve got a team for that. I don’t create my own products in my garage in my free time ’cause I don’t have any free time. So, I’ve got people to help me with that. I don’t make my own audiograms; I don’t make my own transcripts. I have people that do that alongside me because I know that I can’t get it done when you are starting up a nonprofit; there’s just a disgusting number of things that people say, “Oh, you have to do this…you have to do that…” I don’t know how have to do those things, but if you could do them all.
It sure would help. Claire, what do when you come into an organization? You come alongside them. What are people calling for? They’re helping with planet planning and projects and processes, but what usually gets tackled first when you come in to help out?
Yes, so oftentimes, we start with strategic planning, and when we do that, we look at three key things when we start.
- Mission.
- Vision.
- Values of the organization.
Those elements are frequently in place, but we want to take a closer look at them, going over them with a fine-tooth comb to ensure that everything is dialed in. Because paying close attention to those elements helps to provide a compass for everything else; in our working together as well as the work of the organization. Because when you’re not clear on those pieces, you tend to take on superfluous activities and say yes to projects that are maybe a little bit outside the scope of your mission, and so ultimately, what ends up happening is that you dilute your impact. So we start there, and then we can plan intentionally the objectives. They’re going to get you closer to meeting those goals that you have set out to achieve.
Yeah, that’s absolutely right. Those things are like mission creep; they sound great to do, and you want to do them, but they’re really kind of out of the scope of what you have designed.
Do you want to do 20 things, kind of, or do you want to do two or three things really, really well? And I know that Claire has shared with us how to do this.
If you go to https://strategyforcalm.com/workbook, there’s a mission vision and values workbook that you can download for free and go through that. Probably have to give your email, but for a gift from Claire, go check that out; if you’re not sure if what you’re doing is aligned with your mission, vision, and values, you shouldn’t be doing it.
I know that I have my own personal mission, vision, and values for myself. I have different ones for my family. I have different ones for my company and different ones for my podcast.
And people say, “Travis, isn’t that a lot of work?”
Yeah, it’s not a lot of work if you’ve got the right workbook to work from, that’s for sure.
It’s foundational work. You can go a long way, but to go the right way, you really need to have paid a good amount of attention to those pieces so that you’re sure that your actions are moving you closer to what it is that you have said, “This is what I want to do.” This is what I’m here to do.
It’s easy to get destroyed. Things pop up all the time. If you don’t mind, Claire, I’m going to share a little bit about my year this year.
It has been a hectic year. My wife had brain surgery. I retired from the Navy. My daughter got married. My wife’s grandmother died. There was a birth in the family. I had a course approved at the university level for podcasters. It’s been a busy year! We had six cross-country trips, and it’s a lot to process. Any one of those things can take a person down, can take down a family.
And we’re not magical by any means, but when that stuff started happening, we focused on the things that we could control. The things that we actually needed to do, and we let things happen just at the right time as they popped up.
There’s no possible way I could handle all that stuff in a single day. When you’re staring at something like that, and they’re all stacked up staring at you, it’s impossible to overcome. But if you look at them over the space and time that they exist in, you really only have to deal with the closest alligator to the boat. The thing that’s going to eat you next is the thing that you have to take care of, and so your wife is recovering from surgery; I’m here. My daughter says she’s getting married, stirring down retirement, and grandma died all in the same week.
I bought lost it.
I called my dad.
I said what’s going on? This is crazy, man! My daughter wants to get married in eight days. My retirement is coming up, and we hung up the phone, and he called me back five minutes later.
He’s like, “Oh no, this is a perspective thing here,” and I was like, “what do you mean”? He’s like, “what a gift you’ve been given for your daughter to get married in eight days.” I was like, “What do you mean gift? I need more? Tell me more”. He’s like, “You’re not spending eleven months planning a wedding; you’re not spending thousands or 10s of thousands of dollars on a venue. If this is going to happen in eight days, you save months of headaches, and you only spend, you know, maybe two or three grand, and it’s all said and done.”
I was like, “That is a fantastic way to look at it.” He’s like, “This other stuff you’re worried about; this is going to happen whether you want it to or not. There’s nothing you can do about it this thing. There’s nothing you can do about today. In fact, the only thing you really need to do is take care of your wife, and the other stuff is going to unfold as it comes along”. And I was like, “Oh man, what a great piece of advice.”
A little dose of perspective to get things back in order, and that kind of sounds like what it is that you do with Calm Ops.
Yeah, and with a great example of the values that you’re living by, what’s really important to you. I think that that’s amazing, and the fact that you had done some of that work really helped you to come back and say, “Yep, that is what I want to do.”
And so, when you have taken some time to identify those pieces, it becomes easier when you’re in those moments when you need the clarity to just look back and say, “Well, this is what I said, and so now I just have to live that thing rather than spend a bunch of time ruminating and questioning.” And you know, just to really confuse the situation.
It’s really a compass that we have to help us move through all of the work that we’re doing, and so you know, certainly that’s where we start. But then you do have big goals and objectives, and maybe they’re set for you by your board. Or if you’re the sole printer, you know you’re visioning all of these amazing things and the world.
So, the next thing that we tell people to do is to get it all out, right, so that you know you’re taking all of those mental posted notes and you’re getting them out in front of you so that you can evaluate them based on your mission and vision and your values.
So, are these objectives or these things that I’m working towards pointed in that direction? Or are they, you know, a little bit off course? It becomes a lot easier than to pare down the work that you’re doing and synthesize it in a way that maximizes the impact that you’re making with your business or your organization, or your life.
When you're not clear on those pieces, you tend to take on superfluous activities and say yes to projects that are maybe a little bit outside the scope of your mission, and so ultimately, what ends up happening is that you dilute your impact.
No, absolutely not. That’s when I think of things like missions. And the values make the mission statement itself. I gotta say to the people listening that some of you are getting crazy with these mission statements you’re having, like subsection B. You have paragraph nine of whatever. Please, dear Lord, move the bulk of that conversation into your vision statement if that’s what you’re talking about.
There are organizations out there like TED, where two words spread ideas, which is their mission statement. Two words spread ideas, and you can fit a lot underneath that umbrella. So, if you’re thinking about what your mission is, or you’re trying to rework it, or you’re trying to start a nonprofit, don’t get crazy with it. If you can’t say it in one succinct sentence and have everyone understand what it is that you do, I think you’re doing it wrong.
Has that been your experience, Claire?
Yes, and I would say that you want it to be you. You want it to be specific enough that someone can tie it to your organization. So, the way I teach people to look at these pieces, your mission will be the forward-facing element that will allow your constituents, community, and investors to be your cheerleaders.
So that’s what’s going to get them behind you, that big piece. Your vision, however, doesn’t have to be public-facing. That can be for you, that can be internal, and it has some of those. More targeted goals that are specific that say, you know, we want to reach 10,000 people in the next five years with this program that we have set out. Or do we want to boost our fundraising numbers to this level in this time frame?
So those are the pieces that get a little bit more targeted. And there are those bigger goals.
Values seem pretty easy, right? And so I think sometimes they get overlooked, but those are important, you know, not just for your own personal compass, but particularly if you have a team and whether that team is employees or contractors or even volunteers we’re seeing in the workplace right now more and more that folks really want to understand who they’re working for and what they stand for because.
That is where we kind of meet and get really excited together about the work that we’re doing, and so it’s really important to take some time and determine, you know.
What are the values that we want to live by within our organization because those are going to dictate the culture that you create within your organization, and if you don’t think that that’s an important piece to making a big impact in the world, then we have another conversation we have to have?
People often forget, especially if they’re the founders, that there is so much work that has to be done to run this thing. They forget how important the vision is, not to them but to the organization and all the people.
If you have someone checking in and sending emails, the task itself is pretty mundane. It’s pretty benign, not too exciting or extravagant, but if they understand the vision and how the tasks and things that they are doing feed into and help create that vision, and you remind them on a
In my opinion, Claire might disagree on no less than a weekly basis if you’re not reminding them of your opinion yeah.
Put it out, you know, like have a banner?
Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah, have a banner.
That should be in the center.
Talk about it, understand what it is that we’re really doing, ’cause it’s really easy to get lost in the forest. It really is. I started my career in the Navy. You know, fixing airplanes, and you know you watch Top Gun you see and flee into the flight deck. You seem to do cool stuff, and I’ve got to do that, but while you’re in it, you’re like, oh, I’ve got to do this.
I’ve got to do 14 days. I gotta check all these airplanes. I’ve got to hike this liquid oxygen converter that weighs like 60 pounds around and put it in, and I can make sure all these jets are good, and you get lost in all the things that you have to do.
And you lose sight of the bigger picture of what you’re there to do, who you’re there to protect. How the thing that you’re doing interacts and does with the mission? And when we lose sight of that, that’s when morale drops, and we lose sight of that. That’s where people become unengaged, disengaged, or become problem children because they do not understand how their role fits in the overall machine.
Yeah, absolutely, and I think many of us have been in a position where we have felt that way, and so that that’s where you can reflect on that, right? We as individuals want to be part of something bigger.
That’s it’s meaningful for us as humans to have that, and so you want to offer that opportunity to the people that are giving their time. To come and work with you on this mission and to do them that service, to be clear, is to be kind.
And that really helps them, you know, get excited about the work that they’re doing and doing a good job. But you have to think it goes beyond the office desk or the virtual space. They have colleagues. They have friends. They have social media. And If they’re excited about the mission, then the vision that you are working for as an organization. They’re going to be more apps to share that and bring more people in as well, so it’s bigger than you know, just making sure that these tasks get checked off.
It’s really about building more cheerleaders for your organization and making other people feel supported in that.
Oh, absolutely, you create a work environment where the employees are on fire for what they’re doing. Just get him fired up and get out of their way. You know, fire doesn’t get out of their way. Let them go do all of that stuff; that’s what’s really going to take your organization to the next level.
If you think you can do it with your own blood, sweat, and tears, your own effort, you are just living in the wrong time, my friend, living in the wrong time. So, you guys offer full operation support. I was looking through like the laundry list of things that you do, and I’m going to list them here really quick ’cause I took notes, and I feel very studious.
They include decision support, hiring support, project management, metrics tracking, meeting facilitation operations process, that’s that soap set up in the maintenance, and you’ve got admin test tag implementation and strategic mapping, that’s like a whole department.
That is what we aim to be as a whole department.
You know, so often, the organizations that we work with need to have foundational support, right? Nonprofits and startups alike have a tendency to be so focused on output and programming that, Yes, some of this operational stuff can end up on the back burner, but unfortunately, what happens when you don’t pay attention to some of those foundational elements is you cap the level of impact that you can create, so there you can only scale to a certain degree without having some of these systems and processes in place.
And so, what we aim to do is come in and help with those pieces to be available, whether it is consulting on a consulting basis or with direct implementation to make sure you have the solid foundations, and maybe that’s just as a project. Or maybe there is a longer retainer piece that is needed, and we can help with that too.
Oh yeah, without a doubt. You know, when I stare at this laundry list of things, I wonder in my organization, which of these things I’m missing or which of these things I need help with?
No matter what organization it is, everyone has blind spots, things that they don’t know that they’re missing. They don’t know that they don’t know, and it’s just so hard to even know where to put your time, especially if you’re doing this alone. I’ve got a lot of friends that are running solo nonprofits, even though, right, your boards are running it, but they’re like two people you never talk to, and you’re just kind of doing this on your own.
It is so hard to create something that’s sustainable. And sustainable, in my mind, is ten years or longer to create a sustainable organization that’s going to do these things in your absence, no matter how you feel about your mission today. There might come a time when you’re no longer as passionate about it. You might be like, “Travis, this is lying.”That might be lies, and it might be lies for you, right?
But they’re for sure is going to come a time we’re going to want to take a vacation. There is for sure going to come a time when you’re tired or need a break, or you get sick, or God forbid or in the hospital. Or a family member becomes ill, and you can’t be the person that does the thing that day, that week, that month. And if you don’t create and build up all these different things, all these different programs, processes, and procedures and build up your team and train them, they’re not going to be able to do this if you’re having a bad day.
And I know people in the nonprofit space. They like to put themselves through the wringer. The pain of service is what they live for. It’s beyond me. I don’t understand it right. I want to be excited and energized and be able to give my all every day. So, I’m giving myself time to rest, time to recuperate, and I’m giving my replacements the training and support they need to be successful without me in the room.
Because it’s really a legacy that you’re building, and a legacy is something that will outlast you.
And how do you get from point A, where you’re at now, where you’re wearing all of the hats, and you’re feeling burnt out, to point Z, which is that you have this sustainable organization that you get to be a supporter rather than a worker? That’s the goal.
The values make the mission statement itself.
Oh yeah, absolutely what? So, I’m looking at this list of things your full operation support.
What do you mean by decision support?
Oh, you know, sometimes we just get in our heads about things, right? And there are so many opportunities that are out there and shiny objects and schools that need chasing.
And as visionaries, we’re so apt to go after all of those things, and sometimes you just need a sounding board and somebody that can actively listen and objectively listen to where you’re at and help you through that process and say, “Hey, you know that mission that you said that you’re working towards that goal that you have laid out in your vision?”
Are we sure that this decision supports those ends?
Maybe yes, maybe no, but sometimes you need that extra level of support to come to that clarity.
I’m going to think about what the opportunity cost is for every opportunity that’s out there. It costs you something to say “yes” to that opportunity. It costs time, energy, and effort and might even cost money. And when you’re using it for that new opportunity, you won’t have it for other things that you were doing or different opportunities.
So just because something comes up and is part of the conversation doesn’t mean that, uh, meeting your mission doesn’t mean it’s the way forward for you. That doesn’t mean it’s worth your time, energy, effort, or anything else, or that you’re right.
Yeah, Travis, we’ve got that down, and we say no to everything. Some of you need to say no to everything or have gigantic amounts of red tape in your organization. Some of you need to take some of these opportunities. Give it a chance to work for you and see how it goes.
And by “giving a chance,” I don’t mean three months.
Yeah, absolutely, it doesn’t have to be all or nothing there. There’s a spectrum of what you know how to be excited about and take on new opportunities. Whether that is not at all or, you know, I’m going all in, and I’m finding the whole thing, there’s a lot of grays that you can kind of play in with different opportunities coming away.
You also mentioned hiring support.
How does someone in a nonprofit how do they determine to decide that they are going to pay employees?
You want to take into consideration where you’re at right now, where you want to be, certainly, and what you’re going to need to support that vision.
That is the big vision, and then we walk it backward and say, OK, in a year, where do we need to be to meet those goals? And so, we look at that backward view to decide what we can be doing today to support those ends. So oftentimes, that means that there are team members that are key elements to bring in right now. That would free up the founder to do additional fundraising development to bring on Then the next team member, so we want to look at it in a really strategic way to bring the right people. Go on at the right time.
What would you say to the people that don’t have any paid employees and don’t plan on getting any?
I would say look at your mission, vision, and values to determine if they make sense for where it is that you want to go. Because I think, in some instances, that can be a sustainable option because maybe you have some volunteers, or you have some contractors or some folks that can support you to a certain end. But if you’re looking to do something bigger, then in the long term, you probably are looking to have some more support on your side, and there are things that you can be doing right now to be prepared to bring that support your way.
I know founders out there. Their goal is to support a million people, and they also believe it’s wrong to hire employees in a nonprofit. I don’t believe that those two statements are in alignment. I think they are mutually exclusive. I’m getting to the north and south.
What are your thoughts on that? Can you help a million people with volunteers only, no paid employees, in theory?
No, in theory, but I think about the sustainability of that with the people that are helping you, right? If you know how dedicated a volunteer needs to be to support that end, what is their time worth, right? What is your time worth?
As a founder, I think that you’re not looking at creating a very sustainable organization without added stability of something like an employee. Volunteers are an amazing support to organizations that came out of volunteer management. So, I have a lot of respect for what they do, but there’s going to be turnover.
You know they have other obligations, and so they can’t be fully committed to your organization in the way that employees will be. And so, it’s important to bring those people on in a way that will be supportive not only to the organization but for them as the team members coming in to support you.
Yeah, I fully believe that. I interviewed with Karen Knight. We talked all about volunteers and volunteer management. And it’s just so interesting to see the way some people look at volunteers, and I have a lot of things I can say about it, but I’ve said it on like five or six other episodes, so I’m not going to repeat myself here. But volunteers are valuable. Volunteers aren’t likely to stick around forever, certainly not longer than maybe two years.
You have to figure out that they’re not free labor. They’re catalysts, not free labor, not just there to build your vision. Yeah, they’re catalysts within your organization. That can be of help, but you have to support them, and you have to do good for them for them to be at their best, or at least, your organization.
No, absolutely; I love this other thing you do here at metrics tracking. This has come up a lot lately, especially in the service space. People don’t even know what they’re tracking or why. What do you look at when you look into metrics tracking? What does that look like for you and your team?
What is it that you’re trying to track? Because that’s the piece that a lot of people get wrong, is they think they need to track everything. But if it is not something that is giving you direct insight into how close a piece is moving towards the goals that you have set within your vision or within your objectives for the year, then you don’t need to stress about it. In my opinion, I think some too many people get caught in numbers, and it feels busy and like we’re doing a lot of stuff, but it’s actually the implementation and doing work that makes the numbers go in the directions that you want them to do. And so that’s where you really need to be focused. But the data can be really helpful when it comes to deciding what kind of decisions we want to make. So, you want to have the right indicators for what it is that you’re trying to get that on.
Yeah, it’s very interesting when I look at something like the podcasting world, and I look at sponsors, and I, of course, like to have sponsors, right people, giving me money and me promoting the thing that they want to do. I got reached out to by a photographer in Tennessee. And he wanted to do ads on my show. That’s great and all, but when I look at my numbers at the time, I had like 30 downloads in all of Tennessee, and this is a photographer that does things in person. It would have been wrong and irresponsible for me to take his money, knowing that I really wasn’t delivering the value to him and what he was doing. So even though I can track my download numbers and I can say they were this big. But that doesn’t help him in Tennessee for what he’s trying to do, so it does him no good to look at all of my numbers and think it’s great for him when it really has almost nothing to do with him. Do you find that nonprofits are tracking things that they just have no business tracking?
I would say that that is accurate, yeah. Because it’s hard to know if it’s not something that you’re familiar with going in. You know, lots of folks in nonprofits are learning a lot on the fly, and there is a lot of talking heads out there that are telling us how to do particular things.
But again, some pieces need to be tracked. They should tell you something directly about the work that you are doing and how you are doing that work, so you know key performance indicators are KPIs or the kinds of things that we would track. And so, you know, that might be donations from a certain perspective, but maybe that’s donations per volunteer, by individuals in your organization looking at those kinds of things that help you appropriately read data.
So, if I’m a local nonprofit and I don’t know Kansas City. I’m just getting started. What do I need to track?
I would track things related to your development and your programming. And if there are specific operational goals that you need, so if there are funds like a certain funding goal, and obviously you’re going to track how we’re doing towards that funding goal month over month, quarter over quarter. If there are specific programming goals of people that you want, specifically in your program, then you would track things like applications into the program versus people that have finished the program, those kinds of things. There are going to be data points that you’re going to need for grants and things like that, so it becomes a kind of a specialized conversation. But the key is to be judicious and don’t feel like you have to.
Nonprofits and startups tend to be focused on output and programming that some operational stuff ends up on the back burner. Unfortunately, missing foundational elements caps the level of impact that you can create.
Do you have an example from one of your clients you can share? Don’t share the client’s name, but what type of organization and what are some things that you helped them track.
Yes, so we worked with an international nonprofit organization that had chapters all over the place.
What group of people were they helping?
They were helping a large population, so it was a public listening project. So, they had volunteers that would literally go out onto the streets and set up their camp chairs and offer free listening.
It was a beautiful project. And so, things that we tracked were specific to chapters. How many folks came by? We would teach the chapter leaders how to track that so that they could determine which site was best for them to be at. So, they had the most listening.
Some of the things that we were tracking came from surveys that were filled out by both volunteer listeners and also talkers that would come in because there was some research being done on those elements. So, we got their feedback on how they were feeling pre- and post-listening experiences.
But we would also track things like engagement with our chapter leaders: how many events were they hosting? Were they consistently building their volunteer base locally? Those kinds of things helped us to determine what kind of support we needed to provide to those chapters so that they could be successful. Well, what were the successful chapters? So, when we have that, maybe fewer active chapters are needed, so when I looked at those. Pieces that helped us really determine how to build up that chapter support program.
Yeah, absolutely. It’s like looking at numbers on social media and seeing how many people saw my stuff. How many people are engaged? How many people commented, and if it was something that I needed to be done, like a form filled out by all those people in my group, how many actually filled out the form? Was it the presentation of the form, the fact that it was digital, or were people actually reading this stuff, or were they just scrolling on by, or the things that you’re trying to implement that were actually gaining traction at a level that you think is valuable to your organization?
Exactly exactly. Yep, because the key there was how many people filled out the form.
So, if your big discrepancy there, that’s a piece of data that will tell you, “OK, we probably need to switch something up here because this is not matching up.”
Yeah, exactly. If you are looking at getting new donors or closing new business, and you know that you talked to one hundred people and you got four to sign up, and they sold it for an average of $50.00 each, and you’re trying to make $1000, that’s only at $200, so then you do the math backward to figure out how many more people you need to talk to at that closing rate to reach your goal. If you don’t look at those types of numbers to reach your goal, you’ll have no idea how many people you need to talk to in a day, in a week, in a month, and a year, to reach that goal, whether it’s nonprofit and donations, where there’s a business and selling products or services or anything that you’re trying to do, the number of people you are talking to set appointments. From appointments to getting a yes. From the yes to the funds, getting an account, and then the average value of those.
And maybe that makes your goal, but maybe you find out when you do that math that it’s going to take you years to hit the number that you’re going to get, and so that’s when reality starts to set in. And you say, “OK, well, maybe what I need to do is refine my pitch deck, whether that is for donations or individuals, so that’s what I’m bringing in.” Each person I converged with helped me get closer to my goal faster.
Maybe it’s the type of people that you’re talking to. I know a lot of veteran organizations out there. Their message is only for veterans. You’re asking veterans to bail out federal veterans. There’s nothing wrong with that, but you wouldn’t go into a homeless population and ask for 50 bucks from everybody to try to build a house for the homeless. You go to a different group of people than the people that you’re trying to help.
Maybe you realize that you’ve set 12 appointments, and you’ve had hours’ worth of calls, and they didn’t really get you anything because those people didn’t actually have you any money to either pay you for your processing services or donate towards your goal, so you might find yourself looking for a different group of people who’re going to help you achieve your goals.
Exactly exactly; it’s just reading its reading data.
Reading data. How many people were in the audience?
Simple. Simple. That’s simple, isn’t that?
How many people in the audience just cringed at those two words? Reading data If you cringed at that, call Claire. Get on her calendar, get her in your organization, so you don’t have to read that stuff.
Please don’t cringe, don’t ignore the data just because of my new menu. I didn’t put a warning on this episode that it’s cringeworthy. I didn’t put that in our marketing materials.
You have things in here, like meeting facilitation. Do people not know how to run a meeting?
Not always the most effective. But this is something that we typically do with our retainer clients. We can come in and be the person so that the founder doesn’t have to be the person there. There are pieces like that that need to be off somebody’s plate. So that can be running meetings, but it can also be setting up meeting cadences and processes so that that feels like a supportive and sustainable helpful thing for the organization, and that might mean not having so many meetings. That’s something that we might sometimes recommend also.
You know, I talked to a local nonprofit here in Oklahoma City, and we were having lunch, and he was going through some of his materials, and I was like, “Hey, what are you working on?” He’s like, “Oh, we’ve got a board meeting for later tonight. I’m getting stuff together for the board members to read,” and I said, “Hey brother, are you putting together a 45-page document to have people read? During the meeting, “and he’s like, “Yeah, we always do it this way.” Oh, my Lord. How much time is spent in the meeting? Watching other people read a document
What does your board member turnover look like? Right?
Yeah, oh yeah, it’s all that. I was like, “Hey, how about you do them a favor and send them a read-ahead so they can come to the meeting with questions, and then the person if you can collect questions ahead of time and have the person working on this project be prepared to present answers to these questions.” Instead of staring at each other or finishing a reading, we read at different rates, and we have different retention, so you can’t expect someone to sit in a meeting and read a 45-page document. “
Have any other understanding of it and then, like they’re already tired from sitting there and reading? What does that meet look like? How do you make it? How do you make an effective meeting?
Well, as you mentioned, you want to have things prepared as much as you can going into the meeting because the meeting itself should be about making decisions, doing things, and collaborating in a way that can’t be done outside of the meeting.
Do you know how many of us have seen that this could have been an email meme as much as we can? We try to keep the important things on the agenda and move the status pieces out of a meeting. If you have a project management tool set up effectively, that can be a great way to provide information. Certainly, giving them the information that they need in packets ahead of time so people can process.
That’s what I like to do. Keep within the meeting to things like what is working, what is not, what is missing, and what is confusing. I think that that’s one great key, you know, kind of agenda and things can fall within there. But as much as possible, keep the meeting to things that need to be done in person with those.
What do you think? One of the pitfalls is for executive directors briefing meetings briefing how their departments are going and how their project is doing; what do you think of some of the pitfalls of that setup?
You know, I think they want to show progress, and they want to have board members know where everything is at, and so they want to tell them everything that is going on all right here in this meeting. But that kind of handicaps, their ability to have forward motion within the meaning, two those kinds of status things are pieces that you can present ahead of time. And if your board is engaged, then they’re going to stay up to date with those pieces. But certainly, there are some internal things that they don’t need to be with the board. So, I would say, in that instance, question why am I bringing this information into this meeting? Is it necessary for this reason, or is there something that I am an outcome that I’m trying to reach by presenting that information, and this is really the best way to do that?
What is it that you're trying to track? Because that's the piece that a lot of people get wrong
Yeah, I was having a conversation earlier today, and we were talking about some of the fallacies of board meetings, and one of the things that came up were people that would only show up and present the rosiest picture of what they’re doing, and we’re avoiding bringing any problems that needed solutions. Or decisions into the board. And I really think that’s a poor way to present. Because when if you’re struggling with whatever it is that you’re struggling with, I don’t think that briefing means you are not doing a good job. I mean, you should come in there with potential solutions that the board would need to decide on, but if you wait for the problem to get so big and it blindsides the board, I think you’re pretty much guaranteed to be fired.
That’s just the way I look at it. What do you think, Claire?
Yeah, I would agree that it’s about being transparent all the way through. And the more that we can do that, the more that we can professionally interact as humans. And you know, you have to have all the cards on the table for everybody to be engaged and productive at their best. And so, if you’re not giving them that information, then you’re doing not only yourself but the organization a disservice. Because to your point, when things get bigger and bigger and bigger, they get harder to solve, so let’s get some. Problem-solving: bringing folks together to help work through things.
I’m going to reveal some of my age here. I’ve been watching the original Saved by the Bell on Netflix again, and I don’t remember if I’d seen all the episodes or not, but there’s always some scheme that Zack Morris is bringing up, and it always involves misinformation, lack of information, or lying.
And the moral of almost every single episode is, “if I had just been upfront with people, I could have avoided this huge mess.” And it’s a novel idea. It’s like in every single episode, “if only I wouldn’t be so shady if only I could have been upfront with how I feel about the situation.” If only I had told the truth or taken care of my responsibility. “You know, I heard that the truth is always the best, and it’s a lot easier to be truthful if you’re not doing shady things.
That’s just the way I look at it. I don’t know.
Last, on this list, I’m reading here that you do admin and tech task implementations, and you’ve got some automation things that you do. How do you help alleviate some of that administrative burden?
Sometimes that looks like a retainer package where we’re literally the bridge because you’re thinking about bringing in an employee in the long run. For operational folks, I think that’s where you want to go, ultimately. But when you need somebody that can help with some of these basic things right now, or as a solopreneur, you’re like, “I just really need to get some of these things off my plate.”
Then we have the infrastructure in place to be able to support them in those ways. Because it’s not all big, sometimes there are just little noodle things that you need to have some space away from, and so we strive to be able to help in those areas too. That fully operated general operations department, that’s what we do.
Yeah, I tell you, I use some different automation tools. I use MailChimp for my emails, and I’ve used IFTTT if this then that. If I have a new episode that publishes, then it automatically gets promoted on this social media, and there are a few things I have set up, and it saved me a lot of headaches and a lot of time, and right now, I’m staring at some admin tasks that I’ve been kind of putting off as I mentioned earlier in the episode, I’ve had a lot going on this year, and, so, like as the machine keeps running and new episodes come out week after week after week, I noticed that I hadn’t been promoting him.
I hadn’t been putting out some of the things, and I hadn’t been creating the blog post. I had been creating the blog post, and I’m like it was high time that I teach someone else on my team to do this for just that reason I was busy. With other life things, I wasn’t able to get those done, and I didn’t have that redundancy. That backup plan that training is in place to get those done, and it sounds like that’s exactly. What do you offer?
We do, yep, so we can do some of those implementation pieces. I think that automation is a great example because I think that’s something that is underutilized in the nonprofit space. So certainly, we can help get some of that stuff set up so that you’re working smarter and not harder.
But we also want to help prepare an organization to have those kinds of people come in and help them on a long-term basis.
And so, yes, that could be coming in to help with the tasks. But also to document what that process looks like. So, when you have somebody coming in for the long term, they’re really set up for success because, you know, when you have to delegate things, sometimes that feels hard because you have to train somebody, and we don’t have time to do that.
And how do I just download all this stuff out of my brain and have somebody else do that? So, we really aim to help the organizations and entrepreneurs that we work with be prepared to delegate to team members so that it is a sustainable operation. That and the culture that they’re creating when they bring team members on.
No, absolutely, I know the things that I do that I’ve offloaded like the next time that I do it. I record it, and then I walk through the thing that I’m doing and then why I’m doing that thing in the way that I’m doing it. And then usually I take a screenshot of the thing, and I put it in like paint or in Canva and make little arrows and say this is where this comes from; this is where this section comes from. This is this. This is how I determine this. And then when someone comes in to do that, instead of me doing it, they can look at the template and watch the video of the thing that I’ve created, and close to the first or second time we get it done. They know exactly how to do it, what’s expected, where to get the information, and then I don’t have to do it anymore.
And that’s a really great way to be supportive of your teammate. But also, to yourself, so oftentimes, people don’t have that kind of thing in place. And what ends up happening is you have a team member who wants to do a good job, but they haven’t really had expectations set for them. Really, clearly, and so they don’t do the job quite as you thought they would, and so you’re disappointed.
But really, you know, there was that miscommunication piece, so be as clear and as upfront as we keep talking about as you can be the better.
I got clear is definitely kind. I know that when you look at basic leadership skills, you want to know if the person capable. Have they been trained? Have I allowed them to do it, and have I given my expectations?
Expectations might be, “look like hey, by the end of the day, I’d like you to have this done to 50% completion, or I’d like to have called at least five donors and followed up and see how their experience went or whatever the metric is.” If you don’t give them a task and a purpose for doing that, I need to do this in order to accomplish this. If you don’t give them that piece, though, what they have to do in the expectation, they won’t know what it is to do. Too many job descriptions I see out there. You get to have skills in this and be able to do this and be proficient with a word or have a master’s.
That’s great and all, but just because that person gets hired doesn’t mean they have any clue of how you do things. Or what you expect a project in the last job might be. Oh yeah, you know, sometime over the next three weeks, get this done, but what you mean is if it’s not done before lunch. I’m going to have a huge problem and throw a fit. You have to set those expectations for what that looks like in your organization, ’cause people don’t know unless you tell them.
Absolutely, and it comes down to self-awareness, really. I’m the kind of person that is the antithesis of a micromanager, and I just, to my detriment sometimes, assume you got something unless you don’t get it, but what I have done to counteract that in myself is to make sure that I’m being really clear.
I have a checklist to make sure I have given them all the pieces of information. They haven’t left anything out, and then we also have systems in place to double-check. So, what has done really look like, as Bernie Brown says, paint done, in her book Dare to Lead, which is amazing. We are not looking for a stick-figure level. We’re looking for Van Gogh level done. Let them know to that degree so that there’s no confusion. You know everybody is really clear, and you can kindly do that. It doesn’t mean you’re that boss just because you lay out direct objectives. That’s actually the kinder thing to do.
Yeah, and leaving things ambiguous is just a recipe for misspelled expectations. I know that when my wife drives, she expects everyone else to be a good driver, and she gets disappointed a lot. She gets frustrated. I expect everyone will cut me off, stop short, give me the finger, and when they don’t, I have a great time on the road. It would all play out according to my expectations.
Always setting expectations appropriately. That is key.
Yeah, I have a group of friends that talk about the other side of that and setting intentions as opposed to expectations. What do I expect out of this meeting? What do I intend to bring to the meeting? Or maybe I want to show up with a positive attitude, ready to listen to different opinions and try to learn something new. And be engaging. Yeah, if I go in there with good intentions, I usually walk away feeling great about what I’ve brought to the table.
Yeah, and you have control over that piece, right? We don’t always have control over other folks that we can bring our own intentions and positivity. The energy that we want to bring into other folks so.
Absolutely, Claire. I know I have a hard time believing you’re older than 25, but we talked about a lot of stuff today. We talked about being a certified director of operations, herding cats, what it looks like when you come in, and helping people with their mission, vision, and value statement. With all the different things that you guys provide, where is the best place for people to find you?
Well, Sure. And you can come to the website anytime and reach out at calmops.com, or I would love it if you would come and find me. That’s where I’m talking about things that I’m up to and what’s going on in the world of operations that could be helpful. We’ll connect and see what’s going on.
Oh, that’s fantastic, Claire. I’ll have all those links for you in the show notes so you can’t get them wrong. You can just click on the one you want to reach out to Claire. I’m sure she would love to hear from you.
Claire, thank you so much for being my guest today.
Thank you so much for having me, Travis, this. Is a lot of fun.
You’ve been listening to the nonprofit architect to listen to all our past shows visitnonprofitarchitect.org and be sure to subscribe. Rate and review our show. Thank you.
Claire Crum Bio
Claire Crum is on a mission to support nonprofit leaders and social entrepreneurs to increase their capacity to reach next-level milestones. The leaders she works with at Calm Ops value intentional action to build a foundation for growth that will support their goals for work-life balance and is tailored to the organization’s unique mission, vision, and values.
claire@clairecrum.com
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