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Take Back Your Time by Margarita Sarmiento
Take Back Your Time

How to Avoid Work Interruptions & Stay Focused on What Matters

Guest blog post from Margarita Sarmiento, ITK Consultants and Connect For More Training Associate.

We’re in that time of year again… the holiday rush is upon us and there’s no possible way for us to get everything done at work or at home. Or, is there? The guest blog below helps provide a few useful tips for how to manage your work time and interruption, staying focused on what matters most in this information overload society. Read More “Take Back Your Time”

Why I’m Thankful for My Mistakes
Why I’m Thankful for My Mistakes

Gratitude is in our bones this week. Or at the very least, thrust into our culture all week long as many of us prepare to celebrate the Thanksgiving holiday.

In all honesty, I am constantly working on my gratitude attitude and recognizing gratitude moments with both my Connect For More team and family. Just like yoga, meditation, writing, art, sports… this is truly a practice and if I forget to stay mindful in this mindset it’s often like my muscles have atrophied. In short, this struggle for me is a real one. Especially when research shows that humans are genetically prone to focus on the negative as part of our survival instincts.

Read More “Why I’m Thankful for My Mistakes”

Why Single Parenthood Feels a lot like Nonprofit Executive Leadership
Why Single Parenthood Feels a lot like Nonprofit Executive Leadership

There are very few of us who enter into marriage or parenthood, with the assurance that we are one day going to be single parents and/or divorced. In fact, most of us enter into both with hearing that challenges are ahead for both endeavors (if we even listen to them), but still think we’ve found the one who can make the challenge either navigable or non-existent.

I’ve seen many nonprofit CEOs or Executive Directors enter into this role the same way. They hear the challenges (burnout, isolation, disenchantment, difficult boards, staffing issues) and think “I’ve finally found the one (mission) that can make it all worthwhile.” Or they ignore the challenges altogether thinking they can make it work with their team of board and staff because the love (of mission) will conquer all. Read More “Why Single Parenthood Feels a lot like Nonprofit Executive Leadership”

Lessons in Board Culture: A Child’s View 2.0 | Liz Wooten-Reschke
Lessons in Board Culture: A Child’s View 2.0

Life QuoteA few years ago, I had the opportunity to publish a blog collaboratively with BoardSource discussing what the boards I work with might look like to my children – at the time ages 1 and 3. Here we are in 2019 and my babies just turned 6 and 8.

Since that time we’ve become a family of three, then a blended family of six, said goodbye to beloved pets and close family members; they’ve started elementary school, various sports, piano and dance lessons, and we’ve moved into our forever home. To be sure, our life has been full, busy, organized chaos.

Read More “Lessons in Board Culture: A Child’s View 2.0”

Our Favorite Board Governance-isms

Tis the season…. For board, staff and team retreats.

As we enter into the month of November, the Connect For More team and I are deep into the second wave of our busiest time of the calendar year (for those of you wondering January-April is also quite full).

Almost every one of our clients and colleagues is in full throttle finish-up-before-the-holidays mode. Perhaps you can relate.

For us, this is an intense time of gratitude and we are working hard to reap those benefits. We’re almost halfway through our 10th anniversary year and are still growing as a business, as a team, and as individuals.

We are eternally grateful to all of our clients for making it so! We’re also working towards the great and imminent (hopefully) intentional pause from work that will come soon with the holiday “break.”

Read More “Our Favorite Board Governance-isms”

Change is Scary
Change is SCARY & Other Organizational Apparitions

This week’s blog post was written to honor Halloween… we’re now full into the time of year when the holidays are officially upon us, candy & sweets are everywhere and the stressors of the fourth quarter of the calendar year ramp up. Read: I’ve been stress eating a LOT of candy these days. And if you’re being honest, you have too.

As we enter this hectic, full and busy-is-not-enough time of year, I began to ask the Connect For More team and our Clients the following question:

Read More “Change is SCARY & Other Organizational Apparitions”

Saved by the Sabbatical
Saved by the Sabbatical

There are some perks to being your own boss. Ten years in, I’ve learned that the life an entrepreneur is rife with opportunities: paying your team and your vendors before (or more) than you pay yourself, working numerous hours on the non-billable parts of a business, losing sleep over the next great idea or that difficult client, etc. etc. etc. All joking aside, one my favorite benefits of this career is that of time freedom – i.e. that on any given day I get to choose my own schedule, how much/little I want to work and how I want to put my values into action.

Read More “Saved by the Sabbatical”

Consultants Behaving Badly? How to Ensure a Successful Client-Consultant Engagement

Consultants Behaving Badly by Liz WootenLet me begin by saying I am honored to be known as a consultant serving nonprofits.

I’ve had the great pleasure to work with and learn from some phenomenal colleagues who have made an incredible impact in the nonprofit sector. Prior to becoming a consultant myself, I worked with many consultants and even helped co-found a group that promotes ethical consulting. But, as in every industry, there are always a few “bad eggs” — or at least examples where my peers (or I) have gone awry in our service to others.  Read More “Consultants Behaving Badly? How to Ensure a Successful Client-Consultant Engagement”

Jump Start Your Volunteer Engagement Efforts with Give Day Tampa Bay

Jump Start Your Volunteer Engagement Efforts with Give Day Tampa Bay by Liz WootenThe nonprofit sector runs on the power of volunteerism. The power of volunteerism depends on the level of volunteer engagement. And the power of volunteer engagement is driven by personal motivation.

Do you know what motivates your volunteers? When was the last time you asked them?

Give Day Tampa Bay is coming…. And it’s the perfect opportunity to revisit (or start!) this conversation with your volunteers.

Here are three reasons you should consider participating in Give Day Tampa Bay (GDTB) as part of your year-round volunteer engagement strategy: Read More “Jump Start Your Volunteer Engagement Efforts with Give Day Tampa Bay”

A Child’s View of Nonprofit Board Culture

A Child's View of Nonprofit Board Culture by Li WootenAs both a mom and a consultant in the nonprofit sector, I often wonder what my world looks like to my two young children, who currently understand very little about what “mommy does.” What, for example, might they conclude about board culture if they were to venture with me into a nonprofit boardroom, where much of my work in board engagement and develop takes place?

So, I mentally stepped into their tiny shoes to think about it — the boardroom experience from a child’s eye — and identify some of the parental lessons I try to impart that might relate. Below are some of those lessons, intertwined with thoughtful questions, that you can use with your board to start the conversation about your own board culture and how it affects your ability to achieve your mission: Read More “A Child’s View of Nonprofit Board Culture”

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