Author: Trina Isakson

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For nonprofit leaders and social innovators

Everyday Political Citizen shortlist + my focus on community engagement

Late 2013 I was notified that I had been nominated for Samara’s Everyday Political Citizen project, in which Samara sought nominees from every federal riding in the country.

The Everyday Political Citizen project showcases a more human side to politics, and provides role models for those who are considering engaging politically themselves.

I had the best intentions of nominating some amazing people in my life, but, alas, I was in the throes of pneumonia at the time, and well, I didn’t. I still don’t know who my nominator was, but I have a few suspicions. To the anonymator (a new word I just made up), thank you.

Miriam Lapp nominates Trina Isakson
Source: Samara

And today, Samara announced that I have been shortlisted as one of 13 Canadians. Miriam Lapp, Assistant Director, Outreach and Research at Elections Canada, was the juror that selected me, and I am… well, I don’t know how I feel about it. It’s definitely an honour, but I’m generally not one who likes to talk about myself (I’m more likely to talk about my work or the organizations I work with) so being nominated as a individual is kind of cool but also uncomfortable. (But the fact that Rick Mercer has probably read my name, even just in his own inner voice, is pretty exciting.)

Which is why my focus on community engagement is largely about helping and promoting others, and staying out of the spotlight myself (though I am happy to speak publicly about issues and knowledge that are important to me). This is a trend I see pretty clearly as I look back on some of the key jobs and projects I’ve been involved in over time.

When explore what drives me, my purpose is clear.

I challenge the status quos of how people contribute positively to their communities.

I call this a blend of social innovation and community engagement. My consulting work (i.e. how I earn a living) focusses on things like emerging trends in volunteer engagement, ways individuals are using consumerism, investing, and technology to help vulnerable Canadians, explorations of community-university engagement, and critiquing how young people are investing in their communities (and vice versa). My volunteer work involves getting more women engaged in the electoral process through campaigning or advocacy, and helping nonprofit organizations rethink the ways they engage the people that support them. My side passion project at the moment is writing a book on how introverts can and do create social change.

I will admit I’ve thought about a future involving elected politics (i.e. the “spotlight”), but in reality, I know this is not for me. For one thing, I’m quite clearly introverted and I love my quiet days spent at home alone reading, writing, researching, strategizing, and thinking, scattered with the odd phone call, meeting, or event. I see my mark being made through strong (and fairly silent) ripples.

So providing new venues for people to do in the world, that’s me. Congratulations to the other shortlisters!

PS. There is another great opportunity to nominate (women) community leaders with the deadline this Friday.

2014 is a historic year on Prince Edward Island, a year we celebrate the 150th anniversary of the Charlottetown Conference, and the resulting vision that led to the formation of Canada. The Charlottetown Conference was a meeting which enabled 23 men to create a bold vision, form relationships and begin conversations about what our country could be.

We want to know what 23 women will do with that opportunity.

 

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For nonprofit leaders and social innovators

Using governance to create socially just organizations

One of the highlights of my week is teaching a course on nonprofit structure and practice for the Adler School of Professional Psychology MA in Community Psychology program (in Vancouver). One thread that that has popped up in the course is the fact that many organizations that fight for social justice are often in and of themselves not socially just. They don’t pay fair or living wages, they are complicit in oppression of certain groups, etc.

Last week our topic was governance and boards of directors, and I posed the question “how can governance practices be used to embed social justice in an organization?” Here are some of the possibilities the cohort came up with.

  • integrate social justice values into mission, vision and values
  • incorporate social justice education into training policy (ideally for both board and staff), for example, anti-oppression framework
  • fair voting process, discussion, especially for board re-election and policy amendments
  • commit to recruiting diverse and representative board members / not requiring financial contribution for board positions
  • multiple subcommittees, with cross-checking on powerful issues for bias
  • outline ethical guide for where financial investment/giving will be accepted / escaping “dirty money,” accepting funding based on values
  • compensation policies: living wage, distribution bell curve of pay
  • strong communication: meeting minutes available, open channels for staff and volunteer suggestions, transparency of upper-management
  • maintaining assessment and awareness of changing power relations and politics; being open to new collaborations – ties into ethics and growth

The students asked if there was a “socially just governance” guide. So far I can’t find one. *mini-book idea*

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For nonprofit leaders and social innovators

This shouldn’t be innovative, but it is…

In Lieu of Money, Toyota Donates Efficiency to New York Charity is a fantastic example of skills-based corporate volunteerism done awesome. The New York Times reports:

At a soup kitchen in Harlem, Toyota’s engineers cut down the wait time for dinner to 18 minutes from as long as 90. At a food pantry on Staten Island, they reduced the time people spent filling their bags to 6 minutes from 11. And at a warehouse in Bushwick, Brooklyn, where volunteers were packing boxes of supplies for victims of Hurricane Sandy, a dose of kaizen cut the time it took to pack one box to 11 seconds from 3 minutes.

Skills-based volunteerism and corporate volunteer programs have been around for ages.

But they’re generally not done well. Organizations limit volunteer roles requiring professional skills to their boards of directors, and corporate volunteering often involves intelligent professionals painting walls.

“They make cars; I run a kitchen,” said Daryl Foriest, director of distribution at the Food Bank’s pantry and soup kitchen in Harlem. “This won’t work.”

In a research project 27 Shift completed for Volunteer Canada in 2012, we found that organizations engaging corporate volunteers were most commonly doing so in a workplace fundraising capacity. Unfortunately, there is often short-sightedness and protectionism when organizations explore skills-based and/or corporate volunteerism.

Sometimes this type of volunteer engagement is met with resistance: unionized environments protect certain duties, staff don’t want to give up interesting work, or staff feel threatened by a volunteer with more experience than they have. (From Building the Bridge for Volunteer Engagement, Volunteer Canada and 27 Shift, 2012).

This really shouldn’t be New York Times newsworthy, but it is. Maybe if organizations see the potential media exposure, they’ll finally get on board?

“It’s a form of corporate philanthropy but instead of giving money, they’re sharing expertise,” said David J. Vogel, a professor and an expert in corporate social responsibility at the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley. “It’s quite new.”

New only because it’s done well. It shouldn’t be innovative, but it is.

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For nonprofit leaders and social innovators

How to introduce yourself professionally when you’re unemployed

A while ago I ran into someone I had previously interviewed for a contractor position with my consulting business. She was one of the top candidates, and it had been about a year and half since I had seen her last. I asked what she was up to now, and her response was:

Unemployed again.

What a downer. But then she went on to tell me about a contract she had recently completed in her area of expertise and in one of my fields of interest. That would have been a much better opener.

However you respond, open with something positive AND make it clear you are looking for new opportunities. For example:

  • I just finished up some interest work doing XYX. I’m looking for my next project in the area of ABC.
  • I’m doing some volunteering work with Organization Z doing ABC, and I’m looking for work right now in a similar area.
  • I’m taking some courses in ABC, and I’m hoping to find work soon in an organization that could use these skill and my experience in DEF.
  • What I’m hoping to do is XYZ…. I’m currently working in ABC and want to make a move soon because XYZ is really where my passion lies.
  • I’m spending time right now meeting with people who work in XYZ because I want to learn more about careers in this area. I’m hoping to find a role soon doing ABC.

You can also use this conversation as the opportunity to ask if they’ve heard of any recent opportunities or have recommendations for individuals or organizations you should get in touch with. Just be sure to not make the whole conversation about yourself. Ask what they are involved with right now – it might trigger some ideas for you.

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For nonprofit leaders and social innovators

Why not an HR approach to volunteer engagement?

Imagine for me an HR department. HR departments:

  • make sure employees get compensated (payroll, etc),
  • reviews the organization’s HR practices in comparison to laws, standards, and best practices,
  • establishes policies for hiring, firing, etc.,
  • develop (or help other departments develop) job descriptions,
  • plan professional development for employees, and
  • help departments do performance reviews

among other services. They serve as internal consultants to the rest of the organization on managing employees.

HR departments are NOT responsible for supervising the organization’s employees (other than the employees in the HR department).

HR departments and volunteer resource departments both deal with people, with the main difference being that one group gets paid with money, and the other group receives other benefits.

However, volunteer departments often serve very different roles. Rather than supporting the organization’s volunteer engagement, they actually manage (recruit, supervise, schedule, etc) the organization’s volunteers.

Let’s view volunteer engagement through an HR model lens. What if we tasked volunteer departments with:

  • making sure volunteers get rewarded (though meaning, purpose, development opportunities, etc.),
  • reviews the organization’s volunteer engagement practices in comparison to laws, standards, and best practices,
  • establishes policies for hiring, firing, etc.,
  • developing (or helping other departments develop) role descriptions,
  • planning development opportunities for volunteers,
  • helping departments to performance review of volunteers, and
  • serving as internal consultants to all of the departments who engage volunteers,

BUT NOT

  • actually supervising all the organization’s volunteers (other than the volunteers engaged by the volunteer department)?

In this way, volunteer resource departments can mirror HR departments.

In this way, “volunteer programs” don’t exist; instead, there are programs and departments that happen to engage volunteers.

In this way, every department can become responsible for engaging volunteers.

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For nonprofit leaders and social innovators

3 ways to contribute to greater good via email

For a recent research project I did for HRSDC, I reached out to a wide range of innovators, entrepreneurs, and social change agents from across the country. I emailed a lot of people as a starting point, and often times didn’t get a response.

A CEO of sustainability company, a potential interviewee for the research, respond quickly, and by the end of the work day we had scheduled an upcoming interview. I thanked her for getting back to me so quickly…this was rare.

Her response was something like…

We’re all contributing to a movement. There’s no excuse to hold each other up.

She didn’t mean to say yes to everything that comes across your inbox. She just meant dealing with it (whether ourselves or via delegation) in a timely manner. Our colleagues in the “greater good” movement need forward momentum – let’s help each other out and not leave each other hanging.

1. Get to the point

Make your emails short. This is probably the tip that I follow the least well, but I try. It depends on the audience – I know some people prefer direct emails (me!) while others needs a warm-up before the email gets down to business. For those of you who like direct, short, emails, you might be interested in the sentenc.es personal policy.

2. Reduce back and forths

Provide all the information needed for the recipient to provide an effective response the first time around. For example, in my work I schedule a lot of meetings and interviews. I try to keep the back and forth to a minimum by not putting out a vague “Are you available to chat?” requests, but instead provide the details required to actually schedule a meeting: a link to my calendar (I use Doodle, which links to Google Calendar), an invitation to choose a time that works for them, and where I’ll be travelling from so they have context for a good location to suggest. The ideal response to a meeting request is a time and location; the worst is “all those times work for me, so whatever is good for you” because it requires a further email.

3. Reply

The possible responses to any email can be whittled down to one of five options:

  • Yes (I’d like to talk, I agree with you, Let’s move ahead, etc.)
  • No (I don’t want to, I’m too busy, I’m unable to, I don’t think we should, etc.)
  • Here is your response
  • I will respond, but I can’t right now (I have to think about it, I don’t have all the required information, I’m waiting for someone else first, etc.)
  • Someone else will respond to that for you (and I’ve cc:d them so that they take the ball from here).

Pick an answer and fire the response back. Not necessarily as the email comes in – getting to your inbox once a day will do it.

I personally attempt to respond to every email request that I get, usually within a day (though I don’t usually reply to product/advertising pitches). Because I don’t have a day job, it’s easy for me to reply to emails regarding my volunteer commitments or personal life at anytime I’m at my computer. A 24-hour reply schedule doesn’t work for everyone, but 2 business days seems reasonable.

Are these expectations too high?

Am I unrealistic? Or can we all do better with email and help each other carry the greater good forward?

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For nonprofit leaders and social innovators

Social innovation, introverts, and ideas

I’m currently exploring the idea of writing a book on social innovation and introversion. I’m reading everything I can find at the library on introversion, and see an opportunity to help introverts with fantastic ideas to share their voice in world of social innovation, which I find is so often crowded with self-promoters and media-seekers.

Susan Cain’s oft-cited TED talk on the power of introverts highlights the possibilities if all of the ideas floating around introverts’ heads are encouraged to come out into the world.

It’s not that extroverts don’t have good ideas. They do. And we hear about them.

Introverts, not so much. A balancing act needs to be struck among the importance of incubating thoughts, the ability to share well-formed ideas, and the necessity of bouncing less-than-perfect ideas with others in order to come to the best possible outcome. I don’t believe introverts need to be in the shadows of social innovation, while the extroverts present the talkative social faces of ideas. Part of the issues lies in North America’s default orientation towards extroversion; the other lies with introverts who don’t use strategies to move ideas forward.

If you know of a introverted social innovator, can recommend a resource, or have an opinion on the topic, please share!