Did you know there’s a wealth of untapped wisdom within your nonprofit? It’s your staff and team members — especially those most proximate to the work. Their perspective can offer meaningful insights to amplify your organization’s mission.
But boots-on-the-ground staff, the ones carrying out the mission daily, are often forgotten when an organization’s leadership comes together to refine its programming or engage in strategic planning. They’re often seen simply as the “doers” of the work — the ones who will implement the plans, designed by leadership, that will keep the organization structurally sound and afloat. But when directives come from the top, with a big-boss mindset, organizations lose out on a lot of value.
Without a way to bridge communications between frontline employees and management, nonprofits risk overlooking key insights that would strengthen their organizations’ effectiveness.
Tapping into Frontline Wisdom
When was the last time you invited your frontline employees to the planning table? And not just for a checklist or progress report, but a true engagement of ideas? When was the last time they were truly listened to, with the chance for their ideas to become a part of the organization’s broader plan?
Nonprofit employees actively seek this level of respect and internal goodwill. Your staff wants to contribute to your organization’s mission — and leveraging their wisdom can strengthen your nonprofit’s longevity and effectiveness.
That’s why we published Inside-Out: The Case for Community Voice, to reframe how organizations collect and consider input. For some nonprofit leaders, this requires a mindset shift — a traditional approach would see organizations gathering knowledge and insights at the top, allowing those to then trickle down into their agency’s programs, services and resources. For others, the desire to include and amplify their staff’s voices is there, but they find themselves falling short in executing an effective internal communications process. So, they default to the standard (and comfortable) top-down approach.
But a nonprofit’s internal feedback loop (or lack thereof) plays a key role in organizational strength because it directly relates to an organization’s values and guiding principles.
Building a Stronger Organization from Within
At Next Stage, we use an equation: Values + Processes = Internal Culture & External Brand. We believe living out your values while adhering to a set of protocols and processes is what defines both your workplace culture and public perception. A lack of clearly expressed, well-defined values negatively impacts trust and belonging internally, which then limits outbound engagement for your brand.
I’ve witnessed this misstep firsthand. A client mandated a set of changes to his staff, hoping it would get his team in alignment with his plans. But all this achieved was an increase in employee dissatisfaction and a breakdown in his staff’s trust in the organization’s leadership. As a result, many employees left, and those who remained didn’t feel connected to the company’s culture, mission or values.
For this particular client engagement, I began with a discovery phase. Although standard practice might dictate that a discovery phase should begin with mid-management and executive-level stakeholders, I talked first with the organization’s frontline employees. It might be logical to assume that executives know the most about their organization’s programming, marketing and operations, but I’ve found that’s often not the case. Additional voices must be included to get the whole picture to best support an institution’s strategy, direction, and vision. When you allow frontline workers to relay ideas and share their experiences, it only ever serves to better your organization. Also, starting discovery at the top can allow bias to creep in, so using this nontraditional approach can help mitigate this risk and allow for more robust, productive discussions.
Aligning Values, Culture and Brand
So how do you best listen to the people you entrust with advancing your nonprofit’s mission? How can you use their wisdom and experience to inform your institution’s future direction? Start with the following:
- Empower your employees to use their voices.
- Create a safe space for conversation, ideation and belonging.
- Listen intently. In other words… stop talking so much!
To learn more on this topic, we invite you to join our free webinar, Human Resources & Community Voice: Listening to Your Employees, on August 29 at 11:00 a.m. ET. We’ll explore:
- Why listening to employees is crucial for effective HR
- The value of frontline insights and storytelling
- How to implement a feedback process to foster a positive workplace culture
See you there!
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Next Stage Senior Director of Community Voice Helen Hope Kimbrough centers the perspective and lived experience of others to inform meaningful strategic planning and implementation efforts. Helen also champions diversity, equity and inclusion for societal and organizational change. She serves on the board of the Charlotte Mecklenburg Library Foundation and Parent Child+ and is the author of four multicultural children’s books. She’s the founder of an independent publishing company and cohost of the Behind The Throne podcast. A graduate of Hampton University, Helen holds a Bachelor of Science in Marketing. She also has certifications in “Systems Thinking” and “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in the Workplace” from Cornell University and the University of South Florida, respectively.