As the year 2024 comes to a close, it’s that time when we look back and assess the year that was. What are we proud of? Where did we stumble? I’m not just talking about work. I’m talking about our personal lives, our connection to family and friends, and how we care for ourselves.
As I look back, I realize that, while I consider myself well-educated and pretty self-aware, I found myself with my head in the sand for a good portion of the year about a truly important thing.
I had my head in my sand about my health. Eight years ago I was diagnosed with a rare genetic liver disease — my liver does not produce the enzyme that promotes lung and liver health. I haven’t thought too much about it (except during COVID when I lived in a bubble). In fact, I was a keynote speaker at the National Organization of Rare Diseases, and with my head deeply in the sand, I struggled to build a presentation.
Until I saw the inhaler that lives on my desk.
I’m good and likely to live to a ripe old age but things will need to change for me in 2025 — medical treatments and a vigilant exercise schedule (I may finally become a killer pickleball player).
I’m ending the year with pride. Pride in the work I have done with my one-on-one coaching clients to move them from good to great and in providing over 6,000 members of the Nonprofit Leadership Lab with the tools and the community they need to invest in themselves and their missions by working to be their very best.
I’m also proud that I brought succession planning to life in my work, bringing Glennda Testone in to lead the Lab and share executive coaching work with me in my consulting practice. The timing could not have been better. With a year under her belt, she has everything she needs to build and scale a sustainable business that supports the sector she cares deeply about. Glennda tells me I can be proud that I kept “founder syndrome” at bay. (I hope she is not just saying that to make me feel good — after all, I talk about it a lot with clients!)
I am ending this year with my eyes wide open and a commitment that the only part of my body that will find its way into the sand is my toes. In fact, my toes will be in the sand in January as I spend the month with my wife working from a warm beachside locale.
Enough about me.
Consider this blog post a call to action to do the same. I am asking each and every one of you to do the same. Reflect on 2024 and your successes. Please start there and write those successes down – you need to reflect on the year and refuel yourself with them.
You are going to need all the fuel you can get to keep your eyes wide open during a year in which the only thing I know for sure is that you will need a seat belt tightly fastened.
You will have your own reflections on successes and lessons; this exercise is key — they are almost better than resolutions.
That said, based on my successes, lessons learned, and from ending the year with my eyes wide open, I thought I would share 10 strategies that will keep your wide-open eyes focused on the right things.
10 RECOMMENDATIONS FOR FOCUS
1. EDUCATE YOURSELF
Read nonprofit news and understand trends. Talk to those in your community and your sector. You are a part of several ecosystems and you need to understand them all.
The incoming administration in Washington seems focused on nonprofits with what is currently called HR9495. I promise to keep you apprised of status and implications but I invite you to seek out all you can to understand what it means for your organization and your sector.
2. INVEST IN SHIFTING THE MINDSET OF YOUR BOARD
The Independent Sector reports that we have seen a precipitous drop in the policy development and lobbying efforts of nonprofit organizations. There are lots of reasons for this but certainly one is a fear of jeopardizing the organization’s tax-exempt status. NO! Learn and educate your entire organization.
I can point to one of the biggest obstacles to growth and scaling upward in nonprofit organizations: fear of innovation. Boards are created with a collective understanding that they are risk managers and staff fear that trying something new might not work.
Your organization is in the business of change – you are going to need to embrace that change DNA in 2025. Big time.
3. GET COMFORTABLE LIVING IN A NONBINARY WORLD
We can no longer ignore the space in between. A binary view of the world is antiquated and serves us no one today. We are in a polarized world and the only way through it is to learn to hold multiple truths. I can bring this home for myself and say that I can look at the Israel-Hamas war and know that it is completely legitimate to be heartbroken for multiple groups at the same time.
Simply labeling our world as ‘polarizing’ lets us off the hook. Difficult conversations and talking with respect with whom we disagree could become the most important arrows in our quiver in 2025.
4. INVEST IN YOU
I mean this on so many levels. To start with, your health and your family are at the top. But go further. See professional development as self-care. Read a great book that takes you away, read a book that offers you a new perspective. Say “no” or “not yet” more often and get home in time for dinner.
5. EMBRACE AI
Here is a place where folks most decidedly have their heads in the sand — again, fear of change creeps into organizations in the business of change. See recommendation #1 about getting educated and smart about what AI will make possible. In our Lab, we have a “Lab Bot”. It has learned every piece of content that we have created and its answers are jaw-droppingly good. Does that mean that content experts are now in some way dispensable? Hell no. It now allows us to go to a higher level and add a different, deeper, and richer kind of value. If you need a place to start, read my friend Beth Kanter’s book, The Smart Nonprofit.
6. RETHINK SUCCESSION PLANNING
Engage your organization in a process to ensure that it is as strong as possible – hitting on all cylinders. Let’s call it ‘organizational hygiene.’ Here are the facts: the average tenure of an ED is 5 years. You just navigated one or are on the cusp. Your organization will be very attractive to a rockstar candidate if it is in good health
7. GET OVER YOUR ISSUES WITH GEN Z FOLKS
Oh, how clients complain about the attributes of their Gen Z staff, spewing microaggressions at the leaders of the future. Microaggressions: did you see that word? Want to build a culturally intelligent and welcoming organizational culture? I know you do. You must. It’s time to learn about Gen Z folks, hear their stories, and learn from them.
8. CAPITALIZE ON ENGAGED CITIZENRY TO RECRUIT BOARD MEMBERS AND RAISE MONEY
Everyone will be talking about the vast array of issues facing our society today and citizens will be engaged and motivated to get off the bench. That presents you with the chance to increase your talent and treasure. This is what challenging times make possible.
9. UNDERSTAND WHAT WILL BE AN INTENSE NEED FOR COMMUNITY
My wife led the Food Network for several years and was there during 9/11. Not long after, she predicted that there would be a run on roasting pans. I found this an odd comment. It turned out she was spot on and I now know why. People need to come together. To be in community with others. That will be true in 2025. I know it.
10. PLEASE MANAGE YOUR TIME AND DON’T LET IT MANAGE YOU
We just recently offered a time management workshop in our Nonprofit Leadership Lab and those who participated were investing in themselves — working so hard to learn how to manage their time rather than vice versa.
Learn to be a manager who delegates. Considering that control tendencies are not always your friend. Please see this kind of work as self-care.
THREE FINAL REMINDERS TO CARRY WITH YOU INTO 2025
1. “WE ARE THE ONES WE’VE BEEN WAITING FOR.”
No one is coming to save us, no one else is responsible for our well-being. We must individually and collectively do this work. There is no way around it.
2. NONPROFIT LEADERS DON’T QUIT.
Resilience is our superpower. Even when we have lost, when the outcome is the opposite of what we wanted, we will dust ourselves off, look in the mirror, learn some tough lessons, and try again.
3. THE NONPROFIT SECTOR IS MORE THAN A SECTOR — IT’S A MOVEMENT.
I see it every day in our Nonprofit Leadership lab. Thousands of kindred spirits from all over the world affect change in remarkable ways. All of them come together in community, stronger as a result.
We are all part of a strong and determined movement to make the world more fair, more just, and more beautiful. And that, my friends, will be a force to be reckoned with.
