I speak about …
- Creating mission impact
- Measuring outcomes
- Leadership
- Organizational development
- Productivity
- Career development
… in the social sector.
I will customize my presentation to meet your organization’s specific needs. I want to help create the outcome you’re seeking for your organization and audience.
What You Can Expect
Here’s what you can expect from me:
- Prompt, professional replies to your phone calls and email messages.
- A personal phone consultation with me before your event, so I can customize my presentation to best serve you and your audience.
- Promotion of your event on my blog and social media channels. (This assumes your event is open to the public and you want additional visibility for it.)
- A custom resource page online for your attendees. It will include the slides I used in the presentation, along with links to books, articles, and other resources I believe will be helpful.
- Follow-up communication after the event, to ensure I met your expectations. (I also want to know how you think I can improve.)
My Most Requested Topics
My most requested topics include the following ones. Keep in mind that I can present these as a keynote or a workshop. I can present most topics as half-day or full-day seminars as well.
Making Nonprofit Rock Stars for Bus and Mission Impact
Succession planning doesn’t have to be one of those “Ugh, do I have to?” tasks. Instead of a chore you have to do, make it a key team development strategy that turns each person into a nonprofit rock star and makes at least one a credible succession candidate—preferably sometime before you get hit by a bus. In this session for nonprofit executives, we’ll use succession planning, a must-do for any organization that wants the public’s trust, as a convenient excuse for making more mission impact. You’ll walk away with immediately actionable development plans for each staff member sure to fuel conversations about how to turn each one into a rock star. (Don’t worry, we’ll use a confidentiality system so only you can identify the staff members in your individual development plans.)
“John framed his message in a way that was meaningful for our audience. He helped us to view issues in a new perspective that will ultimately help us to transform our work as we move forward.”
—Lynne Lange, executive director
Nebraska Domestic Violence Sexual Assault Coalition
Coach Yourself to Career Success
In this highly interactive session, you will learn five steps to reach your Big Hairy Audacious Goal, either with your current employer or after a career transition. With directions and templates from the facilitator, you and a neighbor will coach each other on declaring your Big Hairy Audacious Goal; writing a winning game plan; assembling a top-notch personal board of advisers; creating time for the future; and balancing work and life. You’ll leave the session with a list of specific, measurable, and achievable objectives you can start working on immediately.
“John did an incredible job of trying to get all of our various thoughts together on our dreams.”
—Stephanie Geery-Zink, speakers co-chair
National Federation of Press Women Conference 2011
Organizer Comments on Coach Yourself to Career Success Workshop
Participant Comments on Coach Yourself to Career Success Workshop
Inspiration and Energy for Big and Lasting Mission Impact: The Power of Everyday Strategic Thinking
We’re in the nonprofit sector to change the world, so why aren’t we thinking every day about how to make real change? In this highly interactive presentation, you will learn how to engage the entire organization in everyday strategic thinking so board, management team, and staff meetings are inspirational and energizing. I’ll teach you how to: tune up and even lengthen your meetings, without complaint, to make room for strategic thinking; strategically plan six months’ worth of stimulating activities and discussion questions that will make your thinking more productive and inspirational; and activate everyone’s best thinking so you get to big and lasting mission impact faster and easier. Then, with help from your table group, you’ll write a plan for incorporating strategic thinking organization-wide that you can implement tomorrow.
You are Making a Profit and Impact, and Can Make More—But Where?
Your nonprofit’s programs are hearts, stars, money trees, and stop signs—but which ones are which? At this session you’ll generate an intuitive chart showing at a glance not just which programs are stars generating high impact and high profits, but how they compare to each other. This is sure to generate strategic thought and conversation at your next management team and board meetings. You’ll need your organization’s latest financial data to participate. This program is based on the 2010 book Nonprofit Sustainability by Jeanne Bell, Jan Masaoka, and Steve Zimmerman. (Don’t worry, we’ll use a confidentiality system so only you can identify the programs in your chart.)
Creating Impact with the Ten Responsibilities of Nonprofit Boards
Another lecture on what I should be doing as a board member, when I’m already pouring blood, sweat, and tears into my volunteer service? No, this strengths-based approach to BoardSource’s deservedly classic list of responsibilities will reveal how you and your colleagues can meet and exceed the best practices of nonprofit boards—all while working less, not more. You will map your own strengths and those of your colleagues onto the 10 things you need to be doing, all in the interest of getting the right people on the bus (as in Jim Collins’ Good to Great) and in the right chairs. With your strengths/responsibilities matrix in hand, you can proceed immediately to driving the board’s effective performance of its responsibilities toward big and lasting mission impact. (Don’t worry, we’ll use a confidentiality system so only you can identify the colleagues in your matrix.)
Social Change in Dollars and Cents: How to Measure Public Value Creation
Funders and stakeholders increasingly demand evidence of effectiveness that goes beyond counting program outputs to measuring societal outcomes and public value created. Communicating effectiveness in dollar terms is itself effective, as everyone understands dollars. But our work can be hard to value in dollar terms. In this highly interactive and not at all painful session, participants will spend the first third learning the basics of quantifying public value and basing their estimates on high-quality data. Next, participants can test their understanding as we talk in a large group about how to value the work of several example organizations. Participants will spend the final third applying their knowledge, working in table groups to generate immediately useful estimates of the public value each participant’s organization creates. Think you’re not a numbers person? With the simple mental reframing techniques and creative comparisons you’ll learn, you’ll find it doesn’t matter; you can be mostly anti-numbers and still employ them when it counts.
Sharing Statistics and Stories with Stakeholders
In this highly interactive workshop, you’ll learn how to use statistics and stories to describe your organization’s mission impact to stakeholders. I’ll teach you simple mental flipping techniques and research shortcuts you can use to make the same point with numbers or narrative, depending on what your audience wants. You will walk away with an impact statement you can try immediately—in both statistics and story form.
