Nonprofit leadership retreats can be used to get new leaders comfortable with the rest of the team, tackle major organizational challenges without the distractions of the office, repair an organization’s broken culture, or even strategize through a major organizational shift. If your organization is facing a period where significant reflection or serious consideration is needed, gathering the leadership team together is a great way to prepare for what’s ahead. But an effective nonprofit retreat won’t just happen on its own. It requires careful planning and preparation to ensure that it will be time (and money!) well spent. If you’re planning a nonprofit team retreat, take these steps ahead of time to ensure its success:
1. Defining the Purpose and Goals The very first thing you need to do when planning a retreat is to answer the question, “Why are we doing this?” Knowing what you hope to accomplish before doing any planning ensures that the retreat will be singularly focused on that objective. Once you have that purpose identified, you can plan all the details around those goals. 2. Celebrating Wins Even if the overall purpose of the retreat is serious, it doesn’t need to be all doom and gloom. Celebrating wins can be an affirmation of the evidence of good work being done before repairing an issue or overhauling the organization, or it can be done as a recognition of what the organization is capable of before embarking on a new venture. Whether the purpose of a retreat is to fix a problem or decide on a new direction, celebrating organizational and individual wins is a great way to boost morale and encourage teamwork. Of course, you don’t want to go too far with celebrating wins because you want your retreat to result in more than just a group pat on the back. Strive for a balance between acknowledging the past and planning for the future. 3. Getting Down to Business Be a good steward of your organization’s resources of time and money by filling your retreat with substance. Get down to business by engaging in strategic planning initiatives first and foremost. With your objective in mind, engage in the kinds of planning activities that are going to drive real results. Understand how you will achieve the kind of collaboration you need to move the organization forward and then structure activities for your team that will get results. If the conversation during a strategic planning period goes off topic or turns to something that is someone’s personal axe to grind, it can be hard to shut these discussions down without alienating the people involved. However, concentrating on the business that must be accomplished is too important to let the agenda get sidetracked. Instead of spending time going down the rabbit hole of unrelated topics, the facilitator should let everyone know that they will keep track of these topics for review another time. Then, make a point to circle back and address these either in a separate session later (if time permits) or when everyone is back in the office. That way, you can respect everyone’s input while also keeping the session moving forward to make progress. 4. Focusing on the Mission When your team leaves the office, they should be able to leave behind all the distractions that the office (or their home if they work remotely) offers. However, the technology that they bring with them may still pose a threat to focusing on what’s at hand. Ensure that technology is being used to add to your planning efforts as a team, not take away from them. Encourage team members to have some “no phone time” during important planning sessions so they can concentrate better on the goals of the retreat, keeping their primary focus on doing the work you came to do. Of course, working straight through a day long, or multi-day retreat without breaks is a recipe for burnout, so you will need to include some downtime to allow creativity and problem-solving to flourish. Include regular breaks so the team can check in with family or check on any personal matters that may need their attention. With everyone laser-focused on the purpose of the retreat as it relates to the overall mission of the organization, your efforts will be far more successful. 5. Facilitating Communication One of the biggest selling points of gathering your leadership for an offsite retreat is the kind of improved collaboration that comes when everyone is talking face to face, eating meals together, and sharing the same experience. Getting results from your strategic planning efforts depends upon how well your team communicates, which is why facilitating communication is always going to be a key component of a successful retreat. But communication won’t always flow on its own – often it must be intentionally drawn out. Depending on the people and topics involved, it may be worthwhile to create a brainstorming “safe space” to allow attendees to dream big. Using this method, the facilitator sits back and allows people to suggest ideas without recording them until the end to give participants a chance to revisit their ideas and have them removed if they’re not deemed to be feasible or in the best interest of the organization. This style allows everyone to be more relaxed and often results in better ideas than a more structured approach. Retreats will typically also include short team-building activities to get everyone working together and talking. These types of activities can help center and align teams as well as encourage open, honest, and respectful communication. This communication will be the foundation of coming away from the retreat with something valuable to show for it. 6. Creating an Action Plan Unfortunately, many retreats end there. The team comes together, focuses on getting down to work, invests themselves in communicating well, and then goes home. And once they’re back in the office nothing changes. The same problems still exist, the direction that was decided on seems unattainable, no one feels responsible for spearheading the changes that were discussed, and nothing changes functionally in the day-to-day operation of the organization. Why? Because for a retreat to mean something the team needs to come away from it with a clear actionable plan. The most important thing you can do is to leave plenty of time at the end of the retreat to conclude it with creating an action plan for when you’re back in the office. Include agreed upon deliverables, milestones, short-term and long-term goals, ways to measure progress towards those goals, and assigned responsibilities so everyone knows what they’re responsible for doing. Then, communicate this plan to the organization as well as key stakeholders (where appropriate) to get everyone on the same page and create accountability. 7. Using a Professional Facilitator Executing these steps requires not only careful planning but also significant leadership experience, which is the reason many organizations use a professional facilitator instead of trying to do it all internally. Nonprofit consultants or nonprofit retreat facilitators will have the savvy needed to create a retreat that fosters all the components needed to ensure a successful retreat. If you’re not sure where to start, or you need help ensuring your retreat is a success, lean on a professional to help! When you need help facilitating a nonprofit board retreat, please reach out to us! We can help with nonprofit leadership meetings and retreats to ensure you make the most of all attendees’ time. Our team of passionate nonprofit consultants will leverage their extensive leadership experience to help your executive team communicate well and come away with a strategic plan to affect positive change. Contact us to learn more today! Comments are closed.
|
THE LATEST FROM VALTAS
You are welcome to subscribe to get the latest news, updates and insights from our team. Subscribe:Ask Valtas!Categories
All
Archives
February 2025
|