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Whether it’s in person, on line, or someone driving into your parking lot. People make a decision about you and your organization in mere seconds. If they have a negative impression of you or the organization it is incredibly difficult to change their mind later. First impressions matter.
In today's episode, Nathan discussed the importance of making a good first impression that can lead to success in your nonprofit organization. Looking at three areas...your physical location, your online presence, and your personal presence...Nathan provides tips and ideas for making a better impression.
If you are interested in joining The Practice Community, click the link below.
The Hosts of The Practice of NonProfit Leadership:
Tim Barnes serves as the Executive Vice President of International Association for Refugees (IAFR)
Nathan Ruby serves as the Executive Director of Friends of the Children of Haiti (FOTCOH)
They can be reached at info@practicenpleader.com
All opinions and views expressed by the hosts are their own and do not necessarily represent those of their respective organizations.
00:02 - Importance of First Impressions in Nonprofits
14:53 - Nonprofit Leadership and Online Presence
23:10 - Impactful Youth Robotics Program
Whether it's in person, online or someone driving into your parking lot, people make a decision about you and your organization in mere seconds. If they have a negative impression of you or the organization, it is incredibly difficult to change their mind later. First impressions matter. Welcome to Episode 125 of the Practice of Nonprofit Leadership. I'm Nathan Ruby. First impressions are vital for a non-profit organization because they can greatly influence how potential donors, volunteers and other stakeholders perceive the organization. Research suggests that people form a first impression within seven seconds, even as quick as a tenth of a second. So if people are making a decision almost instantly, well, we want them to have a positive impression, right? Well, these good first impressions. They're important because they build trust. If you want people to deepen and expand their engagement with your organization, then they need to be in relationship with you and the organization, and you build relationship through building trust. Trust in the organization, the organization doing something that I care about, something that's important to me. Trust in the leadership. That means the board. Is the board capable of making the right decisions for the future of this organization? And it's trust in the executive director. Do people trust the executive director to lead it into the future and fulfill its vision and mission over the long haul. Now, building with this trust is important because you need it to secure top level staff, you need it to secure volunteers, future board members, and you need the community to buy into what you're doing. You need the community to believe in what you're trying to accomplish, in other words, your mission. You want people to answer the question is this the type of organization that I want to invest my time, my energy and my charitable dollars to? So the answer of do we want people to have a positive first impression? Is absolutely, and it's worth spending some extra effort and even a little expense, a little budget dollars, to make it happen. So today we're going to talk about three areas where you can easily evaluate and make a determination of what type of first impression are you giving at your organization. So the first one is going to be physical location.
Now, a 2022 nonprofit benchmarking survey by CBRE showed that 57% of nonprofits were already back to work in their physical location and that only 8% of nonprofits expected to work 100% remotely permanently. Now, I guess that kind of stands to reason, because in nonprofit work, most of the time we're doing some type of hands on work. It's most nonprofit work doesn't happen remotely from the program perspective. So I kind of get that Now here at our podcast, at the practice of nonprofit leadership podcast. Both Tim and I, our organizations our programming is 100% international. Tim has programs going on all over the world. My organization our programming is all in Haiti and so we don't have any real US based programming. Now we do have staff here in the US, but even that, for both of us, is spread out across the country. So both Tim and I work permanently, 100% remote. But that is not the case for well, according to the stats, 92% of nonprofits.
So probably, if you're listening, you probably are having either some type of hands on location where you're in a building or in an office. That probably applies to you, and so how do you then look at first impressions for your physical location? Well, what I have done in the past when I have worked in an office setting is I started at the point of first impression. So if you have a standalone building where you're the only one in the building and you have your own parking lot, then I would start at the parking lot. If you are in an office building and so you have an office in a rented office in a building with with other Offices, then I would start at the door, because you can't really control what happens in the parking lot, in the sidewalk in that. So I would start at the door.
But what I would do is you could either do your this yourself it might be easier to ask a friend or a volunteer to do this because you know, we see this stuff every day. We come to work every day and so sometimes we don't see things. We just, you know, we just don't see things because we see it every day. And if you get somebody new, who's never been there before, who or who doesn't come very often, sometimes it's a little easier for them to kind of catch some of these things. But have them drive into the parking lot and what do they see? Are their weeds in the in the parking lot? Is the yard mode? Are there? Are their weeds growing up in the sidewalk? Is there garbage laying around?
If you are, if you're in an office building and you're in an office and you come in the door, what are the walls look like? Are they painted? Is the carpet vacuumed? Is there? Is there stuff on the carpet? Is there's a carpet ward as it have holes in it? Are there piles of junk piled in the corner that somebody put there after an event six months ago and nobody's touched it since? Because, well, it's laying there and people have other things to do? You could go through the entire organization, layer by layer by layer, doing that type of Just evaluation, just looking, and what do I see? And what does this say about our organization? Another, another way to think of this is if you have a donor who was capable of making a I don't know, I just say a hundred thousand dollar gift, but they wanted to come check things out first, what experience would you want them to have? Well, whatever experience you want them to have, that's the experience that you want everyone to have. So that happened to be one.
Several years ago I was in the running the development program for a Hunger and poverty. We were in the hunger and poverty sector and we had a fortune 100 company that was interested in Funding us at a significant level, and so we got a phone call from the vice president that was Kind of the money was gonna flow through his Budget, and he called up and said, hey, I'd like to come visit next week and check things out. Can we? Could we do that? It was like, yeah, yep, we would be happy to have you come tour our facility. And so the VP came and I think there was two other people With them and one was like I don't know what the title of this person, it was like a director level and then another person, and so the three of them came and we were walking through the building and they happened to come. They were a little late. They were supposed to come a little earlier, but they came closer to the lunch time and so by the time we got down into the kitchen and the lunch room area, the staff was starting to clean up after lunch and part of our programming Was that we've we fed 50 to 60 people for lunch and for dinner every day and the, the folks that were part of the program and who ate, they bust their own tables.
They, you know, they took the plates and the civil were back and put it away and in the, where they were supposed to so there wasn't dirty dishes On the table, but there were still the room looked like 60 people had just gotten done eating. I mean, the chairs were pushed back and, you know, the tables hadn't been wiped off. And there's just it just looked. It just looked junkie, I guess, is the best way to describe it. And so we're coming through the kitchen and our staff is working and the people are doing their thing, and I mean, obviously they, everybody was working, they just hadn't been able to get to cleaning the, the lunch area yet. And so we're walking through and I'm thinking, oh my gosh, that room is gonna look terrible. And we're walking through and we go through the doorway from the kitchen into where the eating area is, and as we go through that doorway, the, my CEO was up ahead with the vice president from the company.
There was another the third step person who was kind of with them and I was kind of laggy behind with the director and we were having our own conversation and all of a sudden he reached out and he, he kind of gently Took a hold of my arm and just kind of did just stop me. You know, it was obvious that he wanted me to stop and so we stopped and the other three kept on going Further ahead and he looked at me and he goes tell me, what do you want? And so I started kind of going into this thing and after about 10 seconds he stopped me. He said no, no, no, no. He said in 30 seconds, tell me how much money you want and how you're gonna spend it. And in the next 30 seconds I gave him $250,000. We had four things that we wanted to do.
I listed out the four things and he said all right, he goes. Could you write that up for me so that I've got a written proposal? I said it's already done, already. Have it written up. You can take it with you when you leave. And he said great, he goes when do you want that? What type of timeframe are you looking at? And I said 60 days. We'd really like to have it in 60 days. He said okay, and that was it.
And we turned around and the whole time that we were talking he had the way we were positioned. He had his back to the room where the dirty part was and I was facing him, so I saw the dirty room. He did not. He was looking into the kitchen and so the whole time that I was talking to him, I was trying to focus on what I was saying and not worrying about how bad that room looked. Now, as it turned out, it wasn't a big deal, and I doubt if he would ever say well, your lunchroom looked pretty terrible when we went through, and so I'm not sure we can fund you, because for the 60 seconds that I was in that room it looked awful. He's not gonna say that, but I guarantee you he noticed, I guarantee you he remembered what that looked like, and so it mattered because he noticed, and your donors will too.
All right, let's go on to second. One is online, and we already heard that humans make a first impression in seven seconds or less, and on this next stat, I'm gonna give you seven seconds seems like a really long time, but according to fast spring, when it comes to a website, we can make a decision and listen to this in 50 milliseconds. That's 0.05 seconds. That is even faster than the eye blanks. Now I'm not gonna spend a whole lot of time. We're not gonna spend a whole lot of time talking about websites, because that's not my expertise. It's probably not your expertise either, and so I'm gonna recommend to you right off the bat that you hire someone to help you. Hire an expert. This is a place to spend money. Don't nickel and dime your website. But given that none of us here are experts.
There are three quick things that you could kind of think about when you start designing a website. That will help with first impressions. So first is, when people have a bad impression of a website and I'm not exactly sure what, I'm not sure I can give you a description of a bad website, but I could certainly tell you, when I see one, if I liked it or not, and I could do it obviously pretty quickly. But when people have bad impressions of a website, it's almost always about the design of the website, not about what is written on the webpage. So if people don't like the design of your website, they are never gonna read the copy that you have spent hours and hours and hours and hours writing on. They're not gonna read it anyway. So make sure that you put sufficient time and energy and focus on the design of the webpage and then put time and energy into the copywriting that goes onto the page. All right.
Number two for online for your website is, if at all possible, try and use your own photos and not stock photos. Now I get it. I totally understand. Stock photos are certainly easier and stock photos aren't free. They're not cheap, but they're definitely easier and it is way easier to look through a couple hundred different pictures and say, okay, that one and that one, and I don't see it as much as I used to. But how many websites did you use to look at that? Had the two people shaking hands or people all in a circle with their hands out in the middle and then looking up to the sky? I bet I've seen that picture dozens and dozens of time.
People will recognize your stock photos almost instantly, and the thing about that is the one thing that separates you. The one thing that sets you apart is you and the people you serve. There is no one else in the universe. That is you right. And when you use pictures that are not from the organization and I'm not ripping on you if you have stock photos on your website, I get it. I used to have stock photos on my websites. I totally understand it, but it can be perceived as a little disingenuous because it's not you, and that is the number one thing that you have to share with people is this is who we are, this is what we do, this is how we impact people. This is how we save people's lives. This is how we change the world.
Make those photos about you, and I know that for some organizations, confidentiality is a significant issue. That is real and by all means, do not break confidentiality. That's a big deal. That said, there is usually ways around that and you could get parents of children to sign off on that. You can get there. There's ways to get around the the confidentiality out, to correctly, properly get around the confidentiality issues, and if you hire somebody, a professional, to help you, they will help you be able to do that.
And then my third. My third point here for online is make it simple and clear. I mean, just like in your physical location. Don't clutter it up. Don't try to cover every single piece of real estate on your webpage. You could just have you can have too much and you're not trying to educate your reader on every single thing that you do. All you want is to give them enough information so that they deepen their engagement with you. So, if they take the next step, you're not trying to give them every single detailed piece of your programming and why it works, and that's not what you're trying to do.
And lastly, on the online and I've said this, I think, two or three times some, but I'm gonna say it again because it's that important Get someone, hire someone to help you. And I strongly recommend that you Do not ask a staff member's high school kid who is really good at that online stuff. Don't, don't do that. It is worth the money, it's worth the budget to hire somebody that can actually look at your website and do it right and do it professionally. And One last thing on online I have never, in all the years that I've been Leading nonprofits, I don't think I've ever Loved my website. I've liked some better than others, and some are getting closer than others, but I don't think I've ever loved one. That said, if you, everybody has budget constraints, so that's certainly something that we have to look at. But if you look at your website and say, ah, that's not really good, we need to change that, you're probably right. So so go with your gut on that, go with your instinct and if you really dislike your website, get somebody to help you, find a donor to pay for it and and get started on making it better.
All right, our third one for today, our third point, is your personal Impression. So this is, this is about you, this is about leaders of nonprofits, and maybe this is not. I'm gonna I'm gonna come at this a little differently. This is not about you know how you dress and dressing for success and some of those common things about first impression. But we're gonna talk about two things today. One is current events and two is elevator speech.
Now, current events is, you know, when you are a leader of a nonprofit, you are now a Leader in the community. You are a community leader because you are leading an organization that is critical to the needs of the community, and so by by I want to say by default, because the fact that you're leading that organization is not by default but if you are leading a nonprofit, then you get a seat at the table If you want it and and if you take it, you get a seat at the table of the community. And so when you are in those situations, when you're at the chamber events, when you're at the, the local, whatever your local celebration, you know when the carnival comes to town and that stuff, or when you're at a basketball game or wherever, and you're in a group of people that are talking, and what I want you to do is I want you to have some semblance of what is happening in current events, both locally, in your state, in the country and Internationally. Now I'm not saying you know, you got to become a 24-7 news junkie and know every single thing. And if somebody says, oh, inflation is, you know, rising, which it is at the time that I'm recording this, you know I'm not expecting you to say yes, last month there was a two, three, two point three percent increase in foodstuffs and a three point six increase in Manufacturing. And I'm not saying you have to know that All I, all I want you to do is be aware of what's going on.
So when you get into a conversation with other leaders, you will be able to add something to the conversation. So, hey, did you hear? Oh, my gosh, I can't believe how inflation is going up. Then you could say something like yeah, yeah, I really, as I saw an article the other day, this is going to be the third month in a row that it's increased. All right, there you go, that's enough, that that's all you have to do. You just, you just have to be able to add some input into the conversation that's happening.
And and the reason that you want to do that, do that is because next week, when you, when you were in that group at, you know, the Chamber event or some other, some other Organizations event, or at the high school football game or whatever it is, and there is somebody in that group that you met and you reach out to them for and invite them to a cup of coffee, they will say, yeah, that's another leader in town. I'm, I'm interested in meeting with them. Now, obviously it's not the only thing, but it's one little thing that you can do to help set yourself apart. So point is just know what's going on in the world outside of your organization and outside of your family and your little you know spot in the world. Just just know what's going on around the world and your hometown. All right, so that's personal impression.
Next is what is next on my list here? I, all right. Next one is elevator speech, and that's maybe older terminology, the elevator speech. But what I want you to be able to do on this one is I want you to be able to give a description of the impact that your organization makes in the community in three minutes or less. Now, the keyword that I said there was a description of the impact that your organization makes. I didn't say what your programs were. I didn't say what you did, who you work with. I said the impact that you make. So you've gotta be able to share with other people, in three minutes or less, how your organization matters. What does it do that saves lives or changes lives?
So I spent a few minutes before I started recording and just to give you an example of this, and so one of my sons was in the robotics team in junior, high and high school and he had a fabulous experience with it, and so I'm gonna use that as my example. So let's say that we are the leader, we're leading a organization that helps kids compete in robotics tournaments. We're gonna do this one at the high school level, and so that's our organization, and I'm leading that organization, and I'm in a group of two or three people, four people and somebody says oh, nathan, you work for XYZ, the robotics organization. I don't really know that much about it. What can you tell me something about it? So this is gonna take about two minutes, and so I've only I thought about this for about six minutes. So I don't have a lot of thought in here, but it's just an example. So I would say something like this XYZ Robotics is an organization for high schoolers and, yeah, they definitely learn about robotics through our programming, but that's not what it's really about.
What it's really about is these kids get to visualize a goal and then achieve it. So each season these kids are given at the beginning of the season they're given an action for their robot, an action or a series of actions that has to be accomplished, and so they have to build a robot or adapt the robot that they have to accomplish those tasks. So they visualize a goal and then they have to put that into action and achieve it. It's about teamwork. These kids learn all about teamwork because they all have ideas, they all have things that they think will work, but they have to learn how to compromise and take the best ideas and the best solutions and put that ahead, put the team ahead of themselves and learn how to work together to create those solutions. And I gotta tell you, it is about tenacity.
These kids on these teams they work for months. Every week, every week they come together to get their robot ready and it lasts for months. And you know what? These kids have got to show up and they gotta show up ready to work. It's about pressure. These robotic competitions are intense. Ncaa final four games have got nothing compared to these high school robotics finals.
These kids have to learn how to function, how to work together to do their job under intense pressure, and you know what it's also about having fun. I mean, these kids are learning all of this stuff. They're learning robotics, they're learning how to work together, they're working on tenacity, they're learning how to handle pressure and, at the same time, these kids are having fun. They are some of the most joyous times these kids, not only with their own teams, but also with kids from other teams that they meet at the competition. It is.
It's a pretty amazing thing to see, and I'll tell you what these kids learn so much from what they do by going through our programs. You know robotics and all of these other things, but sometimes I honestly think I learn more from them. Okay, all right, we'll just call it there. So that would be an example of I gave, what did I give? I gave visualizing, teamwork, pressure, having fun. So four things that these kids learn that going through this program. Those are outputs that they are going to be able to do and they could take those things in, whether they're in robotics or whether they choose something totally different.
I was gonna say that but I missed it. Anyway, the point is tell, be able to tell what your organization does in three minutes or less, two to three minutes, and do it on what they do, what impact they have, not how they do it or what they do. And again, same way as if you are in a group of three or four people and somebody asks what you do and you tell that as opposed to. Well, you know we have kids at Com and they work on a robot and you know we go to these competitions and you know that some adults come in and help them. It doesn't. It doesn't. It doesn't show a picture. It doesn't paint a picture of outcomes, and that's what people wanna know about. So, after saying something like that, you contact somebody in that group that you didn't know the next week and say, hey, it was great meeting you last week. I love to meet with you and talk a little bit more about what XYZ is doing. I'll tell you what they will be excited to meet, because they understand how you're impacting kids' lives.
So, whether it's in person, online or someone driving into your parking lot, people will make a decision about you and your organization in mere seconds. If they have a negative impression of you or the organization, it is incredibly difficult to change their mind later. First impressions matter. Now I understand you have, in any given day, you, as a leader in your nonprofit, have tons and tons of things to do. I get it. You know, tim and I have the same issues. Don't give me one more thing I have to do. Don't give me one more thing I have to think about. Don't give me one more thing to worry about. Don't give me one more thing I have to fix. I get it totally understand.
So let's make this just a little bit easier. Let's take one thing that you learned from today and put that on your to-do list for the next, oh, a month or even two. Just work on one thing at a time. Don't try to do it all. Take it one at a time. Work on that and then take the next and then the next. You will have a much better chance of success in the long run and see greater impact by working on one thing at a time as opposed to trying to do it all at once. All at once. Thank you for listening today. If you are benefiting from what is being shared on this podcast. We'd love to have you share a review on the platform that you're listening to us on. Let us know how the podcast is benefiting you. If you would like to get in touch with us, our contact information can be found in the show notes. That's all for today. Until next time. For future news and news, visit pikecom. No-transcript.
