Content | Faculty | Location & Price | Date & Times | Technical Requirements
 

We live in a time when people are hungry for the truth. A combination of forces, including the inhuman scale of many institutions, the breakdown of community ties, and the promising transparency of new media, have come together to give simple honesty a truly compelling power. Authenticity is an untapped resource of extraordinary proportions.

Civil society organizations are uniquely positioned to take advantage of this opportunity. Authenticity leads to trust and trust is the essential currency of our relationships with our stakeholders. Research confirms this: Time and again, surveys shows that we are the most trusted sector, above both business and government. Whether it's in art or advocacy or education or healing or any other cause, we are at our best when we are authentic.

And yet, we can get as caught up in the layers of obfuscation and avoidance as anyone. In our day to day work, we let anxiety become institutionalized and keep us from the power that the truth has to motivate, to teach, and to calm.

With a focus on civil society, this series of seminars will address three key practices of authentic organizations: learning to fail faster and thus learn faster; embracing abundance over scarcity and thereby making peace with time; and being brave enough to make space for the truth in our relationships with stakeholders, staff, and ourselves. The context throughout will be on the practical results of such practices in the areas of greater funding, broader enrollment, and more effective leadership.

Session 1: Fail Faster - Civil society is in denial about failure. Some of this is due to the social dynamics of funding. Some is due to the role of boards of directors of nonprofits and philanthropies. And some is due to the powerful culture that produces the dedicated people who do the work of civil society. This denial is profoundly destructive to our abilities to learn, to our effectiveness, to our ability to raise money and attract commitment, and to the souls of our organizations. This seminar will tackle the issue head on and deliver practical lessons.

Session 2: Making Peace with Time - There's never enough, it seems. Never enough money, never enough people, and underlying it all, never enough time. This perspective of scarcity has a profound influence on our organizations, from the board of directors to the volunteers and from the plans and budgets to day to day task lists. Traditional practices, including planning, management techniques, and time management processes, reinforce this anxiety. Escaping the trap of scarcity is broadly empowering, but there are large and legitimate barriers to doing so. This seminar will show you ways to get there.

Session 3: Brave Relationships - The reason trust is such an important resource to our organizations is that it is the fuel for relationships. It is relationships -- between staff, with donors and volunteers, with leadership, with clients or other stakeholders -- that make an organization what it is. Time and again, we all notice the transformative power of moments of complete candor in these relationships. Whether it's a 360 degree performance review, a key motivation shared outside a meeting, or a bit of truly authentic language in an email to supporters, honesty makes good things happen. This seminar looks at ways to scale that up.

Get full length session descriptions here.
 

Our seminars are intended for the professional staff of nonprofit organizations, specifically those working in communication, fundraising, or technology. Our packages tend to be tightly focused on a particular professional field and our seminars deliver lessons that can be immediately applied within a particular professional's field of authority.
 

These seminars will be taught by Michael C. Gilbert, the author of Making Peace with Time, Communication Centered Technology Planning, and a long time proponent of the use of email for authentic communication. He is the Editor of Nonprofit Online News, and the Founding President of the Nonprofit Technology Enterprise Network. For more information about Mr. Gilbert, please see his bio.
 

This is an open registration series, which means that anyone can attend. Sessions will be held online. The price is $89.00 per person, per session. Or $219.00 per person, for all three sessions in the series.

The price for one on one consulting is discounted by more than 50% if you buy it as part of a seminar package.

Dates & Times:

Session 1: Tuesday: 12 pm - 1:30 pm (PST)
Session 2: Wednesday: 12 pm - 1:30 pm (PST)
Session 3: Thursday: 12 pm - 1:30 pm (PST)


One on One Consulting Sessions: To be scheduled with the instructor, within two weeks after the sessions.
 

You are responsible for making sure that you can meet these requirements before you register to attend one of our online seminars. Please feel free to Contact Us with any questions you might have.

Seminar sessions are broadcast to you via Quicktime, and you are able to send in questions during the session via AOL Instant Messenger. For this you will need:

• An internet connection (broadband will yield improved performance)
• An email account and email address
• A free AOL Instant Messaging account and client software (AIM Web Site)
• Directions to get a free screen name
• Install AIM on your computer
• Or see the help page linked to below for other options.
• The free Quicktime Player plugin (Quicktime Free Download)
  • The ability to access this test movie with Quicktime.

If you're having trouble, check the Technical Help page.