There is a difference between hearing about an agency's work and standing inside it.
Our fourth Schaumburg Township Nonprofit Leaders Forum was hosted at The Harbour (https://theharbour.org)'s administrative offices, and while we met, we could hear the team around us: people on calls, laughing, figuring things out together. Afterward, we drove over to the youth shelter. It is beautiful, and every corner of it is intentional, built with youth in mind for the time in their lives when they arrive in a really rough place.
Getting to see both how people work and where the work lands in one morning is what makes this forum special.
That kind of intention is easier to extend to other people than to claim for yourself. Throughout our conversations, partners admitted they protect one-on-one time for their staff far more reliably than they protect it with their own supervisors. A Skills Lab, "The Managing Up Conversation," gave them a structure for the upward ask. One partner used her consultation to work out how to move a plan for her own role from an informal conversation into something written.
The line the morning landed on: advocate for yourself, because you can give more when you protect what you need. That is not self-care advice. A decision left sitting travels downhill: the manager waiting on it has less to give her team, and a team running short has less to give the people it serves. Asking early, and naming what the waiting costs, is what keeps that chain intact.
Kenneth Young Center (https://kennethyoung.org) walked us through its range, from 24/7 crisis response to home-delivered meals for older adults to a Front Door program moving people from hospital stays into permanent supportive housing. The more we dug in, the more overlap surfaced with work other partners already do.
Thank you to Sandy and The Harbour for opening both doors to us.
This forum, in partnership with Good Works Results LLC (https://www.goodworksresults.com), reinforces the vital role of peer support in building stronger nonprofit leadership. Learn more at www.goodworksresults.com/nonprofitforum.
Proud to collaborate with these dedicated organizations: Brightpoint (https://brightpoint.org), Clearbrook (https://clearbrook.org), Journeys the Road Home (https://journeystheroadhome.org), Kenneth Young Center (https://kennethyoung.org), Life Span (https://life-span.org), Northwest Special Recreation Association (NWSRA) (https://nwsra.org), Ray Graham Association (https://raygraham.org), The Bridge Youth & Family Services (https://bridgeyouth.org), The Harbour (https://theharbour.org), WINGS Program (https://wingsprogram.com). Thank you to the Township of Schaumburg Mental Health Board (https://schaumburgtownship.org/our-township/mental-health-board/) for supporting this initiative.