By Patrick M. Rooney, associate dean, Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy
With the myriad demands nonprofit professionals face for their time and attention, it can be tough to make professional growth and career advancement a priority. Here are some steps you can weave into your schedule that will help you in your current position and prepare you for your next opportunity where you are now or elsewhere.
Become an issue expert and share what you know. Research and educate yourself on a key topic, and then develop original podcasts, blog posts, and opinion articles. ““Blogging makes you a go-to person,” Joe Waters, a cause marketing speaker and coach, wrote in an article for HubSpot, noting that becoming an expert lets you become “the person in your organization that people seek out to understand an issue.” Waters says that the experience “prepares you for your next big thing,” whether that’s being noticed by recruiters, writing a book, starting your own nonprofit or becoming a consultant.
Volunteer at your organization and beyond. “Volunteering to help with an event or a special project at your nonprofit — particularly those that cut across functional boundaries — can help provide the sort of well-rounded experience that leadership roles require,” according to an article by Bridgespan Group. Volunteering elsewhere lets you observe which roles are of interest or a good fit for your next career step, and serving on a nonprofit board helps you gain skills including decision-making, fundraising and program direction.
Step up for a stretch opportunity. Accepting assignments that stretch your limits helps you grow and enables managers to identify whether you are likely to succeed with more responsibility, The Chronicle of Philanthropy
Job shadow and do informational interviews. Not just for first-time job seekers, observing and talking with people who hold the type of position to which you aspire can help you determine what that type of role entails and whether it is really for you. It can also show you what additional knowledge, training, and skills you’ll need if you pursue it.
Select an effective mentor. People with mentorsearn higher salaries, are promoted more frequently, and report higher job satisfaction than those without mentors, according to research by Audrey J. Murrell, Ph.D., of the University of Pittsburgh.
Form or join a peer-to-peer leadership group. Also called leadership circles, these small groups are made up of nonprofit professionals that meet periodically to listen to and coach each other. As the Center for Nonprofit Excellence says, “These circles provide a confidential setting in which peers can discuss and solve real-time problems with real-world experience.” For more information, see the March 14 issue of Indianapolis Not-for-Profit News.
Stay on top of developments in the field and in your issue area. Not sure which podcasts or newsletters are most helpful? Ask your peers, mentor, or other, more experienced professionals what they read, listen to, and follow.
Join a professional association and take advantage of the member benefits. Membership in professional associations offers numerous career-boosting advantages, including access to the latest information and best practices, professional development and training, conferences and networking.
Make time to participate regularly in professional development. Be intentional about blocking out and adhering to time on your schedule for professional development. Stick to the commitment as you would any other appointment. It’s easy to let the challenges of the day-to-day workload and over-the-transom projects derail your plans.
Earn a graduate degree. Increasingly, most of the people that Bridgespan Group spoke with agreed, formal degrees provide a distinct advantage for those aspiring to leadership roles. Article on developing oneself as a nonprofit leader. “I can think of several great nonprofit leaders who don’t have advanced degrees, but it’s an increasingly indispensable attribute,” said Stephen Pratt, CEO of MY TURN, Inc., a Brockton, MA-based youth development agency.
That thought was echoed by Sandra Gutierrez, COO at Latin American Youth Center, a Washington, DC-based nonprofit that serves youth and their families. She said, “the rigor and discipline required to complete a master’s degree program give nonprofit professionals a big edge. . . . You see a really big difference in people who come into a program manager role with a master’s degree compared to an undergraduate degree,” said Gutierrez, who also noted that most of the people she hires complete their master’s while working.”
Patrick M. Rooney, Ph.D., is associate dean for academic affairs and research at the Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy.
[content_box box_type=”normal”]The Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy recently announced that its master’s degree program can now be completed entirely online, offering working professionals more flexibility and convenience. Learn more.[/content_box]
Six years ago Joyce Johnson was hired by Rock Steady Boxing’s board and charged with the task of figuring out a way to expand its program.
“We were getting calls from all over the world where people would hear about it, and they would call and say, ‘Where’s Rock Steady Boxing in Colorado Springs?’ And I would have to say, ‘I’m sorry, there’s only one Rock Steady Boxing, and it’s here in Indianapolis,’” said Johnson.
There was no long-range plan in place in 2006 when Scott Newman — at the time Marion County’s prosecutor and public safety director – started boxing. Newman had been diagnosed with early onset Parkinson’s disease, and his friend, Vince Perez, an attorney and former boxer, wanted to help. His intention was just to keep Newman active.
And so they started boxing in Newman’s basement. Newman started getting better. His tremors lessened, his balance improved, and he got stronger. He had lost his ability to type on his computer, and he got that back, and had a lot more confidence when he was in court.
“I often describe it as being serendipitous. He had no idea it was going to work when he started boxing. He and his bud were just trying to keep him active,” said Johnson.
By the time Johnson entered the picture, Newman and Perez had moved from the basement to a friend’s gym, and then opened the first-of-its-kind Rock Steady facility. Originally, Rock Steady’s board thought that Kristy Follmar, a former world champion boxer and one of the founders of the program, was going to be the Jane Fonda of home DVDs.
The board envisioned growth to be simple — sell DVDs to people with Parkinson’s who could then exercise in their living rooms. But it wasn’t too long before they realized that it wasn’t just the exercise.
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Rock Steady Boxing training camp
“At our training camp, we teach people about Parkinson’s and the symptoms, we give them some boxing information and then we teach them why boxing is the most effective way to combat Parkinson’s,” said Johnson.
Training Camp (the boxing term for “seminar”) provides an overview of Parkinson’s disease, beginning boxing techniques and adaptations of our fitness program designed to combat 23 common symptoms of PD. The course includes classroom instruction, hands-on training and a workout in the gym with Rock Steady boxers.
Coaches should be at least 18 years of age and must attend the entire two-day seminar to be eligible for coaching certification, with an optional Saturday morning. This year’s camps are sold out until August.
Training fee: $699 first attendee; $500 each additional attendee from same location.
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“I think we all realized that the camaraderie in the gym, people all with Parkinson’s working together fighting back, there was just something to that. Plus it isn’t really safe to be in your living room doing a lot of strenuous exercises,” said Johnson.
When Johnson was hired in 2011, she read lots of articles about scaling nonprofits. She quickly realized it wasn’t a franchise operation they were hoping to establish. Rather it was a nonprofit helping people fight back against Parkinson’s, and they needed a diverse approach.
Subsequently, she and her team tackled a new design for expansion, beginning with writing a manual to replicate the program. Follmer had learned about Parkinson’s, had been a boxer and had developed a system, so sharing that experience was critical, and potential coaches needed to see the program in action. Soon the idea for a two-day training camp in Indianapolis was born.
Johnson emailed people who made those early phone calls looking for the Rock Steady program in their communities, and told them Rock Steady was launching a training program. That was in 2012, and it resulted in three affiliates.
“The biggest question the board has had, and probably all of us have had from the beginning is ‘Can you really replicate this?’” Johnson said.
“In the first six years, everybody thought that this whole program was Kristy and her enthusiasm and her boxing knowledge. She’s really special, and she’s got this big wonderful heart, and it just really embraces everybody. Everybody loved her and that’s why we kept growing (locally), and I think people thought that you couldn’t bottle that, that you couldn’t take her personality and replicate it.
“But it turns out that that you can,” said Johnson, who says the proof is in the videos posted by affiliates.
People who come, they have discovered, want to do this.
“They are fighting Parkinson’s, and that’s real different. This isn’t a random thing where somebody graduates with an exercise science degree and just decides to come take our training. That isn’t the way that it happens. They have some connection to Parkinson’s,” said Johnson.
In the first couple of years growth was steady. By 2015, there were 83 affiliates in 23 states and three international programs.
One of those affiliates was in New York City, and one of the participants was Aaron Latham, husband of CBS’ Lesley Stahl. Stahl pitched the story idea, and that November, a 10-minute piece aired on “Sunday Morning.” The rest is history. The phones started ringing and the website crashed, according to Johnson.
“It turns out that Lesley Stahl and CBS can do more for you in 10 minutes than you can do in 10 years. Sometimes, we just walk down that path already laid out. And so Rock Steady has been growing since then and will continue to grow,” she said.
And grow it has. Today there are 356 affiliates in 46 states, and 20 affiliates in seven countries.
The Indianapolis gym, the only stand-alone gym, has over 200 participants with two fulltime and four part-time coaches. The gym is open six days a week, and offers 19 classes for four different levels, which is based on the person’s physical condition and how advanced their symptoms are.
Membership at the Indianapolis gym is $60 a month for unlimited classes, with most people coming between 10 and 12 times a month. In LA where the cost of living is higher, Rock Steady charges $150 a month.
The affiliates’ programs are typically housed at another facility, like YMCAs, rehab hospitals and boxing gyms.
“Boxing gyms have added a Rock steady program during the daytime, when they’re normally empty. Most of the people who do Rock Steady are retired, come in the middle of the day when most of these buildings are empty of adults,” said Johnson.
One lesson the nonprofit has learned is that one Rock Steady program in a metropolitan area is not enough. In Central Indiana, for example, there are programs in Anderson, Bloomington, Brownsburg, Greenwood, two in Hancock County, one at the Westside Garden Plaza and the JCC.
People with Parkinson’s have difficulty driving more than 15 or 20 minutes, and many lose their ability to drive at later stages. The driving time added to a 90-minute class for many is their limit.
“So that’s why we keep saying there needs to be a Rock Steady in every community in the country. That’s the goal,” said Johnson.
Affiliates have to agree to do the Rock Steady method the way it’s prescribed and sign a contract with an agreement that classes will be group class only, adhere to the methods learned in Indianapolis and pay a yearly fee of $800. As an affiliate, sites can access online the coaches’ management system, which includes everything Rock Steady has developed over its 11 years.
“Every document, every waiver, even videos of how to put on gloves. Everything that we’ve developed once they’ve become an affiliate they have access to. We don’t want them to reinvent the wheel. We want them to do it the way that we have taught them to do it,” said Johnson.
The best way to access how affiliates are doing is through social media.
“All of our affiliates post videos of themselves with their classes,” said Johnson.
Johnson said that what happens in the gym hasn’t changed dramatically because over the first six years, the Indianapolis coaches had seen hundreds of people and developed the program at all levels. They were confident that the program works.
What has changed, though, is that Indianapolis is now a home office that manages 356 affiliates. It has the responsibility for making sure instructors are trained properly, executing the program effectively and answering all their questions.
As an organization, it is still learning how important its brand is.
“When we very first started, we had questions like the guy in Australia who wanted to replace the Statue of Liberty in our logo with a kangaroo,” Johnson said.
“We’ve had to learn what it means to worry about branding and to trademark our logo and our bylines. We’ve got a couple – Fighting back against Parkinson’s, In this corner hope — are both trademarked taglines.
“We’ve had to safeguard that, and as we’re moving along, now we have manufacturers that want to put the Rock Steady logo on stuff, and so now we’re learning about royalties.
“We started out as a local nonprofit, hand-to-mouth, having barbecues, to pay the coach. There’s a lot more business end to what we do than there used to be.
What does the organization have planned?
Recently Rock Steady launched a free quarterly 32-page magazine, “In Your Corner.” It is one way to connect the affiliates, and make them aware that they are a part of something bigger – fighting Parkinson’s.
It is also developing an online certification program, which for the next year, it will be available only to affiliates.
But most importantly, it continues to stay focused on its mission.
“We are experts in Parkinson’s, you have to have a Parkinson’s diagnosis to be here, and so we just feel like that’s the strength of the program. We haven’t tried to develop any other programs for other diseases. This is what we do. There are 10 million people in the world with Parkinson’s. There are people everywhere with Parkinson’s that need this,” said Johnson.
Rock Steady Boxing was founded in Indianapolis in 2006.
Forced, intense exercise has been scientifically proven to reduce, delay and even reverse, some of the symptoms of Parkinson’s disease.
At its flagship Indianapolis location, 19 classes are offered each week, serving more than 200 people.
Sixteen “Training Camps” are presented each year to replicate and establish Rock Steady affiliate programs throughout the world.
As of April 2016, there were 356 affiliates in 46 states, and 20 affiliates in seven countries.
The effect of boxing
While participants have reported success, Stephanie Combs-Miller, associate professor and director of research at Krannert School of Physical Therapy at the University of Indianapolis, has been studying Rock Steady for the past nine years. Learn more about the longitudinal study.
Parkinson’s disease
Parkinson’s disease is neurological disorder that many include symptoms such as muscle rigidity, tremors and changes in speech and gait.
As many as one million Americans live with Parkinson’s disease, which is more than the combined number of people diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, muscular dystrophy and Lou Gehrig’s disease.
Approximately 60,000 Americans are diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease each year, and this number does not reflect the thousands of cases that go undetected.
More than 10 million people worldwide are living with Parkinson’s disease.
Incidence of Parkinson’s increases with age, but an estimated four percent of people with PD are diagnosed before the age of 50.
Men are one and a half times more likely to have Parkinson’s than women.
Parkinson’s Disease Foundation, National Parkinson’s Foundation
After the Leslie Stahl CBS’s Sunday Morning segment aired in 2015, Rock Steady had an increased demand for its training camps. This spring number of affiliates has grown to 356 from three in 2012.
By Cali Curley, assistant professor, IU School of Public and Environmental Affairs at IUPUI
Every March since 2012, Brackets For Good, an Indianapolis-based 501(c)(3) charitable organization, hosts online “competitive giving” fundraising tournaments. With March Madness as the impetus, there are now nonprofits in 10 additional cities involved, and a national competition.
Participating nonprofits organizations rally enthusiastic donors to out fundraise their opponents in order to advance into the next round of the tournament. By generating stakeholder excitement, promoting the tournament, and soliciting corporate involvement, nonprofits earn increased exposure, raise funds, gain access to free fundraising tools and are introduced to new donors.
Dollars from donors translate to points, giving participants the opportunity to advance in their bracket. Competing nonprofits keep donations received during tournament play, no matter how far they advance. The winning organization in each city receives an additional Championship grant sponsored by corporate sponsors.
This year’s tournament concluded last week with more than $3.5 million raised for nonprofits across the country. That total eclipsed the amount that the organization helped raise in its first five years combined. Indianapolis led all areas with more than 7,000 individual donations.
Capitalizing on the excitement of this bracket-style tournament, Brackets For Good teamed up with myself and SPEA at IUPUI colleagues Drs. Jamie Levine Daniel and Marlene Walk to better understand the impact that competitive giving, as a new fundraising strategy, has on nonprofits, their donors and the community at large (e.g., sponsors, participating cities).
Guided by input from Brackets for Good, this ongoing research reflects community needs and holds academic and practical relevance. For instance, a grant from the IUPUI’s Sports Innovation Institute made it possible for the SPEA research team to incentivize donors with additional dollars to donate in exchange for donors’ participation in a survey. Data from the donor survey provides insight into donation frequency, donation reasoning, expectations and the impact of “competitive giving” on supporters’ decision to give. Additionally, participating nonprofits were surveyed to paint a clearer picture about the sector’s capacity to adapt to the evolving forms that philanthropy is taking.
As millennials become even more central participants in philanthropy, fundraising innovations such as ‘competitive giving’ becomes even more important.
SPEA’s collaborative-competitive-giving research team will begin investigating the results to answer questions central to understanding the implications of using competition in philanthropy.
Keep an eye out for future publication of findings.
Cali Curley joined SPEA IUPUI in 2014 after receiving her doctorate in Public Administration and Policy from the Askew School at Florida State University. Her research focuses on the intersection of policy and local government. Her primary interests revolve around the individual level motivations, incentives, and barriers related to policy participation decisions.
