Tag Archives: Beaconfire Consulting

Getting the Most from Virtual Meetings

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I’ve often found myself in the position of managing conference call meetings with participants from many different locations, many of which I have never met face to face.  Beaconfire Consulting‘s recent post Tips for More Effective Virtual Meetings provides great advice, such as:

  • provide a detailed agenda ahead of time
  • find ways to get everyone to contribute, for example by asking questions of specific participants
  • using screen sharing to demonstrate what you are discussing
  • keeping meetings short and focused on agenda

Some additional tips from my experience:

  • Send out detailed minutes within a day of meeting, encouraging participants to correct any inaccuracies and to inform those who were unable to attend
  • Make time for one on one conversations with those who are reluctant to contribute during the call
  • Consider carefully which stakeholders to invite to meeting;  most of us are already overburdened by meetings and may not welcome another addition
  • Repeat major points made during call and ask for confirmation that you’ve received the information correctly

On Tue, Sep. 14, 2010, I attended the PMI Westchester Chapter Meeting, featuring Tom Mattus talking about Managing Virtual Project Teams.  Here’s some additional pointers that came up during group discussion:

  • Make sure there’s a place online to post project documents: agendas of upcoming meetings, minutes of past meetings etc.
  • Use a brief daily call to keep everyone up to date and in touch
  • If possible, arrange for a face to face kickoff meeting rather than simply having a phone / conference call
  • Create opportunities for two way dialog – combine meetings with social events, such as group meals
  • Use different types of communication for different team members (everyone has their own working styles / preferences)
  • Get to know ‘electronic body language’ – watch for lack of responses, speed of response, tone of voice used

Report from Fundraising Day NYC

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I joined over 1800 at last week’s Fundraising Day, sponsored by the Association of Development Professionals.   I focused on sessions covering online fundraising;  highlights are below:

  • Many nonprofits are clearly still struggling to coordinate offline and online strategies.  Per Sheeraz Haji, President of Convio, only a handful of their clients are doing this well.  Steve Birnbaum of Jacobson Consulting suggested that the challenges are often not technical but organizational, e.g. getting people to talk to each other.
  • Online fundraising continues to increase dramatically, but overall it’s still less than 1% of total fundraising revenues.  (Some large nonprofit organizations are doing much better than this, however.)
  • Harry Lynch and Paul Habig of SankyNet offered a variety of techniques to accelerate online revenues – their presentation is available online.
  • Tim Lash of International Rescue Committee offered tips on eadvocacy, and also suggested a simple three step approach currently in use by SaveDarfur.org
    1. sign a petition
    2. tell a friend
    3. donate
  • A panel with representatives of Convio, Beaconfire Consulting & Carnegie Hall reiterated the need for synchronization of offline / online efforts, as well as how to make a site visitor ‘known’ by offering multiple reasons to submit an email address.  ASPCA is particularly good at doing this.
  • Using peer to peer fundraising was also suggested since supporters will often prefer to use their own web pages for fundraising rather than an organization’s page created solely for an event or other fundraising initiative.