Imagine for a moment that you work at a non-profit organization and are meeting with a group to to go over brainstorming ideas for upcoming event fundraisers…

Joe and Sally (two volunteers from your community) and a fellow co-worker named Naomi are all present. You will be in charge of leading the meeting and you have prepared by creating a list of possible event ideas. You have encouraged the others in the group to do the same and look forward to hearing their suggestions.  You have collected a short list of  low-cost fundraisers that you know the organization can easily organize and can afford to implement.

Volunteers, Joe and Sally,  come to the meeting and are excited to share their ideas.  Joe suggests a Monster Truck Rally and Nancy Suggests a bake sale. You quickly remind each of them that while they are great ideas, but have to gently point out that the organization does not have the financial resources to put on a Monster Truck Rally and a Bake Sale will not be able to create the $5,000+ in revenue that you need to make from this event.

Fellow co-worker Naomi suggests that the organization put together a team of people to go to a local fair and put a carnival booth together. The event will be a week long and volunteers would be needed to staff the booth every day. You remind Naomi as nicely as possible that the four people at the table are likely the only help that you will be getting for the event and it would be very difficult to pull off without additional volunteers.

If you have worked with a committee on developing fundraising event ideas before, this may sound familiarly uncomfortable. Many people find it difficult in the role of facilitator to have to “shoot down” an idea that a volunteer has put time into considering, and it can be discouraging for volunteers and employees alike when it seems that their ideas never make it to the top of the list.

Taking the organizational strength assessment can:

1. Help everyone to start on the same page. Although an employee of an organization can probably quickly and readily fill out the form and pass it around with the answers completed, it is key to the process to have everyone fill it out. This gives each individual the opportunity to lay their assumptions on the table and for the group to collectively address any misconceptions that may be lurking.
2. Identify resources that only one of your committee members knows about. You may think that you only have four volunteers for a task, but one of your committee members knows a whole group of girl scouts who need community service hours. You may think you do not have a facility available because your office is so small, but one of your committee members works at a bank with a large community room that is free to use.
3. Encourage the expansion of ideas. By curating all of your resources at the start of the brainstorming process in this way, you are encouraging the expansion of ideas within defined parameters and giving your team an equal shot at having the winning idea.

What else should you know?

• The two assessments are attached via one link and should be administered consecutively at the same meeting. You will be prompted to pause and reflect on any insights that your team has had before proceeding to the next section.
• Note that there are very few questions in this portion of the exercise. Take your time with each one and make sure to listen to all available opinions and ideas to determine the best result.