Coordinating volunteers.
Coaching kids soccer...or any other sport for kids under 8.
Getting your church committee to do SOMETHING besides talk.
Starting a new business, a new project from scratch.
Riding bicycles in a pack.
Shopping at the mall after Thanksgiving.
Finding other organizations to work with yours.
Yes. They all have the common denominator of cat herding.
Can't we all just get along?
No. Well sometimes yes.
So what do you do if you're one of the 837,027 U.S. nonprofits trying to do more than just exist from month to month? (Nearly 40% of you ran deficits in 2003.)
How 'bout finding a buddy??
Remember. It's not all about you. At least it's not supposed to be. Aren't you doing this for a cause? Who else is trying to do the same thing? Can you help them? Can they help you? Each of you probably has unique strengths. If you're duplicating each other, someone needs to go...or change. Remember, you're trying to do good, not just look good.
Life is full of chaos, but often in the middle of that confusion is someone going the same way you are. There's your potential buddy. Watch a bike race sometime. The Tour de France is the big one, but there are lots of others.
The riders ride in a pack for miles. They're mostly competitors, but they're actually helping each other along the way. It's amazingly more efficient to ride in a pack. They are cooperating at the same time they compete against each other. It's chaos at its most elegant.
The chaos turns into pure teamwork when the teams pull out of the pack and form pacelines and work together to go further and faster with less effort. (I'm trying valiantly not to repeat an earlier blog...but this is such an important concept.)
Nonprofits are in a competitive business. David LaPiana wrote an excellent book about this. It's called "Play to Win, The Nonprofit Guide to Competitive Strategy."
You've got to be a successful competitor or you'll fail. But you've also got to be a buddy to get along in this herd of cats.
Showing posts with label Tour de France. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tour de France. Show all posts
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
Sunday, July 29, 2007
Parallels
This year's Tour de France ended today. Camp Esperanza ended yesterday.
The Tour de France is a 100+ year old bike race across Europe. Camp Esperanza is a 25 year old summer camp for kids fighting cancer in Texas.
Le Tour is 21 teams of 9 vying for fame and glory (and considerable monetary rewards) by racing bicycles across Europe to get to Paris first. Camp Esperanza is 10 teams of 6 volunteer counselors working with 10 groups of about 14 children ranging in age from 6 to 16. All the kids are or have been fighting cancer at Children's Medical Center in Dallas, Texas.
The Tour lasts for nearly three weeks and covers over 2000 miles of beautiful European countryside. Camp Esperanza lasts for one week at the Camp John Marc facility on the border of the beautiful Texas Hill Country near Meridian, Texas.
Both have sophisticated support staffs and spend many months planning each year's event. (Camp John Marc is probably one of the premier camps for medically fragile children in the world.)
What amazes my simple mind are the remarkable parallels between these two radically different adventures. It gets back to working together. The guys on the bikes can go fast and help each other by riding in pacelines. (See my blog of July 10, 2007.) The same goes for the men and women working with the nearly 140 kids who epitomize diversity.
Three busloads of children arrive on Sunday and depart for home the following Friday. The kids range from future linebackers to some who are near the need for (or are actually in) hospice.
For some of the children, it is the first time they've been away from home. For some of their parents, it is the first time they've let go of their children since they've been diagnosed with cancer. For nearly everyone, it is the best week of the year.
It is an exhilarating, exhausting, challenging, fun, sad, hope filled week. It's tough for me to restrain myself from writing way more than you wanna read about this special week in July.
My point today is that the ONLY way the volunteer counselors get through that incredible week is by working (and playing) together.
It is a beautiful thing to see. Just like a paceline.
BTW, "esperanza" is Spanish for "hope."
The Tour de France is a 100+ year old bike race across Europe. Camp Esperanza is a 25 year old summer camp for kids fighting cancer in Texas.
Le Tour is 21 teams of 9 vying for fame and glory (and considerable monetary rewards) by racing bicycles across Europe to get to Paris first. Camp Esperanza is 10 teams of 6 volunteer counselors working with 10 groups of about 14 children ranging in age from 6 to 16. All the kids are or have been fighting cancer at Children's Medical Center in Dallas, Texas.
The Tour lasts for nearly three weeks and covers over 2000 miles of beautiful European countryside. Camp Esperanza lasts for one week at the Camp John Marc facility on the border of the beautiful Texas Hill Country near Meridian, Texas.
Both have sophisticated support staffs and spend many months planning each year's event. (Camp John Marc is probably one of the premier camps for medically fragile children in the world.)
What amazes my simple mind are the remarkable parallels between these two radically different adventures. It gets back to working together. The guys on the bikes can go fast and help each other by riding in pacelines. (See my blog of July 10, 2007.) The same goes for the men and women working with the nearly 140 kids who epitomize diversity.
Three busloads of children arrive on Sunday and depart for home the following Friday. The kids range from future linebackers to some who are near the need for (or are actually in) hospice.
For some of the children, it is the first time they've been away from home. For some of their parents, it is the first time they've let go of their children since they've been diagnosed with cancer. For nearly everyone, it is the best week of the year.
It is an exhilarating, exhausting, challenging, fun, sad, hope filled week. It's tough for me to restrain myself from writing way more than you wanna read about this special week in July.
My point today is that the ONLY way the volunteer counselors get through that incredible week is by working (and playing) together.
It is a beautiful thing to see. Just like a paceline.
BTW, "esperanza" is Spanish for "hope."
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