561. Building a Durable + Retention Focused Team Culture - Channon Lucas, Lindsey Fuller, Michelle Flores Vryn, and Jennifer Mulholland
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Overview
Meet Channon, Lindsey, Michelle, and Jennifer. They’re here to help us name the elephant in the room: retention🐘 But, we aren’t just talking about retaining our donors - the greatest retention issue that isn’t talked about enough is the retention of our nonprofit staff. For a sector built on relationships, we have to build a culture that creates retention from the inside out. Tune in to this replay from the Responsive Nonprofit Summit that doesn’t hold back on what we need to do to create working environments teams won’t need to heal from.
💡Learn
About the reality of nonprofit staff retention and burnout crisis
The importance of aligning employee passions, strengths, and growth opportunities
Tips for leaders to model self-care, work-life balance, and transparent decision-making
Today’s Guests
Channon Lucas, Chief Administrative Officer, Mother Cabrini Health Foundation
Lindsey Fuller, Executive Director, The Teaching Well
Jennifer Mulholland, Principal and Co-Founder, Plenty
Michelle Flores Vryn, Head of Development, iNaturalist
“What if I put myself first at the beginning of the day and really became more attentive and attuned to what does my body need?”
Episode Transcript
Download Full Episode Transcript Here
Episode Highlights
Findings from the Social Impact Staff Retention Project (2:30)
Root causes of burnout (5:20)
How to start the healing process (8:25)
How Mother Cabrini Health Foundation builds its culture (12:55)
Why people want to stay at organizations (15:25)
The relationship between humans and systems (19:25)
What leaders need to be doing (25:15)
One Good Things (31:45)
Channon: Active, intentional listening.
Lindsay: Infuse your teams with the security from leadership that they're valued and that you see the future with them here in the organization.
Michelle: Use the All About Me template.
Jennifer: “I am” are the two most powerful manifesting words in the universe. + Ask yourself every day, in every moment, does this feel good?
Impactful Quotes
“We are also watching as a lot of folks are reeling still from the peak of the pandemic. It's not over. We're not back to normal. And so whether it's mental health challenges or physical fatigue, emotional dysregulation, people aren't well. We're still not well. And when we when we're unwell, we actually begin to see an increase in interpersonal ruptures.” -Lindsey
“Many of the the causes for folks that are leading to chronic burnout and ultimately attrition are that we're not enjoying showing up to work in the same ways that we really felt called when we initially pursued the role.” -Lindsey
“The first step to healing really starts with awareness, awareness of self, awareness of soul, awareness of our body. What do we need to fill up?” -Jennifer
“What if I put myself first at the beginning of the day and really became more attentive and attuned to what does my body need?” - Jennifer
“Part of the first step of healing is becoming aware when you light up and when you don't, when you're dimming.” - Jennifer
“Transparency allows people to see your authenticity, your humanity, in the decision making, and it also lets them see that you're not afraid of making a wrong choice. We fail, and I think failure creates new lines of inquiry. Failure lets people know that it's okay for them to fail.” -Channon
“We need to be get really real about what can we accomplish and put things on the chopping block.” -Michelle
“You can't coach if you have no framework for the type of work that you're expecting.” -Lindsey
“Being human and interacting with others is really dynamic and when we want to build cultures that we don't need to heal from, it's going to take explicit training, coaching, supervision and ongoing practice, or at bats, at being in community in ways that promote healing and not harm.” -Lindsey
“We have to model that we are whole humans, and our staff will fall in line. Otherwise, it's artificial and it's not authentic.” -Lindsey
“In the spirit of deserving, one easy way to ask yourself every day, in every moment is, does this feel good? Giving yourself permission to follow the feeling of feeling good in your choices is a game changer.” -Jennifer
Resources mentioned
Leading with Light Book / Social Impact Staff Retention Project / All About Me Template
Connect with Channon
LinkedIn / Instagram / X (Twitter)
Connect With Lindsey
CONNECT WITH Jennifer
LinkedIn / Website / Plenty for Everyone Podcast
Connect with Michelle
Connect with Jon
Connect with Becky
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