Work, no matter how much you enjoy your job or your co-workers, is still work. There are days (or seasons) where the workload seems never ending, the to-do list grows longer, challenges mount, and resources available to you and/or your organization appear to shrink (the challenges of inflation).
Non-Profit Economics - Basic Observations
I've been swimming in the non-profit world for most of my career. When the national economy struggles, it's likely non-profits start reviewing all the spending and programs to ensure they are focused on what really matters. One exception was Covid. I observed during the height of Covid, people were more generous; even in the area of giving to their non-profits. However, today, inflation is a challenge for many nonprofits. Giving has been trending down at the national level according to consultants within my acquaintance sphere.
Practicing Individual Resilience - Chasing Hope
When the times at work are difficult, it helps to find a spark of motivation to encourage you to keep pressing on (we all need a paycheck at the end of the day). Recently, I've experienced two sparks of motivation in my job role that has boosted my energy and enjoyment of work.
Creating a Custom Excel Task Calendar In switching to a new vendor to assist with producing quality fundraising campaigns, I'm responsible for delivering certain data reports. The timing of these reports necessitated that I come up with some easy way to track all the deadlines and due dates. I searched the Excel templates but couldn't really find anything that would work like I desired. So, I tweaked an existing template and developed this most beautiful Excel task calendar built out to track known reporting deadlines through the end of June 30, 2025 (covering two fiscal years). It was a challenge to determine all of the formulas needed and required some later evenings of work - but now I have my own custom tool that works for me. Yes, I'm proud of this accomplishment. In my mind, it's a work win even if no one else in my organization needs to use it.
Encouragement to Start a Data Peer Network One of the ideas that percolated during a meeting with my supervisor this week was to consider forming a peer network group of women who work with data in non-profits and use Salesforce. I took that to heart and have boosted my presence on the Salesforce Trailblazer Community. I applied with Salesforce to start a new user group which was granted really quickly. One of my other co-workers commented that I'm creating the networking space I want to be in.
For me, having a win in an individual work project (self-assigned but gives me a great task tool) and having a win in the form of encouragement to grow my network and seeking to be the leader of a network space gives me a boost of energy in role at my job. The energy gets translated into increased resilience as new professional growth goals are formed. Anyone can be assigned tasks and complete them. But there is power when work wins and goals align to increase resilience during harder work seasons.