Tools for Living and Learning in Uncertainty

Part 2: Connect and Crowdsource Answers

We don’t know what to do right now because this is a very uncertain time with rapidly changing context. Furthermore, it can be hard to know how to react to news that may impact you or your organization. Is this for real? How will the latest change ripple out to impact our partners and then us?

The best antidote to this situation is to talk with trusted colleagues. Going to trusted news sources is also valuable, but there is power in dialogue and the process of sense-making that can only happen when leaders gather and talk. Have coffee, pull together a few folks for lunch, or make this the year you attend that conference in person again.

This behavior can feel difficult—many of us have a tendency to hunker down and isolate under stress (especially post-COVID). Society puts pressure on us not to “bother” others and to go it alone, normalizing days where interaction is limited to social media and transactional Slack messages.

NAWA added value for nonprofits during COVID by organizing large webinars where a panel of people shared how they were responding to COVID (strategies to continue service delivery, shifting to virtual fundraising events, etc.). The panels were followed by discussion and sharing of ideas and strategies. I’m proud of the way nonprofits came together to figure out how to be their best in a time or extreme uncertainty.

Now is another time to come together and to talk. To wonder, to imagine creative possibilities, to figure out how to create a real network of mutual support. I’m thinking about how to encourage this—do you have thoughts about how to organize mutual support networks for nonprofit leaders? What are you seeking? Comment below.

Photo: A cute group of meerkats coming together for mutual support. Image by Wolfgang Weiser from Pixabay.