Raise Your Voice Blog | Nicole Clark Consulting

28 Feb, 2019

Self Care Corner: You Might Be Suffering from Resistance Fatigue

By Nicole Clark, LMSW|2021-08-19T20:25:44-04:00February 28th, 2019|Categories: Self & Community Care|Tags: activism, self care, Self Care Corner|0 Comments

Today’s post has been on my to-write list for some time, but has been put on the backburner in favor of other topics I felt needed my attention.

Which is how many of us view self-care in general: Something that should get done, but gets regulated to the end of the priority list.

And in my Self Care Corner posts, I share an exercise, resource or piece of advice I think may be useful in helping you to build an effective self care practice.

Today’s post is more food for thought. It’s about the fatigue we feel when we are in a constant state of resistance and is inspired by a YouTube video I saw recently that beautifully illustrated what resistance is (and what happens when we choose to allow the resistance.)

In the video, Amy Westmoreland demonstrates what happens when you get your fingers caught in a Chinese finger trap. The most obvious option is to figure out how to get your fingers out, but you’ll notice that the more you struggle to release your fingers, the tighter the trap becomes.

To remove the trap easily, you have to relax. Amy says, “All I have to do is acknowledge what I’m in resistance over. Now, sometimes you’re not going to be able to pinpoint it exactly, but in this case, we know exactly what we’re in resistance over: Oh. My fingers are stuck. And you stop struggling and you allow it to be there, and that’s when you let it be that your fingers are stuck. As you do that, you naturally relax. We haven’t resolved the original problem, the thing we’re struggling against….but what you have done is made a major shift in your energy from resisting the resistance to allowing the resistance. When you allow it, it becomes easy to disengage.”

I first noticed resistance fatigue when I started getting into activism as a college student. I noticed it even more as I entered the workforce. Since watching Amy’s video, I’ve thought about how resistance shows up in my activism and in my client work. When something is happening in the political landscape that we don’t like, we go to the nearest protest or spend our time fighting with people on social media. When my clients get feedback about their programs, services, and strategies that they don’t like, they want to figure out how to spend it so that it sounds better. (And in some cases, they don’t want it to be reported at all. Luckily, I don’t work with these types of clients anymore.)

But what would happen if we stop resisting and allow what is to just be? As Amy mentions, we haven’t solved the problem that’s causing the resistance. But in this moment, there’s a relief.

How can we apply this concept to how we take care of ourselves and each other?

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20 Feb, 2019

Try This: Increase Your Staff and Stakeholders’ Engagement and Collaboration

By Nicole Clark, LMSW|2021-08-19T20:25:18-04:00February 20th, 2019|Categories: Research & Evaluation|Tags: Try This|0 Comments

When a program is developed, it’s done so for various reasons, including based on current and relevant research, anecdotal and collected feedback and evidence from participants, funders, and more.

But even the most well-developed programs can suffer if your staff and stakeholders aren’t engaged enough to care about how the program is designed to work beyond focusing on outcomes and impact only.

As I’ve continued to shift more into engaging my clients in a more participatory way, we’ve been working together to develop a more collaborative process that generates a culture of learning about how they’re developing their programs and how their program recipients are responding to it, rather than merely meeting metrics commissioned by someone else.

Compared to previous Try This posts, what I’m sharing today is more of a process rather than actual activities. And for the purposes of today’s post, I’m labeling this process the “staff and stakeholder engagement and collaborative process“. The actual name depends on the client project I’m working on (for example, with one client, it’s called the “evaluation working group” while the process is called the “evaluation working group” with another client).

Regardless of the name, the process is the same: Bringing together staff and stakeholders to develop program goals, discover insights into how participants are engaging with the program, and develop a strategy for routine program evaluation and course-correction and generating buy-in among your staff and stakeholders.

This activity is ideal for:

Nonprofit and social services staff interested in developing more engagement and collaboration between staff and stakeholders (i.e. program participants, board members, and other supporters)
Nonprofit and social services staff that are responsible for developing and overseeing the implementation of programs, services, and strategies

Here’s what you need:

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13 Feb, 2019

How Nonprofits Can Build a Bias for Action

By Nicole Clark, LMSW|2021-08-19T20:24:45-04:00February 13th, 2019|Categories: Workshop, Program, & Curriculum Design|Tags: Design Thinking, Human Centered Design|0 Comments

One thing that’s fascinated me about the design thinking process is how nonprofits can use it to listen to the needs of their communities and think outside the box when taking action, despite design thinking being primarily known as a business strategy.

Another reason I like design thinking is that it uses the stories of individuals and communities for meaningful impact, storytelling and engagement that advanced an organization’s mission.

And connecting the evaluation process to design thinking seems like a no-brainer.

We’ve discussed the first three steps in the design thinking process- empathize, define, and ideate. Let’s finish out this series with the final two steps in the process- prototyping and testing.

With design thinking, testing and evaluating feedback helps nonprofits observe and uncover additional wants and needs from the communities they serve.

But I’ll admit that I initially wasn’t sold on the last two steps.

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6 Feb, 2019

Ask Nicole: How Can I Stop Potential Clients from Ghosting Me?

By Nicole Clark, LMSW|2021-08-19T20:24:15-04:00February 6th, 2019|Categories: Consulting|Tags: Ask Nicole, clients, consulting|0 Comments

Have a question you’d like for me to answer? Let me know.

I recently got this question from Stacey, an employee in the process of transitioning from her job into self-employment. Stacey writes:

Hi Nicole,

I’ve been building up my business while being full-time at my job, and I’m planning on leaving my employer to move onto working for myself by summer. I’ve built up a solid client base, and while I’m happy I’ve been able to do it, I grow frustrated when I land a solid lead only for them to disappear. I do send emails and call them to follow-up, but I’m met with radio silence. Is there a way to stop potentia clinets from ghosting me? Any suggestions for keeping potential clients engaged enough for me to seal the deal?

Landing a new client is kind of like the dating process. While you’re excited at the prospect of working together, you (and the potential client) are still feeling each other out.

And just when you think everything is good to go, they can disappear without warning.

Of course, it’s frustrating because you’ve invested a lot of time into making it work (including submitting your cover letter and resume, a response to a proposal or work scope, and references, not to mention scheduling a meeting either in person or why phone/video). So you can’t help but feel some kind of way when it doesn’t work out.

The short answer to Stacey’s question is: No, you can’t stop potential clients from ghosting you…but there are some measures you can take so that, regardless of the outcome, you can walk away feeling good about your role in the process.

Here’s the long answer, broken up into two parts: 1) When you seek out an opportunity and 2) When an opportunity comes looking for you:

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30 Jan, 2019

We Have the Right Problem. Let’s Find the Right Solution

By Nicole Clark, LMSW|2021-08-19T20:23:57-04:00January 30th, 2019|Categories: Workshop, Program, & Curriculum Design|Tags: Design Thinking, Human Centered Design|0 Comments

In 2017, I introduced to my blog readers the design thinking process (aka human-centered design), a process many nonprofits and community groups use to generate engagement with communities.

The first step in the design thinking process is to Empathize: Learn about your audience or community through interviews and observations to answer the question “What do they need?”. This creates our User Persona.

The second step is to Define: Identify the problem you want to solve, based on your User Persona.

When we fall into the habit of thinking we know what the problem is, we end up creating unsuccessful programs, services, and strategies because the voices of the people we want to reach aren’t involved in the process. This is why the first two steps in the design thinking process are crucial. In order to create the right solution, we need to identify the right problem is from our User Persona’s perspective.

Now that we’ve done steps one and two, let’s move on to the third step in the design thinking process: Ideate.

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Self Care Corner: You Might Be Suffering from Resistance Fatigue

Try This: Increase Your Staff and Stakeholders’ Engagement and Collaboration

How Nonprofits Can Build a Bias for Action

Ask Nicole: How Can I Stop Potential Clients from Ghosting Me?

We Have the Right Problem. Let’s Find the Right Solution

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