Raise Your Voice Blog | Nicole Clark Consulting

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: Program, Service, & Campaign 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: Program, Service, & Campaign 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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23 Jan, 2019

Try This: The Identity Wheel

By Nicole Clark, LMSW|2021-08-19T20:23:16-04:00January 23rd, 2019|Categories: Program, Service, & Campaign Design|Tags: Try This|0 Comments

What is identity? More importantly, how do our various identities impact how we view the world, and how the world views us?

For people in the social work field and other helping professions, self awareness aids us in how to prepare for encounters with clients whose thoughts, attitudes, and lived experiences are different from ours. With my own consulting clients, we’ve had conversations about how our identities impact how we gain access to the communities we work with. The conclusion is this:

Just because we share similar identities doesn’t mean we share the same lived experiences.

Here’s an activity, adapted from the University of Michigan College of Literature, Science, and the Arts’ Inclusive Teaching Initiative called The Identity Wheel.

This activity is ideal for:

Encouraging reflection on the ways we identify personally and socially, and how we perceive the world and how the world perceives us
Identify settings and situations in which our identities are felt the most
Identify ways in which our identities afford us privilege

Here’s what you need:

White sheets of paper
Markers, pens, or pencils
Rulers, if needed
Round color-coding labels in four colors (like these)

The steps:

Pass out the sheets of paper and writing utensils to participants. On the sheets, draw a circle and divided into 8 sections (using rulers, if needed), like this:

2. Have participants label each section with an identity they closely identify with. Here’s an example of my identities:

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16 Jan, 2019

How My Mother’s Death Makes Me Fear Motherhood (Revisited)

By Nicole Clark, LMSW|2021-08-19T20:22:53-04:00January 16th, 2019|Categories: Miscellaneous|Tags: Motherhood, Parenting, pregnancy|0 Comments

Today I thought about a comment my mom made to my sister and I years ago while driving to our aunt’s house to drop us off before going to work. We were arguing with each other in the back seat, when my mom yelled at us to stop and said, “I almost died giving both to y’all“.

I thought she was lying to get us to stop fighting. You can’t die giving birth, I thought. I had no concept of women dying while giving birth. Pregnancy and birth are supposed to be a joyous occasion for many, and the thought of growing up without her was something I didn’t want to endure.

When I wrote “How My Mother’s Death Makes me Fear Motherhood” in 2011, I was 28 years old, 15 years away from the age my mother was when she died. Now in my thirties and roughly 8 years away from that pivotal age, several of my friends are now experiencing parental loss, particularly their mothers.

I’m at a point in my motherless daughter journey where the pain, anger, and denial are not as intense as they were at age 17 when my mom died, yet there are moments where I feel my mom’s absence more now than I did back then.

Some of the reasons I gave for my fear of motherhood ran the gamut from not wanting to live up to the societal expectation that all women aspire to be mothers to dying prematurely before my child becomes an adult.

While I still believe that holding a puppy is more fun than holding a baby, I don’t necessarily fear motherhood in the ways I did back in 2011. Due to a shift in recent years of me working more with client organizations that work at the intersections of maternal health and racial justice, my thoughts have shifted more towards an earnest interest in maternal health and the complexities that come with it.

As incredulous as I felt then about pregnant women dying during childbirth, I have to remind myself now that it does occur. And it scares me more than my sister and I could have grown up without our mother rather than her dying before we became adults.

The comment my mom made was such a fleeting moment that now I wished I had asked her more about it. What were the causes and/or conditions she had that put her at risk for dying during childbirth?

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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

Try This: The Identity Wheel

How My Mother’s Death Makes Me Fear Motherhood (Revisited)

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