10 Oct, 2018

Try This: Brainwriting for Rapid Engagement

By Nicole Clark, LMSW|2021-08-19T20:20:56-04:00October 10th, 2018|Categories: Program, Service, & Campaign Design|Tags: Try This, Workshops|0 Comments

No, that’s not a typo.

But since you’re thinking of brainstorming, let’s identify how it’s different from our focus for today, brainwriting.

When it comes to generating ideas, brainstorming typically consists of getting a group of people together to generate an idea on how to approach a particular problem. During this process, a few things may happen:

It’s a drawn out process
Sometimes the most vocal of the group tend to dominate the conversation
There’s one person documenting the ideas (and can’t fully participate because they’re too busy writing down everyone’s ideas)
The person documenting typically has the most power in how the idea looks when written down
There are a lot of ideas, but fewer suggestions on what to do with these ideas
There’s a greater chance for boredom

In comparison, brainwriting addresses these concerns by:

Limiting the amount of time the group generates ideas
Everyone participates equally rather than the most vocal of the group
Everyone is writing down their ideas instead of one person
Everyone decides how their idea looks written down
Everyone has the opportunity to provide a variation of the ideas, which promotes for creativity and insights into next steps
It’s more engaging

Brainwriting is a more effective process because it allows for more individuality in generating ideas rapidly, rather than conforming to groupthink. Rather than focusing on one person at a time, this method reduces the amount of talking that occurs during brainstorming, which can take time away from idea generation.

This activity is ideal for:

Understanding how an idea looks from multiple perspectives
Understanding how problem can be solved based on multiple perspectives
Having a more engaging process for group work within a training or workshop
Including more creative exercises within a focus group
Creating a more equitable way for introverts and extroverts people to participate

Here’s what you need:

Sheets of paper
Pens or pencils

The steps:

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5 Oct, 2018

Ask Nicole: What Exactly Are You Evaluating?

By Nicole Clark, LMSW|2021-08-19T20:18:45-04:00October 5th, 2018|Categories: Research & Evaluation|Tags: Ask Nicole, Capacity Building, program evaluation|0 Comments

Have a question you’d like to be featured? Let me know.

I recently had a video meeting with one of my client organizations. We’re preparing for a presentation in a few weeks to orient some members of her staff to a newly-developed evaluation working group. They will be working directly with me on guiding the organization through the development of an evaluation framework for its programs and strategies, guided by the organization’s current strategic plan.

As we planned out the agenda and what topics to include, the staff member and I discussed various aspects of the evaluation design process, including logic models, theories of change, data collection and dissemination. In this discussion I touched on one aspect of the evaluation process that many would see as a given, but it’s actually more complex:

What exactly are you evaluating?

We ordinarily associate evaluation with the ending of a program, where we want to collect data to find out if what the program set out to do actually achieved its goals. But you can also evaluate the program as it’s being developed, or even evaluate if the program is appropriate enough to implement.

While there are multiple evaluation theories, there are five common types of evaluation:

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5 Sep, 2018

Ask Nicole: How to Deal with Imposter Syndrome

By Nicole Clark, LMSW|2021-08-19T20:17:57-04:00September 5th, 2018|Categories: Consulting|Tags: Ask Nicole|0 Comments

Have a question you’d like to be featured? Let me know.

“Imposter syndrome” is a psychological thought pattern that causes us to doubt our accomplishments while also being plagued by an internalized fear of being exposed as a “fraud”. First described by psychologists Suzanne Imes, PhD, and Pauline Rose Clance, PhD, in the 1970s, impostor syndrome (also known as “imposter phenomenon”) occurs when feelings of inadequacies and incompetence come up despite having evidence that you really are competent.

Most articles about imposter syndrome focus on getting rid of it, but here’s the thing:

As you challenge yourself, you’ll start off feeling like an imposter. And it’s all part of the growing process.

The more I challenge myself, the fraudier I feel, initially. Plus, I’ve found through my own experience that feeling like an imposter is something you never rid yourself of. As you build your expertise, those fraudy feelings will come up. Here are my reasons why imposter syndrome may pop up and how to deal with it:

You don’t believe you’ve earned it

I love when a potential clients contact me about working with me. Regardless of how they were put into contact with me, it feels great when a client believes you’re the best person to work with them. However, I was speaking with a mentor a year ago about how it weirdly didn’t seem right to me. Why? Because I didn’t feel like I earned it. Logically, I’d rather have potential clients come to me or current clients renew a contract with me, but deep down it feels fraudy because most of us are used to going through some kind of process of selection. Or working hard for it. There’s a sense of achievement and satisfaction when you’ve been chosen out of a pool of candidates. Yet, you should feel special when someone contacts you directly because they feel you’re the right person for the job. So, what gives?

How to deal: Whether you’ve been handed an opportunity or you were chosen out of a pool of candidates, the reason why is still the same: You were the right person for the opportunity. How would you feel if someone were to say to you, “You know what? I appreciate you believing that I’m the best person for this, but I don’t feel that I’ve earned it because you didn’t choose me out of a pool of candidates”? It doesn’t sound logical. We’re used to the hustle and focus on making things happen that we don’t allow opportunities to come to us. If this still feels foreign to you, ask for the reasons for you being give the opportunity. You’ll see that the characteristics they see in you were the characteristics you saw in yourself all along.

You don’t have a frame of reference

When my consulting business was a just side hustle, I felt like a fraud because I didn’t really own the title of “consultant”. I didn’t think I had the experience under my belt to call myself that. Now that I’ve been working for myself for a while, I’ve realized that imposter syndrome was a problem then because I had no frame of reference for what it’s like to be self employed, let alone work as a consultant. I was basically mirroring what I’d seen others do. If you’ve been hired as an executive director of a nonprofit, and this is your first time being in a professional role like this, of course you’d feed fraudy, because you’ve never been an executive director before.

How to deal: When those fraudy feelings come up, continue to remind yourself that you were hired because you were the best person for the job. Someone saw qualities in you that would be perfect for [insert role title]. There may be certain aspects of the job that will require additional training or mentorship, but trust in your ability to do it. Which leads the next reason why you may feel imposter syndrome:

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22 Aug, 2018

Tailor Your Strategy to Capture Your Stakeholders’ Attention

By Nicole Clark, LMSW|2021-08-19T20:17:35-04:00August 22nd, 2018|Categories: Research & Evaluation|Tags: program evaluation, Research|0 Comments

Whether you’re a nonprofit, community group, foundation, agency, school (or somewhere in between), you have stakeholders: people who are impacted–directly and indirectly–by the success and outcomes of your programs and strategies.

You should have a plan in place for how you engage your stakeholders with the information you want to share. Before you can create your plan, let’s identify your three stakeholder types.

Step 1: Identify your stakeholders

Each stakeholder has a particular set of needs and wants, with levels of influence and varied interests. This can differ greatly across programs and strategies. Choose a program or strategy your currently implementing, and identify all possible stakeholders for that program or strategy. Next, break them down into these stakeholder categories:

Primary– A primary stakeholder is the group that most closely touches the program or strategy. For example, one of my past evaluation projects was for a local nonprofit. They wanted to conduct an internal evaluation to discover reasons for low volunteer engagement. Volunteers–both active and inactive–would be considered primary stakeholders.

Secondary– Secondary stakeholders are indirectly affected by the outcomes of a program or strategy. They serve as intermediaries. With our example above, the staff (both organizational and the clinic staff the volunteers worked for) can be secondary stakeholders.

Tertiary– Tertiary stakeholders are usually far removed from the impact of the program or strategy’s outcomes, but they can serve in an advisory capacity. In our example, the board of directors would be concerned a tertiary stakeholder.

Where you stakeholder falls depends on the program or strategy. In other words, a primary stakeholder for one program can turn into a tertiary stakeholder for another program.

Step 2: Use the Five Ws (and the H)

Now, let’s figure out how to engage your stakeholders based. And what better way to determine how to engage your stakeholders than using the Five Ws (and the H)?

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15 Aug, 2018

Women of Color and The Diversity of Social Work

By Nicole Clark, LMSW|2021-08-19T20:15:55-04:00August 15th, 2018|Categories: Public Health & Social Work|Tags: Social Work|0 Comments

In 2016, I wrote a blog post about the flexibility of a social work degree. I followed it up a year later on why there’s no one way to be a social worker.

The irony of the social work profession is that, while it’s touted as a diverse and expanding field, it often promotes a particular image of a social worker: Someone who provides one-to-one services to clients in a particular setting.

Also, there are many ways for social workers to connect in-person and online, and how we market ourselves should reflect that. (And “marketing” tends to be a touchy word for many, not just social workers.)

I’ve enjoyed sharing my social work journey throughout the years, and today, I’m going a step further and giving a face (or, in this case, multiple faces) to how social workers are utilizing their degrees to give more insight into the expansiveness of this profession when we think outside the box. Since my focus is on women and girls of color, I’m highlighting WOC social workers I’ve known and admired for a long time, as well as ones I’ve admired from afar. I’ve chosen these social workers to not only showcase their interests and expertise, but how they’ve managed to connect with others while building their professional brand. Whether you decide to work for someone or work for yourself, you still need to figure out how to get yourself out there in a way that’s authentic to you.

While this blog post is specific to social workers, I hope these women serve as a testament that, regardless of your profession, you can make your career be whatever you want it to be.

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Try This: Brainwriting for Rapid Engagement

This activity is ideal for:

Here’s what you need:

The steps:

Ask Nicole: What Exactly Are You Evaluating?

What exactly are you evaluating?

Ask Nicole: How to Deal with Imposter Syndrome

As you challenge yourself, you’ll start off feeling like an imposter. And it’s all part of the growing process.

You don’t believe you’ve earned it

You don’t have a frame of reference

Tailor Your Strategy to Capture Your Stakeholders’ Attention

Step 1: Identify your stakeholders

Step 2: Use the Five Ws (and the H)

Women of Color and The Diversity of Social Work

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