Raise Your Voice Blog | Nicole Clark Consulting

1 Feb, 2023

Ask Nicole: I’m Uncomfortable Working with Certain Clients

By Nicole Clark, LMSW|2023-02-01T12:23:36-05:00February 1st, 2023|Categories: Public Health & Social Work|Tags: Ask Nicole, Client Experiences, Client Relationships, clients, Social Work|0 Comments

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

In the early years of my social work career, I had a large caseload of individuals from various backgrounds and needs.

Some clients were more challenging to work with than others, but I’d say I got along well with everyone I worked with.

Yet sometimes, I didn’t click with every person I worked with. However, these experiences were easier to navigate when I made the decision to focus on the client’s needs as opposed to my personal feelings towards them.

There were moments, however, where I was uncomfortable working with certain clients. Mainly male clients who disclosed (either in sessions with me or in their intake assessment with another colleague) their history of violence towards women.

I shared my feelings during supervision one day, only for my supervisor to share this with another colleague. Needless to say, this didn’t help matters. I was looking for guidance on working with clients that, based on experiences that had nothing to do with me, I didn’t want to work with due to my own personal values.

These days, I have more control over who I work with, but I want to provide some insights I learned during that time that may be useful. While you don’t have to like a client to do your job as a social worker, it’s harder to do a good job when you actively dislike them.

In your personal life, you’re more likely to go above and beyond for someone you like. It’s harder to do this for someone you don’t like.

In a professional setting, you can’t really get away with this. Sometimes, these relationships improve over time, but when you find yourself not wanting to work with a client, here’s some guidance:

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25 Jan, 2023

Create Your Board of Directors Balance & Alignment Plan

By Nicole Clark, LMSW|2023-01-23T22:47:22-05:00January 25th, 2023|Categories: Strategic Planning & Sustainability|Tags: Board Members, Board of Directors, Staff, Sustainability|0 Comments

The decisions your board of directors makes not only influences your organization’s growth, but impacts how your staff does its job. When a board can’t function, it’s due to one or more of these issues. When these issues arise, it’s time to develop a plan for addressing them.

I’ve been increasingly interacting with board members in my consulting projects. I sit on a few boards myself. These experiences illuminated for me how difficult the nonprofit model can be, and how difficult it can be to make the key parts of a nonprofit–board, executive director, and staff–move smoothly like a wheel.

Speaking of wheels, I considered whether this blog post should focus on balance or on alignment. In fact, when I Googled “balance vs alignment”, I came across multiple articles around tires. This article explains the difference between tire balancing and tire alignment:

“It’s easy to get tire balancing and alignment confused. After all, they both sound like they would do the same thing. But in reality, they are very different services. In the simplest terms, tire balancing uses weights on your wheels to keep your vehicle from vibrating, while an alignment keeps all of your wheels pointing in the same direction for safety and performance.”

Within the context of boards of directors, individual and collective skillsets, networks, ability to fundraise and speak on behalf of your organization, and ability to choose the best leader to serve as executive director are the balance. Their personal identities and values, ability to engage with staff and other stakeholders, and ability to understand how their decision making impacts how staff are the alignment.

It can be a delicate process to develop a plan to increase balance and alignment within your board and between your board and staff, but with intention, commitment and support, it’s possible.

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18 Jan, 2023

Try This: Equity Focused Conversations

By Nicole Clark, LMSW|2023-01-20T15:29:10-05:00January 18th, 2023|Categories: Equity & Justice|Tags: Equity, Human Centered Design, program design, Try This|0 Comments

*Try this out, and let me know how it goes for you.*

During Summer 2020, at the height of the coronavirus pandemic, I participated in a conversation with evaluators who were both working as independent consultants and on staff.

A question was posed:

How can we keep equity at the forefront?

At the time, most of my client organizations had turned their attention to shifting to remote work. One client was already working remotely before the shelter in place orders began. However, they did experience drastic shifts in their programming.

Staff had to figure out what was “essential” and what wasn’t in terms of how programs were implemented and how these changes would impact staff capacity.

Being nimble is a way of life for my clients. We discuss how this nimbleness can be applied to how they think program implementation. At this time, clients were making quick decisions on which programs were still operational without being in person. If programming could no longer operate as intended, we questioned 1) what can be learned from this, 2) how can they pivot programs deem essential to their work, 3) what qualifies a program as “non-essential”, and 4) how can they make a “non-essential” program more “essential” in the future?

While we focused on supporting our clients, we also felt the uncertainty in our work as evaluators. From paused projects to adjusting how we work, we were challenged with examining current norms, creating new ones, and discovering for ourselves what equity looks like during an pandemic that has illuminated racial, economic, and other public health disparities.

How can equity focused questions lead to organizational change?

This activity is ideal for:

Anyone leading internal organizational equity based initiatives
Anyone interested in applying evaluative thinking

Here’s what you need:

Schedule time for this activity, where you can work with minimal interruption. Make sure to schedule breaks!
Whatever setup you use to capture your process (laptop, pen and paper, whiteboard, etc.). Make sure it’s kept in a place that you can refer back to

The steps:

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11 Jan, 2023

How “Sending the Elevator Back Down” Promotes Equity

By Nicole Clark, LMSW|2023-03-15T11:54:29-04:00January 11th, 2023|Categories: Equity & Justice|Tags: Equity, Mentoring|0 Comments

*How can “sending the elevator back down” promote equity?*

January is National Mentorship Month, highlighting the power of mentorship and its benefits.

Mentoring fosters trust and understanding between a more experienced person (mentor) and someone with less experience (mentee). Ideally, mentoring is mutually beneficial, provides routine exchange of perspectives, and builds on knowledge and trust.

Mentorship between students and educators and between industry experts and people new to their industry are two examples of how mentorship typically play out. Being mentored by someone who has experienced what you’re going through helps to avoid pitfalls.

There are many people I can name who have served as mentors for me, both academically and professionally. As someone who seeks advice and has provided advice, I’m growing more curious about 1) whether mentorship is truly beneficial and 2) whether mentorship promotes equity.

The phrase “send the elevator back down” is credited to French actress and singer-songwriter Édith Piaf. I don’t remember where I first heard this phrase, but it’s stayed with me. When someone sends the elevator back down for others, several things can happen. It creates opportunities for visibility, creating space for mentees to join mentors on the elevator. It also encourages mentors to not only make space, but to let go. For others to have these leadership experiences and become more visible, leaders have to be ok with making space and letting go.

But what happens when mentors are better at one and not the other?

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4 Jan, 2023

Ask Nicole: What To Do with Ineffective Board Members?

By Nicole Clark, LMSW|2023-01-23T19:53:51-05:00January 4th, 2023|Categories: Strategic Planning & Sustainability|Tags: Ask Nicole, Board Members, Board of Directors, Staff|0 Comments

The board of directors is a governing body for an incorporated organization, consisting of individuals that provide strategic governance and support to an organization’s leader, staff, and stakeholders.

Here in the United States, in order to maintain 501(c)3 nonprofit status, an organization needs to have a functioning board. And, unfortunately, inactive and ineffective boards are pretty common in the nonprofit world.

I’ve experienced various board dynamics, both within my consulting role and as a board member for a few nonprofits over the years. I’m fortunate to have served on boards with members dedicated to serving in this capacity and care about organizational mission. However, even with my personal experiences and my interaction with boards in my projects, I’ve noticed quirks among boards that are confusing at best but can also be detrimental to staff if not checked.

While its considered an honor to serve on a board, the decisions a board makes can positively or negatively impact how staff carry out the organization’s mission.

So, how much of this is the fault of the board, and how much rests on the shoulders of the organizations that invite them to serve? Below are 10 things I’ve noticed, and how to spot them in your board:

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Ask Nicole: I’m Uncomfortable Working with Certain Clients

Create Your Board of Directors Balance & Alignment Plan

Try This: Equity Focused Conversations

How “Sending the Elevator Back Down” Promotes Equity

Ask Nicole: What To Do with Ineffective Board Members?

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