Passion Retread

Almost everyone is originally attracted to a cause or organization because its work is something they feel passionate about. Whether that cause is families, foster care, substance abuse, mental illness, international relief, physical or intellectual disabilities, advocacy, faith, the environment, arts, education, healthcare, animal welfare, housing, or public policy, what attracts each person is almost always a prior personal experience. Perhaps they have a family member with that particular disability or a close friend who experienced discrimination due to a mental illness. Perhaps they developed a love of the outdoors as a child, or their passion for science dates back to the first time they looked through a microscope in elementary school science class.

But passion can become buried or lost over time. When that happens, how do you get it back?

We do a small group exercise at our workshops that we call the Passion Retread exercise. Working in the nonprofit sector, the tread on the passion tire sometimes wears thin. So we ask each person in the small group to answer these two simple questions:

• Why do you work or volunteer at this particular organization?
• What is it about their unique work or mission that inspires you and keeps you engaged?

While some volunteers will say that they want to give back to the community, when we ask them to take a deeper look, many tell us they feel called to do the work of the organization. For them it is an avocation. Answering these simple questions truthfully, in a small group of dedicated board members, staff, and volunteers, reconnects people to their own passion, to each other, and to the mission of the organization.

I once asked a group of board members from a chapter of the American Lung Association to answer these questions. One of their long-standing board members immediately offered his response. "I know exactly why I'm here," he said. "When my son, Adam, was eight years old, he died in my arms while having an asthma attack. I vowed in that moment to give my life to doing whatever I could to find a cure for childhood asthma so that no other parent would ever have to experience such a tragic and painful loss."

Before you embark on implementing the Benevon Model for Sustainable Funding, do this exercise with your entire team. Ask each person to look more deeply at their own reasons for being involved with the organization. Then give them the time to share their answer to this question with the rest of the group. It will focus each team member on their unique connection to the mission of the organization and add new tread to their passion. It will bond you as a team and sustain you as you move forward.

This exercise also works well for long-standing board members, volunteers, and staff. Most nonprofit organizations do very little to nurture their passion, yet over time any of us can become so caught up in the routine of everyday work that our initial enthusiasm wanes.

One group of hospital development staff I coached was getting ready to launch their biggest annual campaign ever. For several of the staff, it would be their tenth or twelfth annual campaign with this organization. They were hardened to the realities of life during campaign time and already dreading it. So we put aside the agenda for our session and instead went around the room, with each person telling the story of how they had come to work at this organization in the first place. It was incredibly moving. They had never done this exercise before. In the space of an hour, the entire mood altered. One by one, you could see them re-enlist in the campaign, renewed, re-energized, and ready to go.

When you sense that your team or board or volunteers are losing energy and inspiration, stop and do the Passion Retread exercise. It does not need to be overly formal or time consuming. Just have people tell their stories. You will be surprised at how effectively it reconnects everyone to their larger reasons for being part of the organization. In the end, all who participate in the exercise will have renewed energy and enthusiasm for telling the story of the organization to the community. They will be reminded of just how important the work of this organization is and why they want to be a part of it.