The Fundraising & Fun Raising Podcast

0:00Welcome to the Fund Raising and Fund Raising Podcast. We explore ways to use humor to increase the effectiveness of nonprofits. I'm your host, Robert B. Moran, and you're listening to the program on Boston's Community Radio Station WBCA 102.9 FM Boston. Our topic today we're talking about communication and leadership training for success. The reason this is important because organizing your nonprofit to grow to an international status is something you can do if you organize in a way that is scalable. We're going to be talking about Toastmasters, which is an international group.

1:01And if you'd like to find out more information, you can go to Toastmasters.org. That's Toastmasters, T-O-A-S-T-M-A-S-T-E-R-S-D-O-R-G. So one of the things that can be very helpful is increasing your ability for public speaking. And that can help your organization and yourself personally in a couple different ways. One of the things is that when you're doing public speaking in a practice environment, which is what Toastmasters offers, it gives you the opportunity to try out things in front of a very forgiving and friendly and positive audience. Part of the way that Toastmasters is set up is set up at the local level. So you would be in a group of, say, 10 to 20 people. What you're doing there is you're having a chance to speak and to practice and to put your ideas down in a prepared speech. There's also some other opportunities, as I'll share. But with the prepared speeches, what you're able to do is you're able to, once you join, you can get a curriculum that will guide you to advance in your speaking career.

2:07And it always starts out your first speech is called your icebreaker. And the icebreaker speech is four to six minutes. And what you do there is you're able to pick any topic of your life. And it's a way for you to break the ice with the other people in your group. And breaking the ice is normally done by talking about something from your life. One, two things that are important to you that are special to you that you really resonate with. So when you're up there giving your talk, you're able to speak from memory. Something you know very well. You've done it, you know, many times. You'll be spoken about it many times. And you're just sharing yourself with the group. And then the group gets to know you. And one of the nice things about that in many clubs, they have a tradition where when a person finishes their icebreaker speech, they get a standing ovation. So if you would like to get a standing ovation for your speech ever, then toast masters is a place where that can happen. Now with toast masters, because public speaking and communication in general is such a broad topic, they've decided to organize into something that are called paths.

3:11And because they're organized into paths, you can pick one that will suit your purposes most directly. So for example, one of the paths is called engaging humor. So if you would like to be able to use humor and to lace your your talks with things that are funny and you're able to make the audience laugh, then the engaging humor path, for example, might be a good choice for you. One of the other ones, which I just finished actually, is called visionary communication, visionary communication. And in that path, what you're doing is you're talking about things and you're trying to cast a vision with your words. So in other words, you're trying to convey to people, hey, this is what I see. This is what I think the desired future would be. And this is my vision for how we would get there. So laying out a roadmap for people as well. And I really enjoyed that because I tend to think in terms of vision and seeing things better in life. And with the organization, the way pathways is organized, it helped me to work on that multiple times until I got to the end of the path.

4:16Which brings up the question, how are the paths organized? So you pick the particular path that you want to work on. But then regardless of the path that you pick, it's going to have five levels, right? Level one, two, three, four, and five. And as you might guess, the levels are progressive. So with level one, you have a chance to do five different speeches, all on level one. And they all have different focuses or areas of concentration. So like I said, the first one is always the icebreaker. But then your next one is speaking with the purpose. So again, regardless of the path, it's going to give you an opportunity to say, hmm, I want to talk about this topic. I know who my audience is going to be. And I have a particular purpose in mind. So it's more directed than just getting to know people and then getting to know you. So with the project about speaking with the purpose, you can say, hmm, my purpose is to inform. Right, maybe I'm going to convey information. I just want them to know this information that I know that I feel deeply about.

5:16But it could also be this is something that I want to inspire people to take action. So you can have a purpose for that particular talk about wanting to inspire people to action. And one of the things that's really great about that is that's a very useful skill to have for your nonprofit, but in life in general. And the idea is that you're thinking about what purpose you would like to call to people to act on. So it could be, for example, you might, the call to action might be to, you know, to write a letter. Or it might be, you know, the action you might want to take is to make a phone call. Or the action might be to inspire people to meet at a particular location to do some sort of an organizing event. Right, but the idea is that it's more than just letting you know information. You're actually speaking to inspire them to take action. Now another common purpose is the idea of you want to entertain. So it could be something where the purpose of your talk is going to be to entertain people. So it might be more of a storytelling type of a talk where you're talking in a way that there's some sort of drama.

6:17Right, there's a protagonist and an antagonist and there's some sort of action going on in that talk to entertain. And those are all different things that each of the assignments in the pathways has. So you'll know when you're doing the one, you know, speaking with a purpose of my focus for this particular talk is going to be a purpose. And you get to pick the purpose and you get to get to pick the topic. They don't give that to you. They just give you the sort of the guidelines of the framework. Another one is the focus is to use more body language and voice vocal variety. And again, that's something that's important in all your talks. But this idea is that, okay, for this particular talk, that's going to be the focus, right? In this particular one. And therefore picking a topic that lends itself to vocal variety or lends itself to using gestures. And by making the focus of that particular talk, it's a great way to work on that skill in particular and to really hone that.

7:17So that's part of the speaking, right? So those are some of the things happening with the curriculum, having to do with the speeches. As you progress, like I said, the progressives. So as you move up from level one, two, three, up to five, later on your talks are going to be from eight to ten minutes. And then some are going to be 15 to 18. So it also gives you a chance to build up and look forward to something or dread as to case maybe. But as you're moving up the levels, as you've done the groundwork of level one, two, and three, when you get to four and five with the longer talks, you're going to be ready for it. And it is a great way to stretch yourself. And one quick comment that I'd like to make is that sometimes people think that they need to memorize their speech and not give their speech until it's memorized and they know word for word. And in my case, I'm sort of of the opposite camp. I think that it's okay to have notes whether you have no cards or whether you have it typed out. Oftentimes when you go to a toast master meeting, they have a podium, which for a lot of people, if you're going to be speaking at a church or some sort of an organization where a podium is a normal part of the. The the setup of the room, then go for it, right? And it's a great way to do your speech in a way, you know, like they say practice the way you're going to play.

8:27So that's all the speaking things that toast master has to offer. There's more, but that's something that again, if you go to toastmaster.org, you can find more information about the paths, the ways in the specifics. But the next thing that I really like about toast masters and toast masters is in itself a nonprofit. And that's part of the reason why I picked it for the topic today is because it's a nonprofit that started back in 1924 in California. And now is literally a worldwide organization, whether we had clubs and organizations of the toast master groups all over the world. And this is part of the talk for later on. And second half is going to be about organizing your nonprofit in a way that's scalable and toast masters has certainly been scalable. So the other component of toast masters, it talks about communication and leadership. So how does it accomplish that leadership purpose? Well, one of the things I've mentioned this before is that toast masters groups are organized into local groups, you know, in your neighborhood. And they have, you know, it varies, but say 10 to 20 people. And with 10 to 20 people, that's a big enough group where it needs to be organized. So it's built in that organization and leadership are needed at that local group level.

9:36And the way they do that is they have the members and then every year there's an election and the elections are for one year. And they have seven different roles of the leaders of the group. So for example, there's always a president. There's a vice president of education. There's a vice president of membership. There's a vice president of public relations. So that's president and then three VP roles in each local group. And then also there are a treasurer, a secretary. And what's called the sergeant at arms and the sergeant at arms is the person who's responsible for the logistics. So if you're meeting at a particular location, the sergeant arms would typically arrive a few minutes early, set the room up, maybe put up the podium if it's a portable one that the club brings with it, putting up the club banner, maybe putting out the agendas and things, but there are some sort of logistics and the organization of the room. And that can also include booking the room. But those seven people, right, with a group of 10 to 20, it's a nice size to practice leadership. And that's one of the things I really like about it is the fact that it's not only talking about leadership, but it's actually what we call like an experiential leadership lab.

10:52So it's a lab where you can actually know about management, know about leadership, and then have a chance to try it out. So for example, one of the things that clubs will do typically is they'll plan the year out in the beginning of the year. And just, you know, for your information, the toast master year starts July 1st and goes to June 30th. So from July to June, so 12 months. And like I said, the officers are elected for a year. But in the beginning of the year, what they'll do is, and again, this is great management experience and leadership experience, I think, is the opportunity to create what's called a club success plan. The club success plan and the clubs and success plan is basically the seven officers get in together, thinking about collaborating and talking through like what are the things that we want to do this year in order for our club to be successful. And the definition of success in a toast master's club is something that's also been laid out. And again, this is part of what makes it scalable because all the clubs are working towards the same objective. And the objective for a club to say that they're distinguished is to have certain educational things so people have done a certain number of speeches and they've completed levels.

11:59It also has to do with membership, right? And membership, I think, is an indicator that the club is doing well. Right? It's an attractive club. When guests come and visit, they want to actually join the club. So adding in new members is another thing that's a part of this success plan focus. And then the others have to do with some of the administrative things. So are the officers getting trained? Because when you join as host master's group, you also get training and the idea of taking advantage of the training. So have the officers gone and gotten trained. And then some administrative things have the dues been paid and is the officer list for the next year has the election been held in the list submitted. So those are some things. But with those things, it's a great way to exercise leadership. Like I said, your forecasting in the beginning, saying this is where we want to end up. And these are the things we want to do along the way. And then also the idea of monitoring the progress. So many times the club will have an, you know, the regular club meeting, which is the speeches and things which we'll talk more about. But they have the regular meeting, but then they also have an addition to that and executive meeting. So if you're in office or you get to have double the number of meetings where you get to go and practice your leadership skills.

13:06And by doing that, it's a chance to get to know the people better, to learn how to, you know, present your ideas, to collaborate, to cooperate, you know, to negotiate. Hey, what if we do. And what if we attend, for example, the town day, right, if the town of the city has a day where tables for non-profits can be laid out. Do we want to get a table and do we want to staff that with the number of people? Do we want to be there from, you know, maybe 9 a.m. till 4 p.m. when it closes. Do we think that noon to 4 p.m. But to talk about the plan and execute things. And all those are all like I said, wonderful opportunities for leadership development in the lab type environment. Okay, so what about the actual meetings themselves? So it's up to the club, but the club can decide whether it wants to meet every week. It can decide whether it wants to meet every other week. And some clubs that I know will meet like on the first and third. So the first and third Wednesday. Others might meet on the second and fourth. They do the second or fourth Wednesday. Sometimes clubs will meet on Saturdays because that can be a convenient time for people that are, you know, busy professionals and have obligations during the week.

14:11They might want to meet on a weekend. So there's one of the clubs that I was in as a Saturday club. But that meeting becomes like a regular fixture in the person's life for as long as they're a part of toast master. So if you know when you join, you join for six months at a time. So you can join for six months and try it out. And then renew at that point to stay for the full year, but you don't make a full commitment for a year. You start with six months. But in that individual meeting, one of the things also that's been very helpful to me in my life is been that the meetings themselves are very structured. And because they're structured regardless of which club that I go to visit. If I'm a member of a couple clubs or if I'm a member of this club, but I go to another club and visit, like for example, when I went to Chicago, I went to a toast master meeting there. And it was, you know, true to form. I knew exactly what to expect. But in the actual meeting itself. And again, this is something that the club decides that they want to meet for 60 minutes or 75 or 90 minutes. Usually it's an hour or an hour and a half. But what will happen is that in that meeting, everybody has a turn to help lead the meeting.

15:14So for example, one of the things, if you think about meeting at work, where there's usually someone who's in charge is running the meeting, right? In the toast master meeting, that's called the toast master of the day. And you could think of them as the host or the MC that they're the ones to keep things on track to keep it on time and to call up the next person is going to be participating. So toast master of the day is a role that a person can take. So even if the person isn't giving a speech that day, there's another speaking role. And it's one of the things that I really like about toast masters is that there's so many opportunities to speak in any given meeting. So now the role is to be, you know, a speaker, but then also a speech evaluator. So if you have two speeches, you're going to have two people each and then gets a chance to evaluate the speech. And what that involves in in the path, there is an evaluation form for that particular speech, which focus on the speech. Which focuses on what they focus is. So if it's about body language, then the evaluation is geared towards body language and looking for specifics there. That person will listen to the speech and have a chance to make their notes. And then they get a chance to speak during the meeting for two to three minutes to give an oral evaluation.

16:20And again, one of the things about toast masters is that the feedback is always intended to be uplifting. So it's never criticism to tear down. It's always feedback and observations about, oh, I saw you did this. I really like that. I saw you did this. This was terrific. And then the chance to give what we call gifts typically. So and here's a gift I like to give you, you know, maybe when you're giving your speech, if you think about, you know, having a stopwatch with you so you can stay on time that may help you going forward. If the person, you know, for example, went over time. So speech evaluators is another important part of the meeting. And again, another speaking role. And then there's what they call the general evaluator. And the general evaluator watches the entire meeting and talks about the flow of the meeting from beginning to end. That's another speaking role. And there's also another component to a meeting, which is the opportunity to speak impromptu. And impromptu speaking sometimes called speaking off the cuff, right, without any preparation. So another role in the meeting is what they call the table topics master. And the table topics master comes up with a theme for their topics. And then they'll come up with say ten or so, maybe 12 questions.

17:31And then or topics and what they'll do is then they will ask people to come on up. So, you know, Frank, you know, the next question is about, you know, what was your most memorable summer vacation? What was your most memorable summer vacation? You know, Frank. And then Frank comes up and he's got one to two minutes to talk off the cuff. So it's a great opportunity to practice that skill, which a lot of people join to master's for as for example, if you're in a meeting at work and the boss or somebody asked you a question, you don't have time to repair. And then you don't have time to repair. Just off the cuff, practicing the toast masters and developing that skill is a terrific way to build that muscle to build that skill. So when it happens at work, you're ready to go. Another role we have is a timer and everything in the toast master meeting is timed. Like I mentioned, the speech has a certain time and it's always arranged from five to seven or four to six minutes. The evaluation is two to three minutes, you know, the table topics, the answers are once to two minutes. In the timer, literally has a stopwatch. And what they'll do is they'll use green, yellow and red indicators.

18:32They'll just person, no, okay, green means you met the minimum. Yellow is your halfway through and red, you've reached a maximum and time to wrap it up. So those are some more of the meeting roles in an actual meeting. And again, the idea is to maximize the number of people that get to speak. So you can pretty much count on if you go to a meeting, you're going to have a chance to practice what you came there for. So those are some of the things that are about the speaking and the leadership and the meeting roles. Well, when we come back after the break, we're going to be talking about the way it's organized and how you get those organized groups into an international organization. When we come back here on Boston's Community Radio Station, WBCA 1-2.9 FM. WBCA 1-2.9 FM. WBCA is an awesome way to learn about local artists from Boston and Massachusetts. Here's Sweet Track. Then you can visit WBCARadio.org and click our spin link to see what you can find out.

19:45You can also submit your own music or public service announcements at WBCARadio.org. Mr. Show by one of our great community producers. You guessed it, you can listen to the podcast with our pod being link at WBCARadio.org. It's because of you that WBCA was awarded 2020 overall excellence by the Alliance for Community Media Foundation. So together, let's continue to make this our station, WBCA 1-2.9 FM Boston. Boston's Community Radio Station. During the developmental years of a boy's life, he needs a strong mentor to ignite his potential. At Big Brother's Big Sisters of Eastern Massachusetts, we provide youth across Eastern Massachusetts with invested, caring adult mentors. But did you know that there are hundreds of boys waiting in your community for Big Brother? We need guys like you to stand with us today. You can help clear the path to child's biggest possible future at massbaybiggs.org.

21:02Welcome back to the fundraising and fundraising podcast here on WBCA 1-2.9 FM Boston, Boston's Community Radio Station. In the first half of the program, we talked about the speaking opportunities that are available at a toast master's local group. We also talked about some of the leadership opportunities by the different officer roles that a club would have. And we talked about the fact that it was a learning experience where it's experiential. It's not just book learning. And then we went briefly into some of the meeting roles and the many opportunities to speak and to practice, the speaking and the communication opportunities at your meeting. I'd mentioned at the beginning that this idea of communication and leadership training is a way to be organized to grow your nonprofit to an international size. One of the things that toast masters did is as it grew, it began to create layers of organizational and operational oversight to help it to make sure that it stayed on track.

22:11So from the club, the next level up in terms of organization is something called the area. And what an area is, an area is a group of four local groups in one particular, often geographical area. That's changed a little bit with the advent of online only groups. So it might be an online group that, you know, most of the people are from somewhere else, but it's organized within a particular territory. But in that area, there's a couple of things that I think it's good to know. One is, is that that area organization does a couple of things. One is, it lets you, from your local group, talk to and meet and grow alongside of other groups. So you might go to a group on Tuesday nights, and it could be another group that meets on Thursday, and you can go and visit them. And the visits of visiting another group is a great way to pick up ideas that you can bring back to your home group. It's a great way to increase your network of people that you know, and you can go and know that the people that you're going to meet there have a common interest of developing their communication and their leadership skills as well.

23:15And the area is led by somebody that takes on a leadership role, which is higher than a club, is now over four groups, and that's called the area director. And the area director is another way to grow and extend the leadership capability from an experienced standpoint. So if you're in a work situation and you're leading one team and you like to get advanced to another group, it's a way to get that experience outside of work, and then it's directly transferable back to work. The next level level up above that is the division. And division is typically four areas. So if you're the area, I mean the division manager, you're over four area directors and you're over 16 clubs. And it's a chance to take the things that you've learned in your club. I think you learned probably at the area level when you were the area director, and now you got promoted essentially by taking on a higher level of responsibility at the division level. Now above that, above the division level is the district level. In the district, in our case, here in Massachusetts, we're in district 31 and district 31 has 194 clubs.

24:19194 clubs stretching from New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Maine, up into Canada, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, even one of the territories is called St. Miguel, Michalon, which is an island off of France. But at the district level, you're really getting some high level management and leadership experience because you're helping to manage and organize a big territory. In one of the things I didn't mention this yet, but one of the things that let you know is that all of these different leadership and management opportunities are staffed by volunteers. In one of the magic things I think about to us, is the way they can inspire and encourage people to take on higher and higher levels of responsibility. And they do that, like I mentioned before, through the recognition program. So when the club pulls together and they become distinguished, that's a feather in the club, so to speak. But the area can also be distinguished. The division can be distinguished, and even the district can earn distinguished levels.

25:23And the distinguished levels, they are recognized at the International Convention. This past year was in Vancouver, Canada, and people from all over the world came. The district leaders come because they get trained for the first couple of days, and then for the rest of the week, they're there enjoying themselves and getting recognized for their accomplishments. And it's a terrific way to celebrate the hard work that the volunteers put in. So my question to you is what are the things that you can do in your organization to increase the level of recognition, increase the level of payback and the level of opportunity to grow and increase the skills of the people in your nonprofit. Because one of the things is it's a terrific, fun way to help people to develop. And I think if you're thinking about growing your organization to an international level, having it organized on a small basis that can scale up and be supervised at higher and higher levels, I think it's a great opportunity. Again, you're listening to the Fund Raising and Fund Raising Podcast. I'm your host, Robert B. Moran. Thanks for tuning in.