How to find treasures hidden in plain sight
This summer, I tried a loquat for the first time: A friend gave me some loquats from a neighborhood tree. They were delicious – a cross between an apple, pear and apricot, with a sweet and slightly tart flavor.
Afterwards, I noticed what appeared to be loquats on the ground around the corner from our home. I decided to risk eating one. If I lived, they were probably loquats! I ate the fruit, it was delicious, and there were no harmful effects. Every time I walked by the tree, I brought home a stash of just-fallen loquats.
I did some research and learned that loquats are not available in stores, since they have almost no shelf life. Instead, they are best foraged from neighborhood trees.
Discovering the loquats got me thinking about foraging. Foraging involves two steps: The first step is opening our eyes and minds and noticing what we have available that we might have missed. The second step is to consider what we might do with everything that we have.
Paying attention, with a fresh and open mind, is not easy. Far too often, we flip on autopilot. We zone out or check our phones instead of being present with our family, friends or colleagues. We make assumptions about people and situations, allowing those assumptions to develop routines in our lives. But when we think openly and expansively about everything we have, we consider many new options.
For staff and boards of nonprofit organizations, the first step of foraging means opening our minds to all of the resources, relationships, possible paths, and strategies available to us. This may be an ancient idea, but it feels current at this moment. The political climate has caused many nonprofit organizations, particularly those serving local communities, to feel fearful and threatened. For these organizations, this is a moment of contraction rather than expansion. They have cut their budgets even as the demand for their services is increasing.
And that’s where foraging comes in. Organizations would do well to think broadly: What do you have that you can use now?
Each consulting engagement that I do with a nonprofit organization starts with an assessment—of fundraising, board functioning, or the organization’s overall capacity. A purpose of the assessment is to explore what the organization actually has. The exciting thing about coming in as an outside consultant is seeing many ways in which organizations have more than they previously accounted for.
For example, one organization with which I consult realized that board members were ready to step up and take leadership and responsibilities for fundraising; this awareness led to increased solicitation for individual gifts. The team at another realized that they had a collection of stories about their work that they could share more to develop genuine interest in their mission; I worked with them to rewrite the language they were using to tell their story to foundations and individuals. A third realized that the program data they collected would help them track and share the impact of their work; this led them to build dashboards to track this data and incorporate it in grant requests and solicitation letters.
Once organizations figure out what they have, they can talk about what to do with it. Often times, these teams figure it out when they are able to take a collective breath and work with each other to discover what has been there the whole time.
Of course, organizations need to “plant new trees” and do the work to find new funding sources and leadership to expand their offerings. But a first step is to look inward and discover the people, information, knowledge, and stories that already exist and could amplify the organization’s work. This kind of foraging can lead to unexpected, and delightfully sweet, surprises.
Try this:
Consider an area of your organization, individual work or personal life that needs more attention and reflection.
Set a time to get out of the weeds and zoom out to consider: What are all the resources available to me or us? People, information, knowledge, stories…
Consider: What are different ways of using the resources you have?
Last month’s post “What puppies teach us about the small stuff” discussed how small details can add up to big successes. A number of readers were inspired by the analogy…or the puppy photo! Read it here and leave a note in the comments to let us know what you think.