How can you delegate tasks to non-profit team members?
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Delegating tasks to your non-profit team members is a crucial skill that can help you achieve your mission, empower your staff, and avoid burnout. However, delegating effectively is not always easy, especially when you have limited resources, diverse stakeholders, and complex challenges. In this article, you will learn some tips and strategies to delegate tasks to your non-profit team members in a way that fosters trust, accountability, and collaboration.
Before you delegate any task, you need to understand your team's strengths and needs. What are their skills, interests, and goals? How do they prefer to work and communicate? What are their current workloads and capacities? How do they respond to feedback and challenges? By assessing your team's strengths and needs, you can match the right task to the right person, and avoid overloading, underutilizing, or demotivating anyone.
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Irsak Sirajuddin
"LPDP Awardee PK-206 (Cakradaya Maruna) | Incoming MSc of International Disaster Management at University of Manchester | NGO Professional | Fundraising | Project Management | Partners Engagement"
Delegating tasks is important for non-profit leaders because it helps them manage their workload and ensure that everyone is working towards the same goals. Here are some tips for delegating effectively in a non-profit setting: 1. Be clear about what needs to be done. Explain the objectives, outcomes, and any specific requirements of the task to the team member. 2. Choose the right person for the job. Consider the team member's skills, interests, and workload when assigning tasks. 3. Prioritize tasks. Focus on delegating tasks that are critical to the mission of the non-profit. 4.Communicate clearly. Provide clear and concise instructions, and be available to answer questions. Monitor progress and provide feedback.
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Omar El-senity, MBA, PMD Pro
Project Manager at Plan International
From my experience in development sector linking people with a bigger goal or purpose. Let them to understand the great impact of this work to there society and others. The ongoing engagement, motivation, and measures the learning growth are very useful as well.
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Once you have identified the person or group who will take on the task, you need to define the task and the outcome clearly and explicitly. What is the purpose and scope of the task? What are the expected results and deliverables? What are the deadlines and milestones? What are the quality standards and criteria? By defining the task and the outcome, you can set clear expectations, avoid confusion, and measure progress.
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Jean McLean
Director of Engagement
Milestones are an important part of this process as with careful planning this can enable you to identify issues before they happen, can build confidence and enable you to coach them around an area or issue that they have identified. In this way they can be a key mitigation and an opportunity to support their development.
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Kanav Narayan Sahgal
VIEWS ARE PERSONAL | Communications Manager at Nyaaya | Talks About: #LGBTQrights #gayrights #transgenderights #marriagequality #reproductiverights #abortion #gender #mentalhealth
Describe the purpose of the task and its relevance to the overall goals and objectives of the project or organization. Outline the scope of the task, including any limitations or boundaries. Specify the expected results and deliverables that should be produced upon task completion. Be precise about the quality and format of these outcomes.
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Delegating a task does not mean dumping it on someone else and forgetting about it. You still need to provide the necessary resources and support for your team members to complete the task successfully. What are the tools, information, and budget they need? What are the roles, responsibilities, and authorities they have? What are the challenges and risks they may face? How can you help them overcome them? By providing the necessary resources and support, you can enable your team members to perform well, solve problems, and learn from mistakes.
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Matt Benford
Chief Financial Officer @ Community Action Partnership of Sonoma County
Being able to articulate the scope of the work and what the outcome will be is just a portion of what employees need to be successful in a project. Making yourself available to answer questions, guide through roadblocks and set team members up for success are equally as important. This can be accomplished through one on one meetings and check ins.
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Md Shariful Alam
Project Manager at Educo ONG and Sphere trainer
Build a good cooperation and supportive relation. Trust is a important element to accomplish the task. Supervisors have the prime role to establish the above environment.
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Delegating a task also does not mean micromanaging or neglecting your team members. You still need to communicate and follow up regularly with them to monitor their progress, provide feedback, and address any issues. How often and how will you check in with them? How will you give and receive feedback? How will you handle any changes or conflicts? How will you celebrate their achievements and recognize their efforts? By communicating and following up regularly, you can build trust, accountability, and collaboration with your team members.
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Md Shariful Alam
Project Manager at Educo ONG and Sphere trainer
Openness is pre-requisite to communicate and follow up the process. Too many follow up indicates the less trust that hamper to accelaration of one's potential.
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Sudeep Mohandas
Making a Difference For a Difference
Agree but besides communication as a key component - non communication is equally important and understand that language is also key to the success of any project or program.
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Delegating a task is not only a way to get things done, but also a way to develop your team's skills and potential. Therefore, you need to evaluate and reflect on the process and the outcome of the task, both individually and collectively. What went well and what could be improved? What did you and your team members learn and gain from the task? How can you apply the lessons and feedback to future tasks? By evaluating and reflecting on the process and the outcome, you can enhance your team's performance, growth, and satisfaction.
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Rebecca White
Providing direction so nonprofits can significantly improve impact. Especially small shop nonprofits with few staff.
Building evaluation into all work is key to process improvement. Was the assigned task effective in moving the project forward? Or did it just add to busywork?
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Joanne Werneke
Software Developer | Web Development, Open Source
Create statistics on how the work they are doing is making a difference to the main purpose/goals. (i.e. particpants in the re-entry program have a reduced recidivism rate from rate 80% to 5%)
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Wai Hou NG, RN
Admin & Project Manager at Academy For Silent Mentor
I believe it’s rather essential to categorise and group nonprofit team members according to their intentions towards the organisations as varied intentions create varied strengths in the creation of outcomes. For example, someone with intentions to greater self gains than the benefits of majority will often invest efforts sufficient to the point of his/her self gains are achieved, while causing majority gains secondary (or as a “byproduct”), will cease to contribute from then on; on the contrary, what do you think could be achieved for someone with the opposite thoughts of intention? 😉
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Brian Hughes
Nonprofit Consultant @ LPA | Interim Executive | Coach | Transformational Leader | Founder
Delegation is more than just sharing the workload. It is an opportunity to empower and engage team members in ways that are meaningful for them. When delegating, knowing the strengths of your team is paramount. Do this by clearly defining the end goal of a project or initiative and how it relates to the overall mission and vision. Then, start a conversation. Inviting the team to assign tasks to one another - stepping in only where necessary - is a great way to allow them to identify each other's strengths and promote buy-in. In some cases, a team member may want to take on a task that will challenge them. Allow it and check in along the way in case more support is needed.
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