Comments on: Taking Advice http://www.asmallchange.net/taking-advice/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=taking-advice Making Sense of Fundraising Sat, 21 Jan 2012 01:12:16 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Janice Chan http://www.asmallchange.net/taking-advice/#comment-550 Janice Chan Thu, 28 May 2009 16:01:44 +0000 http://www.asmallchange.net/?p=499#comment-550 I once volunteered at a hospital, and expectedly most of the other volunteers were pre-med students or thinking about careers in medicine. At our orientation, one of the nurses stressed just asking people to show or explain stuff to us. "People love showing off what they know," she said. And more often than not, so long as it wouldn't interfere with actually taking care of the patient in a timely manner, this was very true. You recommend patience and active listening - something that fundraisers do with donors and prospects all the time (at least I'd hope so!). Even though our relationships with our coworkers and managers is obviously different from those outside the organization, it's important to remember to respect and be kind to the people we work with as well. Just because we know them better doesn't mean we shouldn't give them some of the same courtesies we would a stranger. I once volunteered at a hospital, and expectedly most of the other volunteers were pre-med students or thinking about careers in medicine. At our orientation, one of the nurses stressed just asking people to show or explain stuff to us. “People love showing off what they know,” she said. And more often than not, so long as it wouldn’t interfere with actually taking care of the patient in a timely manner, this was very true.

You recommend patience and active listening – something that fundraisers do with donors and prospects all the time (at least I’d hope so!). Even though our relationships with our coworkers and managers is obviously different from those outside the organization, it’s important to remember to respect and be kind to the people we work with as well. Just because we know them better doesn’t mean we shouldn’t give them some of the same courtesies we would a stranger.

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