Competency 3: "I have the ability to communicate and interact productively with a diverse and changing workforce and citizenry."

Effective Communication and Interactions

Nonprofit organizations interact and engage with the community on a daily basis. Therefore, the ability to communicate and interact with all types of people is crucial. Organizations are strongly influenced by the political, economic, social, technological and legal conditions surrounding the nonprofit, which can impact the capacity the organization has to interact with people internally and externally. Organizations with strong networks and connections in the nonprofit sector and the community surrounding it have a stronger ability and opportunity to connect with people (Rowe & Dato-On, 2013). As many more social issues arise in the community in the past few years, nonprofit organizations will have to know how to navigate sensitive topics and conversations. Worth (2020) points out that social media provides new opportunities for organizations to connect with a wider audience and build stronger networks and communities. It also provides a chance to network and learn from other organizations that provide similar services in their respective communities and share these ideas within their own network and organizations.

PAD 6417 Human Resource Management Case Study

Working with people can provide manage challenges, particularly when diverse ideas, perspectives and backgrounds come into play. This assignment focused on human resource management, with particular attention on diversity, which encompasses not just gender and ethnic diversity, but also the diversity of unique ideas and perspectives. Pynes (2004) points out that managing diversity among people and ideas can lead to greater service effectiveness, efficiency and productivity, more creative alternatives and higher-quality ideas and provide an opportunity to encourage employees to better utilize their talents. This assignment went into depth with how important it is to develop and manage diversity within their organization, which in this case, was the Christian Service Center of Orlando. By intentionally focusing on diversity through the lens of developing and encouraging diverse ideas and perspectives, this assignment provided a different perspective on diversity that is just as important; being able to articulate unique and different ideas within an organization will provide better communication outside of the organization. Diverse ideas do not always have to come from diverse people, but from people who approach the same problem from a different angle (Pynes, 2004). During the course of the assignment, it was determined that the Christan Service Center encourages diversity through its outreach opportunities to reach new networks and connect with new people who can bring in fresh and new, diverse ideas.

PAD 6335 Stakeholders Analysis

This assignment was a component for an overall assignment that looked into the organizational history for Service and Love Together (SALT) Inc (please see page 5 in the Organizational History assignment). Stakeholders play an important role within an organization, and having a solid understanding of who the stakeholders are and their concerns and needs are crucial for success. This is where a stakeholder analysis comes into play; to identify who the stakeholders are (which may mean developing different channels of effective communication for each group of stakeholders, if necessary), and identify the characteristics, values, perceptions, expectations, and concerns of the stakeholders, which can include clients, staff, volunteers, board members, the community, government officials, etc (Worth, 2020). In this assignment, we worked with SALT to determine the various types of stakeholders connected to the organization, whether they were internal (worked with SALT directly) or external (community members), the role they played in the organizational structure and what their expectations were. Once these factors were determined, we explored how these stakeholders ranked within the organization and saw that the clients were the key stakeholders that aided in the success of the organization. This guided our direction in directing SALT, Inc. on how best to ensure the most accurate and the most effective communication channels, news and methods were shared with SALT clients. Creating a stakeholder analysis helps to ensure that everyone impacted by the organization is addressed properly and accounted for in terms of developing effective communication methods to reach and connect with them.

References

Pynes, J. E. (2004) Human Resources Management for Public and Nonprofit Organizations. Jossey-Bass.

Rowe, W. G. & Dato-On, M. C. (2013). Introduction to Nonprofit Management. SAGE Publishing.

Worth, M. J. (2020) Nonprofit Management: Principles and Practice. 6th edition. SAGE Publishing.