When you think of excellence, what do you think of? It’s silly to say, but I will anyway, at first I think of royalty – specifically, an image of a court member greeting his king or queen like they did over a century ago with a big, demonstrative bow and a roll of their plumed hat.
And then, I think of perfection. An attitude of expecting only the best from oneself, of acting from integrity, of having an acute attention to detail, of caring about one’s impact and how they made it.
Excellence is one of Plenty’s core values that we were purposeful about choosing together. I’m thankful for that because it means I can always count on my team to bring their “A” game, to offer an unending interest in contributing, and to have a relentless drive for the greatest, most valuable outcome on our projects.
As a donor I give with the hope that the nonprofits I support will act with that same definition of excellence. Certainly because I want my financial support to be put to the best use possible, but also because there are broken aspects of our world that need excellence to be mended. Through Plenty I contribute to that idea by training on best practices and consulting around success factors of peer-to-peer fundraising. When I do so, I always talk about how above all else the ultimate key to success is strong leadership. Without it, best practices aren’t role modeled or enforced and success factors aren’t acted upon or measured – or worse, success isn’t even clearly defined. All to say that without good leadership excellence doesn’t have a chance of being achieved.
Operating a nonprofit takes a lot of orchestrating to connect the dots between money given to them, the resources gained by that money to make the work possible, and the impact realized by the work that fulfills mission. It takes many excellent leaders throughout that process, not to just make it happen, but to make it happen with perfection, integrity, attention to detail, and with the most valuable outcomes.
Make the decision today to be one of them – the world needs you.
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