Here’s an interesting response from a Washington Post columnist, Marguerite Kelly.  I’ve truncated the original letter because I want to focus on her answer.  (Read the whole thing at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/02/AR2009040203847.html?referrer=emailarticle.

Family Almanac

How to Motivate a Live-at-Home Kid

Q.Our daughter, who lives with us, seems to lack any motivation to go forward in life but can’t wait to start her summer job and see old friends… My husband thinks she should either pay rent to us when she gets work or find a place of her own. But would we be putting too much pressure on her?

A.Some people are meant for college; many others are not — at least not right away.

Let your daughter get a basic job until she finds out what interests her most so she will want to pursue it and will do it well. A commitment to work breeds self-confidence, which is the foundation for success.

Don’t charge her rent, however, unless you really need the money, but insist that she give to others so she will learn that happiness comes from giving, not from getting. If your house is packed with clutter, she can get rid of it at yard sales or on eBay and generate enough money to change the lives of others, month by month. This would expose your daughter to a broader world, nourish her need to nurture others and teach her valuable skills along the way.

She can probably earn enough at these sales to give $25 to Handcrafting Justice (http://www.handcraftingjustice.org) so a Kenyan woman can go to school for a month, or $30 for a Peruvian woman to buy a share in a weaver’s loom. Or she can send $30 to Stoves for Darfur (http://www.stovesfordarfur.com), which was started by an enterprising 17-year-old named Spencer Brodsky. In less than a year, he has raised more than $125,000 to buy nearly 4,200 simple, fuel-efficient stoves from CHF International so Darfurian women and children don’t have to trek nearly as far or as often to find the wood they need to cook.

Or she could buy a share in an animal from Heifer International (http://www.heifer.org). When enough shares are sold, the group gives a cow, a sheep, a goat, a rabbit or a flock of chickens to a poor family, which then gives the animal’s first offspring to another family in need of a start.

Giving time is as worthwhile as giving money. Your daughter could sign on with the excellent free online volunteer organization called Lotsa Helping Hands (http://www.lotsahelpinghands.com), which is sponsored by 50 well-regarded organizations and operates in the United States and 47 other countries. The group, founded in 2005, has organized 15,000 communities that arrange for volunteers to cook, babysit, run errands, say prayers or otherwise assist the elderly, the ill, the military and families, for as long as they need. Your daughter can be a coordinator of a new group or one of its volunteers, without being trained or taking a test. She just needs a computer, a little time and some love in her heart.

Questions? Send them to advice@margueritekelly.com or to Box 15310, Washington, D.C. 20003.

I’ve included this in my blog because I think it’s a good list of organizations, but also to ask you this question: what can you do to inform someone who is an “influencer” of others?  It doesn’t necessarily mean someone who is a columnist, although that helps, but you should draw attention to your organization from people who can influence others.  For example, a cosmetologist, hairdresser or barber might cut the hair of 40 people or more a week, and they have the attention of those people for 30 minutes each.  What can you do to influence that person to talk about your cause?

Perhaps you should consider a special tour of your place, to discuss your work and show what you do, and only inviting hairdressers (hold it on a Monday, their traditional day off). 

Or, another group of influencers would be ministers, priests, rabbis, etc.  You could hold a prayer breakfast and invite them, share what you do, and ask them to assign one person to you from their congregation who would be responsible for connecting you to the newsletter committee (for an article in the congregational newsletter), the missions committee (for a possible donation), and to possibly have you on the list for an offering or to give a talk one Sabbath.

Then of course there are local bloggers.  Do you know who they are?  Have they ever met each other?  Why not have a local presentation just for them?

If you have a cultural group, perhaps you could offer tickets to influencers to see your work.  Or you could hold a backstage presentation to talk about upcoming work, or to have influencers see what you do. 

Brainstorm with others to think about more influencer groups and how you can reach them.  It’s quick and you can reach a lot of people just through a few.

Do you have questions about ‘influencers’ or about nonprofit organizations?  Write me, Katherine Wertheim, CFRE, at katherine@werth-it.com. 

This entry was posted on Monday, April 6th, 2009 at 8:19 am and is filed under Non-Profit Organizations, Writing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.