How to Onboard and Train Staff to Scale Your Nonprofit’s Mission
In this episode of Learning for Good, my guest, Quilen Blackwell is taking us inside his nonprofit, Southside Blooms. They grew from zero to 60 employees in just four short years. That means they onboarded a lot of staff and learned a lot along the way.
He’s sharing his experience with us, what worked and what didn’t, so you can take a look at your own onboarding program and make sure you're creating a lasting memory that helps your staff feel ready to take on that important role you hired them to do.
Listen to the episode or scroll down to read the blog post ↓
Key Points:
05:09 An inner look at the Southside Blooms nonprofit
12:22 Nonprofit scaling challenges
16:26 Onboarding and training staff for success
20:31 Utilizing virtual resources to scale your nonprofit
22:04 Advice for nonprofits creating onboarding programs
Click here to listen on Apple Podcasts. While you're there, subscribe to be the first to know about new episodes!
How to Onboard and Train Staff to Scale Your Nonprofit’s Mission
I’m sure you’ve had an airport experience that didn’t go as planned…
Last summer I sat in a small airport, staring out the window at my airplane. But it was parked on the wrong side of the terminal. So it wasn't actually at my gate. I needed this flight to leave on time to catch my connecting flight.
This could have been a terrible experience.
And YET…
The gate agent spoke to every single person who was waiting.
He gave us updates.
He helped us change our flights if we needed to.
His patience, his humor, and his approach calmed us as we waited.
Most of us missed our connecting flights, but I never saw one person get mad or yell. We simply waited.
Why?
The gate agent created an experience where we knew we were cared for and we knew he was doing everything he could to help us. He had our best interests in mind. And he wanted us to be successful.
Now why am I talking about airport experiences?
We have a similar opportunity when we onboard new staff in our nonprofits. We can create an experience where they feel anxious, frayed, and overwhelmed, or we can create an experience where they feel seen, heard, and valued. Where they feel ready to start the important work that we hired them to do with the people we hired them to do it with. That’s what we’re exploring today.
Quilen Blackwell gave us an inside look into his nonprofit Southside Blooms. They grew from zero to 60 employees in just four short years. That means they onboarded a lot of staff and learned a lot along the way.
In this blog post, we’re covering the following:
1) An Inside Look at Southside Blooms
Quilen is the president and co-founder of Chicago Eco House whose mission is to train inner-city youth in sustainable social enterprises to alleviate poverty. Their signature program is Southside Blooms, an off-grid flower farm youth social enterprise where participants convert vacant lots into commercial flower farms using solar-powered rainwater irrigation. This creates jobs for young people on the south and west sides of Chicago.
When they started with research and development back in 2014, they found a need for home-based and community-based industry.
“We decided to really zero in on trying to create a bottom-up economy here. And the reason why we focused on flowers was purely because the economics were in our favor. It's a $35 billion a year industry. And what most people don't know is that 80% of flowers that you see in the US actually come from overseas.” - Quilen Blackwell
Currently, they have two programs:
The K-8 environmental education program where they’ve taught over 2500 kids about urban agriculture and how to be good stewards of the earth.
The workforce development program which trains people between 16-24 as flower farmers and florists. Around 115 young people have gone through the program and currently about 30 work for them.
2) Nonprofit Scaling Challenges
Southside Blooms went from zero to 60 employees in about four years. That’s a big jump. But it didn’t come without its challenges.
Quilen explains that from 2014 to 2020, Southside Blooms was a typical grassroots organization starting with a budget of $0 in 2014 and about $100,000 in 2020. Today their budget is over $2 million.
What changed?
“We got our act together. That's what happened here. We really spent those first six years doing a lot of tinkering, a lot trying to figure it out.” - Quilen Blackwell
They had to figure out how to farm and the best way to sell the flowers.
“Those first six years, even though there wasn't, on paper, a lot of financial growth or economic growth, we were doing a lot of stuff internally to really get the kinks together, to really figure out our model.” - Quilen Blackwell
When they formally launched Southside Blooms in 2020, they weren’t ready for the demand.
“If you have a pretty cool brand that is highlighting not just social impact, but environmental impact, that's helping to solve some pretty significant problems here in Chicago. [...] A lot of people got on board very quickly.” - Quilen Blackwell
They didn’t have the infrastructure to meet the high demand and they made a lot of mistakes. There were quality and customer service issues.
“We actually have something here. Now we need to build the infrastructure to be able to scale it and contain it and grow it in a way where we're not being overwhelmed.” - Quilen Blackwell
I think it's incredibly valuable to hear that we don't always get it perfect the first time, and you do make mistakes along the way, but you learn from them, and you continue to grow.
3) Onboarding and Training Nonprofit Staff for Success
Quilen explains that there are a few layers to this.
1. Firstly, Quilen had to evolve as a leader.
“The first layer is that I had to evolve as a leader.” - Quilen Blackwell
When Quilen hired the first couple of staff, he wanted to be the best boss possible. He tried to coach people up and be almost a father-like figure.
“That didn't work. [...] For a lot of people, it's just a job. They don't really care that we’ve created a job where it gets exciting for you. But for them, this is one of many different options that they could have.” - Quilen Blackwell
2. People are always searching for opportunities
“We definitely ran into issues with high turnover.” - Quilen Blackwell
They had to adapt the way they do things. Initially, they were pouring everything into each new hire, hoping they would stay with them forever.
“It's a very competitive market these days. [...] The days of people feeling loyal to a certain company are largely over and people are going to take the best opportunity that they possibly can get.” - Quilen Blackwell
Quilen explains that you need to focus less on the people and more on the systems.
“At the end of the day, we can't control people. But what we can control is building better systems, building more robust systems where you can basically onboard people relatively quickly to get them to become more productive. And then they leave, hey, no big deal because the system is still there.” - Quilen Blackwell
If you have systems, protocols, organizational controls, and trainings in place, when you onboard someone, it is very clear what they need to do and what resources they have at their disposal.
“You basically have to get to a place where you can start having backups in place so that if someone does leave, the entire operation isn’t disrupted.” - Quilen Blackwell
Quilen explains that a big part of scaling is having these resources be virtual.
“It's very taxing on leadership if you always have to be the one going and training each person.” - Quilen Blackwell
Rather, Quilen recommends making a video once, and then if anyone needs additional help or resources someone can assist them further.
4) Advice for Nonprofits Creating Onboarding Programs
Quilen shared two pieces of advice with us:
1. Be business savvy so you can be competitive in a labor marketplace
“You have to think about it as a business. I feel like that's one of the harder things with other nonprofits because we do this because of our compassion, for our heart, or the mission and to help people. But you’ve got to get business savvy real quick.” - Quilen Blackwell
Quilen explains that one of the main reasons why nonprofits have high turnover is because they don’t pay as well.
“If we're going to be able to compete for the best talent, we're going to need to be able to pay them.“ - Quilen Blackwell
The reality of surviving off of grants and donations is that it is very unstable according to Quilen.
Quilen gave the example of the pandemic. So many grants were redirected towards COVID response which is something you can’t control and led to many nonprofits shutting their doors.
“How can I basically become more competitive in the labor marketplace so that people can stay?” - Quilen Blackwell
Quilen explains that people want to see their career track and see that they can get promotions, bonuses, and raises.
“A lot of people who I've talked to really don't give raises or salary increases, or if they do, it's 1% or 2%. And in today's world, where you're competing against people from all over the world, and employment opportunities from all over the world, because people can work virtually these days, it's not going to cut it.” - Quilen Blackwell
2. Create a strong organizational culture
Quilen emphasizes creating a strong corporate culture.
“A big piece of that is knowing that not everybody's going to like your culture. And that's okay. I had to make it less personal. I'm the co-founder, so this is my first child if you will, it's hard not to be emotionally invested in it.” - Quilen Blackwell
Quilen explains that you don’t need to appeal to everybody.
“We need to focus more on getting the right people who would work in our culture versus trying to feel like we need to be a one-size-fits-all.“ - Quilen Blackwell
Those two things alone will help you get staff and keep them.
Even so, Quilen explains that they still have turnover.
“Certain people are going to fit certain stages of your organization. [...] These days, we try to not hire for where we're currently at, but where we anticipate we're going. And we are willing to pay a little bit more money for somebody we feel can grow with the organization over the next couple of steps.” - Quilen Blackwell
To hear the full conversation I had with Quilen Blackwell on the Learning for Good Podcast, scroll all the way up and tune into episode 83.
The Nonprofit Learning and Development Collective
Helping to change the world for good is hard enough as it is. Finding good support shouldn’t be difficult, too.
I know what it feels like to want someone to bounce ideas off of and to learn from, someone who really understands you and your work.
Nonprofit L&D leaders have been overlooked for too long. You need a place where you can meet like-minded talent development pros, learn from industry leaders and tech vendors, and find the support you need to make a real impact.
Thankfully, great nonprofit support is no longer hard to find or financially inaccessible.
Welcome to the Nonprofit Learning and Development Collective – the only community specifically for nonprofit talent development professionals.
When you join this community, you will walk away with a new, diverse, and powerful network – and a sounding board for your staff development needs.
So if you're ready to exchange ideas and collaborate with your peers, come join the Nonprofit L&D Collective.
