There is no doubt that COVID has created all manner of challenges for our not-for-profit organisations. From an inability to meet, to restrictions on the provision of important services to members and other stakeholders.
Last week I hosted the first in a series of free online Networking Lunches for Not-for-profit Leaders, to provide a space for people to come together and connect, collaborate, and hopefully inspire each other by sharing their ideas (and maybe vent a few frustrations too!)
The discussion topic for the day was: What’s been your organisation’s biggest COVID challenge? And how have you dealt with it?
We had representatives of a widely diverse group of organisations and from across metropolitan and country areas attend, and perhaps the most common theme to come out of most of the one-on-one conversations, was the array of challenges people are experiencing with communication.
Whether it was ‘zoom fatigue’, the reluctance of some of our people to embrace communication technology, or the lack of access to a decent internet signal (especially for some of our country people – but for some from the cities too!), difficulties communicating in times of lockdowns and other COVID restrictions are hampering many of our efforts at maintaining some sort of semblance of ‘business as usual’.
Probably the number one take home that everyone agreed was one of their most effective solutions to deal with their communication challenges was nothing particularly sophisticated – rather their solution was simply to pick up the phone! Yes, the much-maligned telephone seems to have come into its own and everything old is new again!
So next time you are frustrated with COVID-imposed communication difficulties – perhaps try going ‘old school’ and just pick up the phone and give someone a call.
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