Episode #220 – Impact Lab POV – Advisory Committees & Shared Power with Breauna Dorelus 

Tobi Johnson: Welcome everybody to another episode of the Volunteer Nation podcast. I’m your host, Tobi Johnson, and I have the treat of having Ms. Breauna Dorelus with me today, who is a guest advisor now at Volunteer Pro at the Impact Lab. We have so much to talk about. We’ve been chit‑chatting; we tend to get off on tangents. But today, we’re going to talk about advisory committees.

Breauna is, as I said, one of our guest advisors, and she is helping shape the future of volunteer engagement. I’m not kidding about that. She has amazing ideas, fresh perspectives, and really keen takes on how to engage communities. Today we’re going to focus on a very specific part of community engagement: advisory committees, which many of you may have — and it may not be exactly what you need it to be.

We want to make sure those authentic voices, that talent, that knowledge, that wisdom is leveraged through these committees. We don’t need a rubber stamp committee. If we are pulling together a rubber stamp committee, it’s not worth anybody’s time, including your own. I’m a firm believer, and I know Breauna as well,  there is so much deep wisdom in the folks that live in our communities around our nonprofits, and even in our online communities. Let’s say you are a remote organization; there are still pockets of people who have gifts to share.

This is part of our Impact Lab POV series where we are inviting our guest advisors to share their unique point of view. So we’ve got Breauna here this week. Breauna, welcome to the pod.

Breauna Dorelus: Woo‑woo! I’m so excited to be here. Thanks, Tobi, for having me again. I think this is the second time I’ve had the pleasure of being on here, so I’m ready.

Tobi: Yeah, and I was going to mention that Breauna’s other interview with me was Volunteer Nation episode 136, “Getting Back to Neighboring.” It is a fantastic conversation. I’ll link to it in the show notes so you can check that out as well; if you want more of Breauna’s wisdom, goodness, ideas, and talking straight.

But let me introduce Breauna a minute before we get into the conversation. Breauna Dorelus is the founder and cause consultant at Connecting Cause, a consultancy dedicated to dismantling harmful volunteer practices implemented by organizations and volunteers specifically towards Black and Brown communities. She started her career as an AmeriCorps member and spent 10‑plus years in various volunteer management roles in humanitarian aid efforts, refugee resettlement, and ministry. She believes in community inclusion, you will see this in all aspects of volunteer process- and has dedicated her work to ensuring that service centers around co‑dreaming, not harmful charity. That is such an awesome thing that we need to look at, y’all. This is something that I think gets brushed over quite a bit, and I’m glad you’re calling it out for us.

In her spare time, she loves playing with dinosaurs and her five‑ and four‑year‑olds, thrifting, and having a hot matcha latte.

So let’s talk about advisory committees. But before we do that, folks may not have had a chance to listen to your other interview with me, Breauna, tell us about yourself, what you do. How did you get into the world of volunteerism? Tell us your birth story when it comes to volunteerism. I know you’re an AmeriCorps member, but I have a feeling that it started before that. Am I right?

Breauna: Yes, you are right. You are right. It’s interesting because my first; wow, I am getting this realization in this very moment. The first introduction I had to volunteerism was actually through the mechanism of community first. Let me break that down.

My dad is a phenomenal person. Since I was little, he called me Half Pint. He’d tell me, “Half Pint, jump in the truck, we’re going to town” from a small town, Statesboro, Georgia. We’d go, we’d be in town, and he’d say, “Hey, I want you to meet your cousin. This your cousin.” I’d look at them, they’d look at me. We’d say, “Hey, cousin,” exchange pleasantries. I didn’t know their name. I didn’t know where they came from. I just knew that my dad had basically put his stamp on whatever, whoever this person is, that’s your cousin.

He did that throughout my entire life as I was there. What I didn’t realize he was doing was creating a tapestry of care for me, that anytime I went somewhere, I would see a cousin. I would feel safe, I would feel connected. If I needed something, if they needed something, they would recognize me. From that first interaction to the second, third interaction, it would just develop and grow.

Actually, it was through those relationships that I got my first taste of volunteering. “Hey cousin, can you come down the road? I need your help with something.” “Hey cousin, can I show up here? I need you to help me with this.” “Hey, can you carry?” I was actually volunteering alongside cousins before I ever entered into a formal organization.

Church also played a huge role: me being on the junior usher board, me working up in, well, in the PowerPoint and clicking the next slide for the pastor. That was a volunteer opportunity. All of those mailings started at a super young age, to where I just have this group of cousins that are all around who don’t look like me, don’t sound like me, and I know that they’re safe.

Tobi: Yeah, yeah, I can completely relate to that. My mom on my mom’s side,  she grew up with ten kids, and my grandmother in a tiny house in Bremerton, Washington, dirt poor. They didn’t have any money at all. Everybody was working; as the older kids got older, they helped the family out. My grandmother was known as a person who would feed the neighborhood. She would make fry bread, she would make pots of whatever, and anybody was welcome always to the house. So they were already poor, and they gave away what they had.

I remember I met this guy, Gene, when I was probably in my twenties. My mom said, “This is our brother, Gene.” I said, “What do you mean? You have another brother? There’s only ten of you. We all know y’all’s names start with D.” I can name them: Delphine, Deanna, Dwight, Dixie; I can name them all out. I said, “Gene doesn’t start with a D.” She said, “Oh no, but we adopted him.” They didn’t formally adopt him, but when he was a teenager, he ran into trouble, didn’t have a place to live, and in their tiny little house, they brought him in. He was their brother and considered their brother.

So I learned that from the deep connection of community. We’ve characterized it or pigeonholed it as “informal volunteering.” You and I’ve talked about neighboring in our last call. This is about neighboring, but it’s also just about how you were raised as integral.

When my husband and I got married, he said, “I do not understand why we need to have so many people at this wedding.” We got married in our mid‑40s — we were not youngins. He said, “You’re not a twenty‑year‑old. You don’t need a big old wedding.” I said, “No, you don’t understand. I don’t know where to cut off. Is it my cousin? Is it my cousin’s child that I say no to? Is it my second cousin? That’s not how we do. You’re going to have to get used to this, because this is not how we do. Everyone is welcome always.”

So I totally get it. You’ve been born and bred as a person who lives in community. It’s not even apparent to you; it’s just how you do.

Breauna: Yeah, I was today years old when I was like, “Wait a second. It wasn’t even a formal place. I was volunteering, quote‑unquote, through those relationships.” So look at me, I’m so glad I’m here now, able to have that realization on the podcast.

Tobi: I know. Gratitude to our legends of our families. Let’s talk about volunteerism for a minute and community engagement. Since we’re talking about advisory committees, why do you think engaging the community, I often ask our guests why volunteerism is important, let’s talk about why you think community engagement matters. Why should nonprofit organizations engage the community nowadays, at this point in history?

Breauna: Yeah. You know, we have traditionally, as nonprofit professionals, whether we intended to or not, pigeonholed community as the end user for a volunteer experience. What we have done is: the community exists for the learning, growth, and feel‑good fulfillment of the volunteer themselves. Oftentimes, because they are that end user and they are the ones on the receiving end, and because we are called volunteer managers, volunteer directors — our goal is to manage and direct volunteers, we rarely get the support, resources, wherewithal, and innovative thinking to say, “Wait a second. We’re giving surveys, ‘How was your experience?’, to volunteers. We’re giving them focus groups. What about the folks that we’re actually here for in the first place?”

Community in itself, and let me say this: when I say community, community is not a monolith. There are so many different people, places, diversities in that. But for the sake of this conversation, we’re going to blanket as “communities” those being served, those who are the recipients of the service. Oftentimes we get to a point where they are there for the fulfillment of the mission versus them being the mission themselves.

And because of that, particularly at this point in time, we are craving connection. We are craving the capacity to be in relationship. We know about the statistics about loneliness. We know about the effects of social media. We also know what happens when we get to have just a really impromptu, fulfilling conversation with someone and what that does.

So now, I think particularly in this day and age, nonprofits should not see themselves as a service provider, but as a part of the ecosystem of care in which they’re entrenched with the responsibility of facilitating relationships. Embracing that — I’m connecting someone to not just a service opportunity. Sometimes I’m not even connecting someone to a cause. What does it look like to create the environment where I’m connecting someone to a relationship with someone else that changes their perception about the other?

That’s why it’s critical now more than ever, because of the polarization, because people have this thing where if you say this word, you’re on this side; if you say that word, you’re on that side. But volunteerism can be that equalizer, and can serve as that equalizer, if nonprofits take that opportunity to do that.

Tobi: Yeah, I love this idea of a nonprofit identity as a convener, as a community convener. There’s a privileged spot, a privileged place that nonprofits take space in communities, whether the community asks for it or not. Some inspired founder or group of people, sometimes it’s people from the community, sometimes it’s outsiders that come in and say, “We see this problem, we want to help fix it.” Seeing yourself not as a problem fixer, but as a convener of talent and wisdom that can work together towards a solution, is a whole different perspective.

I worked 25 years in nonprofits before I started my consulting practice, in everything from senior services to youth employment to arts and culture to you name it, mostly direct service, but some grassroots organizing and advocacy‑based. Even so, that perspective of “we’re here to fix problems, we get funding to fix problems”, we were fixing problems in a lot of respects. But as you say with “connecting the cause,” sometimes harm was done as well. Seeing yourself as a convener can prevent harm later if you bring that wisdom to the table early on.

Breauna: Yeah. There’s such a, when you said “bringing that in early,” I think that is so critical to hear for nonprofit organizations who are two years in, five years in, ten years in. There are organizations, I was just having this conversation the other day, that are celebrating their 100th year anniversary, or celebrating 75 years, still working on the mission. It’s very interesting to me listening and hearing volunteer engagement and how they feel so constrained because of tradition and hierarchy. “It’s always been done this way.”

Not to mention, I’m not even mentioning the ones who have been within the organization for a long time. What about these bright‑eyed, bushy‑tailed, ready to explore, ready to innovate folks? They come into a 75‑year, 100‑year organization, and they’re like, “Here, everything’s already laid out for you. This is how we interact with each other. This is how we interact with community.”

I think there is a real responsibility; you and so many others talk about taking back our power, making the case for volunteer engagement in the C‑suite, making sure there is a responsibility there as well. I do want to navigate that there is a tension: what do you do when you see harm happening, or when you see a spark of some change but there’s so much red tape and hierarchy? That’s a whole other podcast, but there is that tension.

Tobi: Yeah, you’ve given me an idea. I’ve got some light bulbs going off on a project I might take on, a volunteer engagement strategy. I’m thinking, where should we go? Straight into the community to ask about this volunteer engagement strategy and what it should look like. Not with staff, well, with staff, obviously, but come on into the community where ideas are gonna come that don’t come in a hermetically sealed environment. There’s stuff out there, there’s ideas out there, a different perspective.

All right, this really rolls well into our talk about advisory committees. You’ve already started to share your perspective, and you have a really strong, I think, perspective, very unique in a lot of ways from what I hear out there in the world.

What belief do you hold about advisory committees that most people in this field tend to get wrong? You and I have a clear understanding, a value set. Part of our value set is that there is power in community, knowledge and wisdom in many communities, deep knowledge and wisdom that may not be “textbook.” What other belief do other people tend to get wrong in advisory committee engagement?

Breauna: Number one: I think there is a heavy overcorrection in “let’s focus on the advise.” They just advise. When you only advise and you’re not like a consultant, you’re not in that type of role, what ends up happening is advising becomes extraction, because there’s only “I want to know what you think, but we don’t want your input on how to implement it, or if we should be implementing it” versus creating spaces to implement and follow through.

I think that in itself, the word “advisory committee”, if you keep it to the definition of just advising, there is a moment where you’re still holding power in 75% of the process, and the first 25% is “let’s get people in a room to have a conversation.” That’s one thing I think is really important.

A second piece that I rarely see, if ever, is reaching back out and saying, “Number one, this is what you all said. I want to clarify: is this what you meant when you said this?” There’s a difference between gathering surveys or gathering notes or having a conversation, and another thing to regurgitate and communicate that same information and say, “Is this what I heard you say?” Then there’s also a different piece: it’s not just hoarding what you say, but what are some solutions that are coming from you? Because right there in that moment, we take the notes, we take the information, and then we can still say, “This is what you said,” and then we run off into the sunset and we go back to our staff and we create the solutions, based on our organizational goals, strategic plan, key performance indicators. After that, is it even the advisory committee anymore?

Tobi: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I love this checking back because it can also unveil and unearth bias. Obviously we all have bias of some kind. When we’re hearing feedback, we may be making assumptions about what’s behind that feedback or the words being used; our brains are making those words into different thoughts, patterns, understandings. So I like the checking back and synthesizing the community’s input.

The other thing I think people miss sometimes is reporting back at some point: “We heard that, we heard you, we made the change because you said you wanted this change. We want to let you know that this finally happened.” It may be a year later; sometimes it takes a long time. Even though in our hearts and minds we want to get it done overnight, we can’t. I would go back to my volunteers and say, “I know y’all were grumpy about this. Guess what? We finally fixed it.” But there’s a difference even then: solving for you or solving with you.

Breauna: Absolutely. There is a real balance and rhythm of intentionality when it comes to participation. There are so many instances where participation isn’t considered and then it’s dropped off, whether what I’ve already mentioned around not clarifying, whether folks go off and make solutions on their own, whether it’s reporting back, whether it’s having a follow‑up conversation of “How did you feel about this advisory committee and what would take this to the next level? What did you see? Were there places where honor or dignity was not present?” There’s a co‑building together.

I think we back all the way up. The question you mentioned earlier, what people miss, is the makeup of the advisory committee itself and actually who’s on it. That is critical. Different perspectives that are all working towards the same goal and same mission is so critical.

I’ve been working with an advisory committee where there is staff on the advisory committee, there are those who are clients of the organization, there are those who wear multiple hats and are actually community leaders. All of them are working towards and looking at volunteer engagement practices and policies from those different perspectives. One group or one particular person that I would have loved to have is a funder or someone connected from a donor perspective. We’re still working on it. But having those diverse voices in the room that can talk from different spaces and create that dynamic is really important.

Tobi: Yeah, yeah. When I do program design work with folks, I will recommend at the beginning, “Hey, let’s put together an advisory group of volunteers and staff so that we have some honest feedback on what we’re doing. We’re not designing in a bubble.” It does a lot of things for you. It’s change management as well. You’re going to have more wisdom, make better decisions for sure. You’re also going to build community capital that wasn’t there before, and you’re going to bake in buy‑in because folks feel like they’ve been heard and had a say in what impacts them. They’re going to be champions for the rollout. It’s a win‑win‑win.

You know, we can be performative and just check the box, “I got some ideas, I’ll pick people’s brains.” I get this all the time: “Hey, can I get on a call with you and pick your brain?” How exploitative does that feel? Like I want to just extract knowledge from you, your 35‑plus years in the field. If you want to get on my bad side, ask me to pick my brain. Please do not extract. It’s offensive. I know I was really strong on that, sorry, I’m just speaking my truth.

Breauna: No, and it’s true. I agree.

Tobi: So there’s a continuum. You can be totally performative, or you can have a full‑on, like you’re trying to get to the full‑on, which is getting a funder, somebody who has access to funds who has a point of view.

How did you get to this point, Breauna? You didn’t just come out of AmeriCorps with a fully fleshed‑out theory of how change happens in communities. When you think about advisory committees, what has changed? Do you remember any points in time where you changed your mind about, “I’m going to do this differently”?

Breauna: Yes, plenty. Let me just pick one. There’s been a lot. I can name one very specifically. I was working in refugee resettlement and I wanted to create an advisory council; I don’t even know if I called it that then. I just wanted a group of people together to talk about these things. It was super flexible.

One of the things I realized that made me want to do it differently was when we got together, there were some power dynamics that came to the room that I needed to be aware of. Because I wasn’t keen in being aware of them, we were not able to do what we said we were going to do, because there was some repair that was needed. There were staff members on the advisory committee who were powering over the conversations. It was very organization‑forward topics. I could kind of see community members and the diminishing feeling of dignity being stripped away. They did not feel dignity in that space.

In that moment, I was like, “I can’t play around with this stuff. I can’t be throwing spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks.” Can I do that with an Excel document? Sure. But when it comes to people, trauma, decision‑making, and power, you have to pause, Breauna, and not get into this space of urgency and start to bulldoze. In that moment, I was like, “You know what? We can’t do this. We have to actually dismantle.” I went to the community members and apologized for the ways I did not call things out as I should have.

Also, me being a Black woman earlier on in my career, staff members were white, also tenured. There are a lot of dynamics I’m navigating on my own, personally and professionally. In that happening, I’m also creating harm in spaces where people aren’t feeling cared for, because I got the understanding from my growing up of community: “We gotta all come together and we gotta all get together and do this thing together.” But the mechanisms by which we do it need to be more intentional.

Tobi: Yeah, absolutely. Could not agree more. I have had those strange dynamics and crazy spots. As a person who really cares about community, you do take it personally. Early in my career, many mistakes were made, and it helps us be who we are today.

In that dynamic, you are representing your organization, yourself, et cetera. It’s a tough spot to be in. I never thought about this before, but I’m thinking about it now: you need to have your self‑care plan. You cannot, as you said, be intentional about your own self‑care. If you’re like me, my therapist says, “Your screen door is way too wide. You’ve got to tighten it up. Too much is getting through to the heart.” People who feel the room, who feel the dynamics in the room,  if you’re that kind of person, you’re going to feel all the dynamics deeply. It makes you really good at identifying right away where there’s conflict, where there are problems. I can be in a room of 100 people and I can feel vibes and know where to go to figure it out. If you’re that person, you need a self‑care plan: how are you going to decompress? Where is your support coming from? Who are you going to talk to when you’re struggling? And if you don’t have your organization’s support or your supervisor’s support, you’re out in the cold. So you need a self‑care plan.

Why do you think advisory committees are important for organizations to focus on right now? What might they be missing if they do it wrong, and what might it look like if they do it right? Let’s focus on that.

Breauna: It’s important because we continue to be our own yes‑person. We continue to say, “This has worked in the past, so we don’t need to do it again.” Oftentimes we say that because we are either not open to the exploration, or we don’t have time to want to change something different. The years go by very quickly and we’re just like, “That’s another thing coming, it’s the annual thing. Let’s just keep it like it is and keep moving forward.”

We continue to be our own yes‑person. We continue to be our own cheerleaders in silos. We continue to make decisions where we hoard power and gain more power. We’re not asking the question, “How can I gain more power?” That’s not what we’re doing. We’re asking questions like scale, impact, more hours, more reach, more clients. When we ask those questions, we start tiptoeing into power consumption and decision‑making that makes us say, “If we want to scale more, then we need to have this, this, this, and this.” When really, now is important to go deeper, not to go further. How do we go deeper? How do we fortify?

It’s important because nonprofits themselves are becoming consumers, feasting on more, more, more. When it’s like, “Wait a second, do we need to scale down? If we have seven programs and we do each 60% well, can we have four programs and go deeper in community and reset and get those things done exceptionally?”

That is why it’s important to have outside people who care about the cause. Let me say this, sorry, a little tangent, we’re not looking for fans of your organization. We’re looking for people who are connected to a cause that matters to them. When we are connecting people like that on an advisory council, that’s important because there is accountability to the cause, accountability to the actual issue and to the solutions, not what’s best for the organization.

That’s why it’s important. When we get it right, we start to see a shift in that convener piece. We start to see a shift in the questions asked by the organization. We start to say, “First, did we run this by the advisory committee? Did we run this by the council? Those are our people, our partners.” Then we’re able to move. We get to a point where if you solve for the issue, then your organization that’s connected to the issue will flourish regardless, because we are bringing it up with the issue itself and getting connected to the people who care the closest about it.

When we get it done right, we stop becoming service providers and we start becoming partners with the community. They stop seeing us as just an organization in the community, and they start seeing us as a part of their ecosystem: “I can actually go to a trusted source here, and they’re no BS, and I can rely on them and connect with them.”

Also, when we get it right, we pay them. Northwest Harvest, who I am currently working with, has an advisory committee. The hours that those volunteers put in from the community who are on the advisory committee, they are getting paid for their expertise. That’s also what happens when we get it right. I’ll stop there.

Tobi: I love it. I love it. I love it. We are having such a great conversation. It makes me think that there are places for community in all design work. It also makes me think: why has this happened? I’ve been in the field for a long time, started working in nonprofits in the early 1980s, before I even went to college, doing some intern work. So I have a lot of time under my belt. I think about the times when things get tough nationally. I’ve been part of times like these when funding gets pulled and folks are left scrambling. This isn’t the first time, and it isn’t the first time the sector is under attack. When there are tough times economically for communities, the nonprofit sector becomes more and more of the safety net and is expected to do more with less, more with less, more with less.

When you say go deep versus go wide, there’s a speed of trust that happens. If you’re deep and working in community, and community is really advising you and driving the train in a lot of ways, then clients are referred to you, volunteers are out there, funders who care come. As you said, the thriving happens, but it happens because there is strong social and community capital.

But the more organizations try to fill in the gaps of that safety net that’s been abandoned by some of our government funding and agencies, the more people stretch themselves thin, the more we’re relied on to do that. With volunteer managers, I always tell them, “Do not do more with less. It is not possible to clone yourself. Yes, you can improve your productivity slightly, create automations, get better at time management, but you cannot clone yourself. To stretch yourself too thin and burn out because people want you to do more with less, it’s time to say no and ask people to do the hard work of prioritizing.”

Similarly, at a macro level, we care about people in our communities. We don’t want to see people without food, shelter, etc. But the more we absorb and try to stretch ourselves as thin as possible, instead of going deep and fully serving the people we’re here to serve, we create the conditions for our own demise. There’s a point where it breaks. It’s interesting to think about that dynamic as we think about engaging community.

Breauna: As you were talking, something that I’ve communicated before is coming back to me. When we talk about the systems gaps, healthcare system, education system, criminal punishment system, these systems were originally created, of course, without everyone thriving in mind. So in pops nonprofits, in pops CSR, to come in and fill that gap. Unfortunately, to your point, the nonprofit sector has become a system itself that is also creating the same things and regurgitating the same things it’s trying to avoid. But what we’re doing is a different kind of gap: we’re filling the needs gap, but we are widening the gap when it comes to community inclusion, decision‑making, autonomy, dignity, honor, relationship.

In some ways, let me say this, are we the best at building relationship? Are we the best at connecting people? Absolutely, because we are the nonprofit sector. Like I say all the time, it is okay to interrogate the good. We are still creating gaps. As we fill gaps, we are creating gaps. As we are connecting people to nonprofits, causes, and relationships, there are still mechanisms that we are doing to disrupt that. Are we doing great? Yes, we are doing great things, and it’s National Volunteer Week that we’re doing this, right? We’re doing great things, and how can we ensure that that gap gets tighter and tighter and tighter as we are doing good work?

Tobi: Yeah, absolutely. Well, let’s take a quick break, and then we’re going to talk a little bit about ways people can learn more from you about how to develop advisory committees that are equitable, that bring people’s wisdom to the table, that narrow the gap, and that help us go deep. We’ll be right back after this break with our chat with Breauna Dorelus on developing advisory committees. Don’t go anywhere.

Okay, we’re back with our discussion with Breauna Dorelus on how to develop advisory committees. We’re solving the world’s problems right now — or calling them out, more like it. I would never claim I could solve the world’s problems; that’s not going to happen.

We’ve talked about thinking about developing more empowered advisory committees by really going deep in volunteer engagement. You’ve given us ideas about what success might look like. Can you share an example from your work, with your own work or with a client, where a small change in community engagement made a big impact in the way you were working with advisory committees? A small step that can have a big impact.

Breauna: One of the things that was small but significant, I’ll share a recent one at Northwest Harvest (shout out to Jonna and Josette, part of the volunteer team there). We created position descriptions for the advisory council, and it was not a blanket position description for every single person. We actually created one specifically for the role or identity that that person holds in the community.

That was incredibly helpful. For instance, in the staff description, one of the lines was: “You’re going to be in conversation with community members. You hold a title at Northwest Harvest. Please be aware of how much you speak and how you speak when it comes to these particular meetings, to make sure community members are occupying most of the time.” We had that in the description.

In the description for the community leaders, we specifically communicated: “Bring your whole self. You will have the floor. You will not be retaliated against if you say something that is not in alignment with what you think the organization would say.” These are the types of orientations we had with them.

Also with the staff, we did a little extra step. When we were recruiting staff for this, it wasn’t mandatory. It was, “If you want to be a part of this, and it’s going to be specifically around volunteer engagement practices, we want you to be a part.” We also had a follow‑up conversation after the position description was sent out to go over any qualms, thoughts, or feelings towards them being a staff member in that particular type of space — the power dynamics, what that would mean for their role, for their job. Because I’ve seen in other advisory councils that a staff member would be in there and there would be a little bit of defensiveness: “But we do do that.” We’re trying to stop that in its tracks before it gets there.

Of course, everybody is human. There were times I had to redirect. But the small step of a specific description that also communicates the behavior in which you come into a place, versus “this is how many hours, this is how much you get paid, this is the mission”, behaviorally, this is how we want you to enter into this space, and we did it differently for each person. That was a small shift that created the foundation for big impact.

Tobi: Yeah, absolutely. A couple of things about what you just said. One is curating the group, curating the right people in the room. And as you’re curating, understanding and analyzing where those folks might be coming from, creating position descriptions that are behavior‑based, but also focus on mindset and grounding. It’s almost a grounding exercise; the position description functions partly as grounding. It’s almost like norms, but individualized norms. Usually I’ll be in the room and say, “All right, here’s the step up, step back, talk about possibilities, not problems. Who wants to add more?” But you’re actually doing norms based on where they’re coming from.

I’ve seen myself do that. Early in my career, I would put the fear of God in me if people started critiquing. My hands would start sweating. But nobody is hurting you right now. Just lean into it. Say, “Tell me more. I’m curious.” Curiosity is a great leveler. When you really, honestly want to know, you will learn something. Even if you make mistakes, it’s okay. I’ve had hard conversations where people called me out for mistakes. Sometimes those relationships become the strongest when someone calls you out and you hear it and you try to fix it on your side. You don’t ask the other person to fix it for you. You say, “Tell me more. Okay, I didn’t see that. That’s a blind spot for me. Let me see what I can do.” Then you check back: “Hey, how are you seeing it now? Is it changed? I want to know. I’m curious.” There is so much goodwill that people will give you if you are just curious and earnest. Defensiveness never works; that energy bounces people back. You want to get closer to people, not farther away, when this stuff goes down.

Breauna: Yes. That’s why so much of this is different in the nonprofit space, because we are told to bring our whole selves. We are told this is a family, a staff family. We lead altruistically with our hearts because we are connected to these things. There’s a real balance: looking at community feedback as a gift, or looking at accountability as a rhythm of community. It’s a rhythm to be able to, just like you experience joy in community, accountability in community, feedback in community, conflict. All of these should be looked at as gifts and as opportunities.

Oftentimes, because we are either so connected to a particular cause, or connected to the hierarchy of our title, or “I’m getting bashed over here by this staff member or this boss, I’d be darned if I’m going to get bashed by you who I’m trying to serve or help”, it’s a real thing. When you talked about self‑care earlier, self‑care is such a critical piece of this conversation, because it’s like, “How am I regulating my own self in community so that myself doesn’t show up as defensive?” It takes that self‑care. That’s self‑care too.

Tobi: Yes. This is striking me so intensely right now. My husband will tell me when I’m not, like this morning, he said, “You’re really grumpy about this one thing. Stop treating people like they’re coming at you all the time.” I was like, “Yeah, but I’m doing that because I’m tired. I’m doing that because I’m tired. I’ve got to rest, do some recouping, a little more self‑care. The self‑regulation isn’t working right now.”

All right, we have traveled a lot of ground. We have come a long way in this conversation. For someone who knows that they have an advisory committee, or they are planning on forming one, and they feel overwhelmed by the thought of either making a change (maybe it’s a legacy committee) or they don’t have the bandwidth, where should they begin? What’s your best recommendation for folks?

Breauna: Relationship. If you can’t be in a position right now where you have the bandwidth or capacity to create a formal advisory committee, you create one for yourself. Have a rhythm on your calendar where you are connecting with folks outside of your norm, the folks who are on the receiving end, the folks who are staff that you don’t really talk to like that but they care about volunteerism. You create your own advisory committee.

The basis is the relationship is not the extraction of “I want to be in community with you so that you can help me with this document.” It’s that the well‑being of this is tied up in all of us. I do not want to be the hero and do it on my own, nor should I do this on my own. I want to grab folks who can pour into this, who can pour into me, and I can share my perspective with them. Get about three folks. Have a rhythm on your calendar, whether you’re meeting every two weeks or once a month. If it’s a community member, a grandma down the street, go sit at their feet, bring that tea, have that conversation. Or it may be a colleague in a different state who gets it, understands what you’re trying to do, and is also in food banking or in hospice. Have regular conversations, share your documents, share your practices. I would advise a colleague and a community member. Start small, get those people, and build that relationship.

Tobi: Start small. Perfect advice. I’ll also put a link in the show notes. When I was thinking about this earlier, about setting boundaries, if you feel like this is a high priority for you, then you’ve got to set boundaries around other things. I have a podcast episode: episode 126, “8 Ways to Empower, Not Rescue, Nonprofit Employees and Volunteers.” “Not rescuing” means setting boundaries. If you’re feeling like you need the space and time to do what Breauna is recommending,  just starting small, that’s all about boundary‑setting. We can’t be completely depleted all the time.

Breauna: What we’re not about to do: we are not about to give all the love and care and capacity to community while not taking care of self. Because if we’re not taking care of self, then what is it for? That’s even another level of saviorism that we are doing in that space. It’s like, “I am depleted so much, but I keep giving and giving and giving”, that sets a precedent for community, for your family, for yourself. We are not trying to boil the whole ocean. If you need to take a pot and get some water out and work with that, cook with that. If you need a little ladle and that’s all you can handle right now, if you need a teaspoon to make a slight change, it’s just your capacity.

Tobi: Yep, absolutely. I needed to hear this today. In your upcoming Impact Lab Advanced Seminar, “Co‑Creating Advisory Committees That Actually Lead” (happening on June 2nd), what will you help people do differently? Who would benefit most from attending? Gang, if you’re interested in joining us, all you have to do is join the Impact Lab. If you can’t join us live, June 2nd may not be the best day for you, that’s okay, because we post the replay recordings. Breauna’s going to have an exceptional training, and we’ll have a start guide so you can implement what you’re learning. Breauna, tell us a little bit: what will people learn to do differently, and who would best benefit?

Breauna: One of the main things I’m thinking of right now is having the participation of the committee all the way through. So many times, like we said earlier, we drop off at certain occasions. I’m going to identify where those drop‑offs occur and how to not have that happen, from a personal perspective and from a leadership perspective. Because we have these moments of, “Okay, I think I got what I need.” And as soon as you say, “I think I got what I need,” that’s when the next step is supposed to occur within community.

Tobi: Who would benefit most from joining us in this training on June 2nd?

Breauna: Is it really cliché to say everybody? Is that really bad? The people who really need to be here are people who are ready to take their community engagement to the next level, or they already have advisory committees and something’s just not there’s something that you feel is missing and you don’t know what’s missing. That’s definitely another group of people that need to be in there.

Tobi: Excellent. Breauna, thank you. So insightful and just a fun conversation, as always. Light bulbs are going off. I’m going to walk away with deeper insight — more than one. Appreciate that. Thank you to all of you for listening. This is the place where we try to do this thing, challenge you to think a little bit differently, approach things in an authentic way, create space, level the playing field a little. Breauna, thank you for helping us do that today.

Gang, if you enjoyed, the Volunteer Pro Impact Lab is a great place for intermediate to advanced practitioners. If you’re brand new to volunteer management, I really recommend our Volunteer Management Fundamentals course to get a firm grounding first before going into some of these more advanced techniques. Of course, all the principles we learned today can be helpful even when you’re just starting out.

If you enjoyed this episode of the Volunteer Nation podcast, I hope you’ll share it with a friend or a colleague who could also benefit from the conversation. I hope you’ll give us a rating and review, five stars. We like it because it gets us seen by more people who can use the intense and wonderful knowledge of our guests. I hope you’ll join us next week, same time, same place on the Volunteer Nation. Take care, everybody.