Quality over Quantity

 

"It is the quality of our work which will please God and not the quantity."

 - Mahtma Gandhi

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Good Day EWI!

 

I found this photo of this "poor little donkey" and  thought it is an incredible visual analogy of the burden a lot of our Chapters have been operating under with their lofty fundraising initiatives.  Note: I am confident given the value of the donkey to this cart owner that he would have taken quick steps to lighten the load and get his feet back on the ground!  What is obviously missing from this scenario is the ability for the donkey to gain any traction, a necessary condition for any progression, or, if you like, "20 Mile Marching!"

 

Last week I had the pleasure of gathering with some of the Presidents from my "Fleet" of Chapters.  We had a wonderful conversation about their first quarter experiences in leading their Chapters.

 

I was so heartened to hear verbiage like "Quality vs. Quantity" being expressed as a mantra for their year of Chapter operations.  Kudos to Jill Gaffney, EWI of Spokane and her board for embracing this concept and doing only one event this year, a Black and White ball in May! I also applaud Megi Scowcroft, EWI of Denver and her board for recognizing that there was no need to exhaust themselves fundraising this year because they were in a solid financial situation.  All of the President's I spoke with have adopted recruitment as their number one priority and I am thrilled!

 

Unless a Chapter is in a healthy state of membership, i.e. 25 Member Firms or more, please, please don't over burden yourself with fundraising initiatives.  We all need to focus on growing our membership so that we have a healthy pool of talent to draw upon to execute fundraising in a quality way someday in the near future.  We all know the saying, "Many hands make light work."  So true!

 

The other key benefit to this approach of scaling down is that you and your current members will hopefully not be so exhausted and overwhelmed when potential new members receive their first impression of EWI.   It will also make recruiting for board positions much easier.

 

The Corporate team is continually searching for ways to ease Chapter operations and in fact we have a Corporate Committee dedicated to study additional ways we can help.  Thanks to Judy Russell, EWI of Tulsa for her work as Vice Chair on that Committee!

 

Short week as I am off to Las Vegas for a weekend of fun!  Quite an exciting weekend as we are dining at Hells Kitchen Friday night, tickets for Tim McGraw and Faith Hill on Saturday night and then a BeeGees revival act on Sunday night.  Too much fun, I am sure!

 

Wishing you all a wonderful weekend!

 

- K