Longtime readers probably know that Michele Martin was already my career development and e-learning sheroe, but today I want to share with you the post that made me love her even more. In A 4-Step Process to Learning When Your Organization Isn’t That Into It, Michele outlines some very practical, concrete ways that you can access professional development opportunities, even without the support of your employer. I think her advice is especially relevant to nonprofit workers whose organizations cannot or will not pay for them to attend formal training or conferences.
I know from experience that while there are many companies and organzations (usually the larger ones) that take learning pretty seriously, reality is that most workers cannot count on their employer as the primary avenue for improving their skills. They may get some training to learn how to use proprietary systems or processes, but the kinds of skill-building that make people effective and marketable are just not going to happen.
I love that Michele emphasizes the importance of taking responsibility for your own learning and career growth in the absence of support from your employer. Because what many nonprofit workers quickly come to realize is that, yes, you have to take professional development into your own hands.
And that’s not necessarily a bad thing, mind you.
I mean, the whole reason why me and Trista Harris wrote How to Become a Nonprofit Rockstar was to empower nonprofit professionals to take charge of their careers and enhance their leadership skills through 50 do-it-yourself strategies.
And in my own experience as a Development Director, I was able to cobble together my own professional development plan by going to conferences, learning from mentors, reading blogs and launching new projects at work. I had to get creative and I’m pretty sure that my career soared because of it. Various opportunities opened up for me because I wasn’t locked into some organization-approved and mandated training program that might have kept me on the “straight and narrow” instead of giving me the freedom to chart my own path.
So what, your organization won’t pay for you to go to conferences. Stop whining about it and move on. There are so many other ways to learn and grow in your career.
Take Michele’s advice. Buy our book. Get a coach. Just be prepared to make it up as you go along and learn a ton along the way.
Because let’s face it, it’s extremely rare that your nonprofit career path will be perfectly laid out for you . . . so you have to create your own. You have to make your own map.
And when you do, the possibilities are endless.
