scheherazadesghost

He's a former dance musician and I've been following him for years. That's a fn catch and I can't wait to see this!!!

Sounds again like a situation where an org bit off more than they could chew with volunteers. It's the same with expecting donors to break down the doors without having an effective donor cultivation strategy in place. Plenty of inexperienced nonprofit admin who cut their teeth in for-profit settings make both mistakes. That said, did a quick web search on both "handling disrespectful volunteers" and "how to keep volunteers happy and engaged" and was flooded with free resources. Seems like my fellow Texans didn't do their homework and expected volunteer utopia. It's really easy to underestimate the strategies needed for a healthy npo if you've never done it well.

For sure. And it comes down to the shoestring capacity most of the orgs are dealing with, as mentioned earlier. I'm beyond compassionate about that. However, again, don't bring on volunteers if you can't adequately support and supervise them. Listen, I was on staff with the Jeffs at Vanguard and had light management responsibilities over volunteer drivers. I was not good at it, and was completely unsupported and untrained by my dueling supervisors for those responsibilities at the time. I've been part of the problems alluded to here. A poster child for whiplash-inducing staff turnover rates. But the buck didn't stop with me, a young rookie at the job. It did several levels up in management though. I've blocked most of my memories from 2008 the experience was so bad. Shoestring capacity is still no excuse for running volunteers into the ground.

Attempting to rank volunteer jobs by who has it the hardest work is worthless anyway, unless one is attempting to create some kind of tiered award or acknowledgement system. Not downplay a volunteer's contribution by comparing to others'. I thought this was a team activity, but what do I know? More reason to steer clear until I see clear signs of improvement.

I'm sure there are "bad volunteers" but it's the job of the nonprofit to fully explain the scope and responsibilities of the roles. And then follow thru with dismissal if those standards aren't being met, not just keep negative warm bodies around. If they don't have the capacity to do all of that, welp they shouldn't bring on volunteers. To reduce the critical feedback of any volunteer is both completely on par for this activity and exacerbating the ongoing challenges it faces. Being insulting is totally on par too.

I've been a professional volunteer for the federal government in rural-digital workforce development and a volunteer coordinator for a legacy arts nonprofit with international reach. To name a few. Disagree all you want, but the "guess you couldn't hack it" excuse doesn't apply here. It's also reductive and insulting, IMHO. Another way of relieving these orgs of accountability to their stakeholders. Glad you had better experiences though, honestly. Just wish others and I could say the same.

Recent cases in point: Lots of validation here for why I've felt uninspired to volunteer my nonprofit, wellness, or diversity/belonging professional skills to Vanguard or others. Like some state there, even I and other alum have been treated like outsiders. Can't beg to be involved indefinitely. It's exhausting. Volunteers are still donors and have the right to put reasonable restrictions on their donations. Can't meet them? Girl bye.

Sure npos are unaligned all the time. But that risks important components of a healthy nonprofit like community engagement and donor trust. It's also a sign of flimsy strategic planning. I'm not just pulling mission alignment terminology out of my butt, it's a legit strategy that feeds every successful, similarly sized npo I've worked for. And it's fed the thing we call modern dance longer than most drum corps have existed. https://nonprofitquarterly.org/how-to-align-assets-with-mission-small-steps-that-nonprofits-can-take/ This article discusses large npos and investments, but the same principle applies to other income streams.

Yes it's difficult work, generating nonprofit revenue. But there's no need to reinvent the wheel. Seasoned nonprofit development directors do it all day every day. A savvy, or even just industrious org need only read a book, search the interwebz, or reach out to other orgs. Or, call me crazy, just seek out alumni who have done time in the nonprofit world. The bingo swan songs you mentioned are legit and will only get worse with time.

Every nonprofit pro I've asked about bingo has turned up their nose. I'm a broken record here, but bingo is not in alignment with any of the drum corps' nonprofit missions. The industry term is mission alignment. And bingo isn't it. It also takes away resources from donor cultivation. VMAPA has suffered from this for years. BD can kinda make the case for bingo as mission alignment, being "devilish" and whatnot, but it's still a stretch. I also worked bingo, even proposed to my ex fiance at Vanguard bingo. But it was weird even then and was also required of all marching members. My family was shocked to hear some corps still rely on it.

Mm I don't think we disagree really. 👍🏽 I didn't intend to give the impression that orgs shouldn't go after big donors. To both your and @Tim K's points, large donors are crucial for the kind of budgets drum corps live on. Rather, they should only do so after they've demonstrated competency in cultivating "smaller" donors. Big donors will want proof in the pudding that you've taken care of other donors and can actuate a solid mission that looks good in their portfolios. Have worked with multiple nonprofits that, like your example, cultivate donors of all sizes. But the big donors don't just trust any nonprofit, cause like in other areas of life, you have to earn and maintain trust. Boston and BD clearly do this in different ways, mainly bc bingo makes BD's needs different, but they clearly both do it well.

Indeed, but an org can only demonstrate trustworthiness and adherence to their mission via small donors first. I've never heard of a situation, outside of skilled networking with wealthy people, in which an org is just gifted large donations without demonstrating the above first. Even those partnerships can fall away very easily if you #### off the wrong admin or donor. If corps orgs aren't willing to do the work for small gifts, they'll never gain the clout needed for big money. Also, corporations are not the only donors out there. They're a component sure, but they're more like second tier. The decision makers in those companies will laugh you out of the room if your org hasn't demonstrated the above. That's why I rofl'd when folks ask why VMAPA isn't going for Google money. Are we kidding? Their competitors for such money have been doing the above for decades. VMAPA has been lazily relying on bingo... that's a different strategic focus entirely. All of this affirms your point... that you have to demostraste the above locally and consistently. It's very difficult to do that by mom-n-popping it with admin who have never done it before. It's a professional skillet... and it can't be entrusted to amateurs or volunteers.

Most excellent. Similar about Bugs Bunny, but admittedly, before I got to SCV, I may have already been able to pinpoint various composers... and I may have had a bumper sticker on my teenager car that said "Yo quiero Pachelbel." Supporting the local classical station like a boss!

Thanks for the lore, I didn't know about those examples. As you said, this isn't limited to drum corps. I've worked for various sizes of nonprofits. The biggest ones, with international reach, still had to hustle hard to maintain their local support. One full time position for grants, another for development (ie donor cultivation), two for marketing/audience management. I'll never forget the the ED of The American Dance Festival having to put up with one of their largest donor's antics in public, fairly humiliating stuff. All to maintain his patronage and good graces. This is the company that originally and continually funded Martha Graham, Paul Taylor, Bill T Jones etc...THE greats. The modern dance legacy lives in large part because of them. Even then, locals not in the dance scene in Durham mostly barely know about them because the mission wasn't about Durham and hyper locality. It was about keeping the whole of American contemporary and modern dance afloat. The local focus was maintained via their large local sponsors. That's about it.

It's almost like nonprofits and other community-focused programs should be run by people who have run nonprofits before. Not just folks people like who went thru the programming, but who have no proven professional skills in the thing they're doing. Too many people think they can just take the money and run. That's strategically inefficient at best, and unethical/illegal at worst.

I learned something today, thank you. Was actually referring to SCV 03 with opener and closer in Orawa. 😉

💪🏽😎 Obscure af and never would've known about it otherwise.

Give Snarky Puppy a try. 😎👍🏽

SCV 09 - dedicated lots of undergrad and grad study to Graham's movement principles and those based on her work SCV 13 - I was listening to Les Miz as a kid instead of making friends...I would have raged incredibly hard to this show SCV 14 - yeah, trombones in my face is just one of the bazillion reasons I'm sad I missed this one

I'm generally happy that Michael James has returned. I've seen his name in other staff rosters recently though, and alas, simultaneously none of the signature grace, poise, and complexity I recall from his choreography. Hoping that's different this season and that designers give him something lyrical and phrase-heavy to work with. Did I also mention his choreography is some of the safest I've seen across colorguard history? Safe as in, reducing injuries both present and future. Perhaps my tirades about un-pointed feet got through to someone... MJ sparked my early career into dance two decades ago there and I genuinely wish for similar and more inspiration for future alum.

This is all I care about right now:

"Yelling works to motivate me," is still not strong enough evidence to convince most here that it is an effective educational strategy for youth. I pointed out why a few comments back. And literally no one is arguing that yelling to be heard over distances is abuse. To misuse the TAOS resource like it has been here means that posters didn't read the intro provided at that link about power imbalances. That's a key ingredient.

I think yelling is only effective for bigger people or those who back it up with worse behaviors. Yelling was never a strategy that would work for a petite thing like me, so I went to graduate school and became a pedagogue. Here's some backup nuance that mostly affirms your point: https://www.winnersunlimited.com/does-screaming-at-athletes-work It's only superficially effective and only to a point... for those it actually works for. The rest of us have to work on building trust and effective communication skills.

I bring it up when it applies, but thanks for including the small dig. It cheapens your apology. I still regularly have to explain to people I marched alongside that it happened, so I'm not sorry this space gets an earful. Not everybody has had the life experiences by the time they march that enable them to bounce back from what you minimize as yelling once or twice. They should still be welcome in the activity. And some of us were taught by world class educators without yelling before we got to corps, so standards were set and not met. And obviously, false accusations should be investigated and outright liars should be held accountable. But unfortunately yelling can be and has been a tell tale sign of worse behavior across the activity and its history. Zero tolerance for a behavior that several other posters here have already affirmed is unnecessary and potentially harmful. Life is tough enough without it. Yelling to toughen someone up to "prepare them for life" is abusive. BD doesn't shout at their members. Bloo doesn't shout at their members. I hope there are more. Be like them and reap the rewards. I expressed concern about the Troop guard after my first viewing last season. Knew nothing of the instructors. Some of us can see undue challenge in performance.

That was me with the handbook resource. TAOS is a predominant resource on the prevention of abuse in sport, so minimizing its import looks bad on you. 61% of athletes globally report abuse. Fact. Wanna come at me with the accusation that I couldn't cut it in this activity? That also won't look good on you. The man that abused me came from the Cadets btw. Confirmed and corroborated by VMAPA.