Volunteering Fuels Growth and Development

The theme this month of NAPO’s blog is Personal Growth and Development. What an excellent opportunity to share how volunteering with NAPO enables me to grow and develop as a business professional, a leader, and a human being.

Having just completed my two year term as NAPO President, I can tell you that I worked very hard and dedicated a lot of time to the position, however, there is no doubt in my mind that I received so much more than I gave. And I can say the same thing about many of my NAPO volunteer leadership positions. Serving six years on my chapter board, serving twice as Conference Chair, and serving as a Board member were fulfilling and enabled me to become the person I am today.

It’s always easy to speak holistically, and that matters. But specifically I can tell you that because of NAPO and volunteering with NAPO the following skills have been honed:

Business Skills:
• Technology – not sure I would have prioritized learning these for myself, but because of my many volunteer positions I now can and do regularly use Canva, Constant Contact, QuickBooks, PayPal, Doodle, Join.Me, Google Voice & Google Docs (thanks Kim!), GoTo Webinar, not to mention my high level understanding of search engine optimization, web design, and database packages.
• Productivity – yes, productivity. It’s different dealing with a hundred people than 5 or 10. On a typical day as President I’d receive over 200 emails that needed to be managed. I had to develop new systems to handle the volume. Now my email and task management seminars are much more applicable to large teams.
• Marketing – Google Ads, Facebook Ads, branding, design, messaging, and creating marketing plans.
• Speaking – conferences, chapter visits, speaking to the media, leading meetings, speaking to a 600 person audience – all cake and totally fun!

Leadership Skills:
• How to:
o engage volunteers
o manage differing opinions to a win-win outcome
o plan strategically
o delegate effectively

• The value of
o working to consensus
o staying in integrity
o leading from essence – which spring-boarded into a teaching tool and a book I should be writing soon:

Better Knowing of Self – the value of which is priceless:
• Confidence to trust my instincts
• Clarity that my ideas are visionary and not just fleeting thoughts
• Finally understanding my purpose in the world is to be a leader

I know I will continue to grow and develop as I embark on future opportunities. It’s a part of who I am. And I will always be grateful to NAPO and all of our members for this opportunity to become my best self. I look forward to many further growth and development opportunities as I wind-down from this amazing experience. I assure you I’m not going far. I have another year on the NAPO Board as Immediate Past President. And after that, seriously, I can’t imagine life without some kind of volunteer involvement with NAPO.

Looking forward to working with you as a NAPO volunteer!

Blog submitted by Ellen Faye COC©/ CPO©/ GC

3 thoughts on “Volunteering Fuels Growth and Development

  1. Congratulaciones!!! Ellen lo que has contado es una comprobación de que cuando una persona es generosa y colabora des interesadamente con los demás, recibe mucho más de lo que da. Gracias por tu trabajo y por compartir tu experiencia de crecimiento personal. Un abrazo.

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