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Project Dignity

serving the homeless with dignity, humility & love

Serving More, or Serving Well—Where Do You Stand?

If you’re attended many meetings with nonprofit consultants, the phrase you get used to hearing is, “If you’re not growing, you’re not succeeding”.   At the risk of being rude, may I say, “Baloney!”    Beware of talking heads who want to give you their pearls of wisdom.  Unless you know that the person giving the sage advice has and is running their own nonprofit and getting their own hands dirty, don’t be too quick to take their words as gospel truth.

There are too many “consultants” who want to apply business management principals to the nonprofit world.  Guess what?  It doesn’t work.  Just as there are hundreds of specialties a new doctor can opt to become an expert in, there are hundreds if not thousands of opportunities in the world of service and they don’t lend themselves to being boxed in by cookie cutter wisdom.

Serving more just means you’re serving more.  It doesn’t mean you’re doing it well.  There are several fast food burger chains that can put the number of burgers they’ve served in the billions.  So what?  Does that make it a better burger?  Probably not.  Just as assembly line cooking doesn’t lend itself to excellence, neither does assembly line serving of clients.

When you first decide you want to serve the homeless, your goal is probably to eradicate world hunger and see every single homeless person housed in six months.  Once reality sets it you begin to adjust your priorities to a more reasonable level.   The amount of clients you can serve is limited by many factors, some of which are totally beyond your control:  where are you going to find the food, hygiene items, clothing, etc. to provide for your clients?  How many volunteers do you have?  What kind of storage space do you have?  Do you have to hold down a job at the same time?  Do you have a family who deserves at least 5% of your time?

Letting someone put the guilt whammy on you by taking criticism for not increasing the numbers you serve will probably do nothing more than make you discouraged enough to quit.  And then what have you accomplished?  Do you really want to carry that around with you the rest of your life?

Growth is ok, but not for its own sake and not just to be able to say,    “Last year we served 500.  This year we served 1,000 and next year we intend to serve 2,000”.   The people who care about statistics will pat you on the back.  The people who really matter, your clients, will begin to wonder if you even remember them anymore.

It’s better to concentrate on serving each individual well, rather than serving more.  You won’t get into the Guinness book of records, and you won’t find yourself in the press every time you turn around, but you’ll receive more hugs, kisses and declarations of gratitude from your clients than you ever dreamed of.  A standing ovation of one you know the name of is far better than counting up tick marks for the ones you will never have the privilege and joy of knowing.

More tips like this one

  • When is it Really an Emergency?
  • What about the Pets?
  • Taking Time Off
  • What Makes a Great Volunteer?
  • Don’t try to solve everyone’s problems

March 3, 2014 /// Filed Under: Matters of the Heart, Practical Matters /// Tagged With: heart, homeless, practical, serving

What We Do

While we don’t feel anyone can ever fully understand the motel situation, we believe we understand it better than most. To our knowledge we are the only local organization who is focusing their services solely on the homeless population living in residential motels and we’ve been doing it since 1996.

It’s a long haul from homelessness to home, so our programs “wraparound” the challenges. Our first objective is to ease the burdens of daily living for our clients by assisting with necessities most of us take for granted–food, clothing and hygiene items.

Find out more →

More tips like this one

  • When is it Really an Emergency?
  • What about the Pets?
  • Taking Time Off
  • What Makes a Great Volunteer?
  • Don’t try to solve everyone’s problems

A tribute to our Founder

In 1986 doctors told Linda Dunlap she had 6 months to live and she told them the Lord knew more about that than they did. She said He had a lot more work for her to do. She proved herself and God right by living another 22 ministry-packed years.

Linda went into the motels singlehandedly with nothing more than her backpack and a few medical supplies. She won the confidence of people who had never had anyone care about them or help them before. Her belief and vision that one person can make a difference grew into 10,000 people being helped annually by Project Dignity.

Remembering Linda →

More tips like this one

  • When is it Really an Emergency?
  • What about the Pets?
  • Taking Time Off
  • What Makes a Great Volunteer?
  • Don’t try to solve everyone’s problems

Project Dignity

12913 Harbor Blvd., Ste. Q3, #253
Garden Grove, CA 92840

More tips like this one

  • When is it Really an Emergency?
  • What about the Pets?
  • Taking Time Off
  • What Makes a Great Volunteer?
  • Don’t try to solve everyone’s problems

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