Did you recently agree to be VP Philanthropy for your National Charity League chapter? If so, then now you need to get organized for the upcoming NCL year! Notion is a great tool to use to keep all of the VP Philanthropy information in order.
Notion is basically a collection of blocks that you can organize in any which way you need. You can create task lists, simple tables, and even databases. I have been using it for years to keep my personal life and NCL VP Communications tasks organized. You can download Notion for free on Notion’s website.
Great Reasons for NCL VP Philanthropy to use Notion
1. NCL VP Philanthropy Patronesses are Busy
Who has time to be looking all over the place for emails or files when you just need to get a task completed? With Notion, you can keep all of your NCL VP Philanthropy information all in one central location. No more searching through the Chapter tab or the NCL Inc Resources tab on the website. You can keep all of your VP Philanthropy information in Notion and you will have access to it from your phone, iPad or computer.
2. Notion Can Keep Tasks Lists Organized
You are the Patroness that leads the chapter to make a meaningful impact in the community. You are responsible for guiding the Patronesses and Ticktockers to fulfill one of the 3 NCL Pillars. The Community Service Pillar is one of the most important pillars for our chapters. However, to ensure this effectiveness of the pillar, you need to be on top of a variety of tasks.
A master task list will help you keep track of all of the different responsibilities of a NCL VP Philanthropy. You can view all of your tasks at once or you can filter by the different areas. Just click on the tabs that are located above the Master VP Philanthropy Task List database to switch to a different filter. In addition, you can click on the gallery image to really focus on the one area.
3. Free Notion Template to Get Started
Notion is FREE and so is the template that I have created for you! Trust me you won’t regret at least exploring this idea. You will first need to create an account at Notion.so, then you can download my template. If you want to learn a little about Notion before you get started, I would recommend the Thomas Frank Explains YouTube channel.
The NCL VP Philanthropy template can be found here. This free template has sample tasks for the 8 different areas of responsibility:
- Philanthropy Liaisons
- Philanthropy Organizations
- Board Meetings
- Budget
- Hours Reports
- Patroness Partner
- Philanthropy Documents
- Transition
You can easily change these if you chapter has additional or different areas of responsibility for their VP Philanthropy.
4. Easy Collaboration with Others
While Notion is online, it is a secure place. The only way for someone else to view your information is for you to share it with them. You might consider sharing the Philanthropy Documents page with the liaisons to help them keep track of which Philanthropy documents need to be updated. Then you can collaborate with the liaisons seamlessly without having to search through emails.
Once you have duplicated the template and customized it for your own NCL Chapter, just use the share option to invite collaborators to specific pages. You can give others full access to the page or limit it so they can only view or only make comments. It’s such a great way to collaborate with others!
5. The Liaison List is Super Helpful
During my years as NCL VP Communications, I helped many Patronesses find contact info in the NCL directory in the app or website. While that directory is great, it is sometimes nice to have your own contact list where you can add more information.
This Liaison List database is linked to the List of Philanthropies database, so as you add liaisons you can just click on the Philanthropy Organization column and you will get a list of all of your philanthropies.
6. Track Monthly Class Philanthropy Hours
Tracking grade level service hours is an important a part of the VP Philanthropy’s responsibility. This page will help you remember if you have run the necessary reports each month. You could add the name of the query and parameters to select, so you don’t ever forget.
Add the Run Philanthropy Hours Reports task for each month to help you remember to have that information for the Board & Patroness meetings. Alternatively, you could setup the tasks so that you have one task for every class and every month or within the monthly task you could add a table to keep track of running the report for each class.
7. Patroness Partner Organization
At the beginning of a NCL year, you will be responsible for training the Ticktockers who are assigned the VP Philanthropy position. Then throughout the year, you might need to check in with each Ticktocker to make sure they don’t have any questions.
This template will help you ensure that you are fulfilling your role as an effective Patroness Partner.
8. Keeping Track of a VP Philanthropy Budget is Easy
Every year, the VP Philanthropy will get a new budget. Notion is an easy way to keep track of your budget and expenses. You can easily add tasks to help you keep track of how you are tracking your expenses during the year.
Within this page you could easily add a list of items that are in your budget as well. I would recommend setting up a new table or database if you want to add this feature.
9. Create Monthly Board Reports
One monthly task is updating the Board each month on everything related to the Community Service pillar. Each Board Report template has sections for the monthly highlights, feedback requests and motions.
You can add columns to this to this database to create a Notes, Location, or Meeting Date column to help keep track of additional information you want to track.
Keep in mind this task list is part of a master task list. If you add a column related only to meeting information, you might need to hide that column in the other pages (i.e. Liaisons, Budget, Hours, Philanthropy Organizations & Transition).
10. Easy Transition to Next NCL VP Philanthropy
Transition is so important. As you roll off your time as NCL VP Philanthropy, think how easy it would be if you could just share your Notion database with the incoming VP Philanthropy. The new VP Philanthropy could even keep you as a collaborator (see #4) and you could help her get the tasks setup for the new year.
This post is all about NCL VP Philanthropies using Notion.
You might not really need help, but if someone was willing to help you, would you turn them away?
During my NCL journey as VP Communications & Webmaster, I often helped the VP Philanthropy get organized. However, sometimes I was pulled in various different directions and couldn’t help the VP Philanthropy as quickly as they needed. This Notion template will help you be more in control of the information you need to succeed.
The whole goal of the Notion template is to help make your NCL experience as a VP Philanthropy more enjoyable. The more organized you are with this position, the more you can focus on the impact your chapter can have in your community. I encourage you to check out the template to determine if it could help you during your NCL journey.
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