Event Details

You work at a brand new nonprofit fueled by enough energy, passion, and awesome people to make spending days in a small, windowless office with little sleep and a diet consisting of ramen noodles feel like the best job ever. You have an amazing culture that is centered on collaboration, openness, and innovation. Lucky you.

But what if you work for a dinosaur? What if you work for an old-school, stereotypically uncool, butt-of-jokes, and yet still loved nonprofit that is now nationally known as an organization with a "weird child army in tablecloth dresses" (thanks SNL's John Mulaney)? What if you work for, I don't know, the Girl Scouts? A place where pantyhose, polyester, and clock watching are still raging like its 1985.

That's where I worked. And despite the many great things that the organization does, working there sucked until we decided to make it not suck anymore. We broke the rules and reinvented everything: clock watching turned into working however we want as long as the work gets done, pantyhose gave way to jeans, and the polyester met its demise on the Sacred Cow BBQ right next to a heap of senseless rules. Closed doors opened, and untrusting hierarchy was dismantled and rebuilt into a solid foundation of trust.

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In this webinar participants will learn:

• How a dinosaur of an organization broke the rules and changed its culture after 100 years
• The key elements that made the biggest difference in achieving culture change
• How to keep a rockin' new culture thriving

About the Presenter

Jessica Lawrence, Managing Director, NY Tech Meetup

Jessica Lawrence is currently the Managing Director of NY Tech Meetup, the largest meetup in the world with over 18,000 members. NY Tech Meetup is a non-profit that supports the growing tech community in New York and has been integral in the birth of New York’s new Silicon Alley, with nearly every notable new company, including Foursquare and Tumblr, making their debut at a NYTM event. Until January 2011, Jessica was the CEO of Girl Scouts of San Gorgonio Council in Southern California. During her tenure, Jessica was the youngest Girl Scout Council CEO in the country. While serving as CEO, Jessica was an architect of change, leading the organization through unprecedented improvements in organizational culture and reshaping the strategic vision of the organization to providing high-quality programming and customer service. In July 2008, Jessica successfully led Girl Scouts of San Gorgonio Council to become the first non-profit organization in the country to migrate to a Results-Only Work Environment (ROWE). In April 2010, Girl Scouts of San Gorgonio Council was selected by The Non-Profit Times as one of the fifty best non-profits in the country to work for, ranking number eight on the list. Jessica received her Bachelor of Science in Psychology from the University of Maryland, graduating Cum Laude, and earned her Certificate of Non-Profit Management from Duke University. Jessica started her career at Girl Scouts of San Gorgonio Council in 2003 as a Fund Development Associate, and then became Fund Development Manager, Director of Development, Chief Operating Officer, and finally Chief Executive Officer. Jessica is a certified fundraising executive (CFRE). Jessica has received numerous personal and professional awards including the Girl Scouts of the USA Frances Hesselbein Award for Excellence in Management in 2007. In addition to her work for NY Tech Meetup, Jessica is also a columnist for The Business Press, authoring the weekly column “The Practical Business Radical”. Jessica has also become a sought-after speaker on organizational culture change, innovative business practices, Results-Only Work Environments and the use of social media for business, speaking frequently at both local and national events such as SXSW Interactive and the Nonprofit Technology Conference.

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