What I Learned in six Months with Roots to Rise

From January to July 2025, I interned with Roots to Rise, a micro-enterprise that helps strengthen and develop non-profit organisations. My focus was on administration, communication and event organisation. During these six months I worked mostly remotely, starting at 80% and moving to 90% in March. 

I was looking for a job in the field of communication. I picked this internship because of the flexibility and variety it offered, as well as a good gut feeling about the team — and I was right. From day one, working with Beatrice Schulter (my boss) and Nadine Bernasconi (my mentor) was both warm and professional. There was a real sense of support and appreciation. 

 A Day in the Life 

My days usually started with coffee, breakfast and checking Teams and emails. Then I’d get started with my tasks. Sometimes I began my day with something long-term like designing a report, sometimes with a sudden request that had to be turned around quickly. This mix and a spoonful of unpredictability was what kept me entertained and motivated throughout the last six months. We had regular team meetings and touch-bases to align, discuss challenges and priorities; however, I also enjoyed lots of autonomy. That mix of structure and independence really worked for me, as I appreciated the opportunity to learn how to plan my own day and take responsibility for my work. It was great to have the time to learn how to do things properly but also experiencing the rush of having to quickly adapt to new situations and “go with the flow”.  

RECI & 143.ch: Two Very Different Projects 

For RECI, the Swiss Network for Education and International Cooperation, I worked closely with Nadine on a variety of communication and organisational tasks. This included updating the website, preparing and translating newsletters, emailing members, publishing LinkedIn posts, and more. I learned a lot about the challenges in writing for these different medias and applying corporate identity not just visually, but also in writing. One especially rewarding moment was holding the printed 2024 annual report in my hands after working on that project intensively over several weeks. I also supported event planning and coordination, mainly for the inspiring Education Forum 2025 at Zentrum Paul Klee. Seeing how all the little bits and pieces we had consistently been working on over the course of almost half a year come to life was an incredible experience. 

143.ch, the Swiss emotional support hotline, was a different story. The work we had to do was much more chaotic, but also very interesting. Beatrice had taken over interim management of the umbrella organisation’s back office, placing us in a unique position between the strategic and operational branches of the organisation. I supported regional offices across Switzerland, solved technical issues, and created shared folders and forms to help streamline workflows. During this experience I learned to quickly adapt and reprioritise to be able to handle multiple complex projects in such a fast-paced environment at the same time. 

Roots to Rise: Best Team Ever 

Working with Beatrice and Nadine was honestly one of the best parts of this internship. Beatrice leads with empathy, trust, and clarity. She knows when to give space and when to step in. Nadine taught me so much about communication, from tone and content to design and detail. I really appreciated how we moved from working very closely together to me eventually handling a big part of our LinkedIn communications on my own. One big challenge I had to overcome was realising that building in time for mistakes and asking for help is part of the process— especially when faced with a complicated Excel file that made me want to throw my laptop out the window. Luckily, thanks to the team’s support, I’m ending this internship with both new skills and my laptop still in one piece. 

Roots to Rise feels like a small sailboat in a big ocean: waves from world events rock the boat, dolphins leap alongside us bringing joy, and every now and then we run into big fish that make navigating tricky. But we’re in that boat together, and that made all the difference. As I wrap up this internship, I’m genuinely sad to leave, but also excited for what’s ahead: I’ll be starting a new chapter as a journalist at a local radio station. Looking back, I’d do this internship again in a heartbeat. If you’re looking for a place to learn, contribute and grow within a small but impactful team, Roots to Rise is it. 

Odile Sobacic, July 2025

Communication and Management Tools for Small Nonprofit Organisations

Which Ones to Choose and How to Choose Them?

In an increasingly digitised world, digital tools have become almost indispensable, whether for your internal or external communications, fundraising or administrative tasks.

However, in a sea of online tools and software, choosing the one that best suits your organisation can be challenging. Each tool promises the best results at varying prices. Additionally, your budget is inevitably limited as your investments are primarily focused on the projects you are developing.

While most online tools are designed for businesses, an increasing number of them offer free or discounted access to nonprofit organisations. In this article, we will introduce you to some of these digital tools and software, both free and affordable, that could assist you as a nascent association or NGO. They will help you stand out, save money by avoiding external companies, and save time by simplifying some of your daily tasks.

Team Collaboration Tools 

If you are still relying solely on emails to communicate with your team, it's high time to modernise your collaboration methods. To ensure effective teamwork, even small nonprofit organisations need a collaborative workspace and communication platform where you can share and store files, collaborate on documents, plan projects, events, and meetings.

The two most popular platforms in this field are Microsoft 365/Microsoft Teams and Google Workspace. Both platforms offer free subscriptions and favorable pricing for nonprofit organisations. While they have some variations, both platforms are highly performant. If you are torn between the two, I recommend consulting this article that highlights the advantages of each platform. Generally, it is advisable to stick to a platform if you have already started using it since migrating to another one can be time-consuming and require a period of adaptation for the entire team to a new tool.

For our Swiss readers, there are alternative solutions that are more respectful of private data and hosted in Switzerland. The Infomaniak platform competes with giants like Google and Microsoft by developing its own online collaboration space called K Suite, offering a set of tools very similar to MS Teams and Google Workspace. There are still some improvements to be made, but the platform is evolving rapidly and constantly introduces new and enhanced options. While there are no offers for for-profit organisations, the prices are reasonable, and you can test the platform for free for 30 days.

Digital tools for NGO

If you are looking for tools focused on project management, we highly recommend you consider Trello and Asana, which are very popular among non-profits and use the Kanban method. The Kanban method is a project management approach that focuses on continuous improvement using visual boards to represent workflow and tasks to be completed. It is important to note that both Trello and Asana offer free versions with basic functionality, as well as advanced paid options. Asana offers a 50% discount for non-profit organisations.

Contact Management

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is fundamental for both small and large organisations. Don't let the term "customer" in CRM mislead you – you should consider your donors, volunteers, members, partners, subscribers, and others as customers and ensure relevant and lasting communication with them to maintain their engagement. CRM forms the digital roots of your organisation, allowing it to grow on solid foundations. Poor contact management can quickly turn into a nightmare.

There is no perfect CRM for NGOs, but there is a CRM that will meet your needs and fit the size of your organisation. It is challenging to provide specific recommendations as CRM systems vary significantly based on the needs and size of each organisation. Two important criteria to consider when making your choice are not to aim too big initially and not to neglect integrations. Industry giants are designed to cater to the needs of large teams with tens of thousands of contacts. While their extensive capabilities may seem attractive, they can be disproportionate to the needs of smaller organisations, and the software's complexity may require extensive training or the assistance of a specialist. Opt for a solution that your team can control and manage. Secondly, when choosing a CRM, ensure it integrates with the other applications you use. If you utilize mass email services like MailChimp, make sure easy integration is available, as transferring contacts between the two software can quickly become complicated.

I recommend taking a look at two inexpensive and user-friendly CRM options. Airtable offers an intuitive interface and numerous integrations, and you can benefit from nonprofit discounts. The French CRM Springly is specifically designed for associations and may also suit your needs.

Visual Communication

To optimize your communication campaigns and create your communication materials, I recommend using Canva. Canva is a graphic design platform that allows you to create graphics for social media, presentations, posters, documents, and other visual content. The pro version is free for NGOs.

For your social media posts, you can use YayText to give your texts different styles and fonts. If you are a small organisation and do not have images to use or are always using the same ones, there are many stock image banks with free selections like iStock or Pexels.

Visibility and Fundraising

Are you familiar with Google for Nonprofits? This programme gives non-profit organisations access to free or discounted Google products, including Google Ad Grants, the YouTube for Non-Profits programme, Google Maps Platform and Google Workspace. These different tools can help you collaborate better, improve your video campaigns and also for your fundraising. The specific benefits and products available may vary depending on the size and scope of your organisation. For example, Google for Grants is aimed more at large and medium-sized organisations, but the programme in general is designed to be accessible to a wide range of not-for-profit organisations. You need to meet a number of criteria to register your organisation.

Data Analysis

Analyze and collect data, whether it's on your website or social media platforms. Google Analytics is a free web analytics tool that helps you understand your website traffic and measure the effectiveness of your marketing efforts. If you prefer a data privacy-focused alternative, you can use Matomo, which does not use your data for advertising purposes.

Each social media platform, such as Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter, offers statistics on your posts and page traffic. Remember to consult and analyze them.

As a bonus, for brainstorming sessions, we recommend practical tools such as Jamboard, Padlet, Mural, or MindMeister.

Conclusion

There are many other online tools that can significantly improve the management and communication of your organisation. If you find a tool that seems relevant, don't forget to check if it offers special offers for nonprofit organisations. If you can't find any information on the website, you can inquire directly with the company via email. It is crucial to consider the costs and benefits of each online tool. Sometimes, it is necessary to recognize that investing a certain amount of money in a tool can save you numerous hours or greatly enhance the management and communication of your organisation.

Please note that tools and software evolve rapidly. Therefore, it's important to acknowledge that some of the information provided above may become outdated over time. This article was published in December 2023.

How participatory methods keep surprising, if you dare...

How can we break out of soporific conference and meeting formats, where communication is a one-way street? How can we use our natural impulse for play and creativity that can bring participants’ knowledge, experience, ideas and skills to a shared space and time?

Recently, I worked on this issue with the organising committee for a conference. I facilitated several workshops in preparation of the conference, as well as two break-out workshops during the conference itself.

Walk the Talk: Using Liberating Structures to learn Liberating Structures

The aim of the preparation workshops was to match content and format: Talk and learn about interactive methods by applying such methods, so that the format provides answers to the question on how to shape truly interactive and participatory meetings and conferences. We experimented with different Liberating Structures methods and discussed how they can be applied face-to-face and online. Starting from the light approaches of Impromptu Networking, 1-2-4-all, the Mad Tea Party, we transitioned to the more sophisticated – but just as easy to apply face-to-face or online – Fishbowl, Appreciative Interviews and the Troika Consulting. Equipped with these methods, the participants would be expected to prepare their parts for the conference, replacing the classical keynote inputs (e.g. Powerpoint présentation) with other formats. Solutions to this challenge were interview formats, the fishbowl or quizzes.

Open Spaces: Black Holes or wonderland?

For the conference I dared to pitch in with two “open spaces”. These were time slots for workshops without any pre-defined topic. Conference participants were invited to propose any topic for discussion, and to see whether other participants would be interested to join.

We all had been a bit worried that nobody would propose anything, only to see that a total of six additional topics were put forward!

But how should we deal with this, since we only had two time slots available? All interested conference participants joined the discussion on which topics to choose for which time slot. Everyone agreed that all six topics should be discussed, putting together three (seemingly unrelated) topics in each time slot.

How to facilitate an unprepared workshop on three unrelated topics at once?

Feeling a bit challenged to facilitate such a setting, I also felt thrilled about how the invitation and the open space had resulted in participants being bolder than I had ever imagined!

The participants were seated in a circle and the title of each topic was written on a flipchart in different corners of the room.

Otherwise, the materials provided were limited to post-its, markers, coloured paper, a bell, a watch with a countdown function and a "squeezy ball".

Conversation Café – trusting the process

We started the workshop using the Conversation Café. The rules are simple: An object is chosen and declared the “talking stick”. The person holding the talking stick can talk about anything they want. Everyone else listens carefully. There is a strict time slot of one minute for each person to hold the talking stick. If he or she is finished before or does not want to say anything, the talking stick is handed to the next person. There are at least two such strictly timed and ordered rounds. In this way participants can react to others’ inputs or answer questions that were directed at them (if they want). After these regulated rounds, there can be one or more rounds, where the rules of the talking stick and timing are upheld, but the order is free, and people can ask to receive the talking stick randomly.

In both workshops, the Conversation Café not only allowed us to go into the three topics, but revealed that these seemingly unrelated topics have in fact a lot to do with each other.

Take a minute to reflect – before walking on.

Using the method 1-2-4-all we inserted a moment of reflection to narrow down the topics for further discussions.

One of the objectives was to find out if participants would like to break up in sub-groups, in order to focus on different specific issues. In both workshops participants were thrilled to see how surprising new perspectives came up because three seemingly unrelated topics had been put together, and they wished to continue in the big group, with more Conversation Café.

Deep reflection for conclusions

Towards the end of the workshops, in order to wrap up and develop conclusions, I invited participants to write a “Spiral Journal” and to reflect on four questions related to the overall topic of the conference: Inspiring insights gained through the workshop; New or pertaining challenges related to the topic; Concrete recommendations to different actors in relation to the topic of the conference; And their own resolutions on what they want to do further or differently after the workshop.

And the results?

The energy during and after these open space workshops was sizzling: participants had established a thorough interest in each others’ work, experience and challenges and immediate feedback was thoroughly positive. But what would participants think in hindsight and in comparison to other prepared workshops? Would they be disappointed, because they had not received any presentations or materials documenting complex projects or approaches? Would they find after reflection, that it had not been too worthwhile after all, even though the experience had been inspiring initially?

I admit that even I, a declared fan and promoter of open working methods, was surprised: All conference participants evaluated these two open workshops with the highest possible marks, both in terms of content and format . It is striking to realise that a format, which takes literally no time for preparation, allows participants to discuss what is really relevant to them, to share experience on an equal par, to discover surprising new perspectives, and to have a thoroughly satisfying conference experience.

Three simple, but really, really important recommendations:

1. Use liberating structures and other open working methods

There are a great number of concrete tips, methods and approaches that are helpful for overcoming differences of authority or hierarchy, for trusting participants and for not anticipating the outcome or the exact questions to be discussed. Now it is about trying things out!

For me, the Liberating Structures are the absolute highlight, because they are easy to learn and apply, and because they are described in a simple and understandable way. You will find a library of methods, including stories and examples on how to use them here: https://www.liberatingstructures.com

I would also like to recommend the Open Space Technology, a completely open, self-organising format for conferences of at least one day. Organise the most amazing conferences on any topic with up to several hundreds of participants, without any content-related preparations. The technology has been developed by Harrison Owen, and while you can find a lot of guidelines and short information on the technology online, I recommend reading his book “Open Space Technology – A User’s Guide”, in which you learn about the fascinating story on why and how he developed this method.

2. Tell your fears to go elsewhere – they are telling lies...

You might be afraid nobody would take the spaces that you provide, that people would expect you to feed them with knowledge and expertise and that you would look like a fool, while everyone would fall asleep or walk out of your meeting. I understand this very well, this fear keeps coming back after all these years and workshops – only to be proven baseless every single time I try something new. So try something new and expose the fears!

If you want some help in getting started in using Liberating Structures or other out-of-the box methodologies for co-creating projects and strategies, get in touch with me!

3. Trust your participants

Remember that your expectations of and towards participants has an influence on their behaviour. If you treat them as ignorant lazy people, like school children, that has to be guided into a specific direction so that they learn exactly what you believe is important to learn, they will be exactly that: lazy, ignorant, passive, or in the best case rebellious (because alive). If you look at them in a different way, trusting that they are in your meeting or workshop for a reason, with a specific interest, and that each of them has something to contribute, they will do exactly that: each one a treasure in themselves, a library and university with a heart, head, and hands.