Meet SEE Coach Traci-Lato Smith

Dear Reader,

Next stop on our tour of reDirect partners is SEE Coach, Traci Lato-Smith!

Traci leads our cohort in Colorado, and she is a Certified Volunteer Administrator and the owner of Volunteer Management Consulting. She has extensive experience developing systems for engaging volunteers to support mission-focused work, including organizations focused on social justice, senior advocacy, and education.

When asked about which SEE concepts in particular have resonated with this year’s cohort, Traci said:

Embracing the ethos and practice of small experiments is really helping them to avoid feeling overwhelmed by all their big ideas and plans as they assess their operations and explore best practices in volunteer engagement. And we're working on the important next step also, which is tracking how those small experiments play out, recognizing and learning from both the expected and unexpected consequences, and capturing the new ideas that those results inspire.

Traci also offered her personal take on SEE, and which concepts have had outsized influence on her work:

I appreciate the balance of the three domains and the value of having such a simple yet powerful tool, rooted in research, to help us consider each of those three critical informational needs [the need to explore and understand, to feel competent and clear-headed, and to take action and know that it has a meaningful impact].

Looking at a challenge through our "SEE lenses" makes it easy to ensure that we're asking the essential questions: Do I understand what's happening at the organization and where I fit in? Can I do what's expected of me and what I expect of myself? And am I making a difference?

Building Relationships from Meaningful Action

Last year, Habitat for Humanity of Metro Denver joined Traci’s cohort with the goal of building a culture that fully embraced and empowered volunteers in their work. Read their story to see how learning about the concept of meaningful action helped them strengthen relationships with long-term volunteers.

Until next month,

Paige