A reMarkable tablet can greatly help executives that want to use their limited time to volunteer with a non-profit organization. This effort can be highly valuable to the organization as well as the individual business person.
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What is the reMarkable family of tablets?
reMarkable has two paper tablets on the market that are excellent accessories for any executive looking to increase their personal organization.
- The reMarkable Paper Pro is reMarkable’s newest tablet and features a color e-ink screen, backlight, and enhanced writing performance. It also includes all of the features that made the reMarkable 2 amazing (more on that below).
- The reMarkable 2 paper tablet is workhorse of paper tablets. This productivity device lets you organize handwritten notes into notebooks and folders. All while securely backing up your notes to the cloud, providing handwriting conversion, and providing the ability to mark up PDFs or PowerPoint Presentations
The reMarkable tablets are augmented by reMarkable’s Connect backend that syncs notes to cloud storage and allows the ability to read / edit notes in their desktop and iOS apps.
Why is performing non-profit work important for business executives?
I think there are two compelling reasons that executives and consultants should consider serving on non-profit boards.
- Its a great way to make an impact on your community or in an area that you are passionate about. More on that in a bit.
- Serving on a non-profit board can positively impact your business career.
In some broader sense, there’s a compelling reason to seek challenge. This can be internally fulfilling as well as provide a tangible benefit to society.
How can volunteering on a non-profit board enhance your business career?
While the primary goal of any volunteer work should always be making a difference, there are a number of tangible benefits to the volunteer. These benefits include:
- Network Expansion: Serving on a non-profit board can connect executives with other local business leaders, government officials, and community influencers, fostering valuable relationships that can lead to commercial benefit.
- Skill Development: Non-profit boards offer executives the chance to hone board skills, work with diverse teams, and handle complex issues in a different context than their commercial organizations. This can also apply to working on a function that you don’t normally focus on (for me it’s helping with data and surveys).
- Broadening Perspectives: Exposure to the challenges and strategies of non-profits can offer fresh insights and perspectives, inspiring innovative approaches that may also apply to their corporate role.
- Enhancing Public Image: Executives who are actively involved in charitable causes can boost their public profile and their company’s image. These can either lead to new personal opportunities or just show customers & suppliers how the company lives its values.
I can personally say that I’ve experienced all four of these benefits in the past 10 years of volunteering with a number of veteran-focused non-profits. Most recently I’ve been serving on the board of Leadership Veteran and it’s really enhanced my knowledge of the Denver business community.
What keeps business leaders from volunteering?
My personal opinion is that many business leaders do not get involved in non-profit work because they don’t think they have time / bandwidth. And it’s a totally reasonable perspective, based on the busy work and travel schedules of the modern executive.
But this assumption also likely false. Leaders can make time to serve their community if they are creative with their schedule and organized in their work (more on that below). If executives take the perspective of “I will find a way to volunteer,” they can carve out bits of time to contribute.
What are examples of how executives can volunteer with non-profits?
There are so many ways that executives can find to contribute to non-profit organizations. Those can include:
- Donating money or supplies
- Finding overlaps with their professional work
- Serving on the board of an organization
- Serving as an advisor to a non-profit organization
- Serving as a general volunteer at an event or organization
- Making valuable connections for a non-profit
- Attending fund raising events
- Connecting a non-profit with the charitable giving of a corporation
How can business executives help non-profit organizations succeed?
While the above list suggests a number of ways that executives can volunteer, there are two that stand out as providing more benefit to the target organization. Those standout opportunities are serving on the board and serving as an advisor. I highlight those two ways of volunteering because they can create the most impact for a non-profit when the executive is truly engaged.
Serving as an advisor to a non-profit organization
Advisors come in all flavors in the not for profit world, but generally fall into two categories – ad hoc advice and Board of Advisors (or the like). Each can have distinct advantages / disadvantages, but all are opportunities for a business executive to shape how the organization approaches a problem.
This problem could be external (in how they serve their mission) or internal (how the organization runs). In both cases, the practical knowledge of managing organizations and developing strategy can be valuable inputs to a growing non-profit. I find that business consultants are particularly well suited to advising non-profits because it’s just a refocus of their normal course function.
Serving as on the board of a non-profit organization
A second ultra valuable way that executives can help non-profits is by serving on their board. This is a bit different from corporate boards in that most non-profit boards are “working boards.” By this I mean that the board isn’t just a governance structure, like in corporate America. Instead, the board both conducts governance as well as rolls up it’s proverbial sleeves to run the org.
Executives are well suited to serve on these boards if they have any interaction with their own board. They’ve likely briefed the board or prepared materials to inform the board about important issues. This preparation can help the executive drive the non-profit board to be more disciplined and better informed.
Additionally, my own experience of serving on non-profit boards has made me a better executive because I’ve been on the receiving end of presented information. Additionally, the hands on work of a working board has enabled me to develop new skills (most recently how to build a GPT) in a lower consequence environment.
How can you use your reMarkable Paper Plus or reMarkable 2 for non-profit work?
Use reMarkable tablet to be more efficient at work
Effective business executives can use the reMarkable Paper Pro or reMarkable 2 to be more efficient in their day to day work. I find that my use of my reMarkable enables me to ‘download’ my ideas and notes into an easy to navigate second brain. This let’s me offload the tasks and specifics of each day in a way that I can refer back to them. Additionally, I use my reMarkable tablet to stay focused on key tasks and meetings throughout the day. Finally, the reMarkable is an excellent place to free form thoughts and strategies, without the normal interruptions of PCs.
Below are a few specific examples of how a reMarkable tablet can make executives more efficient at their job:
- Organize each day – I use my reMarkable as a tool to document my key meetings and tasks for the day. This allows me to stay focused on what’s important and not just what others prioritize.
- Digitally sign documents on the move – I use my reMarkable during business travel to review and hand sign documents. This keeps me from printing, signing, and scanning documents.
- Marking up key documents – I use my reMarkable to take notes directly on Powerpoint presentations (in PDF form). This is both for note taking during key meetings (like OpCos) as well as to make up a document as feedback to team members.
- Managing multiple projects effectively – I create separate notebooks for strategic projects (often with custom notebook covers for visibility). This practice makes it easy to refer to the status and due outs of a specific project (instead of it being buried in an obscure location within a paper notebook). By and far, this is the most impactful part of using a reMarkable digital notebook.
- Carry reference documents to meetings – I keep copies of specific decks on my reMarkable, allowing me to quickly reference them in meetings. This can include sales presentations, board decks, or project specific documents.
Use reMarkable Paper Pro to be a more organized non-profit volunteer
Finding time for non-profit work can be difficult as an executive, so you want to be organized and effective with the time you do carve out. I use my reMarkable 2 tablet to stay organized and easily reference notes from previous meetings. This allows me to quickly shift into non-profit mode with minimal spin up time. For me, this ability to quickly pivot to non-profit work allows me to squeeze in small blocks of time focused on this important part of my life.
Some additional ways that I use my reMarkable tablet to make my non-profit work more valuable include:
- Make a folder just for the non-profit – Search on the reMarkable isn’t the best, so I organize a folder just for my non-profit notebooks and documents.
- Keep notes from board meetings – I take notes during board calls right on a PDF of the board doc. This helps me keep my non-profit notes in one place, making them easier to reference.
- Manage non-profit special projects – When I’m in charge of a special project for a non-profit (see ‘working board’), I create a new notebook so that I can easily manage the project. This allows me to quickly figure out where I left off in the project and what my next steps should be.
- Refer to PDFs about organizational performance – I also export financial overviews of my non-profits to PDFs and eventually onto my reMarakble. That way I can look at them without distraction and mark up any areas that I’d like to discuss further in an upcoming call.
- Prepare for board meetings – I show up to board meetings more prepared because I have my notes and to do’s from previous meetings. This allows me to spend a minimal amount of time (or even switching over from a previous work call) to a non-profit meeting.
- Keep a to do list just for my non-profit work – I keep a special notebook just for my running to do list for my non-profit work. When I have a bit of time, this allows me to quickly identify what I need to do to help the organization.
