Pressing the pause button: more than a need, a necessity.

Because the life of a not-for-profit director is not a long, quiet river, and because this function is becoming increasingly complex and ever faster, we at ToolBox are convinced that pressing the pause button is more than just a need. 

It's a necessity, essential to enable the people in charge of these organizations to hold on, stay the course and find new energy to move forward.

After the second edition of our Reboost Days, held in Namur on October 9, we had further proof of this. A total of 60 not-for-profit directors dedicated an entire day of their already busy schedules to getting together and sharing their experiences in their role. It was with renewed confidence that we were able to offer them the opportunity to share, in complete security and confidentiality, their challenges, their beliefs, their moments of fragility and doubt...

It's precisely at these moments that peer-to-peer exchange, active listening and solidarity come into their own, offering new opportunities and solutions.

Finding the right governance, diversifying sources of financing, assuming leadership... these are all challenges for these men and women, whose time and energy are 300% focused on the social action of their organizations and the well-being of their beneficiaries. All of them identify fully with this capacity to act, to react, to respond by "doing" to make up for institutional responses that do not exist or do not yet exist.
All of them are fully in action. But at what cost? When do we stop? When do we take stock and step back to move forward? When are we "being" and not "doing"? Many people tell us about the limits of "doing" by "not being", by forgetting oneself, by no longer listening to one's own needs. Taking care of the world means first and foremost taking care of ourselves.

So a day like Reboosts Days is an opportunity to refuel. Full of ideas, encounters, solidarity and positive, creative energy. Our hope at ToolBox is that these moments will become ritualized, no longer a luxury to be indulged in, but a right and necessary for the good of organizations, teams and those who guide them.

 

Cécile Vennat, ToolBox Director