How to get non-profit organizations to host EFT group meetings--and pay you as well

By Sejual Shah

Dear Gary,

In this article I want to share ideas and tips with other practitioners on how to approach non-profit organisations with the offer of EFT Group Shares.  I include the word share in my title as everyone shares in the benefits even when they’re not working on their own issue.  From my own experience, getting non-profit organisations to host a share and pay the practitioner is a way of introducing the benefits of EFT to wider audiences who might not normally come across the therapy or have the means to afford working with a practitioner.

I’ve been running low cost monthly EFT Group Shares from my private practice for a year.  I’ve had great success with these, including complete resolution of issues for some participants and an improvement for all.  I’ve also sought to empower the individuals who come to continue to work with EFT after the share, by providing a brief 2 page How to Tap Sheet as well as the opportunity to come back to further shares.

Early last year I approached a women’s centre in my area to offer an EFT group workshop.  It was a brilliant success in terms of numbers attracted and outcome for the participants.  We were near to maximum capacity which the staff were pleasantly surprised about given the newness of the work. 

Subsequently I received good levels of funding from the centre and local authorities, to run a regular free monthly EFT Group Share.  This has become a regular fixture at the centre and one that I enjoy because of the opportunity to help individuals in often very difficult circumstances.

Here are suggestions for other practitioners on how to go about having such workshops accepted, and to be paid for their time. 

1. Find a local women’s centre or community support centre.  In the UK, local town councils provide classes for particular groups that are in need of support. 
2. Do a bit of background research as to whether your class would fit in with the other programmes that the centre has on.  The centre I work with offers educational programs and support on health, social benefits accessibility, domestic violence, complementary therapies, drama, IT and exercise.  You’re more likely to be accepted to provide a workshop where there are other programs with a similar educational/self-help aim. 
3. Call your EFT Group Share something like ‘Introduction to stress management workshop’.  This will make it quickly clear what your work is about especially where your audience isn’t familiar with meridian therapies.  Choose a title that is broad enough to bring in many types of people.  Stress management is great because most people suffer from this.  If the centre already has someone providing stress management help, try a different heading to go in under. 
   For example, ‘Therapy support for learning and work worries’, or ‘Seminar on simple pain relief techniques’.  Unless you are sufficiently skilled and confident enough in handling a group of people with more distressing issues (e.g. domestic violence), don’t approach the centre with a workshop on such a theme.  The centre and the people attending need to build their trust in you, the therapy, and your skill in facilitating an EFT Group Share before allowing individuals to work on such difficult issues with you.  You may in time be invited to work with such groups. 
4. Approach the centre by phone first to get a feel for their interest.  You’re likely to need to follow up by letter afterwards to demonstrate your professionalism, but phoning will help you make the most of your time and that of the centre’s.  You could offer the workshop as a one off to see what interest and uptake there is for it with a view to establishing a regular program if successful. 
5. Be professional in your approach when you follow up by letter.  Refer to your offer as a proposal, and be clear about what you are seeking to provide.  The staff who run the centre may not be familiar with EFT, so do explain in simple form what it is, what issues it can help with, what are the benefits it can provide, and how is it applied in practice.  Explain how you would run the workshop, what amount of time it would take (2 hours is good), and offer to ask participants to evaluate the workshop to gather feedback. 
6. In the letter, provide information on how you are qualified, insured, and what experience you have in running group workshops.  Dependent on the laws in your country or the rules of any governing body you are a member of, you may need liability insurance to offer group therapy.  Even if there isn’t such a requirement, having insurance demonstrates how seriously you take your work and how professional you are about it.  This could be additionally persuasive in your favour.  Enclose copies of your therapy and insurance certificates for their information.  If relevant, explain that the centre can find out more about you and your practice via your website.  Unless you have details about how you could be paid for your time, leave this issue as an open question to discuss later.  
7. As the first workshop is likely to be a trial, you may be able to get some payment from the individuals themselves.  This is likely to be small but can cover your travel and admin costs.  Where your workshop is a success, you may be able to get funding from the centre itself which should be more.  Putting a charge on your time, no matter how small the charge is, will help in having your work accepted at a community level.  Free support is not always valued, but where you value yourself you will find a greater level of interest in your work and more commitment from others to investigate what EFT can deliver. 
8. Marketing: I designed my own poster and got help from the centre in marketing the workshop.  I also did my own word of mouth marketing in the area. 
9. The workshop itself: I always use the same format for all my Group Shares.  I start with a short explanation about who I am so that I start building trust and rapport.  I provide a 20 minute introduction to what EFT is, what it can achieve, and give an overview of the mechanical element to tapping.  I use the shortcut routine.  I also explain that my role is to facilitate the workshop and that the skill in getting results with EFT is the questioning, analysis, and wordplay – what you and I recognise to be the art of delivery.  I then spend the majority of our time in providing EFT, starting with tapping for restricted breathing to get participants experiencing easy tangible gains before moving on to whatever theme comes up for the group or individuals. 
10. Keeping the workshop “safe”: the women who come to my groups are often under a huge amount of stress in many areas of their lives.  I employ specific techniques to keep the work safe and gentle.  Otherwise there is a risk that if one person feels tearful or distressed this can trigger the whole group.  My aim is to make the whole experience as gentle and safe as possible whilst giving each person plenty of space to release negative emotions. 
11. One technique I use to keep the flow of work safe is to take a large cardboard box with me and get the women to ‘dump’ their distress into it before we start work.  I usually have a stressful car journey to my destination so with complete honesty I can explain that I’m having to use the box too as a safety valve to deal with the stress I’ve experienced that morning.  This can ease any reluctance the participants may feel in looking silly in doing this.  I encourage the women to visualise or pretend through action that they are dumping all their stress into the box.  I then close the box and move it into a far corner of the room.  This eases the pressure of any distress they are under before we start tapping.  Once the group is comfortable with EFT and are gaining tangible measurable results (using level of intensity readings on a scale of 0 to 10) and it feels safe to do so, I invite individuals to fish one item out of the box that they previously dumped there.  This approach also ensures that individuals don’t try to work on all issues at once or go changing issues before having resolved one. 
12. Another safety feature I use is to lay down two rules near the beginning.  The first is that whatever we discuss in the group stays confidential to the group, out of respect for one another.  The second is that individuals can say as much or as little as they wish about their issue and we can always work obliquely on a sensitive topic.  As individuals know where the boundaries of safety lie they often feel able to express themselves.  As a result many feel safe in speaking about their problems in order to work on them.  Furthermore a great sense of camaraderie comes out in the women.  They feel reassured that others may have experienced similar problems and they’re not alone in having gone through their issues.  This along with easing the distress with EFT helps increase their self esteem.  This is where the ‘share’ element of my EFT Group Shares makes itself felt.
13. Evaluation form: it’s important to provide the centre with evidence about how effective your workshop was.  Tick box questions I asked related to what age range the attendee belonged to, how informative they had found the workshop, how well I communicated with the group, whether the time of day chosen for the workshop suited their needs, whether the quality of handouts provided was good, and would they attend another such workshop. 
14. Feedback report: I created a report for the centre which explained what I had set out to do, what results I achieved during the workshop, and gathered together the evaluation form results in statistical form as well providing conclusions from them. 

The work I do with the women’s centre is often demanding because of the issues that come up, but it is very rewarding work.  I hope that others find a way to work with community centres local to them and also find a way to be valued for their work. 

Warm wishes,

Sejual