Opinion Blog: Management
| April 28, 2008 10:41 AM |
Bully! The Scourge of Nonprofit Boards, and What to Do About ItLike every other human organization, a nonprofit board of directors is subject to being dominated by an internal bully. Nonprofit boards are actually more at risk of bully dominance than other groups, because the only compensation for serving is psychological. For most board members, the psychological reward is the consciousness of doing good in good company—but for some, satisfaction can only flow from being utterly and completely in charge. The bully turns a nonprofit board into a corporation of one, and deprives the executive director (ED) and the agency of everyone else’s expertise and skills. Here are three common forms of nonprofit board bully, and what to do about them: The Martinet Bully: Often a man, and often the board chair. He is determined to import the standards of the business world to the nonprofit sector whether they’re applicable or not. His methods involve an exaggerated concern for efficiency: meetings start early, whether or not people are there, and discussion is foreshortened with a remark such as, “We’ve got the report--let’s just vote.” In the short term, the ED should gently say, “I’m not sure everyone’s been heard from yet.” In the medium term, give the martinet a project he can handle by himself which will keep him out of others’ way. In the long term, find someone else willing to serve as board chair who will practice for that position by deliberately sticking a spoke in the current chair’s wheel when he starts running over the rest of the group. The Expert Bully: “I’m on 33 other boards, and it’s always done this way.” He or she shuts down others’ opinions with a look of condescending pity for those lacking experience. Interestingly, this brand of bully is rarely willing to serve as board chair (too busy with the other boards, perhaps). In the short term, the board chair and ED should make sure they know of at least one example of things being done differently, and mention it. In the medium term, give the expert a project that can be handled exactly as the expert bully pleases. In the long term, identify and work to empower other board members in specific areas of governance--personnel, say, or taxes--and thus gradually reduce the scope of the expert’s terrain. The Passive-Aggressive Bully: “You can do it that way if you want, but then I’m going to have to quit.” This one arises most frequently at the pivotal moment when an agency is finally adopting a minimum gift. The bully hopes to make everyone else feel guilty for having too much money and not enough sympathy for poor little Passive-Aggressive. In the short term, the board chair and ED can pretend not to hear what’s been said. In the medium and long term, ask other members of the board to pretend not to hear what’s been said. The only way to handle these bullies is to ignore them.
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| April 23, 2008 12:02 PM |
Telling StoriesWe all know that telling stories is an effective and fun way to inform others about our programs—what’s worked and what hasn’t—and to garner support for them. But telling stories about our organization and staff is just as important, since it helps to create community. Stories are powerful because they can:
To tell stories internally (to people from the organization, and not those served), you could:
When it comes to telling stories from the inside, imagine a ladder whose rungs are: blogs, podcasts, videos, live chat, and so forth, all of which contribute to elevating the story. How have you told stories from your organization? How could you add to the stories of your clients ormembers with your staffers’ stories?
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| April 1, 2008 11:11 AM |
Openness for Technology and for Techies!
We may have a special lingo and geeky open source stickers, but what we techies can bring to the larger team is a very valuable leadership position: We can make work more efficient for staff, help align programs and strategies, and provide tools for staff and departments to work collaboratively and share knowledge. We can also guide decisions for the organization with our unique and important perspective. The discussion made me think about user-generated content and the two-way flow of information that comes with adopting new social media components. This is usually one of the biggest sources of fear for organizations just beginning on the road to web 2.0. But isn’t the openness to letting go of control of the message and specific content similar to the opening of leadership opportunities for staff? (And shouldn’t it be that neither creates fear in the organization and its leadership team?) Organizations that are the most successful in building community online are those that can distribute information AND listen, create conversations AND follow those of others. Isn’t this true of organizations that are successful in building dynamic leaders? If organizations’ leadership teams enable tech staff to provide input and insight, those techies move away from the “just techie” side of things, and into being a leader. If organizations’ leadership teams enable tech staff to be part of the strategy development process, I would bet that the strategy would look different and that there would be less confusion, delay, and/or implementation time. The biggest requirement for the technologist (and the leadership team) in this situation (moving from the techie to the leader) is the knowledge of and involvement in the creation of the organization’s “business” goals - how else one can provide the technology piece of the equation properly. “New media” has many terrific tools, but the technology layer should be put in place only after the other goals are worked out. Social media tools are put to the best use in outreach campaigns when the campaign is designed first, and the technology is integrated as it aligns. Just like this process, tech leaders need to be a part of the development and shared knowledge of the organization’s goals so that the best technologies can be used in the most appropriate ways. So how are you, as a techie, working on becoming a leader for your organization? Or, how are you, as a non-techie, enabling those who are “just techies” to become leaders?
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| April 1, 2008 09:46 AM |
Community Advisory Committees in Health FoundationsFor six years, beginning in 2000, I worked for Consumers Union, the nonprofit publisher of Consumer Reports magazine, on a project that advocated for the creation of permanent community advisory committees (CACs) that health foundations would use as liaisons between their board of directors and the communities their foundations want to serve. More than 20 foundations have incorporated CACs as part of their structure.
While CACs exist primarily in health conversion foundations, lessons learned from this experiment may be helpful for other actors in the nonprofit sector, especially grant-making and grant-seeking organizations hoping to connect better with the communities they serve. But what do you think? Are you one of those nonprofit actors, or have you had experience with a CAC? What strategies should CACs use to connect with their communities?
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| March 21, 2008 10:06 AM |
R U Ready 2 Lead?
It remains to be seen if market forces will, as some predict, smooth out the bumps in the road ahead. It’s possible that with more openings in the leadership ranks, more young people will look for careers in the nonprofit sector. Sector leaders may also rally and create new training programs and new incentives for charitable work. We’ll see. I would certainly worry less about the impact of this impending crisis if the sector were, in general, better bankrolled. Instead we operate in an environment of chronic scarcity. We don’t make the necessary investments in mentoring promising young talent or take the steps needed to retain current leaders because so many things appear to make greater demands on our limited resources. If there’s a theme that runs through these various workforce reports, it might be something like this: Because it’s so hard to raise charitable dollars, those of us who direct the work of the sector—current executive directors and board members, in particular—are frequently tempted to try to get good talent on the cheap; but our investments in staff are the absolute last places we should be looking to cut costs. It used to be that if one applicant turned up his nose at a nonprofit job, there’d be three waiting in the wings to apply. We’re moving into an era when the demographics will turn against us. _____ * I was one of the authors of this report together with Marla Cornelius of CompassPoint Nonprofit Services and Patrick Corvington of the Annie E. Casey Foundation. I serve as vice president for programs and communications at the Meyer Foundation, one of the report’s primary sponsors. _____
Albert Ruesga is vice president for programs and communications at the Meyer Foundation in Washington, DC. He’s the managing editor of the White Courtesy Telephone blog.
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| February 26, 2008 11:40 AM |
A Touch of Sanity in the Chicago Nonprofit Sector
How much of a savings are they estimating? On paper the co-op believes that within five years they will save their members $20 million annually and even more, if the co-op grows. Laura Thrall, CEO of Metropolitan YWCA, said, “We’re in dire straits right now with all these factors coming to a head. The savings are important because of what they will allow us to do.” An article about the co-op, published Feb. 11, 2008 in Crain’s Chicago Business identified more details about the co-op. The leadership of these nine organizations created the concept of the co-op themselves through a two-year planning process supported by the United Way of Metropolitan Chicago and the Chicago Community Trust. These CEOs knew that they had to do something to increase revenue for their programs, but the question was, what? The leaders involved in this effort showed real courage to break out of the same-old strategy of increased fund raising and survival of the fittest to identify this new solution. There is great creativity in the nonprofit sector, but it is not always apparent. Let’s hope that other nonprofits learn from the lesson in this Chicago example. The nonprofit sector can create the solutions it needs to grow and adapt to the environment we are in today.
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| December 3, 2007 01:00 PM |
No One Has Ever Died From a Blog Comment“What is the worst thing that can happen?” I asked a nonprofit the other day when they expressed concern about receiving critical comments on their blog. I mean, really. Has anyone ever died from a blog comment? Has a nonprofit been brought down because they were too transparent and authentic online? Don’t most scandals happen because something is being hidden, rather than because it was revealed? If your organization has so many skeletons in its closet, or is doing such a terrible job that you don’t want people to criticize it, maybe you need to look at how your organization works, or your staff, or whatever it is you are worried about, and make some changes. If someone has something bad to say about your nonprofit, they are probably not the only one, and they are probably already saying it to other people. Wouldn’t you rather that they tell you about it publicly, so you have an opportunity to address it? I also hear a lot of fears that there will be too many comments. As if a staff of 50 will be needed to handle it. I say, 1. let’s wait to see if you get any comments, and 2. if your supporters and potential supporters have so much to say about your organization, isn’t it important to fund a staff person to listen to them? Finally, when talking to nonprofits about using blogs, I often hear fears around pointing to other organizations doing similar work. The best nonprofit blogs are ones that use a blog as a marketing and communication tool for their organization, and to establish themselves as a thought leader in their field. Being a thought leader means you feel comfortable pointing to other organizations doing similar work effectively (maybe even more effectively than you, gasp!). It also means sharing your own resources and tools for creating change, even if that means another organization (like your competitor) might use them to become a better changemaker (would that really be so terrible?). Blogging is a very confident medium that by providing links to other sites says, “I believe you’ll be back.” It is also a generous medium that exists on the belief that if I share something with you, you’ll share something with me, and together we’ll have more than we did by ourselves. If being authentic, truthful and generous while listening, sharing and collaborating are things nonprofits want to avoid, then, we’ve taken a wrong turn. Don’t be afraid of blog comments. We’ve got bigger things to worry about.
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| October 26, 2006 09:11 AM |
Field Notes: Independent Sector Conference
Listening to him made me wonder, Why do nonprofits talk a lot about partnering with business and government, yet rarely talk about building partnerships with trade unions? Unions and nonprofits are natural allies, sharing many of the same concerns about health care, education, housing, social justice, and the environment. More importantly, if it weren’t for unions, there would be tens of millions more Americans on the poverty rolls without health care insurance and many of the other benefits we’ve come to associate with middle-class life. The nonprofit sector would have a lot more work to do if it weren’t for unions. (I know this not only from having studied the labor movement, but from having spent several years as a member of SEIU Local 250, working as a nurse’s aid in nursing homes and hospitals.) As Robert Senkler, CEO of Securian Financial Group (a large provider of insurance, asset management, and trust services), said later during his speech on creating partnerships between business and nonprofits, one of the most important things his company can do to be socially-responsible is create good jobs. That’s true. The only thing I’d add is that sometimes companies need nudges from unions to create good jobs—jobs that pay well, offer health care benefits and paid vacations, and the like. The Twin Cities is the birthplace of some of the most innovative trade unions in America and some of our most socially-responsible corporations and capitalists. The Teamsters union, which like the SEIU focuses on organizing low-skilled workers, became as strong as it did because a group of Teamsters in the Twin Cities launched an innovative organizing drive in the mid-1930s that targeted truckers.
And American corporations have learned much about corporate philanthropy from the leadership of Twin City companies like Dayton Hudson (forerunner of Target). Dayton and other Minnesota-based companies created the Five Percent Club, companies that contributed five percent of pre-tax profits to philanthropy. As a result of this largess, the Twin Cities has one of the most vibrant nonprofit sectors and strongest arts communities in the country. Minneapolis is home to not only enlightened capital and labor, but also to some of the most progressive political parties and politicians in the country, exemplified by folks like Hubert Humphrey, Walter Mondale, and Eugene McCarthy.
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Eric Nee is the managing editor of the Stanford Social Innovation Review.
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| April 12, 2006 04:54 PM |
New Help Needed for Nonprofit EDsNonprofit executive directors tried telling us in the first Daring to Lead report five years ago. They said it loudly and clearly to the Annie E. Casey Foundation in 2004. They tell us again in Daring to Lead 2006, a national study conducted by the Meyer Foundation and CompassPoint Nonprofit Services. The sobering news from this last survey of 2,000 nonprofit executive directors is that three quarters don’t plan to be in their current jobs five years from now. According to the report, “Frustrations with boards of directors and institutional funders, lack of management and administrative support, and below-market compensation add stress to a role that can be challenging even in the best circumstances.” In case their message hasn’t been getting through to the funding community, here it is, put another way:
In a recent Chronicle of Philanthropy op ed., Meyer Foundation president Julie Rogers urged grantmakers to heed the cries of the nonprofit executive directors they support. According to Rogers, foundations too often behave like “well-meaning rich aunts,” full of advice for nonprofits but not always sensitive to their real needs. The Bridgespan Group predicts that constrained supply and increased demand will result in a pronounced leadership deficit for the nonprofit sector. Perhaps this yawning leadership gap will finally focus our attention on what nonprofit execs are telling us. We can’t stop nonprofit executive directors from growing old and retiring, but we can help keep them from going grey and leaving their jobs prematurely. _____ This entry is cross-posted at White Courtesy Telephone, a blog covering nonprofits, foundations, and philanthropy. 14 Comment(s) - View/Post Comments
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| November 3, 2005 06:33 PM |
Squeezing the Dollars Until They HollerHistorians can address this question with greater certainty, but I don’t think it was ever the case that nonprofit organizations were expected to sit rouged and powdered, waiting at the window for their financial suitors to come calling. Whether chartered by wealthy donors or not, it was always assumed they would walk the streets a bit, hustling a buck here, a buck there, to support their operations. The amount of hustling most nonprofits do just to keep the lights on has gotten out of hand. From the outside, the sector looks pretty healthy, financially. A recent MSNBC article, for example, reports on the sector’s increasing economic clout:
The article points out that while total employment in the United States fell between 2001 and 2004, the number of jobs in the nonprofit sector grew by two percent to four percent a year. With the increasing professionalization of the field, more and more MBAs are taking the reins and increasing numbers of charities are being run as businesses. From inside the sector, I see all but the largest nonprofits struggling to make ends meet. For years, those of us who work in the foundation field have heard nonprofit leaders lament the difficulty of fundraising, yet few of us have helped our grantees acquire or increase this capacity. (Here’s a typical excuse: “That’s just part of the cost of doing business: deal with it.") We want to support nonprofit executive directors in their work, and yet how many times and in how many ways do they need to tell us that what keeps them up at night is worries about money? 7 Comment(s) - View/Post Comments
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Kelly Kleiman, who blogs as 
Amy Sample Ward’s passion for nonprofit technology has lead to her involvement with 
Two weeks ago, I had the opportunity to attend 
Assuming the impending nonprofit workforce crisis is real and not imagined, we have some work to do. The latest report on the subject, 
Nine nonprofits in Chicago have found a great way to adapt to the difficult funding environment. The largest members of the United Way of Metropolitan Chicago, whose combined budgets total more than $300 million, have agreed to form a cooperative to share back-office functions including everything from HR to accounting. Co-op member Richard Jones, CEO of Metropolitan Family Services, said that the groups hope to “have a more efficient system.” By taking this step, co-op members hope to reduce administrative expenses and shift the savings to programs where revenue streams have stagnated or fallen in past years.
Jean Butzen, 
Britt Bravo specializes in writing stories about individuals and organizations that are creating social change. She writes for 
I just returned from my hometown, the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul, where I attended a conference for nonprofit leaders put on by the group Independent Sector. One of the highlights of the event was the opening speech by Andy Stern, president of one of the nation’s largest trade unions, the Service Employees International Union. Stern is a bold guy who recently led the SEIU, along with the Teamsters and several other big unions, out of the AFL-CIO. In his talk, he addressed many of the same issues and concerns confronting nonprofits—the effects of globalization, a broken health care system, failing schools, and growing income inequality.
