Stanford Social Innovation Review

Hitting Reset on ‘Outcomes’

Back in January, I wrote about my deep, nagging fear that many efforts to assess outcomes are woefully off track.

Not everyone agreed with my analysis. In fact, I got hard pushback on some points, and a few commentators wondered why it had taken me so long to own up to my own limitations in my approach over the years to the topic of outcomes.

The majority, however, agreed with the thesis that we’ve lost sight of the ends we’re trying to advance. In the wise words of David Hunter, Managing Partner of Hunter Consulting and former Director of Assessment for the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation: “It seems to me that the mess you describe indeed is enormous and very destructive—because few people involved in this work have thought deeply about managing towards outcomes and [they] have put the horse before the cart—focusing…on HOW to measure rather than on WHY measure…and WHAT to measure.”

Sins of Commission, Sins of Omission
The feedback confirmed for me that nonprofit executives, staff, and boards; donors; and assessment experts are deeply frustrated with our sector’s work around outcomes.

We must be intentional about surfacing these roiling frustrations that are rarely getting voiced. If we don’t, we’re going to continue to perpetrate sins of commission and omission that prevent us from making even the slightest dent in the failing status quo that defines education, healthcare, and social services in America.

The most common sin of commission is when we funders, in the name of “measurement” and “accountability,” foist unfunded, often overly simplistic, self-serving mandates on our grantees—rather than genuinely helping them define, create, and use the information they need to be disciplined managers.

The sin of omission I often see is when funders and nonprofits run away from outcomes and their measurement altogether—that is, nothing assesses whether nonprofits are delivering on their promises to the families who turn to them for services.

It’s About Management, Not Metrics
It is clear to me that our sector needs a major reset on the approach to outcomes—from how we think about them to how we assess them. More than anything else, our sector needs a singular focus on managing to outcomes. Here’s precisely what I mean:

• Nonprofits need to gain clarity, through thoughtful introspection, on what change they are trying to create;
• They need to gain specificity on how they will accomplish that change;
• They need to identify what information (hard and soft) will be most helpful for determining if they are on course to achieve that change; 
• They need to collect and use this information as a basis for being disciplined within mission—that is, to plan, make important decisions, track, course correct, and improve;
• They need to combine all of the above with good judgment and keen discernment, which are more important than any metric.

What Managing to Outcomes Looks Like
Geoff Canada, founder and CEO of Harlem Children’s Zone and one of my heroes, raised a stir with some provocative comments that were published in the New York publication City Limits. 

When Canada was asked to define success for HCZ, he said, “The only benchmark of success is college graduation. That’s the only one: How many kids you got in college, how many kids you got out.”

Canada could not have been clearer on the ultimate outcomes HCZ is focused on achieving. It’s not improving reading levels. It’s not getting kids to graduate high school. It’s not helping kids get into college. To HCZ, these are important interim indicators to ensure they are moving in the right direction, but, ultimately, it’s ensuring those young people make it through college that matters.

With that great clarity as a starting point, Canada and his team, with the help of the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation, Bridgespan, and others, have gotten good at identifying the information they need to collect in order to manage to these outcomes. Are all the kids in the HCZ graduating from college? Of course not. But HCZ is on a very promising path. 

A Challenge to Us All
If you’re not focused on outcomes (or doing very little), then please recognize that you—the executives, staff, board, and funders—have an affirmative obligation to engage. It’s mission-critical to know whether you’re on track to deliver what you promise to those you serve. I have great respect for leaders’ intuition, but intuition alone is almost never enough.

If your nonprofit has defined your intended outcomes and maybe even progressed to reporting on them, then please stop, step back, and rigorously question what you’ve done (or plan to do). Remember the critical, first-order question, “To what end?” Think about Geoff Canada. Are you on a path to gain the clarity he has achieved (after many years of struggle!) on the ends he’s trying to advance for the children and young people he serves?

I encourage nonprofits to undertake facilitated discussions, perhaps inviting informed voices to brief their boards and staff. For example, I’ve been fortunate to be deeply engaged with The Lawrence School in Northeast Ohio, which serves grades 1-12 students with learning differences and attention-deficit disorders. We have benefited greatly by having a facilitator—a seasoned, skilled professional who understands management and organizations well—lead working groups of board and staff to sort out and define fundamental aspects of what the school does and represents. The facilitator has helped us conduct concerted and lengthy efforts to gain greater clarity of mission and vision and define the school’s guiding principles and underlying values.  Similarly, discussions are well along to clarify and explain more clearly whom the school serves and to define, with specificity, its educational model and how it differentiates itself from other educational approaches. The gains have been nothing short of transformational.

None of this suggests in any way that summative and formative evaluation are not important, particularly for building information about what works and what doesn’t for the field or a discipline. But if we really want to help organizations deliver quality services most effectively, then our priority must be on identifying the nonprofits with the willingness, propensity, and capacity to manage to outcomes—and then helping them do just that, with strong encouragement, significant funding, and relevant expertise.

Mario Morino, a former software entrepreneur, is the chairman of Venture Philanthropy Partners, based in Washington, DC.

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Subtle Nudges for Greater Good

Many psychologists, writers and other students of human nature have reached the same conclusion: people are usually too distracted, tired, scared, or just plain lazy to act on their best intentions. But few of these observers suggest how us humans might overcome our less noble tendencies.

Scientists at a recent Stanford Center for Social Innovation conference, however, presented a bevy of tactics for transforming even the most bumbling schlemiel into a model citizen. Called “Small Steps, Big Leaps: The Science of Getting People to do the Right Thing,” the event showcased how to use gentle nudges, subtle tweaks, and quiet prompts to summon better behavior. 

One of the most overlooked strategies for getting people to be generous, for instance, is actually to ask them, related Frank Flynn of Stanford Graduate School of Business. Flynn discussed his experiments showing that one barrier to “the ask” is that people grossly underestimate how often their requests for help will be honored. And if at first you do not succeed, then ask, ask again, he recommended, presenting findings that people who say “no” to an initial ask are more likely to say “yes” to a subsequent one.

You need not even tell people how much to give, noted Leif Nelson of the University of California, Berkeley’s Haas School of Business. His findings show that people sometimes donate more when they get to set the amount.

And you need not feel guilty about asking people to help, because you may actually be doing them a favor, suggested Mike Norton of Harvard Business School. His studies reveal that giving people the chance to help others can improve everything from their mood to their dodge-ball game.

Even better than asking people to take the high road is making the high road the easiest one to take, argued Eric Johnson of the Columbia School of Business. When policies and practices turn good behavior into the default option, people tend to act more ethically—or, as Johnson put it, “There’s something very special about doing nothing.” For example, in countries where people have to take the trouble to opt out of organ donation—a post-death benevolence that many societies value—vastly more people donate their organs than do in countries like the United States, where people have to go out of their way to opt in to organ donation. Likewise, people save more money when their employers automatically enroll them in retirement savings programs and use less energy when florescent bulbs are the only light in town. (For more about defaults, see “Helping the Poor Save More” in the winter 2010 Stanford Social Innovation Review.)

If you must trouble yourself with framing a message, several researchers revealed how simple shifts in wording can spell the difference between vice and virtue. Just mentioning money can throw people off their altruism game, showed Kathleen Vohs of the University of Minnesota’s Carlson School of Management. Her experiments demonstrate that even minor references to cash make people stingier and less sensitive to suffering—even their own. For fundraisers whose job is to ask people for money, Vohs’ findings could inspire dismay. But she has an antidote: First ask people to donate their time, and then ask them to donate their money.

Noah Goldstein of UCLA’s Anderson School of Management similarly showed the power of getting words right. Public service announcements and other social good campaigns often communicate that everybody pollutes, steals, carouses, or otherwise behaves badly—but you shouldn’t. (“Only YOU can prevent forest fires!” exhorts Smokey Bear.) Yet humans are herd animals; and so despite our claims to uniqueness and independence, we tend to follow the crowd. As a result, campaigns that imply that the crowd is up to no good often backfire: A sign in Arizona’s Petrified Forest reporting that visitors purloin some 14 tons of wood per year, for example, doesn’t deter such theft—it encourages theft.

A better way, said Goldstein, is to convey that most people are doing the right thing—and you should, too. Accordingly, a sign saying that most guests conserved water by reusing their towels (rather than having them laundered) inspires far more towel reuse than does a sign lamenting how many guests waste water. 

Pictures and stories that put a human face on an issue can also steer people towards right action, related Adam Grant of the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School. Radiologists read X-rays more accurately when they see a picture of the bones’ owners, Grant showed, and lifeguards work harder after hearing stories about heroic water rescues.

Putting people in the driver’s seat of their own narratives also works wonders, reported Steve Cole of HopeLab, a Redwood City, Calif.-based company that makes health-promoting products for children with chronic diseases. In HopeLab’s first-person shooter video game, Re-Mission, for example, kids recovering from cancer travel through the human body and, with the help of medicines, blast would-be cancer cells out of their paths. The game is clinically proven to help kids take their post-chemotherapy maintenance drugs—a crucial, yet difficult step in their recovery.

Nonprofits too must control their own narratives, warned Jennifer Aaker of the Stanford Graduate School of Business. She presented data showing that nonprofits suffer from the stereotype of being warm and caring, but not very competent. To boost donations and public confidence, nonprofits need to advertise their business acumen.

But perhaps they should do so softly, for the resounding message throughout the conference was this: You need not scream and push when a
whisper and a nudge will do. That’s advice that even the most distracted, tired, scared and even lazy social innovator can get behind.

Alana Conner, PhD is the senior editor of the Stanford Social Innovation Review. A social science writer, editor, and consultant whose specialty is cultural psychology, Alana received her doctorate in social psychology from Stanford University and her postdoctoral certificate in psychology and medicine from the University of California, San Francisco. In addition to her blog, Alana has written for a number of venues including The New York Times Magazine and Static.

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The Normative Problem with the Term ‘Next Generation’ Leaders

Earlier this year, I profiled four “now generation” leaders to watch because they are, and will be, doing amazing things for social change in the next year.  But the main reason I wanted to coin the term ‘now generation’ is because I think the ‘next generation’ moniker gives young people (and everyone else) the sense that we have to wait for some undetermined time before we can lead. We have to wait until someone hands us the baton. We have to sit on the sidelines until someone passes us the ball. And until then, we’ve got to sit quietly with the other kids and try to catch the crumbs of wisdom and power that fall from the big kid’s table. We’ve got to wait until we get “next.”

If that’s what we mean by ‘next generation’ leaders, I sure don’t want to be one. To be clear, I don’t see anything wrong with the term in and of itself, but rather how it may be being used to reinforce the current distribution of power in the nonprofit sector.

The Normative Problem

In some ways, I see the term ‘next generation’ being used to further the normative problem we have in nonprofits. Harvard professor and scholar Ron Heifetz talks about how “normative issues” in leadership can make it difficult for new leaders to emerge. Basically, the term ‘normative’ means relating to an ideal model or standard for something, i.e. the “norm.” Heifetz says that we have a normative problem when a community believes collectively that leaders have certain characteristics like age, experience, pedigree, etc. And when a community believes that leaders come packaged in a particular way, they are more likely to wait for those types of leaders to come, instead of allowing different kinds of leaders to emerge. By saying ‘next generation’ leaders, I think we may be implying that young people are up “next” when we reach a certain age or level of experience, which is, in effect “the norm” for current leadership.

‘Next Generation’ Leaders are Not That Young

Most characterizations of the ‘next generation’ assume that these leaders are much younger than current leaders. Hence, the waiting “until we get old enough” connotation. But the reality is that young nonprofit leaders who are typically referenced as the ‘next generation’ are not as young as people think. We’re not all college kids anymore. This year, the oldest of Generation Y will be 30 years old. We’re no longer the “baby” in the workplace, we’re managers and directors and CEOs of great organizations. In short, the young professionals I’ve been talking about on this blog for three years have quickly become the ‘now generation.’ But I’m not sure the term ‘next generation’ takes that into account.

Who Decides When ‘Next Generation’ Leaders Become ‘Now Generation’ Leaders?

Having a cadre of bright young leaders in the nonprofit sector is great, but typecasting us as the ‘next generation’can also indicate that we need someone from up on high to deem us “ready” to lead when our time comes. Using the term can make it seem as if young people will lead after all the Baby Boomers are gone, however we all know that’s not gonna happen anytime soon. Baby Boomers are staying in their jobs longer as a result of the economic downturn, and many are taking on “encore careers” as nonprofit leaders. So it’s up to us, the young nonprofit leaders, to redefine who gets to say when we’re ready to lead. It can’t be our bosses, our mentors, or some older and wiser colleague. It is we who must decide for ourselves whether and when we will lead. I’ve heard too many stories of young people who come into the nonprofit sector, do their jobs well, and wait to be promoted or included or at the very least, heard. What I’ve realized in hearing these stories is that if young people wait for approval from their organizations to lead, if we wait for someone to deem us worthy of leadership opportunities, it will never happen. We have to make our own opportunities. Malcolm X once said (my brackets), “Nobody can give you freedom. Nobody can give you equality or justice or anything. If you’re a man [or woman], you take it.” I want to see us take it.

So the new question I think we need to ask ourselves is not what we will do as ‘next generation’ nonprofit leaders, but what we are already doing to lead right now today. How do you answer that question for yourself? Do you consider yourself to be a ‘next generation’ leader?

Rosetta Thurman is a writer, speaker, professor and consultant working and living in the Washington, D.C. area.  She holds a Master’s degree in Nonprofit Management and blogs about nonprofits, leadership and social change at rosettathurman.com

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Give Permission to Peer Influence

A new report from the team at Forrester came out last week: Tapping The Entire Online Peer Influence Pyramid.  It comes at the same time that I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about the importance of community builders/managers/leaders or organizational voices to give permission back to the community members.  The evaluation and recognition of peer influence, something that is not only prevalent but inherent in social media, is something that help empower and sustain your communities AND increase your staff capacity.  Let’s discuss!

First, let’s talk about permission.

As organizations or community builders active online, working to practice and create quality engagement, we are often trying to guide, collect or herd conversations and interactions into spaces that we have created or monitor closely. When I say “give permission,” in this post, I’m really saying that you should balance the herding and collecting of the community with the encouragement and empowerment for the community to go wherever it wants with your message or information.

Giving permission to the community is really just recognizing that conversations already take place in spaces online where you don’t have a presence, a fan page, or a profile. That people talk about your services or programs, issues or sector wherever they are and you may never know about it, know them, or be part of the conversation.

Giving permission to the community to have conversations without you requires trust. You have to trust that the community will take your communications or mission forward. You have to trust that the community will monitor or respond to comments or issues in a way that matches the way you would (that you’ve modeled the behavior the way you want it repeated).

The conversations and connections that are taking place elsewhere, whether it’s on or offline, don’t have to remain a mystery to you, though.  Give permission for your community to report back - and provide the mechanisms to do so.  Create places for or explicitly ask for feedback, not just about what you do and how you do it (which you probably already do) but also what your community is doing, learning, hearing, seeing, interested in and so on. This way you can build active two-way communications that help you stay informed but also empower the community members to be part of team.

Now, what about peer influence?

I’ve talked before about how to map your community and the messages within it.  What’s so great about the chart from Forrester at the top of this post is that it shows you a great way to view segments of your database in an influential way. You don’t simply have to say there are people that respond to action alerts and those that don’t… I may not sign your petition, but what if I’m forwarding it on? What if you could send powerful invitations to spread the word or rally behind a cause or action to a select group of people instead of creating mass mailings to everyone you know?  Think of the difference: your communications become more strategic, more streamlined, and more efficient by recognizing those in your list that fall into the different peer influence categories!

Giving permission to peer influence

All of this is really to say: you can create a multiple win for your organization and your community by giving permission to broadcast and influence on your behalf.  It sounds simple, but there are always infastructre requirements behind everything.  In order to give permission and leverage the peer influencers in your community, you need:

• to create a dashboard, toolbox, or any other catchy name where influencers can grab images, videos, files or messages that are ready to be broadcast
• to create opportunities for influencers to be unique or valuable with their participation
• to monitor how your influence tools are used (“share with a friend” or RT or so on) to see what content is best or most successfully shared and if there are new influencers emerging
• to provide recognition or spotlight for those that are taking your message into their networks and creating impact
• to help your staff, team or organization to understand the value in distributing the communications and influence of your work, and help them leverage the network in similar ways across all departments and campaigns

What do you think?

How has your organization seen peer influence or community leaders emerge in social media? How have you created ways to give value back to those driving your message to their own communities? (Think about all of this in terms of campaigns, fundraising, events and more!)

Amy Sample Ward’s passion for nonprofit technology has lead her to involvement with NTEN, NetSquared, and a host of other organizations. She shares many of her thoughts on nonprofit technology news and evolutions on her blog.

 

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Third Sector Grit

Grit, as defined by Webster’s Dictionary, is a “firmness of mind or spirit, unyielding courage in the face of hardship or danger”.  Tales by Robert Louis Stevenson or the movie The Red Balloon were the stories of my childhood that got to the essence of “grit”.  Recent movies like Life Is Beautiful, Shawshank Redemption and Slumdog Millionaire are examples of modern stories that outline that grit is still popular.

The nonprofit sector is great for many reasons, but one of the main reasons for its greatness is what I term, “Third Sector Grit” and it lives out every day to the many stories of unyielding courage in the face of hardship or danger.  It is a quality that is overly abundant and at times minimized in the face of “innovation”.  Third Sector Grit is most times not the stories of the sector’s executive leaders; more often it refers to those community champions in each nonprofit who do not have the larger titles but who are individuals that the organization could not move forward without.  I would venture to say that the definition of Third Sector Grit are the individuals and stories in each nonprofit that showcase its most valuable asset, the ‘firmness of spirit and unyielding courage in the face of the hardship’ toward fulfilling its mission.

I led an organization through a merger a couple years ago and we were discussing the immersion of staff between the organizations.  Through this process some staff cuts were planned for and nearly every staff member within the organization fought tooth and nail for a long-term administrative assistant.  This person came to resemble the heart and soul of the organization and when the others described her, they described the many courageous acts that she had taken, without recognition, putting herself in very difficult circumstances.  She lived and bled the organization and if Third Sector Grit was in the dictionary, her picture would be right there, smiling.

Recently I attended an event with many corporate social responsibility leaders throughout the United States.  Networking with several beforehand, they spent much of their time talking about the amazing stories of their grantees or their site visits they had made to “the field”.  They called them their “war stories”.  The ensuing luncheon peppered various inspiring tales about their work with their nonprofit partners.  Nearly every conversation outlined Third Sector Grit and it served as one of the major motivating forces behind this convening of these corporate philanthropy leaders.  If I could have bottled Third Sector Grit, I would have sold it by the truckload.

Third Sector Grit is the main motivating force to why I work in the sector.  I have many stories and love to share them.  From the boxing coach in Washington State who used his pet orangutan to build relationships with young people to the two former drug dealers who turned their lives around following the death of a family member to start a touch football league to the counselor who works with lonely seniors each Saturday in the back room of an Embers.  Talk to most in the nonprofit sector and you will get Grit stories all day.

As part of my regular blog postings with the Stanford Social Innovation Review, I will periodically feature a “Third Sector Grit” story.  If you have one that you would like to share, please feel free to send to me as I may highlight.  My e-mail is john@cuidiuconsulting.com Look forward to hearing from you!

John Brothers the Principal of Cuidiu Consulting, a Senior Fellow in executive leadership with the Support Center for Nonprofit Management, and an adjunct professor at New York University’s Wagner School for Public Service. He is also a Visiting Scholar at the Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organizations at Harvard.

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“Flag on the Play” for a Multi-Million Dollar Nonprofit

Two February 7th Events – One nonprofit rose over $450 million dollars and the other worked toward a goal of $15,000.  Which one is the true nonprofit organization?

On February 7th, the Courage Center held its 4th annual benefit for Camp Courage, which offers safe, accessible, natural environments for children with disabilities.  Founded in Minnesota in 1928, the Courage Center is a nonprofit organization that set a goal of $15,000 dollars for its Dance with Courage event.

On the same day, the National Football League (NFL), a registered nonprofit organization, successfully raised an estimated $463 million dollars through its annual Super Bowl event, according to Sports Research Institute.  The event was seen by over 100 million people and an estimated 112,000 people were in attendance.  Some other interesting facts include:

• The highest donation category for the Camp Courage event was the “Mikhail Baryshnikov” level at $100.  The Super Bowl sold 30-second commercial advertising space for approximately $2.6 million dollars a spot. 
• The NFL’s CEO Roger Goodell is reportedly paid over $10 million dollars, which is approximately three times more than the top nonprofit CEO salary cited by Money Magazine, James Mongan of Partners HealthCare Systems in Massachusetts.  Mr. Goodell makes nearly 44 times more than the CEO at the Courage Center according to 990 records.
• The NFL has 13 subsidiaries, seven of them tax exempt.  The smallest of the seven tax exempt subsidiaries are those that are dedicated toward philanthropic causes, including NFL Charities and the NFL Youth Fund.  Rick Cohen, in his Nonprofit Quarterly blog The Cohen Report (8/12/08), cited that in the 2005 990, the NFL gave away to charitable causes slightly under $10 million dollars.  This is approximately one tenth of 1% of its annual revenue.  Foundations are required by law to distribute annually at least 5 percent of their net assets.
• The NFL’s 2009 annual revenue is $7.6 Billion dollars, according to Forbes Magazine.  That would make it over $2 billion more in revenue than the Mayo Foundation, the largest U.S. charity cited by Forbes.  The league’s least valued team, the Oakland Raiders at $797 million dollars, is greater than many large for-profit companies.

Something is wrong with this scenario.  I am not sure if the NFL truly complies with the nonprofit corporation definition of operating for educational, charitable, social, religious, civic or humanitarian purposes.

While the proceeds of the Camp Courage event will be dedicated toward advancing the lives of children and adults experiencing barriers to health and independence, the proceeds of the Super Bowl will go to the NFL’s mission of “promoting interests of its 32 member clubs”.  The mission statement originally filed by the NFL is unknown.  According to Josh Peter of the New Orleans Times-Picayune, the “NFL said it has lost its copy of the application it filed with the IRS in 1942, and the IRS also said it was unable to find a copy of the application.” 

I guess this is equal to the dog eating your homework and so I am sure advancing the interests of the Washington Redskins is equal to the missions of organizations like the Courage Center or smaller “folding-table organizations” that earn their non-profit status each and every day.
 
I am an avid football fan.  I played throughout high school and college.  I enjoy a Vikings or Jets game on Sundays.  That said, there is something very wrong about the NFL being a tax exempt organization and my greatest challenge is how the nonprofit sector can be manipulated in this way.  What is even more worrisome is how much more other tax exempt statuses are being manipulated in this fashion. 

John Brothers the Principal of Cuidiu Consulting, a Senior Fellow in executive leadership with the Support Center for Nonprofit Management, and an adjunct professor at New York University’s Wagner School for Public Service.

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For Collaboration Geeks: The Lodestar Database on Collaboration Models is Up and Running!

I love hearing about creative ways that nonprofit organizations combine program and corporate structures in order to expand their impact. If it’s change that results in helping more people then I am always interested in what the nonprofit leaders are up to. If you are like me and curious about new ways people are using strategic re-structuring strategies, then you will love the new Nonprofit Collaboration Database created through the Lodestar Foundation,  based at the University of Arizona. This is a searchable database consisting of 176 collaboration models submitted by nonprofit organizations to the Lodestar Foundation’s 2009 Collaboration Prize.  The Collaboration Prize competition awards $250,000 to the top nonprofit collaboration and has been awarded only once so far.  The nominators provided the information on the database and it’s possible to trace back to the organizations involved to discuss their collaborations with them directly.

The database allows you to perform many search combinations, and modify the searchable criteria. Users can find matches to even the most complex of searches, for example, groups of three or more nonprofits which formed a federation to co-locate their programs only in the southwestern United States. The goal is for researchers to use the database to identify interesting trends or to learn about effective ways to use strategic re-structuring strategies for nonprofits.

In the past, little information was accessible to nonprofit leaders and stakeholders about nonprofit collaborations of any kind. Today, as a result of efforts like the Lodestar Foundation’s database, much more information is available. This increased availability drives new research on corporate structure and the fairly new set of strategies that support collaboration.

Jean Butzen, Mission Plus Strategy consulting, specializes in mergers and alliances in the Chicago area.

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10 Free Things Every New Social Entrepreneur Should Have

A successful social entrepreneur is scrappy and resourceful. They know how to do more with less, and create a social impact while doing so. The 10 resources below are free monetarily, but each is an invaluable tool for launching and sustaining a lean social enterprise.

1. Interns. Treat them well, give them meaningful projects, and make it worth their while. Most universities even offer credit for coursework, so contact a university’s marketing, nonprofit, or social work departments. You can also post opportunities for free on Enternships and InternshipIn.

2. A good lawyer. Unless you’re also a lawyer, you’re going to need to find someone with legal expertise to help you navigate contracts and ensure you comply with state and federal law. Fortunately, many lawyers are generous enough to donate a portion of their time to pro bono projects. CorporateProBono, a national initiative of the American Corporate Counsel Association, plays “matchmaker” between nonprofits and such generous attorneys.

3. 501(c)3 status. Okay you can’t skirt paying for filing these forms, but you can save by filing them yourself. Yes, it’s time consuming and challenging; but I guarantee your journey ahead will be even more so. When I was trying to incorporate Yoga Bear as a 501(c)3, I used the Nolo Guide Starting & Building a Nonprofit, which I borrowed from the local library.

4. Board Members. Finding directors with complementary skills, as well as the experience and spirit of public service to guide your organization is essential. Post your opportunities on BoardNetUSA, BoardSource, and VolunteerMatch.

5. Local Support. Know thy neighbor. Regardless if your initiative is hyper-local or entirely global, get involved with the local changemaker movement. A great place to start is joining the listserv of your local YNPN chapter. You’ll be added to an e-mail list that exchanges ideas, questions, local news, and events.

6. Global Exposure. It goes without saying that you will need to create a Twitter Account and Facebook Page, at the very least. Use Namechk to see if your organization’s username is still available. Even if you don’t plan on starting a YouTube page, claim the name now.

7. Collaboration and management tools. These tools are especially important if volunteers and team members are geographically dispersed. Google Docs or PBworks are two excellent (and free) products that will allow you to coordinate work on documents and spreadsheets. And the Salesforce Foundation donates CRM product licenses to qualified nonprofits.

8. A great logo. I am far from an artist, but I am proud to say that I created the Yoga Bear logo using stock photo art and a free version of Photoshop. Try GIMP, a free Photoshop-like software and their free tutorials to learn how.

9. A Web site. Your home on the web. Depending on your needs and programming skills, there are a plethora of options. If you know a bit of HTML, try Ning to create a homepage with social network features like message boards and a blog (this is what we use for YogaBear). Or if you need an easy drag-and-drop interface, use Weebly.

10. An Understanding of the Space. Knowledge of the work being done in your niche can open doors and opportunities to key players. Create a Google alert (such as “homelessness AND Detroit” or “cancer AND yoga”) to receive daily or weekly emails with links to news stories using these keywords. You’ll start to learn who is making strides in the domain, and be able to reach out to those teams. Keep in mind that there are no competitors, as long as everyone has the same mission.

This is far from a comprehensive list of the amazing free tools out there. Please share! What have you used to launch and sustain a successful social enterprise?

Halle Tecco is a San Francisco resident and social entrepreneur passionate about technology, service and healthy living. She is the Founder and Executive Director of Yoga Bear, a non-profit providing more opportunities of health and wellness to cancer patients through the practice of yoga. Halle has worked as a Product Manager at various consumer-internet startups, including Enternships.com and Kiva.org. She also serves as an advisor to GreatNonprofits.org. She is pursuing her MBA at Harvard Business School and will graduate in 2011.

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Five Ways to Emerge as a Nonprofit Leader

Hildy Gottlieb’s latest post has got me to thinking more about the so-called generational leadership gap in nonprofit organizations. She and I agree that there is not really a “gap” in leadership. What we really have is an ongoing disconnect around the myth that young people aren’t yet “ready” to take the reigns from current leaders .  . . when it’s clear that we absolutely are. This inability for many older leaders to pass the torch is partly what causes young people to become disenchanted with nonprofit work and often underperform in their current roles. Many young nonprofit professionals are waiting until they get the title of “Director” to lead. They are waiting until their older colleagues deem them “ready” to lead instead of emerging as leaders in the here and now. But what we have to understand is that this behavior doesn’t benefit our organizations nor the communities we seek to serve. What we have to understand is that we need as many young people as possible to emerge as nonprofit leaders, even if they don’t have a title. The future of the nonprofit sector depends on it.

Leadership theorist Peter Northouse outlines the fundamental difference between assigned and emergent leadership in his book Leadership Theory and Practice.  He asserts that assigned leadership is based on being hired into a particular position in an organization: “Executive Director/CEO” or “Development Director” or “Senior Vice President” etc. Assigned leadership is based on having a certain title in an organization that automatically deems you a leader. Northouse points out, however, that assigned leaders are not always necessarily perceive as the “real leader” of the organization. For instance, they may be the big boss, but the only reason their employees obey them is because they fear getting fired.

In contrast, emergent leadership is exhibited when an individual is perceived to have influence in a group or organization, regardless of their title. How does this happen?

In his 1974 book Small Group Decision Making: Communication and the Group Process, B. Aubrey Fisher proposed that successful leader emergence happens over time as a result of several positive communications behaviors. He said that one could emerge as a leader without being assigned a title if one exhibited the following behaviors:

Be Verbally Involved

This means, speak up! The more you insert your voice into the decision-making process of your organization, the more visible you become to everyone. Ask questions, even if you think they’re dumb. Don’t just be a head nodder, speak up and verbalize why you agree with a certain decision. Likewise, if you disagree with a decision that’s being made, say so. And explain why. People may not agree with you, but they will respect you for speaking your mind. Many times, the other people around the table are thinking the same thing you are. If you get the opportunity to lead a meeting, do it! And if you have rotating staff meetings, volunteer to run one of them.

Be Informed

Stay abreast of what’s happening in your nonprofit and your field. Being knowledgeable can give you an edge in your work as well as earn you a reputation as an “expert” within your organization. Read all of your own organization’s newsletters and annual reports. Examine your own 990s on Guidestar. Using social media as your news feed can definitely help you stay informed, as Elisa commented on this blog recently:

Twitter has definitely helped my career! It has helped me build my knowledge base on nonprofit best practices, resources and technology which has allowed me to contribute intelligently to conversations within the office and provide evidence to back up my statements. In the last couple of places I’ve worked, I’ve also been one of the first people to find out about late breaking news or important new resources that have just come out relevant to our work. Both of these things have helped me build my ‘clout’ within the office and made me a more indispensable employee.

Seek Others’ Opinions

Many times, the opinions of young people can be discounted because of our age. On some, “what does this kid think she knows?” It’s not right, but it still happens. It may be fair to call this reverse ageism, but it won’t help to go around accusing people in your organization of being ageist. No one likes to be called names, even if the shoe fits. Instead, consider asking older colleagues what they think of your ideas before you present them. That way you’ll be able to tweak them if they bring up an angle you haven’t thought about, and they can support you when it’s time to possibly implement your idea within the organization.

Initiate New Ideas

You know you have great ideas. I know you have great ideas. But does anyone else? It doesn’t help your organization for you to sit still and silent when you have a way to improve the way your nonprofit provides services or help save your nonprofit money. I once worked at an organization where we were paying a ton for health insurance for all our employees because no one had the time to do the research to see if there were any comparable, but less expensive plans out there. If someone had taken that on as a stretch assignment, it would have been a great idea and extremely helpful to our bottom line.

Be Firm But Not Rigid

We learn about a lot of great theories in grad school. We read a lot of management books. We know how to use a lot of great social media tools. We may think we know a thing or two. And we do. But we also have to remember that our ideas are not the only ideas. They may not even be the best ideas. If you present an idea and nobody else is into it, don’t write them all off as ageist losers, but continue to work with your colleagues to come up with something that makes sense to everyone. It pays to know your stuff, but you can’t be so rigid that it’s “your way or the highway.”

What are some ways that you’ve been able to lead within your organization (or in your community) without having a title? How else would you interpret Fisher’s five suggested behaviors?

Image credit: Lynn’s Little Bit of Trivia

Rosetta Thurman is a writer, speaker, professor and consultant working and living in the Washington, D.C. area.  She holds a Master’s degree in Nonprofit Management and blogs about nonprofits, leadership and social change at rosettathurman.com

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Correlations Between Being a Great Teacher and Being a Great Nonprofit

When my colleagues discuss nonprofit organizations, often they use a variety of analogies and comparisons. Sometimes an analogy is made between a nonprofit and a hospital, often discussing the nonprofits challenges with words relating to “surgery” or at times “life support.” Sometimes they are compared to a car, comparing the various engine parts to the sections of a nonprofit. The comparison I like and most often use is comparing a nonprofit to an elementary school classroom. Having recently volunteered in my son’s Pre-K classroom I know that I could be simultaneously leading a reading group, cleaning up a mess and consoling a crying youngster. Nonprofit organizations, like a classroom, have many moving parts.

I was thinking about this after I read an interesting article in the January 2010 edition of The Atlantic. The article, by Amanda Ripley, asks the central question of “What makes a great teacher?” In getting to this question, Ripley was given access to years of data compiled by the nonprofit group, Teach for America (TFA).  Through this analysis, TFA came to some central characteristics that make up a great teacher. They concluded that great teachers:

• Set big goals for their students.
• Continually look for ways to improve their effectiveness and constantly reevaluate their performance.
• Recruited students and their families into the process.
• Maintained focus, “ensuring that everything they did contributed to student learning”.
• Planned “exhaustively and purposefully—for the next day or the year ahead—by working backward from the desired outcome”
• Worked “relentlessly, refusing to surrender to the combined menaces of poverty, bureaucracy, and budgetary shortfalls.”

When I looked at these characteristics I began thinking about the earlier classroom analogy between a great teacher and a great nonprofit. My thoughts on the comparisons, using additional analogies, are:

• Most nonprofit have lofty dreams. The difference between these nonprofits and great ones is that a great nonprofit’s mission and vision should remain lofty but its closely related goals are realistic and attainable. Many nonprofits often drive in circles toward what they believe is a goal, but really are endlessly driving around that lofty dream.

• Great nonprofits know that their march toward mission effectiveness is a constant working of a muscle, often adding a weight to the bar or altering a routine to reach their potential.  Often times ambitious nonprofits approach effectiveness like an audit, performing a Jiffy Lube exercise of creating and monitoring checklists to reach “effectiveness”.  Great nonprofits know their dashboard is on a moving trajectory that they are constantly working toward.

• Great nonprofits create an environment in which multiple players all have parts in their symphony, each one important.  Many nonprofits have conditioned themselves to believe that real participation into their success is to involve clients and partners in an obligatory bit role, ranging in activities like providing a feedback box for staff or having client representation on an executive or board committee.  Great nonprofits know that client and partner interaction needs to be intertwined into the operational fabric of the organization.

• Great organizations are experts at saying the word “No”.  “No” to Requests for Proposals that don’t meet the mission, “No” to a board member’s ambition that could take the organization astray, “No” to staff working from their own agenda, “No” to partners wishing to collaborate solely to obtain a resource.  While you may think that the word “No” creates an unmotivated environment, it’s actually the opposite in a great nonprofit.  The loud roar of the “Yes” significantly drowns out the diminishing whisper of the “No”.

• An easy test I often use when looking at an organization is to see if the threads of planning at the top reach the day-to-day work in the middle or at the bottom.  Successful nonprofit organizations are able to plan and create mechanisms to monitor planning throughout the organization.  Try this exercise: Grab an organization’s strategic plan, the ED’s most recent report to the board, the job description of a middle manager and that middle manager’s latest performance review.  Can you see some symmetry?  Poor organizations have little, average organizations have some and great nonprofits have a lot.

• Great nonprofits also say “No” to barriers that prevent them from mission success.  “No” to political roadblocks that may shut them out, “No” to technological forces that challenge them to connect and “No” to resource inflows that could be narrowing.  Like great teachers, great nonprofits are “relentless” and “refuse to surrender”.  This is what I like to call “Third Sector Grit” and is what makes the nonprofit world so great.

While I know that the classroom also has aspects that are different from a nonprofit, I do see a very close relationship to what TFA regards as a great teacher to what I regard as a great nonprofit.

John Brothers the Principal of Cuidiu Consulting, a Senior Fellow in executive leadership with the Support Center for Nonprofit Management, and an adjunct professor at New York University’s Wagner School for Public Service.

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