Stanford Social Innovation Review : Informing and inspiring leaders of social change

Nonprofits

Nonprofit Turnaround

My new book, Nonprofit Turnaround: A Guide for Nonprofit Leaders, Consultants and Funders, delves into questions of the state of nonprofits today.

Nonprofits

Influence Without Authority?

I’m sitting in a room full of nonprofit administrators, playing an executive named Warren, and trying not to laugh. My partner is role-playing a sales chief and seems just as clueless as I am about the terminology of commerce and business. (Discussions about sales occur rarely in my job as news director of a nonprofit community radio station.) But we do share the language of empathy, and that’s what this exercise is about—trying to feel out the other person’s needs and address them without giving up one’s own. It’s an interplay we practice every day in the nonprofit sector, whether by trying to understand a funder's true motivations or by understanding what a volunteer really needs.

The exercise is part of Carole Robin’s presentation on “Influence Without Authority” at the recent Nonprofit Management Institute at Stanford University, where Robin lectures in organizational behavior. While I found the exercise and talk amusing, I can’t say I agreed with all of Robin’s premises... (continue reading this blog post)

Nonprofits

Straight Talk in Mixed Company: A Plea for Across-the-Aisle Conversations about Overhead

About a year ago, Don Howard and I co-authored “The Nonprofit Starvation Cycle,” which examines how limiting overhead dramatically impairs nonprofits’ ability to achieve impact. We describe the vicious cycle that starts with funders’ unrealistic expectations about how much running a nonprofit costs and results in nonprofits’ misrepresenting costs while skimping on vital functions. The overhead issue is not “news”—indeed, leaders have been talking about it for decades—but the piece clearly struck a chord.

Over the past year, we’ve seen continued momentum on this issue. In May, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) released its report on the dynamics of indirect cost rates, calling for government grantmakers... (continue reading this blog post)

Nonprofits

Transparency for Impact, Not Just Compliance

Greater transparency is coming to the social sector—and that’s a good thing. But I’m concerned with the way “transparency” is being touted in our sector as well as with the public and in the public sector.

Recently, I read a wonderful blog post on The Economist’s website that hit the nail on the head. The post focused on the way transparency is being pushed in the corporate sector, but the authors’ insights apply equally well in a nonprofit context:

Our mothers told us that lying is a bad thing; what we now call transparency is merely the embodiment of that advice. But just sharing ever more information will not save society from business malpractice and corporate psychopaths…. Customers and governments are not interested in more information, more numbers, more reports or more sophisticated press briefings. What civil society is seeking is trustworthy, relevant and understandable information about how a company runs its business and the features of the products and services it offers to the market.

Nonprofits

Waiting for Superman–What Superhero Nonprofit Leaders Actually Resemble and Why We Need More

Everyone is talking about the movie “Waiting for Superman”, a powerful and alarming documentary about America’s failing public school system. The title “Waiting for Superman” comes from a quote in the film from educational reformer Geoffrey Canada where he states “one of the saddest days of my life was when my mother told me ‘Superman’ did not exist…she thought I was crying because it’s like Santa Claus is not real. I was crying because no one was coming with enough power to save us.” One of the themes is that there are great individuals working in the educational reform space, everyday “superheroes” that do amazing work in very challenging environments.

The solution to these issues and others that we face as a nation will not be solved by this “Superman” approach... (continue reading this blog post)

Nonprofits

Tipping Point for A National Movement for ECE Shared Services

I am concluding my series on Shared Services Alliances in the Early Childhood Education (ECE) industry with this fourth posting on the National Shared Services Technical Conference which I attended in Philadelphia, Sept. 20-21st. This conference drew about 200 participants from all over the country, including intermediaries, government representatives, private donors, and of course, ECE agencies and family businesses, from New Hampshire to Washington state, Mississippi to Michigan, and everywhere between. Participants included newcomers to the concept of Shared Service Alliances, and people steeped in the experience. The first question people usually asked each other was: Are you forming an alliance in your community?

It was such an exciting conference to attend because I got the real sense that the movement... (continue reading this blog post)

Nonprofits

Collaborating To Achieve Scaled Impact

The mantra of "achieving scale” remains an elusive goal for those of us working in the global philanthropic and social enterprise sectors. What defines scale? Is it measured relative to the gap we seek to close? For example, after nearly 30 years of experience, we know that microfinance does benefit people who are living under $2 a day. Today, microfinance serves 150 million people. But, how do we deliver services to the nearly 2.7 billion people in the world who are unbanked? What is the right threshold to define scale and how do we get there?

The same questions could be posed to any number of gaps—access to secondary education, treatments for certain diseases, or clean water and sanitation—where we have effective tools... (continue reading this blog post)

Nonprofits

Be Careful What You Wish For

Long ago the Nonprofiteer had a client hire her to manage the transition from the founding Executive Director to—well, to whatever future awaited the agency in his absence. It was impressive, actually, that the founder himself was the one who realized first (and persuaded the Board) that transition planning was necessary.

But it turns out that recognizing the need for transition planning is quite a long way from being prepared for actual transition. While the founder was theoretically in favor of Life After Him, in practice he was working to set in stone the practices, policies, goals and programs of Life During Him... (continue reading this blog post)

Philanthropy

Digging for Ponies

Most of us in the nonprofit field are the kind of people inclined to look for ponies. But two years after the spectacular failure in the financial markets, it’s getting even more difficult to look on the bright side.

For people working to improve the life chances of low income people, there is a growing pile of manure stretching for years to come. Pick your indicator—number of unemployed (5 job seekers for every opening), the estimated 1,000,000 homeless public school students, or drastic cuts to core services (elimination of school days in Hawaii, Utah’s consideration of eliminating 12th grade), to name a few—and there is plenty of evidence of suffering... (continue reading this blog post)

Nonprofits

What Folding Table Organizations Can Teach Corporate America

I have been traveling a lot recently and on approximately half of these trips I end up engaging in conversation with individuals who are sitting next to me. Because I am traveling so frequently, I was upgraded for free to a first class seat for a cross-country trip and found myself sitting next to a high-level corporate executive for a large industrial services company. He was flying to their annual corporate meeting but we spent much of the flight discussing nonprofits and service.

He first said that his company was thinking about doing some morale-boosting community service. “Awesome,” I said, “I know of some good causes.” He was also looking to joining a board in the near future. “Great,” I said, “let me know how I can help.” This led him to start on what the nonprofit sector could learn from the corporate sector... (continue reading this blog post)