Will you know when it is your time to leave and how to do so gracefully?

October 25, 2013 erik leadership, organizational development, Planning

Welcome to O.D. Fridays at DonorDreams blog. For the last few years, we’ve looked at posts from John Greco’s blog called “johnponders ~ about life at work, mostly” and applied his organizational development messages to the non-profit community. For the foreseeable future, John is taking a break from blogging and our Friday organizational development blog series will morph into something else. Stay tuned!

In this week’s post titled “Your Stage Now,” John announces to the world that he needs a break from blogging. He simply tells us that he is going on hiatus, and he isn’t sure if and when he will start-up again. In the meantime, he invites everyone to use his blog platform to share their organizational development stories.

After shaking off the suddenness of this announcement, John’s post reminded me of a time when I was an executive director working for a local non-profit organization. During that time, it wasn’t uncommon for the following three questions to visit me like the ghosts of Christmas past, present and future:

Will this board meeting be my last? Is this the meeting when my board will ask me to leave?
Will I know when it is time for me to go? Will I be able to leave or will I be asked to leave?
When it is my time to go, will I be able to fade from the stage with grace?

Yes, those six years of my life were filled with anxiety and stress. No, I was not fired. In fact, I like to think I did a nice job. I did leave on my terms, and I think I left gracefully.

John’s post this morning brought all of those memories flooding back mostly because he exited the stage with class, dignity and grace. His post also reminded me of how many non-profit professionals (and even board volunteers) I’ve seen throughout the years who are completely and utterly unprepared for this moment. It is as if they never contemplated the possibility and it crept up on them like a stealthy cat.

the end2 Here are just a few examples of what those situations looked like:

The board terminating their executive director due to performance issues.
The non-profit professional deciding it was time for a change, which usually meant they were leaving for greener pastures (or so they thought).
The executive director resigning because a BIG issue was about to bite them in the butt, and they would rather pull the pin on the grenade instead of being shot by the board.
The fundraising professional being squeezed out as a result of a new boss being hired with new priorities in the middle of a re-org and shake-up.
A non-profit professional suddenly realizing that it is time to retire and move into their golden years.
A board president quitting suddenly because their child is no longer involved in the agency.

Upon leaving the stage, I’ve seen lots of good and lots of bad. I’m sure you have, too, Sometimes people just run away and hide. Other times, I’ve seen the big hook used to pull that person off of the stage. The following are just a few things that I’ve seen and heard that make me cringe:

I’ve heard executive directors and fundraising professionals assuring donors, volunteers and board members that everything will be OK after they leave. (This feels pretentious and always leaves me wondering if they have doubts that everything is going to actually be OK.)
I’ve heard bad mouthing and airing of grievances. (This looks cowardly and spiteful.)
I’ve seen people simply take their hands off of the wheel in their final days and weeks on the job. (This looks reckless.)

You’re probably thinking that in these situations those were “bad people“. The reality is that I’ve seen both poor professionals and iconic professionals do things like this. I’ve also seen volunteers who I revere accidentally step into some of these pitfalls.

the end3 The definition of the word “grace” according to a Google search is: “simple elegance or refinement of movement“.

The previous bullet points are not good examples of “grace“. However, when I think about myself, I know that I am not a naturally graceful person, which is probably why I obsessed about “the end” and felt the need to think through and plan my exit. (Yes, I recognize that I have control issues and I am working with my counselor to address this. LOL!)

While I encourage you to not obsess (like I did) over what the end will look like, I think it is healthy to contemplate it from time-to-time. And when the end does finally come, I think it is responsible to put a thoughtful plan in place to ensure a graceful exit with a smooth transition.

The following are just a variety of different links and resource that I think you might find useful:

Key Corporate Services blog: “How to Resign From a Job With Grace“
Personal Branding Blog: “5 Steps To Quitting Your Job With Grace“
Foundation Center: “Succession Planning for Nonprofit Organizations: A Resource List“
The Annie E. Casey Foundation: “Building Leaderful Organizations: Succession Planning For Nonprofits“

Do you have any tips or tricks for how to exit the big stage with grace? Do you have a story about a fellow co-worker or board volunteer who left in a less than perfect way? If so, what could they have done differently to make it a better departure? Please use the comment box below to share your thoughts and experiences. We can all learn from each other.

On a personal note, I want to thank John Greco for providing the DonorDreams blog readers with countless “Organizational Development Fridays” over the years. I wish him a restful break and hope he comes back to the blogosphere when he is ready because the world is better place when he is blogging and sharing his perspective on how to grow our organizational capacity and manage change.

Here’s to your health!

Erik Anderson
Founder & President, The Healthy Non-Profit LLC
www.thehealthynonprofit.com
erik@thehealthynonprofit.com
http://twitter.com/#!/eanderson847
http://www.facebook.com/eanderson847
http://www.linkedin.com/in/erikanderson847

Is your organization well positioned for strategic planning?

October 10, 2013 erik Board governance, organizational development, Planning

readiness1 I believe there is a misconception out there about strategic planning because I keep running into executive directors who think just because the current plan is expiring that is must be time to begin work on a new strategic plan. I also oftentimes run into folks who believe it is a perfect time to start planning when their agency is experiencing instability, blurriness, and confusion. In my humble opinion, there is a time and place for strategic planning and embarking on this journey at the wrong time can be at best frustrating and at worst damaging.

Readiness questions

Just the other day, I was talking with a friend about this issue, and they asked the obvious question, “How do you know when the conditions are right?” I started off saying something stupid like: “You’ll know when the time is right.” I knew it was dumb advice as it was coming out of my mouth.

So, I went home and started digging through my library of planning materials. I came across an old strategic planning document from a previous employer who had partnered with BoardSource to create the manual. So, you know it is good stuff. 😉

readiness3 As I had hoped, I found a section titled “Key Questions to Assess Readiness and Capacity”. Here are those questions:

Do your regular board meetings (apart from retreats) include at least one strategic, or “Big Picture,” issue on the agenda?
Is your current strategic plan based on realistic and comprehensive assumptions about the agency and its external environment? What considerations are missing?
How might changing demographics and other economic, social, and political trends affect a constituent, client, or membership base that provides a primary revenue stream?
What goal should the agency strive to achieve for financial reserves (for example, at least one-half of the operating budget)? Are there some potential revenue streams to consider?
Are new priorities clear and the proposed means of paying for them realistic? Which programs should be self-supporting? Which might be operated at a loss in order to fulfill the agency’s mission?
What metrics do you use to monitor organizational effectiveness?
Have you considered all the options and chosen a planning method (aka planning model) that works best for the agency? Are you flexible enough to combine approaches if that suits our culture?
How do you include board members who are not on the planning committee as participants in the process?
What performance measures should be included in your strategic plan?
How do you keep our strategic plan active and visible within and outside the agency?
How often do you conduct strategic planning? Does that cycle make sense for the agency?
When you are ready to undertake a planning process, are you clear about why you are planning?
Are you clear about the roles of the board, executive director, and staff in strategic planning? Do you honor the distinctions?
Have you used consultants in the most effective ways possible? If you have never used a consultant, should you consider doing so?

I’m not thrilled with these questions because I think they blend together two different issues — capacity and readiness. So, if you’re just trying to decide whether or not your agency is ready to start down the strategic planning road, I suggest you and your board governance committee spend some time chewing on questions 7, 8, 11, 12, and 13.

The other questions are important, too. I just think the five question I just highlighted cut to the heart of the matter.

We’re not ready, but we still need a plan!

If your board governance committee determines that you’re not ready, but you see difficulty down the road and think you need a plan to guide your efforts, you may not be out-of-luck.

You should look into developing a short-term tactical plan focused on the next 12 months.

Perhaps, a business plan or a something addressing a specific agency function (e.g. resource development, program, facilities, etc) might be a better use of time for you and your volunteers.

Did you mention consequences?

Earlier in this post I said, “. . . there is a time and place for strategic planning and embarking on this journey at the wrong time can be at best frustrating and at worst damaging.”

I been down this path many times, and I encourage you to please learn from my mistakes.

If you start down a strategic planning road when you aren’t ready to do so, I’ve seen the following things happen:

It feels like you’re spinning your wheels, and you end up spending LOTS of time of stuff that you thought were obvious.
Volunteers get frustrated. They feel like they’re going nowhere fast. Some even express that it is a waste of their time.
I’ve seen board members resign in the middle of difficult strategic planning processes.
I’ve seen major disagreements result in boardroom rifts.
I’ve also seen executive directors get fired.

How has your agency determined readiness? Do you have other questions to add to the list? Please use the comment box below to share your thoughts and experiences. We can all learn from each other.

Here’s to your health!

More on the government shutdown and the non-profit sector

October 9, 2013 erik Fundraising, Planning

shutdown5 In yesterday’s post titled “Did fundraising cause the recent government shutdown,” we talked about whether or not fundraising strategies are one of the leading factors contributing to our current situation. Today, I want to stay with this topic and look at how the shutdown is impacting non-profits and what you should do in the long-term to mitigate some of these issues.

Those you serve

Last night, I was watching the news and an executive director of a veterans agency was being interviewed about how the government shutdown was impacting veterans. Throughout the interview, he eloquently talked about the impact on:

military support staff
vendors
contractors
VA Hospitals (except for emergency room services)
students waiting for G.I. Bill payments for school costs
disbursement of death benefits to families

While I found all of this interesting, the thing most interesting to me was how his agency was being impacted. Obviously, informational hotlines are not being staffed in government offices. So, this organization is trying to fill that void and trying to answer their questions or get them the information they require.

All of this got me thinking. How many other non-profit organizations have clients who rely on the government for something? And by “things” I mean benefits, services, etc.

I suspect there are many non-profits whose phone lines and case workers are now working overtime to fill the void normally filled by government agencies.

Funding concerns

shutdown4 From what I’ve heard and read, many non-profit organizations are concerned about how the government shutdown will impact their funding. Consider the following:

organizations fund their operations with federal contracts
states receive federal pass-through money which eventually can put state funding to non-profits in question
vendors, who do lots of business with the government, might not be able to continue providing your agency with the services you require
donors who work for the government or receive benefits from the government might not be in a position to pay their pledges or continue their support in the short-term

The longer a shutdown drags on, the more pressure will be placed on many non-profit organization’s revenue models.

Human capital

Just the other day, I was speaking with an agency who runs many of their programs with work-study students from the local college. The question they were pondering was obviously, “What impact might the government shutdown have on their situation?”

There are government programs like work-study and Americorps that fuel countless agencies’ human resources needs.

Unanticipated consequences

Our system of government is large and complicated. There are countless numbers of programs that non-profit organizations rely upon, and there are millions of individuals who are impacted. Some of these challenges are immediately obvious, but many others will only make themselves visible down the road.

When businesses — regardless of whether they are for-profit or non-profit — operate in an environment of uncertainty, crazy things start to happen. Uncertainty and the human experience mix together about as well as oil and water.

While finance professionals brace for instability in financial markets, so too should non-profit organizations prepare for the obvious impacts and attempt to anticipate unexpected challenges.

What should you do?

While you might feel helpless at a time like this, there are some things you should consider:

Pull together an ad hoc committee to assess your agency’s vulnerabilities
Revisit your strategic plan and invest some time in contingency planning
Engage fundraising volunteers in a discussion about how to shift your agency’s dependence on government funding to other more stable sources like private sector fundraising efforts and specifically individual giving

Has your agency been impacted by the government shutdown? If so, how? What are you doing about all of this right now? Please use the comment box below to share your thoughts and experiences. We can all learn from each other.

Here’s to your health!

The power of writing it down

October 4, 2013 erik Planning

Welcome to O.D. Fridays at DonorDreams blog. Every Friday for the foreseeable future we will be looking at posts from John Greco’s blog called “johnponders ~ about life at work, mostly” and applying his organizational development messages to the non-profit community.

First let me start this O.D. Fridays post with an apology to DonorDreams blog readers.

For the last week, I’ve been in St. Louis with hundreds of Boys & Girls Clubs from the Midwest and Southwest regions. What an amazing conference with inspiring stories and talented board volunteers and staff members! Hats off to the national staff who planned and executed a flawless conference plan.

Unfortunately, I can’t say the same thing for me and this blog platform.

I didn’t post anything on Monday because my ride to St. Louis picked me up at 5:55 am, and I also missed the mark on Thursday because I needed to be in my exhibitor booth at 7:00 am.

Here are all of the things I’ve been trying to balance this week:

Writing for the DonorDreams blog community
Managing and staffing my exhibitor booth
Organizing and facilitating a training track
Networking
Working with other clients back home who are under contract and in need of attention

For those of you who know me, I usually balance competing projects fairly well. So, why did this week turn out so messy? Why did I drop the ball and not blog on Monday and Thursday?

I think some of the answers to these questions can be found on John Greco’s July 23, 2013 johnponders post titled “Ink It“. In this post, John drills down on the following Chinese proverb:

“The faintest ink lasts longer than the best memory.”

Heading into this challenging week, I didn’t write anything down. I was operating with everything in my head.

I am not just talking about the power of task lists and calendars. This has everything to do with brain science and in some instances personality types.

Now let’s take a 180 degree turn and about-face with this idea.

If you buy into what John talks about in “Ink It,” then what are you doing to encourage your:

staff to write things down?
board volunteers to write things down?
donors to write things down?

Again, we’re not necessarily talking about task lists and time management, which is how I started the post.

What if your board members were asked to write out their personal action plans for the upcoming year?

What if donors were asked to write out their personal stories about why they support your agency? What if you published those testimonials on your agency’s blog or Facebook page?

Would the result be a deeper sense of engagement?

Would board members be more likely to follow through on what they commit to doing? Would donors end up increasing their contributions?

I dunno . . . but if you buy into what John says about the act of writing something down, then these are questions every non-profit professional should be asking themselves.

Have you ever asked donors to share their story in writing? What was the result? How did you use it? What about engaging board members in writing out their commitments as part of a future focused action planning process centered around your strategic planning process?

Please use the comment box below to share your thoughts and experiences.

A side note of appreciation

Throughout the week at the Boys & Girls Club conference in St. Louis, I’ve been approached by countless numbers of people asking me about this blog.

Just last night, I was dragging myself off of the elevator on my way to another late night bedtime when a fellow passenger (who I’ve never met and don’t know), said “You’re that blogger! I missed your post this morning.”

I just want to take a moment to sincerely thank all of you who subscribe and read this blog. I very much appreciate your time, loyalty and complements.

It is easy for me to get into that “Fred the Baker” from Dunkin’ Donuts mindset of “It’s time to make the donuts.” However, this week reminds me that this blog and your daily work is all about mission-focus, your clients, and making this world a better place.

Thank you to those of you who re-inspired me.

I’m also glad that I’ve written all of this down in ink so that this inspiration won’t fade too quickly. 😉

Here’s to your health!

Non-profit governance: The work of the board, part 5

October 2, 2013 erik Board governance, Planning

Dani Robbins is the Founder & Principal Strategist at Non Profit Evolution located in Columbus, Ohio. I’ve invited my good friend and fellow non-profit consultant to the first Wednesday of each month about board development related topics. Dani also recently co-authored a book titled “Innovative Leadership Workbook for Nonprofit Executives” that you can find on Amazon.com.

Governance: The Work of the Board, part 5

Setting the Mission, Vision and Strategic Plan

By Dani Robbins

strategic planning Welcome to the final post in our five-part series on Governance. We have already discussed the Board’s role in Hiring, Supporting and Evaluating the Executive, Acting as the Fiduciary Responsible Agent, Setting Policy, and Raising Money. Today, let’s discuss the Board’s role in setting the mission, vision and strategic plan.

As previously mentioned, Boards are made up of appointed community leaders, who are collectively responsible for governing an organization. As outlined in my favorite Board book Governance as Leadership and summarized in The Role of the Board, the Fiduciary Mode is where governance begins for all boards and ends for too many. I encourage you to also explore the Strategic and Generative Modes of Governance, which will greatly improve your board’s engagement, and also their enjoyment.

At a minimum, governance includes:

Setting the Mission, Vision and Strategic Plan,
Hiring, Supporting and Evaluating the Executive Director,
Acting as the Fiduciary Responsible Agent,
Raising Money, and
Setting Policy.

One of my goals for this blog is to rectify the common practice in the field of people telling non-profit executives and boards how things should be done without any instruction as to what that actually means or how to accomplish it.

What “Board members being responsible for setting the mission, vision and strategic plan” means is:

The Board sets –meaning discusses and votes to adopt or revise — the mission statement, which answers why your organizations exist.

The Board also sets the vision of the organization. A vision statement is a description of what the organization will look like at a specified time, usually 3-5 years, in the future. There are two minds in the field as to if a vision statements should be a Utopian view such as “an end to hunger” or a more concrete view such as “to be the premier youth development organization.” I lean toward the latter; I find it challenging to set goals to get to Utopia.

The Board votes upon the strategic plan, after participating in a strategic planning process “in which the board, staff, and select constituents decide the future direction of an organization and allocate resources, including people, to ensure that target goals are reached. Having a board-approved, staff-involved strategic plan that includes effective measurements and the allocation of resources aligns the organization, provides direction to all levels of staff and board, and defines the path for the future of the organization. It also allows leadership, both board and staff, to reject divergent paths that will not lead to the organization’s intended destination.” (Innovative Leadership Workbook for Nonprofit Executives)

The process — and the document — can be very long or very short. In fact, I have a new theory that the longer strategic plan is, the less likely it is to be used. For my clients, I recommend a 4-5 meeting process: We start with setting or revising values, vision and mission and end with assignments, measurements and due dates.

Please do not accept a plan that does not include assignments, measurements and due dates. If you cannot answer the question “How will we know when we get there?” you will not get there. A plan without measurements, assignments and due dates is just a list of goals that are unlikely to be accomplished.

For information on what should be included in the process, please click here.

A strategic plan should be a living document that guides the organization and provides a point for ongoing programmatic and organizational evaluation. It should not sit on a shelf.

All organizations should have a strategic plan.

Strategic plans get everyone on same page as to where you are as an organization and where you are going. They allow the group to decide the goals moving forward; create measurements to determine if you met your goals and assign responsibility and due dates for specific goals.

Strategic planning is a process that results in not only a document but also a shared understanding among key stakeholders.

In the absence of that shared understanding and agreement, there are still moving parts, but they’re not aligned. The absence of a plan sets the stage for people to do what they feel is best, sometimes without enough information, which may or may not be right for the organization. It opens the door for one person’s vision to get implemented and others to feel unheard or unengaged. The absence of a plan allows for major decisions to be made on the fly and for potentially mission driven decisions to be compromised. As we all know, movement goes in other directions than forward.

What do you think? As always, I welcome your insight and experience.

Obamacare and your non-profit organization

September 23, 2013 erik Planning

obamacare1 I am not a healthcare expert, and I promise not to play one today. However, the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare) has been mentioned in passing a handful of times in meetings I’ve had with non-profit board and staff members over the last few months. Of course, when things like this happen, it tweaks my curiosity and normally ends up here as a blog post. Today, I thought I’d quickly touch upon the quickly evolving topic of healthcare and the non-profit sector and how everyone needs to start paying attention.

In my experience throughout the last few decades, I’ve seen non-profit organizations occupy two very opposite ends of the spectrum when it comes to healthcare and employee benefits. These two generalizations can be summed up as follows:

They are expensive and the agency does everything in its power to avoid offering them to its employees.
They are provided to employees generously as a way to compensate for low wages and entice employees not to leave for better salaries in the for-profit sector.

There is an increasing number of news stories about Obamacare as we inch closer and closer to implementation of the law. As this happens, it is top of mind for executive directors and their non-profit boards. As I mentioned in the introductory paragraph of this blog, I’ve heard both board and staff members mentioning things in passing on this subject.

Of course, the thing that worries me most is that all of the passing comments I’ve heard involve verbiage such as:

We’ll see if . . .
Obamacare might . . .
We’re not sure, but if . . .

I recent read an online article published at Online Athens, which is the website for the Athens Banner-Herald newspaper, about non-profit organizations and what the Affordable Care Act means for them. It was this paragraph in the story that sent chills up my spine and inspired this blog post:

“Local nonprofits contacted about the tax credit were unaware of their eligibility and did not want to comment at the time of publication.”

Let’s please face facts:

Many non-profit organizations are small, under-resourced, and fragile.
These organizations tread water on most days and celebrate just keeping their doors open for another few months.
These agencies don’t have their eyes on things like the Affordable Care Act because throughout time much of what the federal government has done only applies to larger employers with 50 or more employees (and many non-profits aren’t this big)

The Athens Banner-Herald did a nice job of making this point when they ended their article with this:

“There is no requirement on employers to provide health insurance, but there is a penalty under the Affordable Care Act’s employer “shared responsibility” provisions for employers with 50 or more full-time employees that do not provide a minimum level of insurance coverage that goes into effect in 2015. The Act does not require employers to provide health insurance to part-time workers and nonprofits that employ fewer than 50 employees will not be subject to employer-shared responsibilities.”

Regardless, the fact of the matter is that ALL non-profit organizations need to start paying attention and educating themselves about the changing face of the healthcare sector.

obamacare2 Why?

There is this thing called the “individual mandate“. To make a long story short, this means that most Americans will soon be required to have some sort of health insurance coverage. It also means that health insurance coverage will soon be on your employees’ minds. So, don’t be surprised when you start to hear things around your proverbial workplace water cooler like:

Why doesn’t our employer offer us health coverage?
Would it be cheaper to talk to our employer about adding employee subsidized health benefits or purchasing a policy through the government-run insurance exchange?
Since my agency can’t/won’t offer health benefits and I now have to pay for private insurance, I wonder if I can push for a better year-end raise to help offset some of these new costs?
Can I still afford to work in the non-profit sector? Or should I be looking more closely at sector jumping and applying for jobs that offer health insurance?

Sure . . . you may be a small non-profit organization with fewer than 50 employees, but don’t think that none of this is going to effect you. None of this is meant to serve as commentary. I am only trying to make the point that every agency should start thinking about healthcare as changes start to occur and they lead to unanticipated questions and additional changes.

My best advice is to start educating yourself about the Affordable Care Act. Take a few small baby steps and start reading articles and attending free webinars and seminars on the topic. BE PROACTIVE! The following are just a few online resources you may want to check out in your spare time:

Online Athens: “Affordable Care Act offers tax credits to nonprofits“
Blue Cross Blue Shield: “Health Care Reform and You“
Kaiser Permanente: “Understanding the Affordable Care Act“

Let’s use today’s blog post as a starting point for many small non-profit organizations. If you currently work at an agency focused on helping with implementation of this new law, please use the comment box below to share a few thoughts or point folks in the direction of online resources. If you’ve attended a webinar or workshop and learned something worth sharing, please consider taking a moment to share it here.

Here’s to your health!

What is your non-profit vision?

September 16, 2013 erik organizational development, Planning

vision As with most things in this world, there are different schools of thought on different things. While working with a client recently, I was reminded of the two camps that non-profit professionals tend to fall into when it comes to writing vision statements. So, I thought it would be fun this morning to explore both perspectives.

On one hand, you have the folks who believe a vision statement must focus on the community and the future state that the non-profit is striving to bring to the community. While digging around on the internet for examples, I came across great examples at Top Nonprofits blog in a post titled “30 Example Vision Statements“. The following are just a few examples from that post:

Feeding America: A hunger-free America.
Human Rights Campaign: Equality for everyone.
Make-A-Wish: Our vision is that people everywhere will share the power of a wish.
ASPCA: That the United States is a humane community in which all animals are treated with respect and kindness.

Wow! Big expansive visions. They are packed full of inspiration, and clearly explain in just a few words to donorswhat they are investing in. They are chock-full of aspiration, and guide the organization’s decision making.

Of course, this isn’t the only way to write a vision statement.

On the other hand, you have folks who believe a vision statement should focus on the organization and the change it strives to bring to itself and its clients. The following are a few more examples that illustrate this way of thinking:

The United Way of Elgin will be a recognized catalyst for mobilizing resources to build a healthier, more compassionate community.
Greater Elgin Family Care Center is known in the communities it serves for high quality, patient-centered care, delivered by a team of competent and committed staff. GEFCC will grow responsively and responsibly to fulfill unmet health needs, enhance community relationships and maintain financial viability.
It is our vision that the Rappahannock Youth Symphony will become a major regional youth orchestral organization that nurtures young talent and enriches the greater Fredericksburg community through the performance of orchestral literature.

OK . . . perhaps, these vision statements aren’t as grand as the ones previously cited, but they are certainly very utilitarian and functional. I suspect donors are no less inspired by these visions, and the organization is much clearer on what decisions it must make and actions it must take to get from point A to point B.

Let me be clear. I find both schools of thought to be perfectly acceptable when it comes to writing non-profit vision statements.

Is your organization reaching the end of road with its current strategic plan? Have you fulfilled your vision? Are you getting ready to develop a new vision and plan?

If your answer is ‘YES’ to the previous question, my first piece of advice is to make a conscious decision about which school of thought you subscribe. Recognize that you are at a fork in the road and must make a decision on which road to travel. Once you make this decision, then you may want to check out some of the following resources on how to go about developing and writing your vision statement:

wikiHow: “How to Write a Nonprofit Vision Statement“
Brainzooming: “Strategic Planning Doesn’t Have to Kill Creativity“
Brainzooming: “What Are We Trying To Say?“

How is your non-profit vision statement written? To which school of thought do you subscribe? What process did you use to develop your vision statement? How do you use your vision statement?

Please use the comment box below to share your thoughts and experiences. We can all learn from each other.

Here’s to your health!

What are your non-profit agency’s foolish consistency and hobgoblins?

August 23, 2013 erik Fundraising, Planning

In a post titled “Adoring Hobgoblins,” John dissects the following quotation from Ralph Waldo Emerson: “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.” He explains to readers that consistency can be a good thing, but it suddenly becomes a bad thing when it interferes with our good judgement and results in poor actions.

Reading this Emerson quotation set my mind down two different paths this morning. So, what the heck? Let’s go down two roads this morning.

Don’t have a written resource development plan?

It is a best practice in my book to engage board members and fundraising volunteers every year in a process that results in a written resource development plan (aka fundraising plan). It should provide definition and explanation to the revenue side of your agency budget.

Do you know how many non-profit organizations — big and small — with which I’ve worked that don’t do this? OMG . . . it is a crazy BIG number.

So, what do those organizations do if they aren’t operating with a resource development plan?

Yep . . . you guessed it. They are relying on “consistency” and sometimes it is “foolish consistency“.

For example, one organization I worked with many years ago didn’t see the need to develop an annual fundraising plan and pointed to their special event fundraisers as something they’ve been doing forever. One of their events had been run for more than two decades.

Their conclusion . . . “why waste time — that we don’t have — on writing this stuff down, especially when it hasn’t changed in two decades?”

hobgoblin Well, huh? Let me see here. Every good planning process begins with an assessment /evaluation which springboards off into goal setting, strategy development and action planning. If the organization I just referenced hadn’t been so “foolishly consistent,” they would’ve seen the following:

The revenue from their signature event plateaued 13 years ago and has been in steady decline ever since
Many of the people attending their event sit at corporate tables, and they do so anonymously. There were no strategies in place to capture individual donor data, which means the cultivation effect of that event is lost on those people.
Many of the individuals who were die-hard supporters of that event were likely capable and willing to contribute more, but there were no upgrade strategies in place. So, money was being left on the table.
There were hundreds of donors over a 20 year time span who had attended this event a few times and then stopped. There were no strategies to re-engage those lapsed donors either in the event or other places in the agency’s resource development plan.

If I’m not mistaken, these four bullet points are the personification of that “hobgoblin” in Emerson’s famous quotation. And, boy oh boy, what an ugly little hobgoblin it is.

I know that some people think of planning processes as a “foolish consistency“. I obviously DO NOT! In fact, I see it as just the opposite. A well-run planning process of any kind should:

help your organization look at things differently
keep a fresh perspective
engage in dynamic brainstorming
inspire change that keeps your agency’s growing

This brings me to the last portion of Emerson’s quotation “. . . adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines“. I would love to add the words “board volunteers and agency staff“.

small mind The board members and executive director of the agency I reference in the example above certainly were “little“. I say this because their “foolish consistency” and unwillingness to do any assessment and planning had locked them into being a certain size. When you looked at their agency budget, they had brought in the same amount of revenue for the last 10 years.

Think about that for a moment. When you factor in inflation, this agency was contracting and raising less and less money every year. Foolish? Yes! Hobgoblins? Yes!! YES!! Little? Yes!!! Yes!!! Yes!!!

If your agency operates with a December 31st year-end fiscal year, then your budget construction process should be starting soon. If this is the case, then your resource development planning process should also be starting soon.

Do you need help with that planning process? If so, I know someone you should call who can help . . . you know who I mean. 😉

The other road referenced?

In the beginning of this blog post, I said John’s post centered on Ralph Waldo Emerson’s quotation set my mind down two different paths this morning.

When I first read John’s post, I immediately thought of how many times I’ve heard from non-profit board members, executive directors and fundraising professionals the following words:

“That’s not the way we do things around here”

Not only are these words (or other words that sound or mean the same thing) the equivalent of nails on a chalkboard, but they are downright poisonous to your non-profit organization.

I’ve run out of space, but luckily Seth Godin did a nice job of succinctly and eloquently addressing this issue on his blog. If you have 15 more seconds, then you really need to click-through and read Seth’s thoughts on these nine dangerous words.

Can you identify your agency’s “silly consistencies“? If so, what are they? Can you describe those hobgoblins? If so, what do they look like? Please scroll down and share your examples and thoughts as well as what you plan on doing about it in the comment box below. Why? Because we can all learn from each other.

Here’s to your health!

Is your non-profit good at the Why-How-What?

July 24, 2013 erik Board development, Board governance, Planning

A few days ago I bumped into a non-profit friend who had recently viewed a TED Talks video on YouTube featuring Simon Sinek titled “How great leaders inspire action“. It was obvious to me that this was a TED Talks video that I needed to view because it had inspired her to take action. Not only was she talking to everyone about what Simon calls the “Golden Circle,” but she had also shared the video with board volunteers as a precursor to a strategic discussion.

I think there are three things that make this video so contagious and easy to watch:

The idea of the “golden circle” is easy . . . What-How-Why.
These ideas are woven into many non-profit professionals’ DNA.
The speaker does a nice job of relating What-How-Why to other companies and their successes (e.g Apple)

Early in the video Simon says,

“Every single organization on the planet knows WHAT they do . . . Some know HOW they do it. Whether you call it your differentiating value proposition, you proprietary process or your USP . . . But very, very few people or organizations know WHY they do what they do. And by WHY, I don’t mean ‘to make a profit’. That is a result. It is always a result. By WHY I mean what is your purpose? What’s your cause? What’s your belief? Why does your organization exist?“

I’ve done a lot of strategic planning over the years. I’ve also done lots of tactical planning. And Simon hits on a super powerful idea with his What-How-Why.

what how why Those organizations that excel at strategic planning have a very clear understanding of what they do, how they do it, and why they exist. However, those organizations that are little fuzzy on these ideas do a lot of wrestling with themselves. Sometimes countless hours are spent at the 50,000 foot view talking about these issues . . . and for good reason! Without clarity on What-How-Why, there is no way you can set goals, develop objectives and write action plans that are meaningful in any way, shape or form.

Some of you might be scoffing right now and asking, “How in the world can a non-profit agency not know ‘WHY’ they exist? It is as simple as revisiting their mission statement!”

Well, not so fast, my friend. There are at least two situations that come to mind where this simple idea starts to get blurry.

Some organizations have LONG histories and over the course of time their mission changes. For example, the March of Dimes was founded to address polio and today it exists to improve the health of mothers and babies. When this happens, sometimes the shift isn’t as clear as it was for March of Dimes . . . the ‘WHY’ gets fuzzy . . . and the challenges ensue.
Some organizations experience mission creep because their resource development strategy wasn’t well-defined and board members let staff chase all sorts of funding opportunities regardless of what it was for or what they do. The end result kind of looks like a McDonald’s restaurant that also sells electronics and chiropractic adjustments. In short, the ‘WHY’ gets fuzzy.

I believe that good non-profits revisit the questions of What-How-Why on a somewhat regular basis. I applaud my non-profit friend for using this YouTube video to frame and stage an engaging boardroom discussion. If you have a little time today, I suggest you click-through to YouTube and view the video. If you like it, then forward it to your board president and have a discussion with them about its value. If you’re both excited and engaged, then share it with your board and talk about it as a group.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qp0HIF3SfI4]

If you end up doing any of what I just suggested, please circle back around to this blog post and share your experience in the comment box below. We can all learn from each other.

Here’s to your health!

Is your non-profit preparing for the Times Square countdown?

July 1, 2013 erik Fundraising, Planning

I spent a decent amount of time last week in the car. When I do that, I typically listen to National Public Radio (NPR), which in the Chicago market is WBEZ 91.5 FM. So, all week long I heard how they were approaching the end of their fiscal year and how they need to hit their pledge drive goal.

When I woke up this morning, I had a few thoughts racing through my head:

OMG . . . it is July! How did THAT happen?
I wonder if WBEZ made its pledge drive goal?
I wonder how many other non-profits that don’t have June 30th year end financials are preparing for their December 31st year-end push?

I remember when I was on the front line and making decisions about fundraising matters. I typically wanted my year-end fundraising efforts and mailings to hit the post office in the beginning of November.

When I gave donors a few weeks before Thanksgiving to consider what they want to do with their year-end charitable giving, it usually worked out better. I tested all sorts of different launch times over the years, and the beginning of November always produced the best results.

So, if your agency follows the same blueprint . . . guess what? You only have four months left to get all of your ducks in a row.

My best advice is to get to work NOW and avoid the last minute rush. Why? Because in my experience the last minute rush always resulted in unexpected hiccups and delays in getting the mailings to the post office.

I’m not suggesting that you write your letter today (but I wouldn’t discourage it either), but there are things you can start doing now that will help you later. Here is a short laundry list of those things:

Determine your theme.
Put together your project management plan and establish deadlines.
Write your internal case for support, which will be the basis of your letter and package.
Pull together a focus group of donors and test your case for support.
Use the input that you get back from your donors to tweak your messaging and theme.
If you like to incorporate a client story into your year-end appeal, then start identifying the client and their story now.
We all know that the mailing list is the biggest factor in your success. So, start building your list today. It takes time to wrestle with your donor database and work with a mail house.
Plan on mailing out a cultivation / stewardship letter four to six weeks prior to mailing your year-end appeal. Start developing that messaging and package today.
Use social media to cultivate and steward your year-end donors. Develop a three month campaign that leads up to and culminates in the launch of your appeal in early November. This obviously starts NOW.

Your agency is probably preparing to march in a Fourth of July parade in the next few days, and year-end thoughts are probably far away, but don’t blink! Because Santa Claus will be coming down the chimney any day now.

You know I’m right!

Still not convinced? Well, consider the fact that more than one-third (and I’ve recently read it could be as big as one-half) of all charitable giving happens in the fourth quarter during the holiday season.

I’ll leave you with this thought and popular expression: “Prior proper preparation prevents piss poor performance.” I’ve heard it referred to as the Seven P’s.

When does your agency start preparing for its year-end appeal? What goes into your planning? What have been some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced? When do you plan on starting this year?

Please use the comment box below to share your thoughts because we can all learn from each other.

Here’s to your health!