board of directors – Page 12 – The Healthy Non-Profit

Not fundraising? Not engaged!

February 6, 2013 erik Board development, Fundraising, volunteers

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 blog 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.

Multiple conversations about the same topic with the leadership of a variety of organizations tend to lead to blog posts. When that happens, it is usually prompted by a question, though the question is rarely about the actual issue at hand. The issue that is really the issue at hand is usually behind the issue that is being presented.

For those of you know me, it will come as no surprise to you that I spend a lot of time thinking about the situation behind the situation. (When you make your living telling people what you think, you’d better have thought extensively about whatever they might want to know.)

When it comes to Boards and fundraising (and quite a few other topics as well), the issue behind the issue is often “engagement”.

The question I am being asked a lot lately is “How can I get my Board to fund raise?”

If your Board is not fundraising the way you want them to, I submit you do not have a fundraising issue; you have an engagement issue and possibly a Board Development issue.

Boards that are engaged, raise money. Boards that are not, don’t.

What is the emotional energy of the people in the room during a Board meeting?

When I ask this question while facilitating a session, I set up the answer on a scale of 1-4, with one being “I can’t believe I left my office for this” and 4 being “I feel privileged to be in this room.” Where do your Board members fall?

Mission moments, generative discussions and strategic conversations are engaging. Upholding the fiduciary responsibilities, while critical for an organization is also, for the most part, disengaging. It’s boring. It’s necessary but it’s still boring and boring is disengaging.

Every time I facilitate a planning session with a Board, someone comes up to me and says something to the effect of “That was great! I’m so happy to be talking about strategy and issues and not about the building” (or the finances, or fill in whatever you are sick of).

We engage Board members initially by talking to them about our organization’s mission, the impact it makes in our communities and our vision for changing our corner of the world. They join our Boards in order to help us do those things – and then we never talk with them ever again about any of it. Ever.

We talk with Board members about money — what we spent and why we need more of it. We talk with them about fundraising, and why they need to do more of it. We talk with them about the problems we’re having, and what we need from them to fix it.

We don’t talk with them nearly enough about what they want, about why they joined our Board, and what they hoped to get out of their service.

It is a great opportunity to change the discussion; change the topic; change the impact; change the engagement level.

Call a retreat. Take a survey. Add some client stories to the agenda. Have a strategic planning strategy session, and then continue to talk strategy throughout the year. Present a horizontal scan and discuss how it will impact your clients, not just your agency, but your clients. Introduce some generative discussions at a Board meeting. Here are a few ideas how from my favorite Board book Governance as Leadership:

“At the end of discussions give each member 2-3 minutes to write down any thoughts or questions that weren’t expressed.
Randomly designate 2-3 trustees to make the powerful counter arguments to initial recommendations.
Ask a subset of the Board to assume the perspective of different constituent groups likely to be affected by the decision at hand.”

Find out what people expect when they joined your Board and meet their expectations. You’ll be glad you did and so will your Board members. They might become so engaged, they might even start telling people about your agency, and asking people to support it.

Through the Looking Glass: When the new CEO and the old CEO collide

February 5, 2013 erik organizational development

A few months ago, I bumped into someone who recently accepted a new executive director position for a non-profit organization. I thought that it would be a neat project to live vicariously through them and try to see non-profit work through their eyes. So, I asked if they wouldn’t mind periodically sharing their challenges and successes with me throughout their first year on the job. In turn, I would translate those conversations into blog posts for DonorDreams subscribers. Fortunately, they agreed to participate in this exercise. I am calling this series “Through the Looking Glass” in honor of Lewis Carroll and Alice in Wonderland. I hope you enjoy it!

I hope to start each one of these posts with a quote from Alice in Wonderland that ties back to the theme of that particular post. Today, I think the conversation between Alice and the talking door at the beginning of Alice’s adventure is most appropriate.

Door: “Why it’s simply impassible!”
Alice: “Why, don’t you mean impossible?”
Door: “No, I do mean impassible. (chuckles) Nothing’s impossible!”

Sometimes when a new non-profit executive director is hired, there is a transition period between OLD and NEW. It can be the old executive director staying on to help with orientation and training of the new executive director. In other instances, it can be the interim executive director overlapping with the incoming CEO.

When I was a new executive director, the interim executive director stayed on as an employee as a direct report with front line responsibilities. In the instance of our new executive director friend, the former executive director is hanging around for a while. Unfortunately, no one on the board in the beginning defined what this should look like, and there has been some ambiguity around what that employment relationship looks like and when it will end.

When I recently checked in to see how our new CEO was doing, they already had a great blog idea. They titled that blog post “What to do when the old CEO won’t cough up info for the new CEO“.

Who would’ve guessed that without an orderly written transition and orientation plan provided by the board of directors that something like this would happen? (yes, sarcasm is intended)

So, I asked our new executive director this simple question: “That is a great blog topic, but what advice would you give new execs?”

This is how they responded:

Politely but firmly continue to request the info (first verbally,then in writing, and finally in writing with a cc to the Board Chair and Vice Chair).
Doing a work around to obtain the info in other ways.
Using empathy and compassion to analyze the reluctance to share information. Then re-framing the request for info as a way of moving the organization forward and helping with transition.
Talking to the Board Chair and Vice Chair.
Asking who else I should be talking to in order to obtain the needed info. (e.g. maybe the former ED doesn’t have the information at all and doesn’t want me to know this)

This challenge is REAL for this new executive director. It is also a reality for countless others across the county. Here are a few great online articles and resources that I found that might be helpful to non-profit organizations going through or planning on going through executive transition:

Fieldstone Alliance: “Seven Essentials for a Successful Executive Transition“
Transition Guides
Sasser, Littleton & Stidham P.C.: “Planning for Non-Profit Executive Transition“

I thought it would be more appropriate to end each of these blog posts by opening it up to the DonorDreams readership and asking you what kind of advice you have for this new executive director. Please use the comment section below and provide your best world-class coaching advice. How would you go about engaging the outgoing executive director to get the documents and information they are needed for a seamless transition?

We can all learn from each other and sometimes peer-to-peer coaching is the best kind of coaching. Please take a minute or two out of your busy schedule to help this new executive director. Pay it forward!

Here’s to your health!

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

The importance of intuition in non-profit work

January 25, 2013 erik organizational development

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

In a post titled “I Have Leemers,” John talks about the power of intuition and the resistance he encounters from leaders in his workplace when it comes to making decisions based on these gut feelings.

Let me start by making a confession. My Myers-Briggs personality type is ESTP, which means I am:

Extroverted
Sensing
Thinking
Perceiving

This is what personality type experts will tell you about intuition and people like me:

“ESTP’s least developed area is their intuitive side. They are impatient with theory, and see little use for it in their quest to “get things done”. An ESTP will occasionally have strong intuitions which are often way off-base, but sometimes very lucid and positive. The ESTP does not trust their instincts, and is suspicious of other people’s intuition as well.”

As a non-profit and fundraising professional, I can honestly tell you that I’ve always felt like I’m at a disadvantage because of my intuition deficit. It is for this reason I work extra hard at trying to develop the intuition side of my personality.

Impossible you say? I don’t think so. I’ve heard personality type experts compare work like this to right-handed people learning to write with their left hand. It isn’t impossible. It is hard to do and will never feel “normal,” but it is doable.

So, you might be wondering ‘WHY’ would I ever attempt to do something like this? Well, I personally think intuition is a very important attribute for successful non-profit people. Let me give you two examples.

Fundraising

As part of any good annual campaign, you schedule face-to-face meetings with donors. In those meetings you make the case for support and ask them to pledge/give a specific dollar amount. It sounds something like this:

“So, Sally . . . I am hoping that you would give some thoughtful consideration to making a contribution of $1,000 this year to support some of the programs we just talked about as well as everything else this agency does to make a difference in our community.”

That $1,000 ask amount is determined at a committee meeting as part of prospect identification-evaluation-qualification exercises during the campaign planning phase.

As an ESTP, I love prospect identification-evaluation-qualification because it feels like we’re making a decision based on facts and data. We’re looking at the donor database and a prospect’s giving history. We’re looking at a prospect’s life circumstances (e.g. divorce, kids in college, retirement, etc). This decision is based on things that this Sensor can wrap his arms around.

However, I cannot tell you how many times I’ve been in the middle of a solicitation call and my intuition is screaming at me. As John said in his post, I heard those Leemers saying things like:

Abort! Abort! This donor isn’t ready to be asked.
Uh-Oh! We’re asking for too much.
Eeeek! This person is in love with the agency, and we’re asking for too little.

In every instance, I’ve always stuck to the plan and continued forward with the solicitation and asked for the amount determined by the committee. I can also tell you that every single time, I’ve walked away from the meeting thinking, “Damn, I should’ve gone with my gut feeling.”

I will become a better fundraising professional if I do a better job at developing my intuition.

Board Development

Did you read my blog post yesterday titled “The Chicago Cubs Convention through non-profit eyes: Part Three“??? If that wasn’t an ESTP’s point of view on board development, then I don’t know what is. LOL

The main theme of yesterday’s post was how important it is to develop data-based metrics to evaluate board volunteer prospects.

As with the fundraising example that I just talked about, I cannot tell you how many times I’ve walked a board prospect through a recruitment process and those Leemers were screaming at me:

This person won’t be a good fit for this board.
This person needs other experiences first (e.g. fundraising) before joining the board.
This person is saying ‘YES’ but I can’t put my finger on why they should be saying ‘NO’

Again, if I had a dollar for every circumstance I stuck with the plan, closed the deal, and those Leemers were right, then I’d be a very rich man.

I believe intuition is an important board development tool that needs to be in every non-profit leader’s toolbox.

As it relates to me, developing my intuition muscles (even a little bit more) and combining that with my “Sensing” abilities, will help me become a stronger leader, professional, consultant and coach. So, it isn’t about doing less sensing and more intuiting, it is about “balance” for me.

Please scroll down and use the comment box to share an example of when you listened to (or didn’t listen to) your Leemers in a non-profit context. Are you in the same boat as me and need to further develop your intuition? How are you going about doing that? We can all learn from each other.

Here’s to your health!

The Chicago Cubs Convention through non-profit eyes: Part Three

January 24, 2013 erik Board development, organizational development, volunteers

This last weekend I attended the Chicago Cubs Convention with my family. As we drifted from session to session, I couldn’t help but see all sorts of blog themes and things that non-profit organizations could learn from this major league franchise. Over the last few days I’ve shared a few of these observations and hopefully stimulated a few new ideas for you and your agency. In Tuesday’s post, we talked about stewardship. Yesterday, we discussed shared vision, values, and culture. Today, I am ending this series with a few words about statistics and predictive value.

On Sunday morning, the last session of the entire convention was titled “Stats Sunday,” and the session description read as follows:

“You know what a pitcher’s ERA means and how to calculate a hitter’s batting average, but do you know what WAR stands for or how to find someone’s OPS? Baseball is full of new-age statistics. Jim Deshaies, Len Kasper and WGN’s Bob Vorwald will help break it down for us in this special offseason edition of “Stats Sunday.”

Essentially, this session was all about the things you learned about baseball scouting in the Oscar award nominated movie and best-selling book “Moneyball.”

During the hour-long session on new baseball stats (e.g. BABIP, OPS, OPS+, UZR, WAR, WHIP, etc), we talked about at least 10 new statistics that help baseball scouts determine one simple question: “Will this ball player be a good addition to our team and help win more games?”

As I am apt to do, my mind started wandering during this session, and I found myself wishing that non-profits would someday develop a set of predictive statistics to improve the art of board development.

I have sat in countless board development and nominating committee meetings, and they all feel like that scene in Moneyball where Brad Pitt is talking to his “old-school baseball scouts” about free agents and they start sharing anecdotal evidence about girlfriends and physical attributes. If you don’t know what I’ve talking about, you might want to check out this YouTube movie trailer that contains a portion of that scene in it.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFXDnhvd1WQ]

You know what I mean . . . what do the discussions sound like around your board development table? Here are some of the things I keep hearing:

Are they too busy?
Do they serve on another board?
Will they say ‘YES’ if asked?
Who is the best person we should send to ask?
Do they have money? Do they donate to us or others?

Too many agencies are essentially asking: a) do they have a pulse? b) is their wallet thick? and c) will they agree to do it?

I dare to dream about the day when board volunteers have their own “baseball-type card” with statistics on the back that measure a board member on the following concepts:

How active and engaged is this person in your mission?
How effective is this person at securing resources for your cause?
How many people in this person’s network have been exposed to your agency because of this person? How many became volunteers? How many turned into donors?

As the days have passed since attending this session, I now realize that smart non-profit thought leaders are working on projects like this. Of course, the board development metrics out there aren’t as fancy as what baseball scouts use, but here are a few interesting websites and resources that you may want to check out if you are thirsty for board development change and want to shake up your board development committee:

Do a little daydreaming with me today. What would the back of a non-profit board volunteer’s baseball card look like? What would you like to measure? What type of predictive statistics do you wish existed that could be used in a board development committee meeting to help evaluate your volunteer prospect list?

Come on . . . take a few minutes and do some dreaming. Who knows where it might led for you and your organization. Many years ago someone just like you in Major League Baseball did the same thing and it transformed an entire industry. Uh-Huh . . . you could very well be the next big non-profit thought leader. Please scroll down and share some of your amazing thoughts, ideas and questions in the comment section below. You don’t need to do this alone. 😉

Here’s to your health!

The Chicago Cubs Convention through non-profit eyes: Part Two

January 23, 2013 erik organizational development

This last weekend I attended the Chicago Cubs Convention with my family. As we drifted from session to session, I couldn’t help but see all sorts of blog themes and things that non-profit organizations could learn from this major league franchise. I will use the next few days to share a few of these observations and hopefully stimulate a few new ideas for you and your agency. In yesterday’s post, we talked about stewardship. Today, I thought we could talk about shared vision, values, and culture.

In many of the sessions, it wasn’t uncommon for someone to reference something called “The Cubs Way Guide“. They always described this guide as an organizational manual that describes what they believe and how they do things. Here is how President of Baseball Operations Theo Epstein described “The Cubs Way Guide” in February 2012 on the Cubs’ website:

“The Cubs’ way really boils down to the people — the players, obviously, but everyone, all the scouts and all the people in uniform in the Minor Leagues and the big leagues. For us to teach the game the right way, it’s more than words on the page. It comes down to how deep we dig to get connected to players to teach the game the right way, how much we care, how committed we are, how hard we work. There’s a lot that goes into this and building an organization.”

At Saturday’s convention, here are some of the phrases I heard people use to describe this manual and organizational resource:

It is a document that is a few inches thick.
It is what we believe as an organization.
It embodied the organization’s philosophy and approach.
It spells out how to prepare players for the big leagues.
It lays out for coaches at every level of the minor league and major league how to teach players how to play the game. Instruction can get as detailed as which foot hits the bag when players make a turn on the bases.
It lays out a vision and plan.

I walked away from each of these sessions wondering the same thing: “I wonder what such a manual might look like for a non-profit organization?”

After a few days of day dreaming about this topic, here are a few of my thoughts on what your organizational guide might contain:

Shared values
Shared vision
Code of ethics
Conflict of interest policies
Protocol on how to recruit community volunteers and prepare/position them for joining the board some day. (e.g. getting them involved in a committee, working a few pledge cards, etc)
Procedures on how to identify, cultivate, recruit, orient, train, rotate, recognize, and evaluate board volunteers.
Steps on how to hire new staff.
Rules on how to conduct outreach/recruitment of clients.
Etiquette on how to prepare for board meetings and committee meetings (e.g. agendas sent out a certain number of days before the meeting, meeting notes and action item memos going out a certain number of days after a meeting, elements of a productive board meeting, etc)
Code of behavior regarding how to engage, solicit and communicate with donors (e.g. Donor Bill of rights)

I suspect that I could make this list go on and on and on if I wanted.

If you started thinking to yourself when reading my list that you already have some of this in place at your organization, I suspect you are probably on to something. Some of this might already be included in your strategic plan, board development plan, resource development plan, stewardship plan, etc.

However, the genius of “The Cubs Way Guide” is:

It is all in one place, not in a series of documents sitting on a number of different book shelves.
It creates a central focus. It becomes the heartbeat of your organizational culture.
It is easy to reference.
It is easy to create training opportunities around it.

cubs way2

What are your thoughts about creating an organizational “How To Manual” for your non-profit organization? What would you include? Who would you involve in this project? What elements already exist that you might fold into such a manual? How would you use it to transform your organizational culture? Please use the comment box below to share your thoughts because there is nothing new under the sun and we can all learn from each other.

Here’s to your health!

Managing the dualism of being a non-profit board volunteer

January 17, 2013 erik Board development, organizational development, volunteers

I recently came to the conclusion that there is a strange dualism surrounding the roles and responsibilities for a volunteer serving on a non-profit board. These two different roles can compete with each other and create a weird destructive dysfunction if non-profit staff don’t do their job and keep things in check.

A few months ago I witnessed something that my mind just couldn’t process, and it has been rolling around inside my head ever since. Let me try to summarize it:

Non-profit staff recruit a volunteer to join their board.
The volunteer happily joins.
Staff work hard to get the volunteer engaged in various projects.
The volunteer happily gets engaged.
Staff try engaging the volunteer at an action plan level of a particular project (e.g. specific tasks, deadlines, etc).
The volunteer become the chairperson.
Instead of doing what is expected of a chairperson, the volunteer turns around and acts like staff works for them and starts re-assigning tasks to staff.

A little too abstract. OK, let me provide an example to clear things up.

Once upon a time, a board volunteer agreed to chair a special event committee. Once they agreed to provide leadership to the committee, they started tasking staff with doing things that might otherwise be considered the role of the chair. Here are a few examples . . . 1) please email the committee and tell them I wish to meet at a certain time and location, 2) please recruit the following volunteers to sit on my committee, 3) please check on a certain volunteer and make sure they are doing what they said they would do.

In this example, staff recruit a volunteer chairperson to help them accomplish some work. The end result is that the volunteer acts like staff works for them and sees their role/responsibilities as telling staff what to do. Staff scratch their head wondering why they needed to recruit a volunteer because they know what needs to happen . . . they needed help doing those things and not someone to tell them what to do.

Believe it or not, I see this happen all the time and I now have a theory.

The following is an excerpt from Guidestar on the subject of non-profit board roles and responsibilities:

“Nonprofit board members have two basic responsibilities—support and governance—each requiring different skills and expertise. In the role of “supporter” board members raise money, bring contacts to the organization, and act as ambassadors to the community. Equally important, the “governance” role involves protection of the public interest, being a fiduciary, selecting the executive director and assessing his/ her performance, ensuring compliance with legal and tax requirements, and evaluating the organization’s work.”

I think I see a weird dissonance starting to form between these two basic responsibilities.

Huh?

Well, one of the basic roles of a nonprofit board volunteer is “SUPPORT” . . . which I read as rolling up ones sleeves and helping get stuff done. The other role is “GOVERNANCE” . . . which I read as making sure certain things are getting done and providing some oversight.

Am I over-generalizing to make a point? YES, but I think I am still going somewhere.

If clarity isn’t established from the very beginning, it is reasonable to expect confusion. It is from here that I believe situations and examples that I provided earlier grow legs and get ugly.

If non-profit staff want to avoid these weird sand trap situations, they need to be serious about using best practices when it comes to volunteer identification, recruitment, and management.

Use a written job description
Seriously engage volunteers in orientation and continuous training opportunities
Invest time in evaluation and work on creating a culture of honest feedback

I think it is also important to mention here that providing a volunteer with a written job description is not where the magic occurs. Learning and understanding comes from the frank and honest discussion that occurs during the recruitment meeting. For example, the job description is the “MEANS” and not the “ENDS“.

Have you ever had to deal with a situation like this? How did you fix it? What tools and processes do you use to set expectations up front with volunteers to avoid confusion and role blurring down the road? Please use the comment box below to share your thoughts. We can all learn from each other.

Here’s to your health!

Dealing with bullies in your non-profit boardroom

January 16, 2013 erik Board development, organizational development, volunteers

I was just talking to a group of volunteer board members and the topic turned to “bullies in the boardroom”. I suspect that you know what I am talking about. This person takes many different forms, such as:

The need to always be right.
They dominate the conversation.
They may talk over other people.
They get angry and aggressively assert their opinions.
They mock people who don’t agree.

As you might imagine, a conversation like this quickly turns to the question: “How do you handle board volunteers like this?”

Being a former youth development professional, I decided to look for general resources on how to deal with bullies and see if there might be commonality between how to deal with a school yard bully versus a boardroom bully.

I actually found a really good blog post at wikiHow titled “How to deal with bullies” and there was some very nice advice that crossed over such as:

Show minimal reaction to bullying
Help others
Do not make jokes at your own expense to try to prove that there is nothing they can do to hurt your feelings

Of course, some of the other suggestions fell flat for me like “Take Karate”. LOL If you have a moment, I really suggest that you click the wikiHow link and scan that article because bullying is a big deal issue in all walks of life.

There are two other thoughts that immediately come to mind when discussing this topic:

Board development
Firing board members

Board Development

You can solve your agency’s bully problem before it even starts if you get serious about board development. Your recruitment process should not be hasty. It should feel like a dating process with multiple steps. For some reason, that song “Getting to Know” from The King & I comes to mind. Do I need to say any more? Click here to visit the National Council of Nonprofits’s webpage if you need some basic board development tools for your agency.

Firing a volunteer

I always hate this discussion because I believe it should never get to this point. However, a bully in the boardroom is an intolerable situation, and it needs to always be dealt with. There is no easy way to do this, and it is always done with a nervous stomach. I could write page on this subject, but our friends at Nonprofit Hearts did a nice job with a post they titled “Firing a Board member with grace“. I suggest you click over and read what they have to say. They even do a nice job with dialog.

Have you ever had to deal with a bully in your nonprofit boardroom? What did you do that seemed to work? How did it turn out. We can all learn from each other. Please use the comment box below to share some of your thoughts and experiences.

Here’s to your health!

Is your non-profit board of directors engaged?

January 9, 2013 erik Board development, organizational development, volunteers

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.

It’s a new year, which is always a great time to take a look at processes and systems. I especially encourage you to look at the level of engagement of your Board. They are — or should be — your biggest donors and your best ambassadors. Are they?

One of the most obvious signs that a Board is disengaged is when you’re experiencing quorum issues. If you routinely have challenges with not having enough Board members in the room to make decisions, I recommend you take a look at how your board was built and how it is being developed.

Is your Board built intentionally?

Intentionally looks like this:

There is a Board Development (also called nominating or governance) Committee that assesses the strength of your current Board, looks at the gaps, and puts together a list of prospects that are later vetted and voted upon, to fill those gaps. The committee also plans for officer succession, Board education and evaluation.

Unintentionally looks like this:

A Board member invites someone to join the Board without a discussion with the Board Development Committee as to what the Board needs, or what the expectations for service are. The person is not vetted, or told of the commitment required. There is no formal process that is followed, no education and no evaluation. Yet, the person is voted upon and joins your Board.

Once the Board is in place, regardless of if it was intentional or not, the next question is:

Is your Board engaged and are members being developed?

Engagement looks like this:

The vast majority of Board members are in the room for most meetings; you have 100% Board giving; each member acts as an ambassador in the community; and your events and public meetings are well attended by members who bring friends and colleagues. The Board understands the organization’s mission, programs and impact; participates in robust discussions; and actively seeks ways to support the Executive Director and the organization.

Disengagement, on the other hand, looks like this:

People stop coming to meetings, which results in quorum issues. They stop coming to events. They stop volunteering for things. They stop giving or supporting the organization.

Once your Board becomes disengaged, quorum issues, which maybe the most obvious, are only the tip of the iceberg. The problems underneath the surface include a lack of understanding of some or all of the following:

their role,
the executive director’s role,
the finances,
the mission and strategic vision for the organization, and
how programs support that vision.

By now you may be wondering about the level of engagement on the Board you serve.

Some questions for your consideration:

Are Board and committee meetings productive, engaging and worth the time to attend?
Does the Executive Director meet individually, at least annually, with Board members?
Is there a plan that everyone is aware of and working toward?
Are there strategic and generative discussions happening in the boardroom?
Is there meaningful work for individual board members to do?

If the answer to any of these questions is “NO” or “I don’t know,” then I encourage you to put a plan in place to move your answers to “YES”. Talk to your Board members individually and ask about engagement. Ask about how they would like to be engaged, why they joined the Board and how you can make their experience more meaningful.

For the organizations with which I work I encourage:

a written plan detailing an intentional process to build and develop the board;
annual retreats to set or re-commit to strategic goals;
board training on everything from how to read the financials, to raise money, to the role and responsibilities of the Board; and
an annual evaluation process that assesses individual members as well as the entire board against the expectations and the organization’s aspirations.

Board engagement is critical to building an organization that moves the needle and impacts the community!

What’s been your experience? As always, I welcome your experience and insight.

Have you forgotten year-end evaluations and performance plans during the year-end scramble?

December 21, 2012 erik Board development, organizational development, volunteers

It is that time of the year when non-profit leaders set the stage for the next year. This time of the year is always critical and tripping up usually means the next year won’t be a banner one. Here is just a small sampling of what is on the plates of many non-profit executive directors:

Budget construction
Resource development / revenue planning
Program planning
Year-end holiday fundraising and stewardship strategies
Working with the board development committee to complete year-end board volunteer evaluations
Developing annual performance plans for the upcoming year for staff
Completing year-end evaluations

Interesting enough, in my experience, it is the last three bullet points that get swept under the rug by so many non-profit organizations.

Today’s blog post is short and sweet because it is the end of the Mayan calendar and I have a few things to do before the world ends. So, please ask yourself the following questions:

Are you anxious about evaluating your employees?
Have you neglected to put 2013 annual performance plans together for your staff?
Have you let your Board Development / Board Governance Committee off the hook yet again when it comes to year-end board evaluations?

If you answered ‘YES’ to any of these questions, then please “click-through” and read John’s most recent post titled “There Is No Crying In Performance Reviews!”

Not only does he “hit the nail on the head,” but I don’t have any personal stories that are better than the ones he shares.

If you didn’t get a chance to read this month’s guest post from Dani Robbins, then you may want to click here and circle back to her thoughts on year-end evaluations for board volunteers. I urge you to consider what Dani says and compare it to John’s post about employee evaluations. Does John’s organizational development insights and suggestions also ring true when it comes to year-end board member evaluations. If so, what can you do to support your Board Development Committee to have “AUTHENTIC” and “GENERATIVE” conversations with their peers?

Enjoy the last day of civilization as we know it (just kidding) . . . and Here’s to your health!

Do your donors think the non-profit sky is falling?

December 12, 2012 erik Fundraising

chicken little2 When I hear one donor say something once, I chalk it up to something interesting. When I hear two donors say the same thing, I usually think it is an interesting occurence. However, when three or more donors express the same sentiment, I sit up . . . take notice . . . and treat it like a potential trend.

Since the Presidential election was decided more than a month ago, I’ve more than three donors say alarming things about the state of philanthropy in this country. Here is some of what I am hearing:

“Congress and the President won’t agree on the fiscal cliff negotiations. We’re going off the fiscal cliff, and charitable contributions will go down.”
“Obama wants to get rid of people’s charitable tax deductions, and this will result in a reduction in donations.”
“The Bush tax cuts on the wealthiest Americans will be allowed to expire, which means wealthy Americans will stop giving to charities.”
“Congress and the President will go off of the fiscal cliff. Everyone’s taxes will go up. Another recession will surely result, and charitable giving will dip as a result.”

I am not exaggerating. There are a number of donors and non-profit board members with whom I have spoken in the last month that think the sky is falling.

At first, I thought this talk was the result of Republican donors being unhappy about a Obama re-election. However, I’m beginning to re-think this original opinion. I honestly think people are getting scared.

There are multiple reasons for this hysteria and probably include a 24-hour media cycle, political rhetoric, etc. Regardless, the ‘WHY’ doesn’t matter . . . non-profit professionals need to focus on ‘WHAT’ they should be doing and saying.

chicken little1 While fear is irrational, it definitely impacts human behavior. I believe most students learn this in Psychology 101. So, if people “think” the sky is falling, it is falling regardless of the facts.

You can passively sit by and let your donors and board members whip themselves into a frenzy, or you can be a responsible non-profit professional and do something about it.

I have always believed that an “ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure”. In this instance, I believe that good non-profit professionals will inject a calm and reassuring voice into any local discussion being had with board members or donors.

Of course, being calm and reassuring is easier said than done, and it requires a firm grasp of facts. Unfortunately, the facts shift and change and are subject to interpretation. However, I was very encouraged when I saw that BoardSource is hosting a webinar featuring Tim Delaney, CEO of the National Council of Nonprofits. He will speak to the issue of fiscal cliff, capping deductions, etc.

THIS WEBINAR IS SCHEDULED FOR TODAY (WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 12, 2012) AT 2:30 PM CST, BUT IT LOOKS LIKE YOU CAN STILL REGISTER BY CLICKING HERE AND FOLLOWING THIS LINK.

Once you get some of the facts about the issues, you should feel more comfortable participating in these type of conversations when they come up with donors and volunteers.

chicken little3 Here are a few quick tips you may want to remember when jumping into these discussions:

Don’t express partisan opinions. Stick with the facts about what is being discussed. I encourage steering clear of expressing an opinion on what you think the impact will be. Put the crystal ball away!
Be reassuring and express confidence that these things always work themselves out in the end. History proves this to be true time-and-time-again.
Remind donors that tax considerations are rarely a motivating factor in most people’s charitable decisions. Donors give to good causes with good missions. Tax considerations (if they are even in the equation) are frequently a final factor and contribute to size of gift and rarely on whether or not to give.
No one can predict the future, and getting all worked up about something we can’t control is an exercise in futility. All we can control is our own actions .(e.g. who do we ask now, for how much as we asking, when are we asking, etc). Let’s remain focused so we don’t accidentally get swept up in something that doesn’t yet exist.

Are you hearing some of your donors and board members wring their hands over this policy debate in Washington D.C.? If so, what are you doing to make sure your year-end giving isn’t negatively impacts? Are you doing anything at all? Are you remaining silent?

If you end up attending the BoardSource webinar today, please circle back and share a few of the details in the comment box below. If you can’t attend, please weigh-in with your thoughts on the the questions I just posed or any of the ideas I just expressed.

Here’s to your health!