board of directors – Page 17 – The Healthy Non-Profit

Where are all the new board members?

March 15, 2012 DonorDreams Board development, Fundraising, organizational development

Let’s face facts . . . your non-profit board has gaps in it. How do you know that? You know it because you and your board members sat down with one of any number of different board composition gap assessment tools (available in the public domain) and you did the math. You looked at demographics, experiences, skill sets, interests, fundraising, and social networks, and everyone at that board development committee meeting was able to see gaps.

Guess what? This happens every time and it happens in every organization. There is no such thing as the perfect board.

Hopefully, your board development committee is doing a gap assessment every year before it goes out to recruit board members. While your gaps may not regularly change, the reality is that your circumstances and the external world around you is in a constant state of change, which affects how you look at your gaps and approach your prospecting and recruitment efforts.

For example, you might have built a very strong “governance board” with gaps around fundraising acumen. In most years, this might not have been an issue because you had very strong grant funding from key foundations. Unfortunately, let’s hypothetically say that Wall Street decides that a major market correction was necessary and the stock market takes a historic tumble. Where do many foundations secure the money they give away every year? Yep, they distribute their investment income. With your foundation income streams in a state of flux, your fundraising gaps on the board have become a major liability. Perhaps, this year’s board recruitment efforts should focus on identifying prospects who possess private sector fundraising acumen and experience and come from a diversity of different social networks.

It is at this point where I have personally sat in board development committee meetings and the conversation always seems to bog down. The brainstorming and prospecting dialog oftentimes lead to someone saying, “There isn’t anyone in our community who I know that fits that description.” Even better, I’ve heard people say, “That person doesn’t exist in our community.”

I suspect that these reactions are a result of:

The committee giving up after mentally examining all of the “usual suspects”.
The composition of the committee being such that there isn’t very much diversity from a social network perspective sitting around the table.
Being unsure of how to determine what skills and experiences people bring to the table.

Regardless, you need find ways to push past this obstacle and stimulate a dynamic brainstorming exercise around prospect identification.

I’ve seen some non-profit professionals bring lists of people to that meeting such as: Chamber of Commerce membership lists and Rotary Club (or Kiwanis, Lions, Jaycees, etc) rosters. In my opinion, this can definitely help people start thinking; however, I’m always left with this one question:

What about your donor database?

Many of us have these amazing database programs with thousands of names. These are people who must have liked us at least at some point in time. In fact, they liked us well enough to write a check. For some of those people, they love our mission so much that they support us regularly.

If you are an “excelling organization,” then you have more than just names and dollars in that donor database. You’ve been collecting data pertaining to birthdays (aka age), occupation (aka skill sets and acumen), interests and experiences, and service club participation (aka social networks). If you aren’t this good and haven’t been collecting and recording this type of information, my suggestion is that you figure out a way to start doing so immediately.

Your donor database is an amazing tool on so many different front, and it isn’t just something you use for fundraising. It can and should be the best board development tool that your board development volunteers turn to every year when they start prospecting and brainstorming.

So, the next time someone on your board development committee suggests that your community has “run out of” board prospects, I encourage you to say poppycock and pivot quickly to your donor database for an endless supply of names to consider.

Does your organization use its donor database as part of its board development prospecting process? If so, what have been your experiences? Which board composition gap assessment tool do you use? Where did you find it, and can you point others in that direction? What is the biggest gap that you’re seeing on non-profit boards in your community (e.g. too many Baby Boomers and not enough young prospects or not enough people with fundraising skills, etc)?

Please scroll down and take 60 seconds out of your busy day to share an answer to one of these questions. Why? Because we can all learn from each other and something you share today might actually make a HUGE impact in someone else’s agency. It is time to “pay it forward”. Please?

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

Kissing While Driving for non-profit agencies

March 9, 2012 DonorDreams leadership, 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.

Today we’re focusing on a post that John titled “Kissing While Driving“. In this post, he uses an Albert Einstein quote to investigate the perils of “multitasking” in the workplace by employees. He puts forward that employees who are running back and forth between various projects are likely only doing an “adequate” job at best for their employer because as Benjamin Franklin once said, “Haste makes waste”. More importantly John concludes:

this likely impacts employee engagement and loyalty,
can be dangerous for the company whose reputation is based on quality, and
is less than satisfying for employees who take pride in their work.

Reading John’s post brought me back to my “frontline” days of non-profit work. I honestly think this blog post is even more applicable to non-profit agencies because of how they behave in “resource deprived” environments. When I was the executive director of my local Boys & Girls Club, I used to laugh when people asked me: “What is your job?”

I used to describe my work as a daily “sprint” through a series of very diverse and challenging situations.

7:00 am — network with donors at Rotary Club
8:30 am — meet with development director about an upcoming special event fundraiser
9:30 am — prepare meeting materials for upcoming Finance Committee meeting
10:00 am — meet with program staff about a recent hiccup that was brought to my attention by a parent or collaborative partner
11:00 am — double-check the bank deposit against the donor database report and check log; go to bank and make the deposit
11:30 am — Troubleshoot a tech problem that an employee was experiencing (and was preventing them from doing their job)
Noon — Go to lunch with a donor or board member
1:30 pm — Hop on a conference call for the state alliance
2:30 pm — Last minute prep for the board development committee meeting
3:00 pm — Attend the board development committee meeting
5:00 pm — Walk through the clubhouse facility to see programs in action and catch staff doing “good things” as well as connect with the mission
5:30 pm — Respond to email and catch up on stuff that washed into my office throughout the day (possibly screening some cover letters and resumes for a job vacancy)
6:00 pm — Pull together some paperwork and process grant receivables
7:00 pm — Prep for the next day, do a little planning, or take advantage of the silence in the office and write a few sections for a grant application or upcoming newsletter
8:00 or 9:00 pm — Go home for some sleep so you can do it all over again tomorrow.

While every day wasn’t always like this, most days were this way. It is the cross that a non-profit executive director must bear when they operate in a resource deprived environment. It is exhausting, and it produces a situation where many mistakes are made. It is a minor miracle anything got done and that any progress was made. In the end, it was one of the top three reasons I chose to leave the frontline and go to work for the national organization.

Hmmmmm . . . yes, I’d say it was a lot like “kissing while driving”. I wasn’t very satisfied. I wasn’t as engaged in the things that were most important to the agency. I made mistakes and felt horrible about making them. I ultimately left for what I thought were greener pastures.

In hindsight, I wonder what I could’ve done differently:

invested in a volunteer program to expand human resources
engaged board members and donors in seeing and help solving these challenges (rather than celebrating the insanity)
adjusted the agency’s strategic plan to focus less on growth and more on deepening the impact

Of these three ideas, the one I think might bring the highest return on investment is the second bullet point that speaks to engaging board members and donors. As I look around at all of my non-profit friends, I see too many of them placating their boards by always saying “YES” rather than walking them through “cause-and-effect” scenarios pertaining to board room decisions (e.g. budget, staffing structure, new programming, etc). I also see many of them telling donors whatever they think they want to hear just to get another signed pledge card.

I have a hard time believing that if board members and donors saw what your day REALLY looked like that they wouldn’t want to jump in and help solve those challenges. Right? And with multiple people focused on solving these challenges, I suspect the odds go up dramatically that either the car gets stopped so the kissing can continue OR the kissing stops so that some work can get done.

In the end, it is your leadership that will solve this problem. Perhaps, it is a new Teachable Point of View that you adopt as the leader. Or maybe it is your embrace of tools like GRPI or RASI. Regardless, it most likely starts and ends with you. So, what are you going to do about it?

Are your days as crazy as the one I described above? What tools do you use to tame that beast? Have you ever engaged board members or donors in this discussion? If so, what were the results? Please use the comment box below to weigh-in with your thoughts. Remember to also check out other blog posts on organizational development by John Greco at his blog johnponders ~ about life at work, mostly.

Here’s to your health!

The Secrets to Their Success?

January 5, 2012 DonorDreams Fundraising, nonprofit

Yesterday was a fun day for me because I managed to get out of my home office and spend some time in the field trying to sell work. So, I hopped in my car and visited one resource development director and two executive directors. During the long drive home, I reflected on each of those three visits and came to the same conclusion:

In spite of sluggish economic growth,
there are some non-profit organizations
that are doing very well!

Here is a quick run down of what I saw in the field:

A fundraising professional with approximately 6-months under her belt at a new agency, planned and executed a $500,000 direct mail campaign in the fourth quarter of 2011.
An executive director who essentially closed a significant budget deficit in a matter of just a few months.
An executive director who quarterbacked a fairly reluctant board through the planning and implementation of a new annual campaign (developing a new revenue stream for their agency that is approaching 10-percent of their overall revenue budget).
A CEO whose non-profit organization has experienced a: 38-percent increase in individual giving, 80-percent increase in foundation contributions, and 222-percent increase in corporate sponsorships . . . all over the last two years. In fact, just last year this agency signed up 250 NEW donors.

I thought this economy was supposed to be big, bad and ugly for non-profit organizations? So, being the curious person that I am, I asked lots of questions and here are some of the things I discovered that I believe are “The Secrets to Their Success”:

Investments in marketing — aggressive pursuit of public service announcements using print, radio and television helped two of these agencies generate amazing awareness and mission-focus throughout the communities they serve.
Investments in fundraising staff — all three of these organizations had either hired more fundraising professionals or were talking about doing so. It reminded me of something my for-profit friends are constantly saying: “It takes money to make money.”
Engaging prospects and donors — all three of these organizations haven’t been shy about calling lots and lots of people (both existing donors and lots of new folks who have never given them a penny). The strategy was simple . . . be aggressive . . . get as many people on-site to see what their agency does . . . don’t ask for money right away, but ask them shortly thereafter (a few weeks to a few months later).
Re-developing the board — two of the three organizations have been diligently working on identifying, cultivating and recruiting new board volunteers who are capable of writing nice checks, are willing to introduce their friends to the agency’s mission, and aren’t afraid to ask others to make a contribution.

While the last 4-years have been brutal for many non-profit organizations and some recent survey research shows that many more are on the brink of insolvency in 2012, I believe that good executive leadership with a bullish and aggressive approach to resource development and non-profit management is “the cure for all that ails you”.

Here are a few bloggers who I like pertaining to marketing, hiring fundraising staff, cultivation & stewardship, and board development:

Katya’s Non-Profit Marking Blog is a genius and I’ve followed her work for years
Mission Connected blog hits the nail on the head when it comes to hiring fundraising professionals
The Fundraising Authority blog outlines a very nice systemic approach to supersizing your cultivation efforts
Larry Checco at about.com provides some great board development tips you might like

As you look around your community, has your non-profit organization performed better than the others over the last few years of recession and sluggish recovery? If so, please use the comment box below and share one or two of your secrets. Remember . . . we can all learn from each other.

Here’s to your health!

Introducing Mondays with Marissa

January 2, 2012 DonorDreams Mondays with Marissa, technology

Happy New Year! I hope that your year-end celebrations were fun, and you are ready to tackle resolutions in the new year. Speaking of resolutions, I made a number of them, and a few of them had to do with the DonorDreams blog.

Specifically, it is easy to see how technology is dramatically changing the world around us, which is why I reached out to my friend and fellow blogger — Marissa Garza — and asked her to address technology issues every Monday. (A picture of Marissa is posted to the right on your screen . . . Hi Marissa! 🙂 )

Marissa graduated from the University of Illinois with a BA in Education. She has taught in the classroom, worked for Kaplan, and is one of the most curious self-taught students I’ve ever met when it comes to technology. In fact, every time we get together she is telling me about a some new technological piece of magic.

When I needed help customizing this blog, I turned to Marissa. When I needed feedback on the The Healthy Non-Profit’s website, I turned to Marissa. When I needed to test my webcam with regards to Skype, GoToMeeting, GoToWebinar, and Google+, I turned to Marissa. When a former co-worker asked me for tips on how to get her blog up and running, I sent her to Marissa.

If you haven’t figured out that Marissa is my “go to gal” when it comes to technology, then let me just say for the record . . . she is super smart and someone I think of very highly. I am thrilled to death that she has agreed to become part of the DonorDreams family, and I predict you will fall in love with her.

The inspiration behind “Mondays with Marissa” came from the following two places:

One of National Public Radio’s (NPR) popular shows is Talk of the Nation with Neal Conan, and on Fridays Neal turns his show over to Ira Flatow who hosts a show branded “Talk of the Nation: Science Friday“. This approach to specialized content inspired me to add a new voice to DonorDreams one day a week.
Perhaps, more central to my decision to ask Marissa to join the team is how often non-profit friends ask me about technology related issues and those questions have been very broad including: websites, social media, email marketing, blogs, ePhilanthropy, e-commerce, donor databases, CRM, etc.

I’ve asked Marissa to write about all of these topics and more. As she does, I will use the comment section of this blog to weigh-in with my thoughts on how these technology topics apply to non-profit management, marketing, board development, programming/operations, and resource development (including prospect cultivation, donor solicitation, donor stewardship, etc).

I don’t know about you, but I am very excited about 2012! I am very optimistic and excited to get started.

Please use the comment box below and weigh-in with a few technology topics that you’d like Marissa to write about over the next few Mondays. Your suggestions are very much appreciated. Please also help me welcome Marissa to our family.

Happy New Year and here’s to your health!

Goldilocks and the three board members: Part 3

December 7, 2011 DonorDreams Board development, Planning, resource development

On Monday, I posted about boards who fail to review their executive director every year. On Tuesday, I posted about boards that get a little muscular with their executive directors and typically abdicate all of this to one overly aggressive board volunteer. Today, I’d like to finish our discussion by talking about what feels right to me.

First, let me say that I don’t think that there is a perfect process for creating an executive director’s annual performance plan or conducting their year-end evaluation. So, I thought that today’s post could just be a laundry list of things I’ve seen really good boards do and then you should weigh-in using the comment box with things you’ve seen that are particularly awesome. So, here we go . . .

The annual performance plan is rooted in the agency’s various written plans (e.g strategic plan, resource development plan, marketing plan, budget, etc)
The objectives in the performance plan are very measurable. So, much so that the executive director knows exactly what they need to do in order to move their evaluation score from a “meets expectation” to “exceeds expectation”
The executive director writes the draft performance plan, turns it over to a board committee (e.g. Human Resource committee), and after massaging the performance plan they take it to the entire board for input, discussion and approval. This way everyone has touched it and owns it.
The performance plan is completed and a final version is the executive director’s hands by the beginning of the year.
The HR committee asks the executive director for a mid-year update on how they’re coming along with their performance plan. Any red flags are brought to the entire board’s attention by the committee chair in executive session. The entire board engages in discussions such as: amending the performance plan, increasing oversight of the executive director, creating a corrective action plan, etc.
There are 360 degree feedback opportunities from both direct staff reports and the board of directors.
The annual performance plan doesn’t just look at “quantitative” success (e.g. fundraising goals achieve, membership targets hit, etc), but it also finds a way to blend into the evaluation “how the executive director” does their job. Do they use scorched earth tactics to get results (which will bite them later down the road) or do they do a nice job using best practices (which might not immediately translate into results but might pay big dividends down the road).
The year-end evaluation doesn’t have any surprises because it is based on the exact performance plan handed to the executive director 12-months earlier.
Just like the performance plan development process, the year-end evaluation starts with the executive director doing a self-evaluation. The HR committee makes adjustments and seeks input from the entire board.
The question of who sits down with the executive director and conveys the evaluation results rarely looks the same from organization to organization. I’ve oftentimes seen the board president do it, but I’ve seen the HR committee chair also do it almost as often. I’ve seen it done in a committee setting (but I must admit that it looked like someone was getting ganged up on). I think the board should recruit anyone they like as long as that person: 1) has a good working relationship with the executive director and 2) has a track record of having successfully done employee evaluations (e.g. they have some HR acumen).
The year-end evaluation is always signed by the executive director, and a board volunteer personally witnesses it being deposited into the employee folder.

I have always tried to live my life according to this simple HR rule:

If anyone is surprised throughout this process, then it wasn’t done correctly and there needs to be some serious changes heading into next year.

I am a firm believer that the annual performance plan and year-end evaluation of the executive director is one of the biggest keys to organizational success. If done right, everyone knows far in advance what is expected of them. If done right, there are no surprises and usually very little emotion in the process. If done right, everyone is on the same page and the organization is powered strongly into the future with everyone’s sights set on visionary goals and performance indicators.

So, how does your organization evaluate its executive director? Are there best practices that you think I missed? Please use the comment box below so we can all learn from each other.

I hope you agree that today’s “bowl of porridge” compared to Monday and Tuesday’s posts tasted “just right”. 😉

Here’s to your health!

Goldilocks and the three board members: Part 1

December 5, 2011 DonorDreams Board development, Fundraising

I suspect we all remember the story of “Goldilocks and the Three Bears“. This porridge is too hot! This porridge is too cold! This porridge is just right! I’ve recently stumbled upon a very similar version of this story involving non-profit executive directors and board volunteers around the related concepts of annual performance plans and year-end evaluations. For the next three days, I thought it would be fun to look at each of the bowls of porridge and talk about the pros or cons.

Today’s bowl of porridge deals with when board volunteers shirk their fiduciary responsibilities and fail to evaluate their executive director.

I have run into a number of friends recently who confided in me that they haven’t been evaluated. In some cases, they haven’t been evaluated in a number of years. Of course, in many of these cases, it has become an issue because it is a tough time to be at the helm of a non-profit organization. As criticisms increase and board volunteers try to ratchet up accountability, up pops the ugly revelation:

“Ooooops, if things have been getting so bad, why haven’t you felt the need to evaluate me. We might have been able to make some course corrections if you had taken your fiduciary responsibilities seriously before we got to this point.”

The other side of this coin, of course, deals with the executive director’s annual performance plan (e.g. chart of work). In my experience, when executive directors aren’t getting evaluated, they typically don’t have a very well-defined performance plan with measurable metrics. This management tool is developed and handed to the executive director 12-months prior to their review. This way they know exactly what they need to do to succeed and how to proactively affect their year-end evaluation.

Again, in my experience, boards end up passing on the year-end evaluation because they didn’t do a good job of developing a performance plan, and now they don’t feel like there is anything concrete to measure their employee against. So, they end up taking a pass.

And the vicious circle continues until the non-profit organization skids into the ditch and fingers start getting pointed.

While it is easy to throw board members under the bus, I also want to hold my executive director friends accountable, too. Good non-profit professionals know how to support a board and keep them from falling down on the job. I’ve seen many non-profit CEOs pencil draft their own performance plans and year-end reviews and hold their board’s hand through these processes.

All of this also ties into fundraising and resource development. Rest assured that when fingers start getting pointed, donors ask tough questions and judgements get passed. Remember, the executive director is probably the face of your non-profit organization and many of your donors have likely fallen in love with this person.

I’ve seen it too many times. The organization fractures, accusations get made, donors ask tough questions, and everyone comes out looking bad. In the final analysis, public trust gets violated and donors put their checkbooks away until things get cleared up.

There is one cautionary word that I need to toss out there to board members about this very cold bowl of porridge. I know many of you think you don’t have any personal liability that comes with sitting on a non-profit board of directors because your agency purchased Directors and Officers Insurance. However, it is not outside of the realm of possibility that your D & O insurance company will not cover you in an employment related lawsuit if you failed to complete annual performance reviews of your executive director. It is foreseeable that the insurance company will say “there was a lack of a good faith effort” on the part of the board, and then you will be personally on the hook.

So, get off the couch and take that cold bowl of porridge to the microwave oven and warm it up before it is too late! For those of you who might be looking for a resource guide, click here for a great manual from The Enterprise Foundation. Tomorrow, we’re going to look at that next bowl of porridge which is way too hot. So please stay tuned.

Does your board of directors struggle with evaluating its executive director? If so, what strategies are you using to bridge this gap?

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

Here’s to your health!

Non-profits and Sunshine Laws?

December 1, 2011 DonorDreams Board development, resource development

Have you ever participated in an interesting conversation that inspired you enough to go do some research? Last night I had one of those moments, and what I found was so interesting I just had to share it with you this morning.

So, last night I was out enjoying a nice dinner with a non-profit board volunteer when the conversation turned to the subject of board meetings and how the local newspaper covers their agency.

He said, “Erik, the problem with making difficult discussions in the board room is that we’re subject to the Open Meetings Act.”

I said, “Really? I don’t think so. The Open Meetings Act is aimed primarily at government and public institutions.”

He responded with, “Erik, with as much government money as our agency takes, we are covered by this law and have to let the public and press into our meetings.”

If you know me well, then you know that not knowing an answer to something like this just drives me crazy. So, when I got back to my hotel room, I just popped open Google and started digging.

Ah ha! The first thing I found validated my point of view. The Illinois Open Meetings Act specifically exempts non-profit organizations. Click here to read more.

However, as with most things in life, nothing is simple or that clear cut. The next thing I found online was from Ann Taylor Schwing. She provided a dizzying number of bullet points pointing to various numbers of possible scenarios when the Open Meetings Act might extend beyond government entities and into board rooms of private organizations.

Click here to read more and see if your agency might fit into some these exceptions. After I consumed Ann’s work, my head started spinning and went into overdrive. For example:

One of the exceptions that Ann points out is: “whether the functions performed by the private entity would otherwise be performed by a public body, or were performed by the public body before the creation of the private entity“. Well, this certainly should give many agency’s a moment to pause and consider.
Another of the exceptions Ann highlights is: “the extent to which public entities may control the entity in question and the extent to which the entity is autonomous“. This got me to start counting the number of non-profits in my hometown who were recently quoted in the newspaper as saying, “If my city funding gets cut, we’re going to end up closing our doors.” As the Church Lady used to say on Saturday Night Live, “Well now. Isn’t THAT interesting?”

OK, you’re probably wondering what all this means and if it necessitates any action on your part. Here are just a few of my thoughts:

I would click the aforementioned links and do some research. No one wants to be surprised by a newspaper report or a disgruntled donor or client who demands access to your board room. I like to live by the general rule that “Prior Proper Preparation Prevents Piss Poor Performance”. 🙂
If the second bullet point sounds like it might describe your agency (e.g. your agency is so reliant on government money and your ‘independence’ is compromised), then you should engaging board members in a discussion around whether or not this is OK with them and what to do about it. After all, this is a quintessential “board governance” issue that the law calls on them to wrestle with. Right?
There is a bigger picture issue here as it pertains to non-profit transparency. You might want to start engaging board volunteers in a discussion around whether or not opening your board meetings to the public (e.g. donors, clients, neighbors, etc) is a good idea. And if it is, then how do you function in that public space and still get sensitive board business accomplished.

Some of you are probably thinking “Erik, are you crazy?” Well, maybe I am, but ask yourself this: “do donor have a right to attend governance meetings as an investor in your organization?” More to the point, I’ve seen some non-profit organizations model themselves after publicly traded for-profit organizations by hosting an annual meeting that is open to the public and is seen as a stewardship opportunity for donors.

Does your agency host an annual meeting that is open to donors and the public? If so, please tell us what it looks like and what is discussed in the comment box below. Has your agency ever been pressured by the press or the public about the Open Meetings Act? If so, please share with us what happened.

Come on folks! We can all learn from each other. Please take a moment to weigh-in.

Here’s to your health!

Does your non-profit have a soul?

November 22, 2011 DonorDreams Uncategorized

A few weeks ago I facilitated a values exercise for an organization that is in the process of trying to build a powerful and functional new team. After the exercise (which was contentious but very productive), some of the feedback I received from participants as well as others is that a values discussion is just one big waste of time.

I made a conscious decision to hear thes folks and not respond immediately. I wanted to marinade on it for a few weeks. Well, I’m done soaking and I am ready to confidently say “Organizational values are NOT a joke!”

Don’t believe me? You don’t have to . . . just listen to Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner who stated the following in their book “The Leadership Challenge“:

“Shared values make an enormous difference to organizational and personal vitality. Research confirms that firms with strong corporate culture based on a foundation of shared values outperform other firms by a huge margin. Their revenue grew 4-times fast; their rate of job creation was 7-times higher; their stock price grew 12-times faster; and their profit performance was 750-percent higher.”

Before your non-profit organization can craft of vision of who it wants to be, it must address the values questions. The reasons for this are well laid out in Stephen Fairley and Bill Zipp’s book “The Business Coaching Toolkit“. Here are three reasons they believe this to be true:

Values give your people a cause to life for instead of just a job to do.
Values give your associates principles to apply instead of just policies to enforce.
Values produce leaders with relational authority and not just positional authority.

Still don’t believe me? OK . . . think about a time that you weren’t living your life in alignment with your personal values. For example, you might value something like “balance” because your family is very important to you, but the demands on your time at work forces you to make decisions that don’t allow for “balance” in your life. How does living out of alignment with your values make you feel? I suspect there is tension and pressure.

Now take this example and extrapolate it to the people you work with, the donors who contribute to you, and the board volunteers who serve selflessly with you.

As part of your organization’s next strategic planning initiative, I encourage you to start with mission-focus and before you transition to talk about “organizational vision” facilitate a collaborative discussion with all stakeholder groups around organizational values.

I promise you won’t be disappointed. You will find that your organizational values act as a catalyst for all kinds of things and refocuses your hiring decisions, recruitment decisions and can even affect how you solicit and steward donors.

Does your organization have values? Are they real or just something plastic? How do you see your agency using its values? When they developed those values did they include donors in that discussion? Please use the comment box to share your thoughts. We can all learn from each other.

Here is to your health!

Working for boards is tough stuff

November 17, 2011 DonorDreams Board development

We all have friends who work for bosses who are absolute nightmares. As a matter of fact, I was on a business trip a few months ago driving in my rental car listening to a call-in radio program all about horrible boss stories. While I sympathize with friends in those situations, I can honestly say they have no idea what real workplace pain is like until they’ve had to work for a cantankerous non-profit board of directors.

I believe in my heart of hearts that working for a board has got to be one of the most difficult things I’ve ever had to do in my life. Here are just a few reasons I’ve come to this conclusion:

If a board has 15 members, then the non-profit CEO is working for 15 different people.
15 different board volunteers have 15 different personalities.
15 different board volunteers can have 15 different ways of wanting to do something.
Have you ever tried to appease 15 different egos? OMG

Don’t get me wrong . . . working directly for a board has also yielded some of the best experiences in my life. However, I’ve seen too many of my non-profit friends reduced to a puddle of tears recently as a result of “politics” in the board room and “personal agendas” run amok.

So what is the solution? Where is the silver bullet? What can a non-profit professional do to make working with a board of directors less difficult?

Let me start by saying: not everyone is cut out for this kind of work. So, get your feet wet early in your career possibly by helping your agency’s CEO with a board project. Take this time to assess whether or not you like it not. If it doesn’t feel right, then chalk it up to a learning experience and decline future opportunities to interview for non-profit executive leadership jobs.

If you currently sit in the big chair and are looking for tips on how to work with boards more effectively, then here are just a few quick thoughts:

Get in front of your board volunteers regularly. If you are just seeing your board members at monthly board meetings, then you’re doing yourself a tremendous disservice. Set a goal of being in front of every board member at least once in between board meetings (and I go back on forth on whether or not committee meetings count). During these meetings, do more listening than you do talking. Gandhi told us to be the change we want to see in the world. So, if you want the board to listen to you, then you better listen to them.
Respect boundaries. Too many of us want to befriend our board members, and I think this blurs boundaries. These people are your boss. Being social is one thing, but partying all night with them might cross a line. Establishing boundaries is tough stuff, but they always need to see you as a classy professional. These people can become part of your “extended non-profit family,” but never forget how dysfunctional families can get. Are you sure you want to bring “dysfunction” into your employment situation? Carefully thinking through boundaries makes a lot of sense to me and it will probably look different for each of you.
Use planning tools to build consensus. There is nothing more challenging than having to work with 15 people who have 15 different ideas about how to do something. So, a good non-profit leader needs to possess “consensus building” and “facilitating” skill sets. If these are things they are good at doing, then their leadership toolbox needs to include planning strategies and tactics. Guiding a divided board through a strategic planning, resource development planning or marketing plan process can produce consensus and direction. Ahhhhh . . . happy days!
Get serious about every part of your board development process. Approach board building like you would a chemistry experiment.

What do you believe is the most difficult thing about working for a board of directors? What strategies do you use to help make this a little easier?

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

Here is to your health!

Nothing personal but you’re fired?

November 16, 2011 DonorDreams Board development

With the economy being what it is, I’ve sensed a very strange undercurrent in the non-profit sector recently. Fundraising is challenging for those agencies that have used fear tactics and guilt to raise money. Government dollars are drying up. Boards have been cutting-cutting-cutting and now there is close to nothing left to cut in their agency budgets. In a nutshell, things feel like they’re coming to a head and it feels intensely personal.

In the last 6-months, I’ve personally witnessed/heard about a few different staff-board encounters that has me very concerned:

A board president putting their finger in the face of the executive director during a heated discussion over budget cuts involving salaries and benefits.
An executive director flat-out yelling at the board (it was described to me as a temper tantrum) during the board meeting because they didn’t think board volunteers were raising enough money and were too focused on cutting-cutting-cutting.
A board volunteer yelling at a donor and leveling personal and hurtful accusations.
A group of board members coordinating their resignations and then running off to the newspaper to tell their story.
A board president secretly plotting to fire their executive director.

I get it . . . tough times lead to tough decisions and these decisions are intensely personal which mean they are riddled with emotion. However, the one thing everyone needs to keep in mind is that we all have FIDUCIARY RESPONSIBILITIES when we agree to work or volunteer for a non-profit corporation.

This means acting in the best interest of those who our organization’s mission calls us to serve. It means exercising the highest standard of care. It means putting personal interests to the side (which I think also includes setting aside personal agendas).

Exercising your fiduciary responsibilities does not mean engaging in emotional battles all in the “name of mission” with those whom you disagree . This slash-and-burn strategy is dangerous, destroys working relationships, and eats at the very foundations of our organizational. In the end, the people who really get hurt are those that we aim to serve — the client.

Here is a some advice that I recognize is easier said than done:

Board volunteers: Please remember that staff are people, too. They have families, mortgages, and a personal life just like you. You are charged with making tough decisions around finances, but a little compassion goes a long way and adding more emotion on top of an emotional bonfire only makes matters worse.
Non-profit CEOs and staff: Please remember that board volunteers are exactly that — volunteers. You were not hired into a lifetime position. Different situations call for different types of leadership, and this might be a time for a different leadership style at your agency. Don’t take it personal. A little bit of professionalism goes a long way.
Board volunteers: Times have changed and the economy we once knew blew up many years ago. There is a “new normal” that we need to get used to. This means changing your non-profit business model. It means rolling up your sleeves, fundraising, and asking people in your social circles to be philanthropic rather than sitting back and watching staff beg for non-existent government dollars. GET INVOLVED!
Non-profit CEOs and staff: Fundraising isn’t just a board responsibility. You play a huge role in supporting these efforts. It also isn’t something you can usurp from the board and do by yourself in hopes of making yourself indispensible. You are responsible for engagement of board volunteers. START ENGAGING!

Focusing on collaboration and consensus building is a start. Taking the personalities, egos and emotion out of decision-making is important. Keeping mission-focused is imperative in order to avoid hurting those we care about most — the clients.

What do you do as a staff person or board volunteer to keep emotions from getting too high during these difficult times in the board room? How do you keep perspective? Is it possible to extricate ego and personality from these discussions? How do you keep everyone focused on the client and mission?

This is an unusual blog post for me because it involves emotions and feelings; whereas, I normally write more fact-based stories blended with opinions. However, there are many of you and your non-profit friends going through some very difficult times, which is why taking 1-minute to answer some of these questions using the comment box below is so important. We can all learn from each other!

Here is to your health!