Making the case for periodic assessment of your non-profit organization

January 28, 2016 erik Board governance, organizational development, Planning

A few weeks ago I received a call from a friend who asked me (aka The Healthy Non-Profit LLC) to submit a proposal to conduct an organizational assessment for a regional non-profit organization. He recently joined the board of directors of this organization, and during his first few meetings he concluded that his fellow board members might need a little “perspective”. As we spent a little time on the phone framing the proposal, he made a very specific request of me . . .

“Please go into great detail about why it is a best practice for non-profit organizations to invest in an organizational assessment facilitated by an external consultant.”

In the space below, I attempt to elaborate on this question by sharing two personal non-organizational stories that I consider analogies for non-profit organizations. I also end this post by sharing the actual one-page of text I included in my proposal and ask DonorDreams readers to please use the comment box to help me add/subtract to this case for support (for the benefit of future proposals).
Story #1: Mom & Dad aren’t on the same page
Mom_Dad I am a lucky son because both my Mom and Dad are still married and living in the same community and same subdivision where I grew up (except they moved across the street when I went away to college). A few years ago, both of my parents retired and have been trying to figure out what to do with their new found time.
Just the other day while visiting Mom and Dad, the conversation turned to the subject of “To Infinity and Beyond“. To clarify what I mean by this, here are a list of questions that were being asked and not really answered:

How long do you plan on staying in your current house?
Have you given any thought to what you want to do when staying where you’re at doesn’t make any more sense?
Oh? You want to move to Florida? When were you thinking you might do that?
Where in Florida do you see yourself living?
Are you keeping the house in Illinois and planning to live like “snowbird retirees“? Or are you selling the house? And when are you planning to do that? And when do you plan on thinning out all of your STUFF?

UGH!
If you’ve ever gone down this road with your parents, you know how frustrating this discussion can become.
In my instance, it became clear that these two people, who spend approximately 75% of their lives no more than 100 feet from each other, were NOT on the same page. I’ll spare you the details (and protect their privacy), but suffice it to say one of my parents has a two-year plan in mind and the other was taking the long view with a 10-year plan. And this was just the beginning of their differences.
So, what does this have anything to do with your non-profit organization and the best practice of periodic organizational assessment?
Simple . . .
Next time you are in your boardroom, I encourage you to stop whatever you’re doing, look around the room at each of your board volunteers and imagine how each one of them would answer the following questions:

Who are we as an organization? Why do we exist?
Where are we going as an organization?
Where should we be going as an organization?
What is currently working well for us?
What are we challenged by?
What opportunities exist outside of our four walls that we should be trying to take advantage of?
What storms are brewing on the horizon that we need to better position the organization for?

I guarantee that if you do this exercise honestly, you will probably find the same thing I found with my parents which is . . .
You will see awesome people, who are engaged around shared values and a mission, BUT who all have a slightly different view on things that are very important to your organization.
It is for this reason that periodic assessments are necessary. If done by someone external to your organization (possessing a fresh set of eyes and ears), then you can learn a lot about what isn’t being said and then incorporate it into the next step — a planning process (of some sort).
Story #2: My trip to the doctor
doctor I’ll keep this story short and sweet since this post is getting too long. Yesterday, I went to my doctor for my annual physical.
Why did I go?

A bump recently appeared on my finger
I’ve been fatigued more than usual lately
I’ve had the same cold virus going on five weeks now
And a variety of other little reasons that I shouldn’t go into on the internet LOL

You’ve probably heard that an annual physical examination by your doctor is a best practice. In fact, it is strongly encouraged by most insurance companies that typically don’t even charge you a co-pay for such a visit.
Why is this form of annual assessment of your health considered so important by health practitioners?
Simple . . . there are things you cannot see and do not have knowledge of that this assessment will help diagnose and lead you to act upon. The same logic holds true for your non-profit organization.
Asking a small favor of you . . .
As I explained at the beginning of this post, the following is approximately one page of text that I included in my recent proposal. Would you please do me the small favor of reading it and provide your two cents on what you would add or subtract from this written case for support? You can also simply tell me what is missing (or what you really like) in the comment box below. My plan is to incorporate your feedback into the next proposal I’m asked to write like this one. Thank you in advance for your help. 🙂

Why is periodic assessment a best practice?
In layman’s terms, periodic organizational assessment is akin to a physical exam that people periodically engage in with their physicians.
While assessments take many different shapes, almost all attempt to answer the following questions:

Who are we?

Where are we now?

Where do we want to go?

Answers to these questions typically become a precursor to board activities such as creating an organizational:

Long term plan

Strategic Plan

Business Plan

Short-term tactical plan

While looking carefully at the question of “Who are we” might seem silly to some people, it is important because organizations morph and change over time. Moreover, the “need(s)” that an organization was initially created to address may no longer exist or may have evolved.
The question of “Where are we now” is oftentimes difficult to ascertain without the help of an external consultant. The reason for this is the same reason people pay therapists / counselors to help assess what is going on inside of ourselves. The simple truth is that it is hard to get outside of our own bodies to see what is really going on. What makes this even more difficult with non-profit organizations is the fact that there are many different people sitting around the boardroom table oftentimes with various opinions and perspectives.
The question of “Where do we want to go” is more of a planning discussion than it is an assessment question. However, good organizational assessments have the ability to access what various stakeholders are thinking about the future. Being able to see all of these different viewpoints can help the board frame productive discussions at the start of a planning process focused on vision and goal setting.
As it is illustrated on the previous page, organizations go through a predictable lifecycle, and an organizational assessment can help board volunteers see where they are at in that cycle and have productive discussions about what to do about it.

Thanks for indulging me today. I appreciate being able to share a few stories and a portion of a business proposal with the smart readers of the DonorDreams blog. I truly believe that we can all learn from each other (as I’ve stated hundreds of times over the last five years of blog posts). Today, I am doubling down on this believe by asking for your feedback. I appreciate your willingness to participate in such an exercise.
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

What skills and experiences are critical to your board volunteers' success?

March 24, 2015 erik Board development, Board governance, Fundraising, organizational development

boarddev1 Do you know which skills and experiences are most important for a new board volunteer to possess in order to succeed on your board? Knowing this could help your organization conduct better prospecting exercises and result in better prospect recruitment lists. Today’s post is the third in a three part non-profit board development series that started last week. During this time, we focused on a recent survey released by our friends at non-profit technology research firm Software Advice of 1,545 board volunteers and people tasked with recruiting new board members. The survey’s key findings probably won’t surprise you, but the implications might change the way you think about your organization’s future board development efforts.
The final two findings of SoftwareAdvice.com’s survey that caught my eye related to skills and experiences. The first finding was:

“Basic computer skills (e.g. email, Excel, etc) are the most important technology skill for service (44 percent).“

The remaining 66% of responses were as follows:
nonprofit-board-tech-skills
The other finding was:

“Fundraising experience was the most cited (24 percent) skill set and experience that has the greatest impact on a board member’s success.“

The other responses included:
nonprofit-board-professional-skills
As I digested these final two findings, I immediately had two visceral reactions.
Was Carol Weisman wrong?
weisman1 If you haven’t heard Carol speak or read her books, then you need to figure out how to check those things off of your non-profit bucket list. She is amazing!
When I read the study’s finding about “basic tech skills,” my mind immediately wandered back to a Boys & Girls Clubs of America conference hosted somewhere in the Midwest more than 10 years ago. Carol was one of the keynote speakers, and she was talking about building an amazing board of directors.
I remember her sitting on a stool on a large stage with a wireless lapel mic telling fun stories about non-profit boards and individual board volunteers. She was also likely promoting one of her many books. I was a relatively new and young non-profit executive director, and everything she said sounded right on target.
During Carol’s presentation, one of the things she talked about was how technology is changing non-profit boardroom dynamics. She shared a story about a board she had worked with that had embraced technology. If my memory serves me correctly, the following were just a few examples:

Every board member was provided a laptop computer by the organization
Board members received their board meeting agenda and info packet electronically
Volunteer who were out of town for meetings would use their webcam and remotely attend and participate

weisman2 I am a member of GenX, and this news made my heart sing. I was so excited to hear that my Baby Boomer board could be transformed into that type of board. I came home from that conference with renewed focus and determination to figure out how tech can help my board become more engaged and efficient in governance.
I started digitally scanning my board packets. I created an intranet site for the board. I uploaded board packets and other materials (e.g. policies, procedures, etc) to the intranet. Needless to say, no one followed me, and I abandon my tech efforts a year later.
The lesson learned was:

“You get the board you recruit!”

We had not recruited the board that Carol described in her conference keynote speech. My board development committee had not included “better-than-basic tech skills” as a skill set criteria. The result was that my board possessed basic tech skills related to the Microsoft Office productivity suite and email. They were light years away from going paperless and using Skype.
So, I guess Carol wasn’t “wrong” because tech will obviously change the boardroom experience, but . .

change will likely take much longer than we thought (and will likely happen when GenX and Millennial board volunteers make up the majority on most boards)
change will occur faster only if board development and board governance committees include tech skills in their search criteria when assembling their prospect lists

If you are looking for additional board development tools to add to your organization’s board development toolbox, then you should read a wonderful blog post by the National Council of Nonprofits and check out their hyperlinks to additional online resources. The post was titled “Finding the Right Board Members for Your Nonprofit“.
Fundraising experience is underrated
scared When I read that only 25% of survey respondents identified “fundraising skills and experiences” as having a great impact on a board member’s success, I literally groaned and rolled by eyes.
Sure, it was the number one response, but it was still only one-quarter of respondents. As my 10-year-old niece would say . . .

“Really? Seriously?”

I suspect that fundraising might not be as important for non-profits that rely on fees and government money to buoy their business model, but the vast majority of non-profits with which I’ve worked aren’t hospitals and universities. Many non-profits have fundraising at the core of their business model, and it is one of the most difficult things I’ve seen board volunteers struggle with.
More oftentimes than not, when I’ve seen a board volunteer frustrated and on the verge of resigning, it usually has something to do with fundraising.
Of course, the solution is the same as I mentioned in the last section . . . “You get the board you recruit, and the board development committee needs to include fundraising skills and experiences in their search criteria.”
The tougher question is “what are fundraising skill and what should we be looking for?” My suggestion is to look for the following when going through prospect identification and evaluation exercises:

people who donate to other charities and appear to have an appreciation for philanthropy
people who are social and appear to have larger than average social networks
people who have served on other non-profit board with a business model rooted in fundraising
people who belong to service clubs that organize fundraising activities
people who are passionate about your mission (e.g. are willing to walk across hot coals to achieve success for your organization)
people who are well-versed at “closing the deal” in their professional lives (e.g. people who work in sales, banking, self-employed, etc)
people who are assertive, persuasive, good communicators, relationship builders, etc.

Gail Perry speaks much more eloquently than I do on this subject. You might want to read her blog post titled “Mastering the ‘Soft Skills’ of Fundraising” and figure out if you can add any of those qualities to your board development prospect identification and evaluation process.
If you missed the earlier blog posts in this board development series, I encourage you to investigate the previous two posts from last week. You might also want to click-through and read SoftwareAdvice.com’s full survey report titled “Tech Skills and Other Considerations for Joining a Nonprofit Board IndustryView“.
What are your thoughts and experiences regarding tech and fundraising skills and experiences and your board of directors? Are you doing anything different now as part of your board development process that might help other non-profit professionals and volunteers re-think their approach? Please use the comment box below to share.
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

Non-profit unicorns . . . have you seen one lately?

November 6, 2014 erik Board governance, Fundraising, organizational development

unicorn As you know, there is no such thing as a unicorn. It is a mythical creature and the inspiration for this morning’s post about various fundraising policies and procedures documents that everyone says are important but rarely exists on the front line of many (especially smaller) social services non-profit agencies. I thought it might be a good idea to name these “unicorns” and explain what they are and why they’re important.
Before I begin, I want to give a shout out to my BFF — Michael Johnson — who is a planned giving consultant at H. Freeman Associates. He is the real motivation for this morning’s post because he posted the following comment on one of my blogs from last week titled “Your agency’s fundraising program is like an iceberg“:

“Great post, Erik! This speech underscores the importance of having good gift acceptance policies and an operating plan in place to back up our brilliant marketing. We always need to “Begin with the end in mind” and ask ourselves what we will do when our marketing campaign is successful and the prospective donor responds. Otherwise our donors may become frustrated.”

It was Mike’s reference to Gift Acceptance Policies that got my mind whirling and thinking about today’s topic. THANKS, MIKE! 🙂
Gift Acceptance Policies
Sometimes donors like to support your mission with things other than cash. In fact, I just sat through a training a few months ago where my friend Mike talked about how donors give more “stuff” than they do “cash“.
It is for this reason that gift acceptance policies are important. They spell out in advance “what you do and how you do it” with regards to gifts of stuff. In a sample policy that I recently reviewed, an agency included policies and procedures for the following types of donated “stuff“:

publicly traded securities
securities that aren’t publicly traded
real estate
tangible personal property like art, jewelry, etc
insurnace
in-kind gifts and pro bono services
deferred gifts (e.g. charitable gift annuities, irrevocable charitable remainder trusts, etc)
revocable gifts like bequests

I refer to this policy and procedures document as a “non-profit unicorn” because I very rarely see it, and when I do it is typically larger non-profits (e.g. universities and hospitals) who have taken the time to develop them.
If you are interested in more info on gift acceptance policies, the National Council of Nonprofits has done a nice job uploading resources and samples to their site. However, please remember that policy making is a a responsibility of the board of directors. So, make sure to include them in the discussion and development of your agencies policies and procedures before asking the board to approve them.
Named Gifts Policy
Sometimes donors like to put their names on stuff, and a Named Gift Policy helps non-profit organizations with the following:

identifying what can be and can’t be named (e.g. buildings, rooms, endowments, scholarships, events, etc)
identifying the process and rules associated with naming something
identifying the process and rules associated with unnaming something

Our friends at the Association of Fundraising Professionals have done a very nice job making the case for why this type of policy is important and providing a number of samples and links to resources. This online article is definitely worth the click!
Again, I consider this a “non-profit unicorn” because I can count on one hand how many times I’ve seen a policy like this.
Donor database policy and procedures manual
Many non-profit organizations have donor databases, and very few of them have put into writing things such as:

how to input a pledge
how to input a gift
how to run solicitor reports
protect donor privacy (g. what can be shared and with whom)
how to enter donor’s names (g. Mr & Mrs, etc)
what information to collect and where to put it
how to track soft gifts
how to enter a new donor
how to track volunteers and prospects

The biggest reason this policy and procedures manual is critical is because your agency won’t always have the same person entering donor information into the database. With turnover comes inconsistency and lost institutional knowledge. Long story short . . . the lack of a policy and procedures manual for your donor database typically results in a G.I.G.O. situation (garbage in, garbage out).
Want to avoid the feeling of wanting to throw your database out the window? I suggest developing your policy and procedures manual.
I know that I sound like a broken record, but I’ve only seen a few of these in all my years of working with non-profit organizations, which is why it is a “unicorn” in my book.
Our friends at Metafile (ResultsPlus donor database) published an awesome nine page white paper that speaks to this issue. Click here to view their sample template.
Does your organization have one of these policies? If so, what was your motivation for creating it? What samples/templates did you use to get started? Are there other “unicorn documents” that you’ve heard about but never seen? Please use the comment box below to share your thoughts and experiences.
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

How much time are you asking for from your board members?

September 4, 2014 erik Board development, Board governance

time I ran across an old board development handout the other day, and it made me laugh. So, I decided to share its essence with you today and ask for your thoughts and opinions. The handout started off with the following two sentences (and I’ve changed the names to protect the innocent):

“Of the 8,760 hours that make up a calendar year, ABC agency only asks for 100. These 100 hours, if properly utilized, can help save and/or enhance the lives of hundreds of people in our community.“

From this point, the rest of the document actually attempts to breakdown how much time will be spent doing specific things. The following are the categories of activities and estimated hours that were included on the board development handout:

14 hours attending meeting (e.g. board meetings, committee meetings, fundraising events and planning meetings, etc)
20 hours influencing (e.g. advocating for the agency with decision-makers and opinion-shapers such as city council members, United Way trustees, community leaders, business leaders, etc)
20 hours reading and responding (e.g. meeting notices and materials, emails, surveys, etc)
6 hours guiding and planning (e.g. attending an annual board retreat and follow-up planning work session)
20 hours fundraising (e.g. making phone calls, writing letters, sitting down with donors, etc)

They end with this deal closing verbiage:

“The 100-hour year comes down to less than two hours per week in support of an organization that is making a vital difference. The commitment we seek is modest, but it is time well spent.“

I read and re-read this board development tool and found the following questions floating around my head:

How many board members actually volunteer 100 hours during the course of a year?
Does the average board member’s volunteer hours really breakout like this tool suggests? If not, I wonder how they spend their time?
The phrase “if properly utilized” in the second sentence of the handout sounds like a performance metric for executive directors. Should this be incorporated in some way into a non-profit CEO’s annual performance management plan?
Come on! I’ve been in countless board and committee meetings in my life and if there are only supposed to be 14 hours dedicated to those activities, then lots of people are doing something wrong. How many hours does the average board member spend in just board meetings every year?

I’m just getting warmed up with the number of questions that came to mind, but I’m going to stop here because I want to hear what you have to say.
What is your reaction to this board development tool? What questions came to your mind when you read some of this content? If you had to guess, how many hours do your board members give to your agency? If you were given an opportunity to re-distribute these hours and change this tool, what would you change and why?
Please scroll down and share your thoughts in the comment box below. It will only take a minute or two, and we can all learn from each other.
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

Just say NO to planning for the sake of planning

August 19, 2014 erik Board governance, Planning

It happens all the time in my line of work. A new executive director or board president gets it in their head that they need a strategic plan because it “cures all that ails you“. With this vision, they call a planning consultant to facilitate creation of this perfect solution. Of course, the problem is that . . .

Not everyone is ready for strategic planning

The other day I was clicking around the internet looking for readiness assessment tools to share with a client, and I came across a wonderful white paper published by the The Nonprofit Center at La Salle University’s School of Business. It identified the following five instances when many non-profit organizations tend to instinctively reach for the strategic planning tool and should definitely resist doing so:

When they are in (or starting to slide into) financial crisis
When the board realizes the executive director “isn’t right” for the organization
The board is fuzzy when it comes to their roles and responsibilities
There is tension throughout the organization (either in the boardroom or on the front line)
There is a pervasive attitude of “We don’t do it that way” or “We tried that and it didn’t work”)

When any of these circumstances are present, then strategic planning isn’t something you should engage in. Click here to read more of that article from The Nonprofit Center. They offer some nice solutions to each of these five situations.
Of course, even if your agency passes this initial test, there are still additional readiness questions you should ask before proceeding. The following are just a few questions I found online embedded in a survey tool developed by the Community Foundation of Monterey County:

Is our board proactive in preparing for the future instead of waiting for emergencies to react?
Are key community leaders and partners willing to participate in our planning process in a meaningful way?
Are the board and staff knowledgeable about current trends in nonprofit management?
Does our organization keep good records? Does it use data to support decision‐making?
Are board and management aware of the time and resources required to engage in meaningful strategic planning?

There are 10 other readiness assessment questions included in that tool. Click here to read more from the Community Foundation of Monterey County about strategic planning readiness.
questions2 My advice to those of you considering a strategic planning engagement is:

ask yourself a few questions first
make sure the right people are sitting around the table for a potential planning engagement
engage a variety of key stakeholders in a collaborative discussion around readiness
do a little research about various planning models
develop an informed decision about which planning model fits your internal and external circumstances
if you decide to hire an external consultant . . . define the project, develop and RFP, and hire someone with experience using the planning model you’ve chosen
if you decide against strategic planning, what needs to happen to position the agency for planning and who is doing what and by when to address those issues

Are you considering strategic planning for your non-profit organization? What considerations are you weighing? Who is involved in this decision? Please scroll down and use the comment box to share your thoughts and experiences. We can all learn from each other.
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 board fulfilling its role in fundraising?

June 12, 2014 erik Board development, Fundraising

roles responsibilities I’ve been doing a lot of “board roles and responsibilities” training sessions in the last year. The curriculum breaks out responsibilities into group obligations and individual duties; however, in both lists there is verbiage such as:

protect and grow assets
obtain resources
makes a personal financial contribution
seeks charitable gifts from others in their network

There is little question that resource development and fundraising are core responsibilities for non-profit board volunteers.
Of course, understanding this idea is very different from rolling up one’s sleeves and doing it. Right? And the bigger question for me has become:

“Once the roles & responsibilities training is over, how should an agency go about assessing how well the board (as a group) is fulfilling its fundraising responsibilities? Because we won’t know what we need to work on if we don’t know what isn’t working.“

Usually, when I mentally try to cross bridges like this for my clients, I turn to:

old books and training manuals on the bookshelf in my office
websites of national non-profit organizations that contain free white papers and videos
blogs run by thought-leaders in the field

In this instance, I came across a really cool assessment tool located on an intranet website for a large national organization for which I used to work. It was developed with the help of BoardSource, and there were copyright marks all over the document. In other words, I would copy/paste and share it with all of you, but my inner Jiminy Cricket is telling me not to do so. 🙂
Of course, this doesn’t mean I can’t describe the tool for you, share a little bit (while giving credit where credit is due) and point you in the direction of how you can purchase similar materials.
The assessment tool is composed of 13 questions, and the user ranks their board on a scale of 1 to 4 for each question. Here are a few of the more interesting questions I found in this tool:

Are resource development responsibilities and personal giving included in the board member expectation agreement?
Do all or almost all board members make a yearly personal “stretch” gift to the agency’s annual fund?
Does the board president personally solicit board members annually to ensure appropriate board giving? Does the board president take time to personally cultivate and steward appropriate higher level prospects and donors?
Does the executive director take time to personally cultivate and steward appropriate higher level prospects and donors?
Beyond just reciting the agency’s mission statement, can at least 80 percent of board members convincingly articulate the case for support of the organization?

Did I do a good job of whetting your appetite?
If so, then there is more where that came from and you can purchase the 62 page book titled “Fearless Fundraising for Nonprofit Boards” by David Sternberg (published by BoardSource). It was from this book that the tool I referenced earlier was developed.
Some of you may be wondering, “Why is assessment important? I know that our board isn’t good at fundraising. Can’t I just skip the assessment to start working on fixing the problem?”
My thoughts are simply . . . “NO.”
The reason being is that there is a lot of factors involved in why your board may not be a very good group of fundraising volunteers, and you don’t want to waste time on things that aren’t broken.
For example, your organization might be doing a very good job with explaining roles and responsibilities via the board recruitment, orientation and training process. However, your resource development committee might be broken and doing too much and not planning enough, which has a “disengaging effect” on the rest of the board.
Or . . .
Your agency might be doing everything very well except you might just have the wrong people in the wrong seats on your organizational bus.
Or . . .
Your agency might be really doing everything right except there aren’t any accountability tools or urgency strategies being employed.
This is a complex question and assessment is an important part of getting you to the right answer.
Does your board understand its roles and responsibilities when it comes to resource development? How do you know that? What are you doing to make your board a better fundraising team? What’s in your toolbox. Please take 30 seconds to share your thoughts and experiences in the comment box below because we can all learn from each other.
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

What is your agency's case for doing some planning?

February 4, 2014 erik Board governance, Planning

As someone with two degrees in planning, I catch myself all the time with my non-profit clients explaining that the solution to their problems is that they need a plan. It might be a strategic plan, resource development plan, or board development plan . . . but oftentimes I am amazed at how many times failing non-profit agencies just haven’t invested in creating plans. I mean, come on folks! Who hasn’t heard the old expression, “If you fail to plan, then you plan to fail“?
In recent years, my point of view around planning has evolved slightly. I now believe there is a time and place for planning. When there is too much chaos in the external environment or too much internal crisis or turnover, planning is at best a wasteful exercise and at worst can contribute to the problems at hand.
Of course, I still bristle when I hear board members say something like:

“I don’t want my agency engaged in planning. In the end, all that happens is the plan gets put on the shelf to collect dust. We need less planning and more doing!”

When I hear statements like this, it is usually indicative of:

an agency without a culture of planning
staff without an understanding of how to engage a board
board volunteers without an understanding of implementation tools
a board who doesn’t manage or evaluate its staff
an agency that is either standing still (best case scenario) or in crisis (worst cast scenario)

When trying to make the case for engaging in some sort of planning activity to a board of directors, I typically talk about “roles and responsibilities” of the board of directors. As you might imagine, this approach is usually met with yawns and eye rolling.
However, I recently found a blog post by Nell Edgington titled “5 Ways Great Strategy Can Transform a Nonprofit” while clicking around on a LinkedIn group dedicated to strategic planning for non-profit organizations. It was in that post I think Nell makes a much better case for planning that might be better received by resistant boards.
Here is what she says:

“People and organizations that make large gifts to a nonprofit are in effect investing in the future of that organization. And if you can’t articulate your future plans in a thoughtful, compelling way, funders won’t make that larger investment.”

Duh!
So, what has been your sales pitch to your board when trying to convince them to roll up their sleeves and engage in some planning. Please share your thoughts and experiences in the comment box below. We can all learn from each other.
Here’s to your health!
Erik Anderson
Founder & President, The Healthy Non-Profit LLC
www.thehealthynonprofit.com
erik@thehealthynonprofit.com
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The most important non-profit board responsibility

January 21, 2014 erik Board development, Board governance

questions Over the last few months, I’ve found myself doing a lot of boardroom trainings on the subject of “Board Roles & Responsibilities“. When facilitating this training, there are two different slides talking about the board’s collective responsibilities and the other illustrates individual board members’ responsibilities. Listed on both slides at the top of the list is the responsibility of “asking questions“.
At the end of tonight’s training, I went out for a nice steak dinner, but one thing stuck in my head and nagged me all night.

Is the list of roles/responsibilities in a particular order? If so, could it be that ‘asking questions’ is the most important of the responsibilities?

So, I tried to think of other responsibilities that might be more important:

Fundraising & securing resources
Connecting others to the agency’s mission
Advocating and talking about the agency throughout the community
Making sure laws and regulations are followed
Planning

While these aren’t all of the responsibilities of a non-profit board volunteer, it certainly is a good number of them. In the final analysis, all of these roles/responsibilities are important, but I honestly don’t see any of them as important as asking questions.
questions2 Of course, we aren’t talking about asking questions that lend themselves to micro-management of staff. Here are just a few important questions that good boards ask:

Where is this agency going? What will it look like in 5-years? 10-years? 15-years? 20-years?
Is our organizational mission still relevant? What should it be?
What are our shared values?
What are our goals?
What are the community’s needs and gaps that the agency strives to address?
Are we using donor dollars in the manner we promised?
Is the agency achieving the program outcomes it promised to donors?
Is the organization structured in such a way to achieve what it needs to achieve?
Why are we doing what we’re doing? Is there a better way?
Do I have a conflict of interest? What should I do to mitigate my conflict?
Is this ethical? Is it legal? Even if it is, will supporters view it as otherwise?

rubber stamp2 I tried to picture what a non-profit board might look like if it didn’t ask questions, and these words all came to mind:

rubber stamp
disengaged
Enron
WorldCom
Tyco

Over the years of writing this blog, I’ve tackled this subject from a number of different angles. Here are just a few posts I’ve written on the subject of asking questions:

I dunno! What do you think? Are some non-profit board responsibilities weighted more heavily than others? If so, where does “asking questions” rank?
If board members need to collectively and individually get better at asking questions, how do you train for that? Or is it something you recruit for?
Please use the comment box below to share your thoughts and experiences.
Here’s to your health!
Erik Anderson
Founder & President, The Healthy Non-Profit LLC
www.thehealthynonprofit.com
erik@thehealthynonprofit.com
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Scandal, crisis and abusing your non-profit brand

December 17, 2013 erik organizational development, Planning

crisis2 Sometimes I think the universe speaks to us, and lately it has been begging me to write this blog. Over the last few months, I’ve spoken with a good handful of non-profit professionals who have shared stories of scandal and crisis that would make your toes curl. These stories have ranged from incidents on the front line that made the local newspaper to outright embezzlement.
The tipping point for me was last week when I was visiting a client and prior to the start of our meeting a board volunteer brought up the name of William Aramony.
Now before I proceed let me say that a number of my United Way friends are rolling their eyes right now. I can almost hear them saying, “Come on, Erik. Give us a break. Do you have to tell that horrible story again? It is so 20th Century and stuff for the history books.”
crisis3 For the record, I agree with my United Way friends. If you don’t know about William Aramony, what you need to know for this blog post is:

He was an iconic CEO of United Way of America
He was accused of wrongdoing
It was a national news story for a long time
He ultimately resigned and served a little jail time

The details of the scandal aren’t important here. What is important is that this scandal occurred in 1990, which is more than 20 years ago. Heck, Bill Aramony died in 2011. But this story has legs as they say in the news industry.
The board volunteer who raised the specter of Bill Aramony last week did so almost as if that news story had just happened recently.
I am trying to make the following points:

People have long memories
Donors are often not very forgiving
Scandals can do long term damage to your brand

Perhaps, I am a cynic on this subject, but I believe that all non-profit organizations are likely to experience scandal at least a few times in their organization’s life span. There is bound to be an incident where accusations are made and lawsuits are filed. When you deal with employees, there is likely going to be a messy HR issue from time to time.
I think Abraham Lincoln put it best when he said:

“You can please some of the people some of the time all of the people some of the time some of the people all of the time but you can never please all of the people all of the time.”

So, what should a non-profit do to prepare itself?

You should have written policies designed to minimize your liability and exposure.
You should have plans designed to help guide your agency through crisis (e.g. crisis communications plan).
You should review yours plans and policies every year.
You should be sitting down with your top donors every year just to touch base and see what they’re thinking.

Plans & Policies
crisis1 You can probably spend the rest of your life writing policies, but let’s not get carried away. Here are a few questions I suggest you ask as you start going down this road:

Do you have a criminal background check policy when it comes to your employees, volunteers and board members?
Do you have policies pertaining to the safety and security of your clients?
Do you have policies that address the subject of injuries?
Does your organization utilize technology? If so, do you have policies addressing the use of technology?
Do you have an employee handbook or employment policies?
Do you have a written crisis management plan? If so, do you review it often with staff and clients? (e.g. fire drills, etc)
Do you have a crisis communications plan?
Do you have appropriate insurance coverage? How do you know? How often do you review it?

I suspect you have some of this in place and the rest is on a to-do-list somewhere.
This is not work for your board to tackle. It is committee work. If you don’t believe in standing committees of the board, then it is task force work.
But the bottom line is that it is WORK. Work to develop them. Work to regularly review them. Work to monitor them and assure compliance.
Let’s roll up our sleeves and get to work because it only takes one good crisis or scandal to do series damage to your non-profit brand.
If you don’t believe me, go ask your local United Way executive director to tell you about William Aramony. Just be prepared to get an earful. 😉
Has your organization (or another one in your community) ever had to dig out of a big hole created by crisis or scandal? If so, how long did it take? What did you do to reset the playing field? Please share your thoughts in the comment box below.
Erik Anderson
Founder & President, The Healthy Non-Profit LLC
www.thehealthynonprofit.com
erik@thehealthynonprofit.com
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Crazy non-profit board meetings and some advice for board volunteers

November 7, 2013 erik Board development, Board governance, 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 (or Thursday as is the case this 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.

Board Meetings Gone Wrong

By Dani Robbins
regrets Boards meetings can quickly go from productive to destructive in any number of ways. The following are just a few lessons I’ve learned throughout the years and thought board volunteers might benefit from reading:
The morning after is too late
I cannot tell you the number of times in my career that a Board member has called me the morning after a board meeting appalled by something the Board voted to approve the night before, at a meeting they themselves attended. I can absolutely tell you the number of times those very same Board members have voiced their objections in the room: zero!
The next morning is too late. If you do not like the motion that is on the table, it is not only your right to object out loud and on the record, it’s your obligation.
Sometimes individual Board members come up with wacky (read: dangerous) ideas. When those ideas become motions that get seconded is when they go from wacky to possible. Motions that have no second die, and so do the ideas that spawned them.
Motions that are seconded prompt the chair to call for a discussion. If you are uncomfortable with the motion that is on the table, I implore you to speak. Silence is acquiesce. It is usually too late (and much harder) to address something after a vote has been concluded.
When you don’t know where you’re going any road will get you there
No written agenda — or an agenda that isn’t followed — practically guarantees a long, meandering meeting that will only serve to frustrate those in the room, but won’t accomplish much beyond that. It’s also likely that such a meeting will not produce formal votes or minutes that capture what the Board has committed to accomplishing.
No strategic plan works the same way. In the absence of a plan, you will have a lot of people working on a lot of things that may or may not align because the Board has not articulated and voted upon a formal direction.
If everyone’s in charge, no one’s in charge
Boards elect Chairs to be in charge (of the Board). It’s awkward and feels weird the first time you chair a meeting, but the weirdness will pass when you begin to lead. However, not leading guarantees the weirdness moves in and sets up shop.
It’s the forth Tuesday at 4; let’s meet!
Don’t have a Board meeting if you have nothing to talk about. If there are no committee reports and no business for the Board to address, cancel the meeting.
At the end of the day, there’s no accounting for crazy
The easiest way to avoid crazy in the board room is to not let crazy on the board. A Board Development plan and a formal process to elect board members will weed out inappropriate board prospects, before they become inappropriate board members.
Time of Death: 2 hours after we started talking about this
Discussion that seems to be spiraling can be stopped by two of my favorite phrases:

“Let’s call the question” which in Board speak means enough talking, let’s vote.
“Let’s send this back to committee.” This phrase, when used by the chair, is a declarative statement that the board meeting has devolved into a committee meeting. When used by anyone other than the chair, it is a prompt to the chair that the discussion has gone on too long. In either case, there should be a vote, reflected in minutes, that the motion was be tabled pending the committee’s review and consideration of the issues raised.

What’s the Executive Director’s role?
Good Execs do their homework before the meeting and usually know how people are going to vote before the meeting begins……which doesn’t ensure they will do so.
If a meeting goes off track, Execs can:

stall by whispering the potential negative impact to the Chair and hoping they agree;
offer to get more information and bring it back to the board at a future meeting; or
recommend the motion be sent back to committee prior to being voted upon.

If you have to, board volunteers can object out loud and on the record but be aware that doing so will spend significant political capital. It also may not help, which does not mean you should not do it.
As mentioned in a post titled “Hiring, Supporting and Evaluating the Executive,”

“worrying about keeping your job precludes you from doing your job. You have to do what you believe is best, based on your experience, information and training, within the boundaries of your role and the law. We all know that any day could be the day you quit or get fired. That can’t stop you from leading.”

What’s been your experience? Have you seen Board meetings go off track? What has gotten them back on track? As always, I welcome your insight and experience.

Tag: fiduciary responsibilities