leadership – Page 16 – The Healthy Non-Profit

Back to non-profit board basics: Fiduciary Responsibility

March 6, 2013 erik Board development, volunteers

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

The book Governance as Leadership, by Richard P. Chait, William P. Ryan and Barbara E. Taylor, and the modes of governance contained within, changed the way I look at Board service and the capacity of Boards to move the needle of change in their communities.

Several recent blog posts have been dedicated to discussing how to move governing Boards from focusing primarily on the fiduciary mode toward becoming more strategic and generative. High functioning Boards manage in all three modes depending on the circumstances and the needs of the organizations, yet fiduciary is and must continue to be the foundation of Board governance.

As a quick reminder, those modes are as follows:

Fiduciary – the board is faithful to its mission, accountable for performance, and compliant with relevant laws and regulations. It exercises its legal responsibilities of oversight and stewardship.
Strategic – the board is responsible for strategic thinking and sets the organization’s priorities and course, and deploys resources accordingly.
Generative – the board’s work entails efforts to make sense of circumstances, to discover patterns and discern problems, and to make meaning of what’s happening.

Boards are made up of appointed community leaders who are collectively responsible for governing an organization. That includes:

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

Most of how that happens is at Board and committee meetings, which is really the point of today’s blog.

The minimum requirements to become a functioning governing Board operating in the fiduciary mode is this:

You must have a quorum at all Board meetings. The organization’s Code of Regulations (also called by-laws) will dictate the number of Board members required to be in the room to have a quorum; it is usually half or half plus one. When you do not have a quorum the Board will not legally be able to take action, which in addition to stymieing the organization’s capacity to function, will also be noted in your audit, and in turn will quickly become a concern for your funders.

Minutes must be taken at each meeting of the Board of Directors and approved at the following meeting. Those minutes should include who was in attendance (distinguish between Board and staff please), the approval of the prior meting minutes and the financial statements as well as any and all votes, including the complete motion that was made and by whom, who seconded and if it was a unanimous vote. Minutes should also include the name of any Board members who voted no as well as anyone who abstained. Only Board members can make motions. Staff can make recommendations but in most cases cannot vote.

Financial statements, including a profit and loss, variance against the budget and a balance statement must be presented, explained and voted upon at each meeting. The Treasurer, when presenting the financials, should review anything that is higher or lower than expected, and explain anything that is not immediately obvious. Board members should ask questions until they understand and are willing to have their name listed as voting yes in favor of accepting the financial statements as presented.

Committee decisions should be presented by the Chair of the Committee (not by staff, other than occasionally by request of the Chair) and anything that requires a vote should be motioned by that Chair. As listed in a prior post the following need votes:

Any Policy – crisis communication and management, personnel, etc.
Past board meeting minutes;
Financial reports;
Agency Annual Budgets;
Plans – strategic, board development and/or resource development;
Changes to the strategic direction of the organization;
The hiring of an Executive Director;
Audits;
Campaigns;
Opening, closing or changing the signatures on bank accounts;
Changes to the mission or vision; and
Board Members and Officers being added, or renewed.

Board meetings should also include a report from the Executive Director (also called CEO). Any recommendations that are made must be motioned by a board member and should then follow the voting path outlined above.

Board Chair’s often make reports as well, yet do not make motions or vote themselves unless there is a tie to break.

The meeting ends with any old or new business.

There are myriad ways to move a Board from a strictly fiduciary Board toward a high functioning Board, but none can happen before a Board masters their fiduciary responsibility. Fiduciary responsibility is the price of admission to Board leadership, but it can’t end there. Strategic and generative leadership is what engages Board members and moves the needle for change in our communities. Isn’t that why we serve?

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

Carol Burnett’s advice to disengaged non-profit boards

March 5, 2013 erik Board development, volunteers

The idea of engaging non-profit board volunteers is sometimes treated by thought-leaders as a simple idea; however, in reality it is really hard. A few days ago I had this conversation with a board volunteer, and he said something I found very profound. He said, “When one person is disengaged, it is as simple as challenging them to step-up and join the group. When a few people are leading and the rest of the group is disengaged, it is far easier for the few to step-back because that is the norm.”

Obvious? Yes! Did I know this before I heard it? Of course. But I had never heard it stated quite so succinctly.

During this conversation, he also related a great quote from a business consultant he recently heard speak at a conference. The quote was “If you can’t change your people, change your people.” Upon hearing this, my mind first darted to Jim Collins, who famously talks about getting the right people on the bus and in the right seats.” Yet, surprisingly, my mind didn’t stay there. The cosmic jukebox in my head started playing a song that I still can’t get out of my head. Click here or on the YouTube screen below and please join me in singing . . .

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PjQuZCTLAv4]

Yeah, I think Carol Burnett gave some great advice to board development committees when she sang her iconic sign-off song.

Carol reminds us that time flies when you’re having fun. She says early in the song: “Seems we just get started and before you Know it
Comes the time we have to say, ‘So long’.” In this one simple sentence, I am reminded of the following truisms for the board development committee:

There is a beginning, middle and end to every board volunteer relationship.
It is the Board Development Committee’s responsibility to manage every aspect of that relationship during every step down that path.
In the beginning, expectations must be set or disengagement is almost inevitable (e.g. use job descriptions to recruit).
During every step of the way, year-end evaluation is essential in order to maintain engagement. These aren’t always “pat-on-the-back” meetings. Sometimes, committee members need to ask tough questions during evaluation meetings such as: “What can we do to get you more involved in our resource development program? Is there something we can do to help you feel more comfortable with your roles and responsibilities? Are you sure this opportunity is a good fit or would everyone be better served if you stepped off the board and joined a committee?“
In the end, compassion and grace — like you hear in Carol’s voice — are the values that carry the day. Hopefully, the volunteer concludes that they’re ready to move along to tackle other opportunities related to your mission and organization. However, more oftentimes it is obvious to everyone except the board volunteer. Not only must the committee exercise compassion and grace, but they must be strong and do what needs to be done. Too often committee volunteers kick the can down the road, which creates problems for another day.

When the norm on the board is disengagement, I’ve too often seen a frustrated Board Development Committee take the discussion into the boardroom. Their intention is good. After all, they want to wake some people up and shake them from their sleepy disengaged slumber. However, I’ve never seen this strategy work. In fact, it always backfires in one of two ways:

Tempers flare because it feels like finger-pointing and accusations are being made.
Committee members get frustrated because their “call to action” is met with a yawn of “disengagement”.

For me, it all comes back to that consultant’s quote that my friend shared with me: “If you can’t change your people, change your people.” with a chaser of “I’m so glad we’ve had this time together.”

I believe taking this conversation into the boardroom is tantamount to the board development committee abdicating their responsibilities and giving up. I suggest the more direct option of one-on-one meetings with disengaged volunteers.

If you are looking for resources and more reading materials on the subject of volunteer management, board development, board engagement, and how to move board volunteers onto other opportunities, you may want to click on some of the following links:

DonorDreams blog: “Have you forgotten year-end evaluations and performance plans during the year-end scramble?“
DonorDreams blog: “Is your non-profit board of directors engaged?“
DonorDreams blog: “Not fundraising? Not engaged!“
National Council of Nonprofits: Volunteers
The Chronicle of Philanthropy: “How to Fire Lousy Board Members“

What have you done or seen done when disengagement is the norm in the boardroom? Do you agree or disagree with my thoughts on individual meetings versus group discussion? Please scroll down and share your thoughts in the comment box. 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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You can mourn change, however.

February 8, 2013 erik organizational development

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

In a post titled “A New Beach,” John talks about how change is inevitable and your attitude as a leader towards it is important.

I went scrambling to find this August blog post after readingthe front page and Section of USA Today on Thursday. I did so because reading the newspaper reminded me that so much of our news coverage is centered on change. Consider the following news headlines found in Section A on Thursday:

“Pentagon Warns Of Huge Cuts “(aka changes to the federal budget coming)
“Rain, sleet, snow, but not Saturday” (aka Post Office is changing delivery schedule)
“Monopoly fans vote to pull the plug on the iron: But in a first, a token cat is elected to the board” (aka classic American board game is changing)

Change . . . Change . . . and more change. It is all around us, and I am reminded of how difficult change can be when I read the following the following one sentence commentary offered up by the journalist who wrote the post office story: “You can mourn change, however.”

These words appeared at the bottom of the article right before the article encourages me to jump to page two to finish reading the story.

As I grappled with those words — “You can mourn change, however.” — and as I was turning to page two, my eyes settled on another article on page three titled “No vote on gay members in Boy Scouts until May“.

In that very instance, it all snapped into place. I get it . . . “You can mourn change, however.”

Non-profit organizations face change every day when they turn the lights on in the office. Change is part of life, and as John points out in his post titled “A New Beach,” the only thing you can control is your perspective, your attitude, and your response.

In the case of the Boy Scouts of America (BSA), they decided decades ago to fight the changes happening in our society. The changes I’m referring to is our society’s gradual acceptance of people who are gay.

When I look at the BSA, all I see is a non-profit organization mourning change.

John Greco used the imagery of a hurricane to represent “change”. Carrying this analogy forward, you simply need to ask yourself: “Why does the BSA think they can stop the hurricane?” Wouldn’t it be far better to focus on how to respond to the change?

The BSA obviously thought they could stop the hurricane. Here is how they chose to address the issue over the last three decades:

They fired employees who were found out to be gay.
They stripped kids of their Eagle Scout honors if they were discovered to be gay.
They kicked kids out of the organization who said they were gay.
They took a lawsuit all the way to the Supreme Court (and won) to defend their right to do these things.

All of that and the hurricane still paid a visit to the BSA.

I sit here and wonder . . . What would things look like today if the BSA had read John’s blog post three decades ago? Perhaps, they would’ve made the decision to let their charter partners (e.g. PTA organizations, community centers and churches of all faiths including Mormons, Catholics, Methodists, etc) set their own membership restrictions. If they would’ve taken that road, I suspect the hurricane would’ve skipped the BSA and it would be battering the beaches of those charter partners who decided to fight rather than adapt.

I think we all owe the BSA a debt of gratitude because they created a case study in how NOT to deal with change. I suspect non-profits will talk about this case study for many years.

Do you have any good examples of how you’ve personally dealt with change? How do you “choose your attitude” when it comes to change? It is more difficult than it sounds. Please use the comment box below to share your victories and lessons learned. We can all learn from each other.

Here’s to your health!

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

February 5, 2013 erik organizational development

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This is how they responded:

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

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

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

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

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

Here’s to your health!

Are you too busy or are you just prioritizing?

February 1, 2013 erik Fundraising, organizational development, Planning

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

In a post titled “Take Your Time,” John talks about the difference between not having time and not taking the time to do important things. I especially love how he starts his post off with a quote from The Merovingian in The Matrix, who said: “Who has time? Who has time? But then if we do not ever take time, how can we ever have time?”

I’ve been stewing on this for days because if I had a nickel for every time I heard a non-profit professional say something about not having enough time to do something, then I’d be a very rich man. Here are a few very real examples:

I didn’t have time to recruit an annual campaign committee and engage them in writing a plan.
I don’t have time to work on adding a major gifts initiative to our agency’s resource development program. And don’t get me started on planned giving.
Critique meeting? Are you kidding? We don’t have time to do that. We’re already late for the next special event.
I didn’t get around to writing an annual performance plan for my direct reports because there just wasn’t enough time.

I am the first person to point out that the non-profit community is severely under-resourced, and this means time is a precious commodity for non-profit professionals who are wearing multiple hats. HOWEVER . . . John pulls no punches when he says: “When we say we don’t have the time to do something, what we’re really saying is that something is not a priority.”

So, I find myself wondering:

Why is a written annual campaign plan (aka project management plan) not a priority?
How can it not be a priority to write a performance management plan for your direct reports?
What can be more important than working on complex fundraising tools that will bring in more funding?

I will be the first person to admit that I sometimes find myself practicing “avoidance behavior;” however, I know that this isn’t productive. More importantly it is destructive behavior and something that a non-profit organization cannot afford.

Do you find yourself routinely saying: “There just aren’t enough hours in the day to . . .”? If so, then I strongly suggest that you do an informal self assessment. You can accomplish this by doing the following:

Draw a line down the middle of a piece of paper,
List all of the things you find yourself saying that you don’t have time to do on one side,
List all of the things you decided to do that same day on the other side of the paper, and
Go item by item and ask yourself: “Was this more important than . . .”

You may just discover that you’re not prioritizing your time effectively. Or you may not. Regardless of the outcome, I think this process is good to go through periodically just to make sure you’re prioritizing your time effectively.

If you do go through this exercise and discover that you are doing a good job with prioritizing your time, then please stop saying that you don’t have enough time. Own the fact that you have limited time and need to make tough decisions about what gets accomplished. Once you start doing this, you might be surprised at how many people start telling you that what you’re deciding not to do is very important. Once THAT starts happening, then you have achieved the necessary leverage to turn the tables and ask them to please lend a hand with what they have just described as a very important task.

How can they say ‘NO’?

Do you find yourself saying that you don’t have enough time? How do you ensure that you’re prioritizing effectively? Please scroll down and share your best practices with your non-profit friends and family in the comment box below. We can all learn from each other.

Here’s to your health!

Your non-profit event isn’t over until you critique it

January 31, 2013 erik Fundraising

For the last few months, I’ve been involved in the planning and implementation of one of my favorite non-profit organization’s special event fundraisers. I was reminded last night at the post-event gathering of how important critique meetings really are to the long-term success of a special event. I was also reminded that post-event evaluation needs to focus on so much more than simply the question “Did we make our financial goal?”

Before last night’s meeting, staff gathered information on the following metrics:

Amount raised vs. event goal (e.g. revenue)
Amount spent vs. event budget (e.g. expense)
Costs as a percentage of amount raised
Number of donors
Number of new donors
Number of repeat donors
Number of lapsed donors
Breakout of various revenue streams compared to previous years (e.g. ticket sales, sponsorships, raffles, auction, fund-a-need, etc)

After getting past the numbers, deeper questions were asked about process such as:

What did we do well and what should we have done differently when it came to recruiting the committee?
What did we do well and what should we have done differently when it came to event planning and project management?
What did we do well and what should we have done differently when it came to selling sponsorships?
What did we do well and what should we have done differently when it came to securing auction items?
What did we do well and what should we have done differently when it came to conducting the raffles?
What did we do well and what should we have done differently when it came to check-in and check-out?
What did we do well and what should we have done differently when it came to the script and program?
What did we do well and what should we have done differently when it came to post-event communication and stewardship?
Should we change the event theme? Has this event gotten old and stale? Is it time to change format?
What are three things we must tell next year’s committee to keep doing because it really made a huge difference?
What are the three things we must tell next year’s committee to re-examine and change because it was a challenge?

No one likes to look in the mirror and talk about room for improvement; however, there is another way to look at these type of activities. A post-event critique meeting is like writing a “love letter” to next year’s event planning committee. I believe that if it is done in this spirit, then this activity becomes significantly easier.

At the end of last night’s post-event meeting, we also talked about the importance of building a binder that can be passed along to next year’s committee. Of course, the notes from last night’s meeting would be included as would budgets, invoices, invitation lists, volunteer prospect lists, etc.

There was celebration and lots of hugs and appreciation was exchanged. Wine, popcorn, and awesome parting gifts for everyone!

How does your organization handle itself after the event is over? What do you look at? What questions do you ask at the critique meeting? What goes into your binder? Please scroll down and share your thoughts in the comment box below. We can all learn from each other.

Here’s to your health!

My big dream for 2013 is . . .

January 29, 2013 erik organizational development, Planning

The Nonprofit Blog Carnival is a collection of the best advice and resources that consultants, support organizations, and nonprofits themselves are offering to the nonprofit community through their blogs. The January theme focuses on “your big dream for your organization, cause or the nonprofit community this year, and how you’ll get there.” Today’s post looks at dreams and how your agency can go about framing its strategy in 2013.

Whenever I work with a non-profit organization on goal setting and planning, there are a number of quotes that immediately come to mind such as:

“Good is the enemy of great.” ~Jim Collins

“Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again but expecting different results.” ~Rita Mae Brown

A few weeks ago, I shared a cup of coffee with a local non-profit executive director, and we engaged in a conversation about grant writing and sustainability planning. During that conversation, she said something like: “If agencies only did things that at face value appear to be sustainable, there wouldn’t be a lot of risk taking and innovation going on in the non-profit sector.”

After chewing on this, I absolutely agree with her, but I also don’t see a lot of risk taking going on out there. This got me thinking about this month’s Nonprofit Blog Carnival topic related to big dreams.

My wish/dream for my non-profit clients in 2013 is that they overcome their resistance to planning.

The following are just a few quick tips I think will help agencies achieve quick little victories and get them closer to goal setting, taking a few risks, more deeply engaging volunteers, and moving the needle:

Don’t give up on doing some assessment work to get things started, but keep these efforts focused on quick and simple. A SWOT analysis tool can accomplish a heck of a lot in a short period of time.
Include volunteers at every step of the process because planning is an “engagement” activity. If you want a plan that only you will work on implementing, then exclude others. If you will need others to help, then include them.
Use SMART Goals. Any “dummy” can do it, click here for more information.
Focus on 50,000 feet in the beginning and make sure to come out of the clouds toward the end of the process by asking specific questions about who will do what and by when.
Find ways to inject urgency into the process. Don’t drag these efforts out over a few months. Can you work hard? Sprint? Get it done in a matter of weeks? I suggest setting deadlines and assigning someone the responsibility of being the “task master” (e.g. a person who pushes hard to keep your project on track).

Accountability and urgency are sometime best achieved if your agency engages an external consultant like me, but it doesn’t have to be that way. If you are part of a larger national organization, I’m sure there are internal consultants standing by to provide technical assistance. If you don’t have money to hire someone like me and don’t belong to a national network, then you can always talk to your local network of nonprofit agencies. One of your peers might be experienced in facilitation and willing to donate their time in exchange for something. You never know unless you ask, right?

What obstacles do you find get in your way when dreaming big? What has worked for you when trying to overcome those obstacles to planning and engaging volunteers. Please scroll down and use the comment box below to share your thoughts and experiences. We don’t need to re-invent the wheel. We can all learn from each other.

Here’s to your health!

The importance of intuition in non-profit work

January 25, 2013 erik organizational development

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

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

Extroverted
Sensing
Thinking
Perceiving

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

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

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

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

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

Fundraising

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Board Development

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Here’s to your health!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Here’s to your health!

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

January 23, 2013 erik organizational development

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

cubs way2

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

Here’s to your health!