Can we please stop talking about how bad the economy is?

March 4, 2014 erik Fundraising

That is it . . . I am fed up and can’t stop myself from saying something that has been on my mind for a little while now. Can non-profit organizations please stop running around and telling anyone who will listen that the economy is bad and the recession is hurting their agency?
I hear my non-profit friends (both staff and board volunteers) bemoaning how bad it is and how they’ve been impacted. I know that I’ve heard it at least once a month going back to the 2008 stock market meltdown, which by the way was FIVE YEARS ago.
I totally understand why people were talking about this 12 to 24 months removed from the epicenter, but as I just pointed out more than half-of-a-decade has passed since that time.
The fact of the matter is the recession officially ended in June 2009, according to Cycle Dating Committee of the National Bureau of Economic Research. Don’t believe me? Just go ask Google.
In fact, the Blackbaud Index just arrived in my email inbox, and they are estimating that charitable giving rose 4.9% in 2013. Additionally, online giving increased by approximately by 13.5%.
When I see numbers like these, it always stirs my emotions when juxtaposed against comments such as:

“The economy is bad and donors just aren’t giving.“
“We can’t ask people for money while the economy is still doing so poorly.“
“Our agency hasn’t recovered from the economic downturn.“
“Our board members are afraid to ask their friends for charitable contributions as long as the economy is doing so poorly.“

Believe it or not, I heard some variation of each of these comments just this last weekend!
At first, I found myself shaking my head and asking the obvious question, “WHY?” However, I quickly stopped that when I realized that I know the reasons why. Here is what I think drives those comments:

Fear is irrational and people believe what they believe in spite of facts.
Some parts of the country are taking more time to emerge from recession.
Some non-profit agencies never adjusted their revenue model and resource development plan to accommodate for what economists are calling “The New Normal“.
Some non-profit professionals are always looking for excuses to justify poor fundraising performance.
Some misguided fundraising professionals and volunteers think pleading poverty and pointing at the economy makes for a good “case for support” (which really works the opposite way on how donors perceive your case).

Regardless of whether or not you believe these reasons, the reality is that we need to shake ourselves out of this mindset. Our clients deserve better and whining has never been shown to solve problems.
So, what should you do to combat this mindset? I suggest the following:

Involve your volunteers in developing a new resource development plan and answering this simple question: “If how we raised money before the recession doesn’t work anymore, then what should we do to secure the resources we need to fund our mission today?“
Involve your volunteers in developing a new case for support document and build consensus to stop talking to donors about the economy.
Be the change you want to see in the world and stop talking about the economy.
Take your volunteers by the hand and go with them on cultivation and stewardship visits with prospects and donors.
Engage in benchmarking activities and compare your agency’s fundraising performance to other non-profit organizations (e.g. check out Blackbaud’s performance comparison tool by clicking here).

What are you doing to combat this insidious, self-defeating mindset that is still pervasive in many non-profit boardrooms? Please use the comment box below to share your thoughts and experiences. We can learn from each other.
On a side note, before you take me to task with comments about my insensitivity, please know that I know there are people out there who are still hurting. I have never said there weren’t. In fact, I know some of those people, and I am sure you do, too. However, the reality is that non-profits cannot wait until there is no more unemployment. Our agencies cannot wait until economic indicators are back to the ridiculous 1990s levels. Those who wait for that to occur won’t be in business for much longer. Let’s rediscover that often-celebrated “American spirit” of picking ourselves off the ground and doing the hard work to get our agencies moving again.
There! I’ve said it . . . now please feel free to excoriate me. 🙂
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 risk adverse is your non-profit organization?

February 21, 2014 erik organizational development

Trust the Break

By John Greco
Originally published on July 9, 2012
Re-posted with permission from johnponders blog
elevator Thousands of spectators flooded into the Crystal Palace Exposition in New York City.
It was 1853.
Elisha Graves Otis stood on an elevating platform. As it rose up high above the crowd, Otis took out a knife; it became immediately apparent to everyone that he intended to cut the cable!
The crowd of people feared the same results that they had read about or seen: a quick plunge, to a likely death, or serious injury…
But not this time.
With the cable fully severed, Elisha Otis’s platform did not plummet. Otis’s safety brake produced a slight drop, until the spring kicked out into the guide rails. Otis is said to have shouted, “All safe, gentleman, all safe.”
Otis sold 42 freight elevators in the two years after his exposition debut.
After his death in 1861, Otis’s company was left to his two sons; by 1873, they had sold over two thousand elevators worldwide.
Adapted from the Otis Elevator Blog

How risk averse are you?
I find it hard to answer that question. I hedge; it depends. I’m not sure I would have been an early rider of Otis’s elevator.
That’s a lie, really. I am sure; I would definitely not have been. No way!
But when it comes to organizational change, I’m pretty much all in.
I’m afraid that inclination hasn’t particularly helped me over the back half of my career as I’ve pitched changes in structure, policy, process, and culture… I can paint a pretty compelling picture of the benefits, and I do alright projecting the costs.

But I under appreciate the downside risks. I, consequently, short change the risk mitigation section of the proposal. In fact, sometimes I omit it entirely.
The tenor of the responses are wide-ranging, but the result is disturbingly the same. They don’t relish the ride I’m pitching. So, no go. They’re not on board.
I think they were all looking for Otis’s brake.
And who could blame them? I wouldn’t have went up with Otis … and I’m sure I would have wrestled him down to the platform once I saw that knife come out …
Fear is a powerful emotion. It stops us in our tracks. We don’t go forward.
Or up.
Elisha Graves Otis did not invent the elevator. He invented the elevator brake.
But the brake wasn’t his only innovation. He innovated in influencing. He created quite the spectacle to demonstrate the brake’s effectiveness.
Nothing to fear.
The sky is now the limit.
But we needed to trust that brake first.
john greco sig

Dear Non-Profit President / CEO / Executive Director,

February 18, 2014 erik Fundraising, Planning

My online friend, Marc Pitman is hosting this month’s Nonprofit Blog Carnival and asks his fellow non-profit bloggers to write an open letter to executive directors in honor of President’s Day. For those of you who don’t know of Marc, he is well-known to friends and business associates as “The Fundraising Coach“. As the coach describes in his call for submissions post, he runs into CEOs who think hiring a development director gets them out of their fundraising responsibilities.
I have run into the same situation many times, and this open letter is my President’s Day gift to those executive directors.

Dear Non-Profit President / CEO / Executive Director:
Congratulations on making an important investment in your agency’s resource development program. Hiring the right fundraising professional should help take you to bigger and better things. You’re embarking on what is surely a fun and exciting organizational journey. Enjoy it!
However, the road ahead is full of potholes and obstacles.
First, please know that you can never abdicate your role as the agency’s “Chief Development Officer“. Sure, you’ve just hired someone to take on that role, but Harry Truman said it best when he said “The buck stops here.” Your fundraising role may look different now, but you will likely still be involved in some capacity with:

Cultivating prospects & stewarding donors

Soliciting donors

Supporting fundraising volunteers

Your focus may shift from more annual fund activities involving pledge drives and special events and move more towards major gifts and cultivating long-term donor relationships.
What is most obvious is that you’re role as “fundraising visionary” is more important now than ever before.
Why? Simply because there are more chef in the kitchen.
As you open your executive director toolbox, you will find many different tools that you need to become proficient at using, including:

written resource development plan

fundraising dashboards and scorecards

donor database (or CRM)

staff and volunteer job descriptions

However, one of the most powerful tools that you need to master is the annual performance plan for your new employee — the development director.
If I’ve seen it once, I’ve seen it too many times, where an executive director fails to provide the newly hired fundraising professional with a written performance plan. Instead, they simply say: “Go raise some money. Chop-Chop!”
Please don’t be one of those Non-Profit Presidents. You are better than that. Besides, not providing your new employee with a written annual performance plan is akin to setting them up for failure. How? Why? Because they don’t know what success looks like at the end of the year. They aren’t mind readers and don’t know what you’ll be grading them on other than raw dollars and cents.
For those of you who are new to annual performance plans, here are a few tips:

Make sure each objective is measurable

Make it clear what it will take for the employee to go from a “meets expectation” to “exceeds expectation” for each objective

Link the performance plan back to the agency’s written resource development plan or strategic plan

Ask for feedback and input from your new fundraising partner and make any necessary adjustments

Finally, once you’ve cemented a performance plan in place, sit down with the new development director and engage in a clear discussion around what your new role could and should be with regard to resource development and fundraising.
Well, I hope your President’s Day was awesome and best of luck on your fundraising journey.
As always, I raise my glass to you and say, “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 distracting you and impacting your non-profit agency?

February 7, 2014 erik organizational development

X the Concerns

By John Greco
Originally published on June 25, 2012
Re-posted with permission from johnponders blog
Pen-paper In this post I will be sharing one of the most profound and impactful lessons of my life.
But for you to really relate, I need you to participate.
So please go get a blank piece of paper and a pen.
Oh come on! Painless, really.
Okay. Draw as big a circle as you can on the page.
Now think about everything you are concerned about. Everything: your aging mom, the near term milestone on that project, the risk of the company losing a key leader, the European financial crisis, etc. Make small x’s inside the circle to represent each of those concerns.
You are now looking at your circle of concern. Mark it as such.
Imagine that you rearrange your concerns, so that the ones that you really can’t do anything about (e.g. the European financial crisis; the flight risk of that key leader) move toward the boundary of the circle. The concerns you believe you can do at least something about move toward the center of the circle.
Now draw a second, smaller, circle, inside the larger one, around those concerns that you believe you can do something about.
You are now looking at your circle of influence. Mark it as such!
A common reaction, at this point, is that there are way more concerns outside your circle of influence than inside it. Or, that the concerns that are outside your circle of influence are weightier and more consequential than those inside your circle of concern.
Disheartening, isn’t it?
In reality it is more than disheartening. It is distracting. And that distraction has consequences.
When we focus on things that we really can’t do anything about, we are actually expending valuable time and energy that could have been used to work on those things that are inside your circle of influence, those concerns that you really could do something about.
What really ends up happening is your circle of influence shrinks.
Yep, I said that right; when we worry, stress out, and become fixated or paralyzed by the things that we are concerned about but can’t really do anything about, we miss the opportunity to influence one or more of those things inside the smaller influence circle. Let’s say you’ve been stressin’ about Greece pulling out of the Eurozone and Spain defaulting on its debt and Italy’s next and geezus what’s going to happen to my 401K! … and you miss the opportunity to work on that project milestone. It’s too late to recover. You are going to have to report that you missed that milestone, and the deliverable target date is now at risk.
That concern, in effect, just drifted outside your circle of influence. Your circle of influence just shrunk.
Not a good thing.
But there’s more to this exercise, and if you quit now, you will only have seen the downside. There is considerable upside. Trust me.
Let’s say we don’t get distracted by those concerns that we know we can’t do anything about. Let’s say, instead of obsessing about Greece and Spain and Italy and your 401K you use that time and energy to set up some coaching from a trusted colleague on the near term project milestone. As a result, she actually helps you quite a bit; you subsequently are in much better shape to report on that milestone. And when you make that report, it is well-received and your skill and effort is recognized.
Odds are pretty good that your circle of influence just got larger.
Saywhatnow?
You’re thinking you may have less of a concern for that project, or even no concern at all anymore, but how can I say your circle of influence got larger?
Because it’s at least possible that that flight risk leader took notice of the way you recovered that project, and wants to talk about how you did it, and how might you help him… and that previous “nothing you can do” concern just slid into your circle of influence.
That’s quite a stretch you say? Okay, another possibility: because you are not so much concerned about the project now, you can devote some time and energy to researching twice a week home nursing visits for your mom. That concern just slid into your circle of influence…
Look, these are hypotheticals. I’m trying to bring to life those x’s on a piece of paper; but I don’t have to try that hard, right? You know ‘em…
… and you know what this is all about.
Maybe you don’t need to be reminded, but I do —
John! Don’t worry about things you have no control over and can’t do anything about! Do something about the things you can do something about! You can influence!
That’s the impactful, easy-to-understand-but-difficult-to-sustain-in-real-life part of the lesson.
Here’s the profound part — The more I influence, the more I can influence.
Yes, I do worry about the Eurozone financial crisis. Can’t really do anything about that particular concern.
Yet!
john greco sig

Is your non-profit ready for an increase in minimum wage?

January 30, 2014 erik Fundraising, Planning, volunteers

obama When adjusted for inflation, the current federal minimum wage is smaller than it was when President Reagan was the President of the United States. Democrats in Congress have been making the case to raise the minimum wage to $10.10 for the past year. Ten states in 2013 raised their minimum wage laws, and President Obama is signing an executive order increasing the minimum wage to $10.10 for all government contracts.
Here is what the White House said in a statement it issued prior to the State of the Union:

“Hardworking Americans — including janitors and construction workers — working on new federal contracts will benefit from the Executive Order (EO). Some examples of the hardworking people who would benefit from an EO include military base workers who wash dishes, serve food and do laundry.”

Of course, all of this got me thinking about non-profits who take government money and sign those contracts. Are they included in this executive action?
After doing some research . . . I’m still not sure, but I believe the answer is “NO”.
However, there is a bigger question here . . . What should your agency be doing to get ready for a prospective increase?
Now some of you probably read this question and think, “Oh Erik … you’re such a worry wart. This is just pre-election season chatter. Nothing is going to happen. This is all posturing.”
While I know you are right, the facts are still the facts, and the trend arrow is pointing in the direction of $10.10/hour. I say this because we can look at state governments and use them as a barometer, and 10 states increased their minimum wage in 2013.
head in sand In my humble opinion, non-profit professionals have two choices:

You can put your head in the sand, cross your fingers and hope the minimum wage does go up (and what does that say about your feelings for your employees and clients???)
Or you can be proactive and start making plans today for what will likely happen at some point (if not next year then some time in the next few years)

As a planner, I like option two. It is like my mother always said, “It is better to be safe than sorry.”
So, what does planning and preparation look like? Here are just a few preliminary thoughts:

Start talking about what this looks like with your agency’s HR committee
Dust off you Salary & Compensation Plan (or revise those salary scales) and assess where your employees currently are and what a potential law change would change that picture
Start budgeting and funding small wage increases NOW because going from $8.00 or $9.00 to $10.10 is easier than going from $7.25 to $10.10
Engage your resource development committee in constructing a fundraising plan for 2015 focused on increasing your organization’s revenue

I believe focusing on revenue increases is the biggest thing you should be focused on right now. Too many non-profits cut-cut-cut after the economic recession hit in 2008. Of course, this means there is no more fat to cut and all future expense budget adjustments will be cuts to organization muscle and decreases in service.
It really boils down to one question in my opinion:

Don’t your clients deserve better than program cuts and staff layoffs?

Let’s get proactive and focused on the future again!
What is your agency doing to prepare for a possible minimum wage increase? Who are you engaging? What plans are you making? Please use the comment box below to share your thoughts and plans. 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

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
http://twitter.com/#!/eanderson847
http://www.facebook.com/eanderson847
http://www.linkedin.com/in/erikanderson847

Is your non-profit designed for performance?

January 17, 2014 erik organizational development

Fighting the Physics

By John Greco
Originally published on April 9, 2012
Re-posted with permission from johnponders blog
performance7 “Grab a piece of paper. Make your best paper airplane.”
And the management workshop immediately takes off!
“Okay, let ‘em fly!”
Some take flight spectacularly. Others not so much. This usually causes some guffaws, and some good natured ribbing. I generally pick one of the more “flight-challenged” ones —
“Okay, Bill, come on up to the front of the room. Here’s what I want you to do. I want you to fly your plane right down the center of the room. Aim right for Debbie, right at her! and have it land on the table right in front of her. Can you picture that? Be positive. You can do it! Okay, keep the vision of that flight in your mind, and let it fly.”
The airplane generally goes anywhere but down the center of the room. Debbie is momentarily relieved.
“Bill; let’s try again. You can do this! I believe in you. Remember the vision? Right down the center of the room, right at Debbie. But this time, let me give you a quick training lesson. Hold your airplane a third of the way from the point, between your thumb and forefinger. Flex your elbow, pull it back, envision the flight, and then advance your arm and release. Okay, try it.”
The airplane again goes anywhere but down the center of the room. Debbie starts to realize she has nothing to fear.
“Okay, Bill, let’s get serious. I’ve got twenty dollars here (as I pull a twenty out of my pocket) and it is all yours if you simply fly your plane down the center of the room, right at Debbie, and have it land right in front of her. Envision the flight, use the technique I showed you, and think of that twenty. Okay, go!”
The airplane now goes … not down the center. And not by Debbie; she’s pretty relaxed and smiling now…
“Alright Bill. (My tone has changed.) “Bill, I told you I believe in you, and still do, but this is your plane to fly. I asked you to envision your plane flying down the center, to Debbie. I trained you. I even motivated you with a twenty in cash. I’m running out of patience. I need you to fly your plane down the center of the room at Debbie. Or else. Do it.”
Nothing different; no improvement whatsoever.
“I don’t understand. I believed in you Bill. I helped you envision success. I trained you. I motivated you. And then I threatened you. And now I need to fire you…”
performance8 Often in these sessions, after one or two unsuccessful flights I see the “pilot” start adjusting the paper plane: a different fold there, a bending of the wings, sharper folds at the point… When I see this, I react —“Whoa!” What are you doing?”
“Adjusting the plane so it will fly better.”
Hmmm. Yes indeed. Adjusting the plane to fly better.
Paper planes — and organizations — fly as they are designed. Their performance is fundamentally by design.
And when we want a certain type or level of performance from a paper plane or organization that is not designed to produce that performance, we are in fact “fighting the physics.”
Fighting the physics is what we do when we expect results from a system that has not been designed to produce those results. It reflects an ignorance of cause and effect; it points fingers and places blame on the people in the system instead of the design of the system.

We fight the physics when we expect teamwork while rewarding individual achievement.
We fight the physics when we encourage innovation while emphasizing sacred cows, third rails, and CLMs (career-limiting moves).
We fight the physics when we expect speed and responsiveness in customer service while structuring multiple layers, enforcing centralized decision making and requiring formal communication channels.
We fight the physics when we expect efficiency while not investing in repeatable processes and enabling technology.

Now; there’s nothing wrong with positive thinking; research supports the benefits of a positive mental attitude. Research also supports how envisioning an outcome can help actualize the vision. No doubt that when we have a skill or knowledge gap, training makes a difference. Incentives, be they monetary or otherwise, certainly do get our attention. As do threats.
But if the ~~organization~~ plane was not designed to fly down the center of the room and land in front of Debbie, no amount of positive thinking, envisioning, training, motivation, and threats will fundamentally and substantially improve it’s performance.
Fighting the physics always results in the physics winning.
Debbie is safe.
We are not.
john greco sig

The biggest cardinal sin an executive director can commit

January 14, 2014 erik Board development

sin Working with organizations in New Mexico and West Texas means lots of windshield time, and last week I found myself contemplating the question: “What is the biggest cardinal sin a non-profit executive director can commit?” In the final analysis, my conclusion surprised me, which means it was destined to end up here on the DonorDreams blog for you to chew on and contemplate.
In the time you’ve read the first paragraph, your mind already probably started spinning and there are so many good possibilities to choose from, right? Here are just a few examples:

embezzlement
letting the agency’s fundraising program die on the vine
not fostering an organization culture of planning
not being transparent
treating donors like an ATM
hiring bad staff
misuse of funds

I could go on and on. You probably already have many more examples to share (and I encourage you to do so in the comment box below).
As for my number one answer that I finally settled on?

Not understanding, building and supporting a good board development process.

There is a lot that goes into this sweeping generalization. Here are just a few examples:

Allowing board prospects to be targeted without any consideration of expectations and necessary skill sets
Recruiting prospects without helping them see what they are saying ‘YES’ to doing
Failing to develop an annual evaluation and recognition process for board volunteers
Failing to provide orientation and ongoing board training

I could provide more examples, but I think you get the idea.
The reason this turned out to be my number one answer is because this cardinal sin provides the fertile ground for all of the other sins I listed at the start of this post.
For example, it is the existence of a weak and unsupported board that creates the conditions for embezzlement or misuse of funds.
Please use the comment box below to share your idea of the biggest cardinal sin and why. Also offer a solution while you’re at it. 😉
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

Changing your agency's culture means double loop learning

January 10, 2014 erik organizational development

Management by Walking Around . . . in a Loop

By John Greco
Originally published on March 17, 2012
Re-posted with permission from johnponders blog
single loop1 A CEO who had begun to practice his own form of “management-by-walking-around” learned from his employees that the company inhibited innovation by subjecting every new idea to more than 275 separate checks and sign-offs. He promptly appointed a task force to look at this situation, and it eliminated 200 of the obstacles. The result was a higher innovation rate.
— Chris Argyris, Good Communication That Blocks Learning

Finally, a success story in one of these posts!

Not so fast.
This may sound like a success story, but, is it? It certainly is; the CEO uncovers a flawed process and, with his team, drives a dramatic improvement.
What’s not to like?
Chris Argyris would call the CEO’s work above a great example of “single-loop learning;” addressing an issue but leaving the more fundamental problem unexamined and unsolved.
A double-loop approach would have the CEO asking some tougher questions; questions about — yes, you guessed it — the company culture.
Good: “How long have you known about the 275 required sign-offs?”
Better: “What goes on in this company that prevented you from questioning these practices and getting them corrected or eliminated?”
Best: “What beliefs do my leaders hold, and what behaviors do they exhibit, that lead them to support and embed a process that requires 275 sign-offs and approvals?
single loop2 Phenomenal!: “What assumptions am I making and what biases do I hold that are manifesting themselves in the culture of this organization, leading to an approval process with 275 signoffs and associates that are reticent to challenge that process?
Double-loop learning asks questions to understand what’s underneath the visible, presenting problem. It seeks the fundamental cause and effect.
I often get accused of asking too many questions. In fact, a couple of years ago, after a quarterly meeting, I was approached by a peer and admonished: “John, you are asking too many tough questions. You are putting people on the defensive. You need to fit in more, go with the flow of the presentations.”
<sigh>
I feel compelled to help others (and myself) break out of the single loop! Interestingly, though, most managers are thrilled when they successfully walk the single loop. In fact, don’t most organizations reward managers that are effective in walking the single loop? They are always solving problems, right?
So why incessantly ask questions that seem to deny the good work that they’ve just done and that everybody else recognizes?
Besides; who has time? I mean, there’s so many other pressing problems to solve!
I keep asking because one successful double loop walk is worth many, many; yes, many single loop walks…
Management by walking around… in a double loop. Make a difference.

Is it good that you're running your non-profit like a for-profit business?

January 8, 2014 erik Board governance

Running your Non-profit like a Business?

By Dani Robbins
Re-published with permission from nonprofit evolution blog
success I cannot tell you the number of people over the course of my 20 years in non-profits that either congratulated me for running my non-profit like a business and went on to tell me non-profits should be run like a business. I never knew what to say. Thank you?
It seems to be one of the true disconnects that proves my often repeated phrase “where you sit always determines where you stand.”
For those of us who have spent our careers in non-profits, we hear it as an insult that implies businesses are better run, even though there is ample evidence to the contrary. For those who were raised in the for profit sector, the comment acknowledges that some non-profits are run by well-intentioned but poorly trained leaders, and it is meant as a compliment. The compliment being that the Exec watches the bottom line and is accountable, professional and transparent.
We want, need and demand that our non-profits be accountable, appropriate and transparent. However, we also want them to meet mission. Perhaps, that’s the disconnect. Businesses have no mission.
mission Non-profits have to manage the budget AND meet the mission.

We expect them to meet the needs of clients in an equitable manner.
We insist they spend money the way it was awarded and budgeted. When that isn’t possible, the Board or the funder approves the change.
We expect staff to be held to the same standards, and paid similar salaries for similar work.
We count on our Executive Directors to be responsible to the Board, and the Board to be responsible to the community.

Now that I own my own business, I can tell you that the checks and balances inherent in running a non-profit are much more stringent than those needed to run a small business. As a business owner, I can pretty much, within the bounds of the law, do whatever I want. I have no Board to report to, or to hold me accountable. It’s my company. I started it. I make the decisions and it lives or dies with me. That is the structure of a small business. That is not the structure of a non-profit.
board5 Non-profits are not run by one person for a reason. The Board represents the community as the owners of the organization. The organization exists to meet a need. Businesses, which also address needs, exist to make money.
This is the real crux of my beef with non-profits being run like a business. When they are, the Exec leads and the Board is an after-thought; often because the Board was built that way by an Exec that wants to run the non-profit like a business. The Exec sets the direction, and tells that Board what she or he feels they need to know, and the Board accepts that. There is a lot of rubber stamping and very little governance. In such cases, the Board only becomes engaged when there is a crisis. That was not the leader I aspired to be, and not the Board I built.
I want more from our non-profits. I want them to meet the level of accountability our communities expect and deserve. I want them to meet their missions. I want them to have an engage Board and innovative leadership and to move the needle of change in their community.
As always, I welcome your feedback and your experience.