Non-Profit Governance: The Work of the Board, part 1

August 6, 2013 erik Board development, Board governance, 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.

Governance: The Work of the Board, part 1

Hiring, Supporting and Evaluating the Executive

By Dani Robbins

As mentioned in Board Basics and reposted on this very site “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.

As you know, one of my goals is to rectify the common practice in the field of people telling non-profit executives and boards how things should be without any instruction as to what that actually means or how to accomplish it.

Since I wrote a recent post on Strategic Planning, I’m going to circle back to that one and start with Hiring, Supporting and Evaluating the Executive Director.

What that means is:

It is the Board’s role to hire the Executive Director, also called CEO. Prior to hiring, interviewing or even posting the job, it is imperative the Board discus what they want and need in an Executive Director. This conversation cannot be farmed out to a committee primarily consisting of non board members, or to a consultant or hiring firm. That will only get you what they want and think you need – not what you want and actually need.

What skill sets and experience do you need in a leader?

Growing, turning around or maintaining an organization require very different skill sets. Which trait do you want your new leader to have? Does your leader need to be a subject matter expert? Does she need to be local? Does he need to be a fund raiser, an operations person or both?

I recommend a search, REGARDLESS OF . . .

if there is a good internal person,
if someone on the board wants the job, or
if there is an obvious heir apparent.

Do a search, let everyone apply and see who best matches your needs. For more information on conducting a search, please click here.

Once your hire an Executive Director, s/he needs to be supported. Supporting an Executive Director is where the rubber meets the road.

I once had a colleague tell her board to “Support her or fire her, but to choose.” While I was shocked, I was also in agreement. The job of the Executive Director is very difficult and energy spent on worrying is not spent on moving the organization forward. (To the Executive Director’s out there: 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.)

Communication is key: the Board needs to know (and approve of) what the Executive Director is doing and the Executive Director needs to know (and be willing to do) what the Board wants.

It is the Board Chair’s job to be the direct supervisor of the Executive Director and the entire Board’s job is to support him/her, set goals and hold her accountable to those goals. This means the Board has to let the Executive Director fulfill the bounds of his/her role. There should also be a strategic plan that is being implemented, board approved policies that are being followed and an annual evaluation process for the Executive Director (and the rest of the staff).

The vast majority of Executive Directors rarely get evaluated, and when they do it’s often because they asked for an evaluation. (To the Board Presidents out there: Executive Directors, just like Board members and most other people, when left to their own devices will do that they think is right. What they think is right will not necessarily be aligned with what the Board wants, especially if what the Board wants has not been discussed or communicated. It also may not be aligned with anything anyone else is doing. See the Strategic Plan link above to create alignment.)

Executive Directors should be given expectations and goals (just like all other staff) and should be evaluated against those expectations and goals every year. There should be a staff (including executive) compensation plan that has a range for salaries for each position and reflect comparable positions in your community; raises should be given within the confines of that plan, or the plan should be revised. (More on that in the Setting Policies blog to come in the next few days.)

Hiring, Supporting and Evaluating the Executive Director has to happen – in full- for your executive to be an effective leader, for your board to fulfill its responsibilities and for your organization to fulfill its mission.

When an Executive Director is hired right, supported appropriately and evaluated effectively there’s no end to the impact it can make on an organization and a community.

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

What are the golf balls in your non-profit organization’s jar?

August 5, 2013 erik Uncategorized

I have people in my life who I consider friends that like to spam my email inbox. I bet you have friends like that, too. It isn’t malicious, but it is annoying. However, every once in a great while they catch me in the right mood, and I open one of those emails. Typically, I find sappy stuff about friendship and other times it is a modern-day chain letter. This last weekend, I opened one of those emails and found a fun little video about life and priorities. After a little reflection, I decided there is a lot of wisdom in that video as it pertains to your non-profit organization.

Rather than spam your email inbox, you can either click here or on the picture below to view the short little inspiration video produced by simpletruths.com.

Cute . . . sappy . . . everything that I promised. Right?

However, what if the pickle jar in the video wasn’t your life, but it instead represented your non-profit organization? What would those “golf balls” (aka those things that are most important to your organizational mission and success)?

Here is a short list (in no particular order) of what I think your golf balls should be:

Clients
Staff
Board volunteers
Donors
Program volunteers

jar of golf balls I suspect many of you are nodding your heads right now. However, stop and think about your last week and where you spent your time. I suspect that many of you focused lots of time, energy and resources on the pebbles, sand and liquid in your non-profit jar such as:

an upcoming fundraising event or campaign
facility issues
technology challenges
bookkeeping or accounting issues
donor database administration
reconciliation activities

I suspect many of you are now starting to rationalize how these activities are related to the golf balls in your non-profit pickle jar. If you’re doing that, then I encourage you to STOP.

Yes, everything is interrelated. Of course! But take a moment to step back and see the bigger picture.

It is far to easy to focus your attention as a leader on things at the granular level (aka sand). In my experience, leaders are able to focus on the little things as well as the big things.

When putting your calendar together, make sure that your schedule reflects BOTH big and little things. For example, you should be sitting down with your board volunteers in between board meeting as well as putting the agenda and board packet together. You should be meeting with the annual campaign committee to plan the next pledge drive as well as sitting down with donors over a cup of coffee to talk about how their contribution is making magic happen.

The pickle jar analogy can be used to analyze any number of activities related to your non-profit organization. You could be asking questions like:

What are the golf balls in my fundraising plan?
What are the golf balls in my board development plan?
What are the golf balls in my program plan?

The following are links to other bloggers who offer other lists of golf balls for other pickle jars:

grassrootsfundraising.org: “10 Most Important Things You Can Know About Fundraising“
The Fundraising Authority: “The Ten Steps to a Successful Fundraising Event“
Nonprofit Law Blog: “Top 10 Non-Profit Governance Mistakes (And 5 More)“

Did I get your brain working on this wonderful Monday morning? Which pickle jar are you thinking about? What are the golf balls in that jar? What strategies do you use to make sure you aren’t just focusing on the sand as the days and weeks slip through our hands? Do you have time management best practices that you would like to share with your fellow non-profit friends?

Please take a moment to scroll down to the comment box and 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 non-profit organization failing enough?

August 2, 2013 erik Fundraising, organizational development, technology

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.

Yesterday, I started cleaning out my email inbox, which is when I came across a whole bunch of old emails from my friends at 501Videos.com. They are the folks who publish those amazing FREE “Movie Mondays for Fundraising Professionals“. I came across Episode #237 featuring one of my favorite social media bloggers Beth Kanter. With a title like “How smart nonprofits are using failures to become more successful,” I couldn’t help but click the link and watch.

At the end of the video, my AH-HA moment was “This will make an amazing ‘O.D. Fridays’ post. All I have to do is pair this video with a post from John’s blog, add a little bit of my non-profit thoughts and PRESTO it will be another great Friday post.” Unfortunately, it hasn’t been that easy. After spending an hour combing through “johnponders ~ about life at work, mostly,” I was hard pressed to find many posts that speak to the idea of failure.

So, I’ve decided to turn this Friday’s post into three segments:

The challenge
The summary
Additional resources

The challenge

I think organizational development is fascinating subject matter, which is why I dedicate my Friday posts to echoing John’s blog or bringing a non-profit flare to his posts. As I wrote in last Friday’s post, non-profits tend to get caught in a starvation cycle, which in my opinion is nothing more than a blatant disregard for investing in organizational development.

However, I find it hard to believe that there aren’t more posts by John about failure and the great things that can come from celebrating it and fighting the stigma associated with it.

So, here is the challenge, John . . . “Your mission if you choose to accept it is: a) how about writing a post or multiple posts about failure and/or b) highlighting successful people or organizations who embraced the idea of failing.

The summary

Beth Kanter shares some incredibly interesting things in the Episode #237 video. For example, people tend to have three typical reactions to failure:

Blame someone else
Blame yourself
Deny it

It is for these three reasons non-profit organizations (and probably all of us) tend to avoid taking risks because the costs associated with failure are huge.

However, Beth is a great storyteller and she is masterful at highlighting examples of where agencies took risks, failed and amazingly great things came from doing so. She speaks to the idea of changing your organizational culture to celebrate failure, which changes the risk/reward calculation and stimulates innovation in your workplace.

If you have six or seven minutes, I strongly encourage you to click-through and listen to what Beth has to say.

Additional resources

As I searched my blog and John’s blog archives for posts about failure, I did find a few things that are related. If you have a few minutes, you may want to click-through the following links and contemplate how your agency’s culture helps or hinders programmatic, fundraising, board governance innovation or limits an individual from reaching their full potential:

johnponders blog: “Possibility Girl“
DonorDreams blog: “How do you deal with your inner ‘Non-Profit Possibility Girl’?“
DonorDreams blog: “Is your fundraising program failing? Good!“
DonorDreams blog: “Is ‘fear of failure’ defining your fundraising program?“

Does your non-profit organization celebrate failure? If so, how? If not, why not? Do you have an example of where your failure blossomed into a triumphant success? Please scroll down and share your thoughts and experiences in the comment box. We can all learn from each other.

Here’s to your health!

Does your non-profit agency need to re-think its online strategy?

August 1, 2013 erik Fundraising, technology

commmgr1 As you can probably imagine, I subscribe to a lot of things — everything from eNewsletters to blogs — and I do a lot of reading. It helps me be a better non-profit consultant, and equally important it helps me be a better thought-leader / blogger. This brings me to an article written by Cody Switzer in The Chronicle of Philanthropy titled “75% of Young Donors Turned Off by Out-of-Date Web Sites“.

After reading the article, the first thought that ran through my head was “It certainly is a ‘brave new world’ when it comes to non-profit fundraising.” Attached to this conclusion were memories of conversations I’ve had with countless numbers of board members and fundraising volunteers over the years about what support materials should look like for an agency’s annual campaign.

Perhaps, some of these discussions sound familiar to you:

Glossy campaign literature vs. something that looks less expensive
Video vs. no video
Content focused more on client stories vs. focused more on agency information

When I close my eyes after reading Cody’s article, I can almost see him reprising the role of Paul Revere but this time riding a keyboard and yelling:

The Millennials are coming!

Sure, they are just starting to trickle through the front door of your fundraising program, but you better start getting ready. Why? Because their expectations are very different.

Forget about the traditional questions that I shared above about glossy literature, support video and content. While the Chronicle of Philanthropy story does a good job of telling us that Millennials want to see your webpage, it really goes much further than just having an online presence. Right?

commmgr2 Cody’s article about the Millennial Impact Report is just the tip of the iceberg. After all, I bet your agency is already asking itself questions such as:

How often do we refresh our website content?
Is the content on our website the right balance between showing donor how we’re putting their money to work vs. showing donors that our agency is healthy and a good investment?
Are there too many words on our site? Are there too few pictures and videos?
Is our website mobile-friendly?
What does our online community look like beyond the website? (e.g. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, blog, etc) And how often do those platforms get fresh content?
What target audiences and niche groups are each of your online platforms focused on? And how does this impact your content creation?

Of course, ALL of these questions beg one big question . . .

Who is doing all of this for your agency?

The simple answer to this question is . . . your organization needs to look at hiring what is now commonly being called a “Community Manager“.

commmgr3 This person isn’t a “technology person” working in your IT department. In fact, they don’t need to have many of those skill sets because you either already have an a) IT person on your payroll, b) relationship with an IT consulting firm or c) utilize “in-the-box” technology (e.g. Press Publisher, 1and1.com, etc) that comes with a toll-free help desk when things get dicey.

Yes, I know . . . You don’t have any money.

My response? You better figure it out and find some money soon to hire this person.

Why? Because “The Millennials are coming! The Millennials are coming!”

The days of tossing lots of text about your agency online are over. Let me bottom line it for you like my partner does for me all the time . . .

Fundraising is evolving . . . adapt your online strategies.

Some of you are probably saying “Wait! Tell me more about that community manager position. What do they look like? What type of skills should they possess? Where do I find them to build an applicant pool?”

The following links will take you to great online resources that speak to the issue of what you should look for when hiring your Community Manager:

FeverBee blog: “Rethinking how we hire community managers“
ErnestBarbaric blog: “How to Hire the Right Community Manager — What You Need to Know“
Waiting for the Elevator blog: “What to Look for When Hiring a Community Manager“

Does your non-profit organization current hire a community manager to handle your online strategy? If so, what skill sets do you think are more important than others? Do your fundraising program have an online fundraising plan that spells out strategies and tactics including how your fundraising professional(s) interact with your community manager?

Please scroll down to the comment box and share a few of your thoughts and experiences. We can all learn from each other.

Here’s to your health!

Every non-profit fundraising event needs clowns

July 31, 2013 erik Fundraising, organizational development, volunteers

Clown_chili_peppers I’ve seen it happen way too often. A fundraising professional or the executive director says to a group of people — using at a board meeting — something like this: “We need volunteers to help with our special event fundraiser. Who can help?” At first, there is an awkward silence and no hands go up. Then there are a few reluctant hands. Whenever I see this happen, I’m always left wondering if those were the right people for the job and how many of those people are clowns?

Before starting this post, let me just say that my point of view on this issue is obvious . . . stop using group recruiting techniques to recruit people for tasks that require specific skill sets. You are only setting yourself up for lots of grief and possibly failure.

With this being said, the following is a traditional list of characteristics for special event volunteers:

Familiar with and passionate about your mission, vision and programs
Possess time and willing to use that time to plan and execute the event
Have large networks (hopefully ones that don’t overlap too much with the other volunteers on the committee)
Willing to ask others for money (e.g. selling sponsorships and tickets)
Works well with others (e.g. good listen, not abrasive, demonstrates teamwork)
Has a track record of following through on what they commit to doing
Well organized

I’ve rolled with this short list for years and it hasn’t failed me.

I use the aforementioned list to identify and target prospective volunteers. I also use the list to develop written volunteer job descriptions. I’ve shares it with volunteers on the recruitment call because I commonly get asked “Why are you asking me to do this?” and I simply tell them that they possess all of these characteristics.

However, I’ve had this nagging feeling for years that something is missing from this list, and I put my finger on it just the other day.

I was sitting in the bleachers at Wrigley Field. I was there with my father and my partner. The quality of baseball on the field was terrible, there was a constant drizzle of rain falling from the sky, and the fans were obviously getting antsy. Suddenly, one of the fans got to his feet and yelled at the top of his lungs:

“Hey everybody!
Right field sucks!”

He started chanting over and over again “Right field sucks! Right field sucks!” until other fans joined in.

As this played out in front of me, my first thought was “Hey, sit down! Some of us are trying to watch some bad baseball here!” but then it dawned on me. It was a big AH-HA moment.

There are people like this is every crowd. They love attention. They need to be at the center of the action. In grade school, they were the class clown. As adults, they are just clowns.

I don’t mean this in a bad way. These people are outgoing, love being around other people (aka well-networked) and love a good party (regardless of whether it is a baseball game or your agency’s special event fundraiser).

So, on a go-forward basis I plan on amending my special event volunteer list of characteristics to include: “clown“.

bleachers2 I’m sure some of you are probably skeptical and for good reason. I mean how crazy and distracting would it be to have a committee of people who all want to be the center of attention. Crazy . . . I’m sure! However, I can’t help but dream about the type of event those folks would build in the name of securing more recognition and attention all to benefit my agency.

I suspect that with a little guidance (and after all isn’t guidance your role as a non-profit professional) this strategy could pay off in a big way.

Regardless, anything will be better than asking people to put their hands up and volunteer.

What characteristics and skill sets do you look for when recruiting volunteers to help plan and implement your agency’s special event fundraisers? What has been your experience with recruiting clowns? Please scroll down and share your experiences in the comment box below because we can all learn from each other.

Here’s to your health!

Audit committee or no audit committee? That is the question.

July 30, 2013 erik Board governance, organizational development

audit When it comes to financial management, I’ve run into two types of non-profit organizations. There are those organizations who struggle with financial management and don’t have a strong and independent Finance committee in place. Then there are agencies whose Finance committee is the strongest voice in the boardroom. For the latter type of organization, the question about whether or not to form an audit committee always seems to linger in the air with a diversity of opinions spinning around it.

In my experience, strong finance committees have had a difficult time accepting the case for support for forming another standing committee focused on finance. After all, it is hard to argue with the “Why fix something that isn’t broken?” argument. Moreover, the “Our agency should stay ahead of Sarbanes-Oxley legislation” also seems to fall flat.

I fought these battles a decade ago when I was on the front line leading a local non-profit organization. I was successful in my quest to form an audit committee, and it allowed us to relieve the Finance Committee of the following roles and responsibilities:

Selecting the audit and periodically putting the audit work out for bid.
Reviewing the work of the auditor and making recommendations to the board based on this work.
Providing board oversight of the auditor so that management hasn’t his/her only point of contact.
Review and assessment of the agencies internal controls.

In hindsight, I loved this move for two big reasons:

It got some stuff off of the Finance Committee’s plate and allowed them to focus on important stuff.
It gave me another committee opportunity to engage board volunteers and recruit influential finance-minded non-board volunteers.

I must admit that in the beginning many people (including myself) still had a difficult time with the blurry line between these two committees. This issue recently reared its head at an agency where I am doing some work, and I really like the clarity that came out of the conversation. So, I thought I’d share it with you this morning.

Finance Committee – develops and monitors financial practice
Audit Committee – monitors the process in which financial practices are carried out

Are you still not feeling it? OK, the following is a list of resources that I really like and hopefully provide you with the answers for which you’re looking:

Minnesota Council of Nonprofits: “Nonprofit Finance vs Audit Committees“
BDO’s Nonprofit Standard blog: “Effective Audit Committees“
The Center for Association Leadership: “Nonprofit Audit Committees — A Toolkit“
American Institute of CPAs: “AICPA Not-for-Profit Audit Committee Toolkit Downloads“
Virginia Society of Certified Public Accountants: “Audit Guide for Audit Committees of Small Nonprofit Organizations“

I hope you find these links helpful.

Has your organization formed an audit committee? What was your experience? Did you develop two different committee charters with two different committee work plans? If so, how did you divide things up? How have things worked since you made the change? Does your audit committee feel like a superficial after-thought that you only did because people were telling you it was a best practice?

Please scroll down and share your thoughts and experiences in the comment box below. This is an important board governance question that always seems to fly under the radar. Let’s talk about it.

Here’s to your health!

If you love me, you’d never ask me run another non-profit raffle again

July 29, 2013 erik Board development, Fundraising, volunteers

The other day it was hot in the Chicago area, and I decided to run to the grocery store to get some sugar-free ice cream for my diabetic spouse. As I trudged through the hot blacktop parking lot, I saw an unfortunate sight . . . a volunteer sweating his rear-end off standing behind a booth selling raffle tickets for the Knights of Columbus (see picture to the right). I was immediately reminded of a time not-so-long-ago when that used to be me.

The year was 2000 and I had just been hired as the new executive director of the Boys & Girls Club of Elgin. Just the year before this organization attempted to run its first Duck Race special event fundraiser. Without going into the details, it didn’t make them money. However, I was young and dumb. I was an inexperienced and a newly minted executive director. I had seen a very dear friend run a Duck Race in a different community, and he had been wildly successful netting close to $100,000.

If he could do it, then I could do it. After all, how hard could it be? All it seemed to entail was:

selling corporate sponsorships,
standing in high traffic areas and selling $5.00 duck adoptions to people who want a chance at winning a new car, and
putting numbers ducks in the river and pulling the winners out of the water to determine who wins which prizes.

What was the big deal? OMG . . . I wish I knew then what I know now.

As I approached the poor hot and sweaty Knights of Columbus volunteer, all of the pain came flooding back to me:

Recruiting 100 volunteers to help with every aspect of the race (e.g. marketing, tagging ducks, putting ducks in the water, taking ducks out of the water, data entry, and not to mention selling duck adoptions),
Organizing countless teams of volunteers to sell duck adoptions and trying every trick in the book to create a sense of fun-excitement-competition,
Chasing down volunteers to sign-up for weekend sales shifts (standing outside of the same grocery store where the Knights of Columbus volunteer was sweating),
Spending the entire weekend driving from sales location to sales location to support the volunteers by replenishing petty cash banks, restock merchandise, and fill gaps in between shifts where necessary, and
Personally filling holes in the schedule . . . standing outside of the grocery store or hardware store or bank . . . yelling out your sales pitch at people leaving the store . . . getting scowled at by people who don’t appreciate the disturbance . . . selling an adoption to approximately one-out-of-ten people.

ducks2 These five bullet points are just the tip of the iceberg. The fact of the matter is that we started planning next year’s Duck Race in the immediate days and weeks after wrapping one up. This special event raffle was a year-round affair.

For me personally, it represented an eight week period of my life every year when I worked seven days per week . . . 56 days in a row without a day off for good behavior. I did this for six years, and when I was weighing the options associated with another job offer, the Duck Race was one of the Top Five reasons I left for greener pastures.

As I passed by the Knights of Columbus booth for the refuge of an air conditioned store, I put my head down and refused to make eye contact with that poor volunteer (just like thousands of other people did to me when I was selling duck adoptions). The last thing that ran through my head was the promise I’ve made myself to never work for a non-profit agency that runs any kind of raffle. The following is a list of reasons for this decision:

Raffles are nothing more than gambling and there are laws, rules and regulations that don’t seem to be worth the time, energy or effort.
Raffles entice donors to make a contribution to your charity for reasons other than your mission and getting these donors to crossover to other campaigns or events is next to impossible.
Raffles involve prizes which means you better not mess things up or you run the risk of being sued.
The record keeping is overwhelming and can involve double and triple entry of financial data depending on how your donor database, financial management system and raffle software are configured.
Opportunity cost and return on investment calculations point to greener pastures when you look at using the same amount of time in other fundraising efforts (e.g. annual campaign pledge drives, etc).

The bottom line for me is that selling raffle tickets and chances should be an activity that is beneath every non-profit board volunteer. Their time is too valuable to ask them to sweat outside of a grocery store selling raffle tickets $5.00 at a time. How many donors could they have sat down with in the same amount of time and asked for a $250, $2,500 or $10,000 pledge?

Here is another way to think about it. If you don’t have the type of volunteers who feel comfortable sitting down individually with important donors and if your volunteers are more willing to sell raffle chances, then you probably have the wrong people sitting around your boardroom table. Perhaps, these people are well-intentioned fundraising volunteers, but they certainly aren’t good board prospects.

If this last revelation upsets you, please accept my apologies. However, don’t dismiss this thought too quickly. Like a good cup of tea, let this idea steep and then share your thoughts in the comment box below.

Here’s to your health!

Is your non-profit only living for today? Then you need Picasso!

July 26, 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 “Not Pretty,” John talks about Pablo Picasso’s painting of Gertrude Stein and how it was a portrait of what he thought she would look like as an older woman. John used this story to springboard off into organizational development and change management themes. It was the following passage from his post that really got me thinking:

“First off, how the organization performs in the future may hardly resemble how the organization is performing today … Time — aging — will have its way. Things will change. Without the critical development of structure, process, culture, and talent, time — and change — will wreak havoc. Capabilities will erode. New capabilities will be needed.”

When I read this, I visualized rocks being pounded by ocean waves. In real-time, the rocks seem to win because waves disperse and scatter into mist and foam. However, the reality of the situation is the absolute opposite. The waves are actually winning. Right? Because in the long run those rocks turn into sand as a result of the pounding they take.

In this analogy, your non-profit agency is the rock and you’re more than likely eroding.

picasso2 As time passes, the waves of change crash against your seemingly rock solid organizational exterior, but change is slowly occurring. Here are just a few examples:

You lose employees
You lose board volunteers
Your strategic plan is aging (in fact, all of your plans are aging)
Your technology systems are becoming outdated and old
Your base of donors gets older and their individual capacities change
Best practices and cutting edge practices morph and refine themselves (e.g. who saw online giving as an option 50 years ago?)
Your community’s economic foundation is eroding and changing (e.g. industrialization to information, local to global, etc)

Whether you feel it or not, your non-profit organization is being pounded into one big pile of sand.

And you are more than likely making things worse!

In recent years, there has been a lot written about “The Nonprofit Starvation Cycle” by folks like Dan Pallotta (via his books Uncharitable and Charity Case) as well as the recent open letter titled “The Overhead Myth” from GuideStar, Charity Navigator and Better Business Bureau.

I think an article by Ann Goggins Gregory and Don Howard in Stanford Social Innovation sums up the mistake many of us are making very well:

“A vicious cycle is leaving nonprofits so hungry for decent infrastructure that they can barely function as organizations—let alone serve their beneficiaries. The cycle starts with funders’ unrealistic expectations about how much running a nonprofit costs, and results in nonprofits’ misrepresenting their costs while skimping on vital systems—acts that feed funders’ skewed beliefs. To break the nonprofit starvation cycle, funders must take the lead.”

Is this you? Are you skimping? Are you living for today and ignoring tomorrow?

I really like the last sentence in this previous passage because it dovetails with John’s organizational development blog post about Pablo Picasso so very well.

In a previous post titled “Ending the ‘Overhead Myth’ is everywhere,” I was skeptical. I honestly don’t think an open letter to donors or a ton of online chatter will change donor perceptions about the value of investing in what John describes as “…structure, process, culture, and talent…”

If you’re going to engage your donors in this discussion because they are the key to allowing you to invest in what they perceive as “overhead,” then you’re going to need someone like Pablo Picasso to help you assess what your organization will look like in the future. This information will help you develop your case for support, which is what you need before engaging your donors in this conversation.

Is this way too much work for you to consider? No problem . . . I’ll see you at the beach! 😉

What is your agency doing to engage donors and win their hearts and minds when it comes to “The Overhead Myth” and the “Nonprofit Starvation Cycle”? Who is your Pablo Picasso helping you with organizational assessment (both present and future)? If you’re thinking about using an external consultant to help you with all of this . . . I think I know someone who wants to help you! 😉

Here’s to your health!

Kick-Ass 2 movie trailer prompts non-profit superpowers question

July 25, 2013 erik Fundraising

Sometimes when I burn the candle at both ends and work long hours, things that normally wouldn’t register with me end up hitting me in funny ways. More often than not, those weird thoughts find their way into my blog posts. For example, a few nights ago I crawled in late at night after a site visit with a client. I turned on the television for a few minutes to unwind, which is when I saw a commercial for a recently released movie titled “Kick-Ass 2: Balls to the Wall“.

Click here or on the video below if you’re now curious about what I saw.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G4p4VyP3tH4]

According to one of the movie websites I was researching, “Kick-Ass 2: Balls to the Wall” is about:

“The costumed high-school hero Kick-Ass joins with a group of normal citizens who have been inspired to fight crime in costume. Meanwhile, the Red Mist plots an act of revenge that will affect everyone Kick-Ass knows.”

OK . . . OK . . . OK . . . I am sure that many of you are probably wondering:

Has Erik gone insane? Has he lost it?
What does this silly sophomoric movie have to do with fundraising?
How will he tie this into a non-profit topic?

As I laid on my couch twitching from exhaustion watching that commercial for this movie, the following thoughts crossed my mind:

If I could have any superpower, which one would I want? And how would it make me a better non-profit or fundraising professional?

Silly question? Absolutely! But the answer might just be a little telling.

superpowers For example, I concluded that I would want the super human ability to “read people’s minds“. As I started thinking about why I might want that superpower, I concluded that knowing what a donor wants and how they want it would make me one of the best fundraising people on the planet.

This realization got me thinking even more about why this might be important to me, and I concluded that I’ve always struggled with the idea of donor research and getting some of the following questions answered before talking with a prospect (or even a current donor):

How much should we be asking for?
What are they passionate about and how does our case for support fit?
Who else do they support?
Are we in their top three favorite charities?
Do they have concerns about our agency that they’re holding back on asking?
What is their capacity? What is their willingness?

This list of questions can go on and on and on. While there are a number of ways that I’ve gone about getting answers to these questions throughout the years, the reality is that “mind reading” would make things so much easier.

Do you have a minute or two in your busy day to do something fun? If so, contemplate the following questions:

If you could have any one superpower, which one would it be?
How would it make you a better non-profit or fundraising professional?
Why did you choose that particular superpower? What insights into who you are (or what you struggle with) does this epiphany give you?
Since superpowers don’t really exist, what are you going to do now?

Take a minute to share the answers to these questions in the comment box below. We can all learn from each other.

Here’s to your health!

Is your non-profit good at the Why-How-What?

July 24, 2013 erik Board development, Board governance, Planning

A few days ago I bumped into a non-profit friend who had recently viewed a TED Talks video on YouTube featuring Simon Sinek titled “How great leaders inspire action“. It was obvious to me that this was a TED Talks video that I needed to view because it had inspired her to take action. Not only was she talking to everyone about what Simon calls the “Golden Circle,” but she had also shared the video with board volunteers as a precursor to a strategic discussion.

I think there are three things that make this video so contagious and easy to watch:

The idea of the “golden circle” is easy . . . What-How-Why.
These ideas are woven into many non-profit professionals’ DNA.
The speaker does a nice job of relating What-How-Why to other companies and their successes (e.g Apple)

Early in the video Simon says,

“Every single organization on the planet knows WHAT they do . . . Some know HOW they do it. Whether you call it your differentiating value proposition, you proprietary process or your USP . . . But very, very few people or organizations know WHY they do what they do. And by WHY, I don’t mean ‘to make a profit’. That is a result. It is always a result. By WHY I mean what is your purpose? What’s your cause? What’s your belief? Why does your organization exist?“

I’ve done a lot of strategic planning over the years. I’ve also done lots of tactical planning. And Simon hits on a super powerful idea with his What-How-Why.

what how why Those organizations that excel at strategic planning have a very clear understanding of what they do, how they do it, and why they exist. However, those organizations that are little fuzzy on these ideas do a lot of wrestling with themselves. Sometimes countless hours are spent at the 50,000 foot view talking about these issues . . . and for good reason! Without clarity on What-How-Why, there is no way you can set goals, develop objectives and write action plans that are meaningful in any way, shape or form.

Some of you might be scoffing right now and asking, “How in the world can a non-profit agency not know ‘WHY’ they exist? It is as simple as revisiting their mission statement!”

Well, not so fast, my friend. There are at least two situations that come to mind where this simple idea starts to get blurry.

Some organizations have LONG histories and over the course of time their mission changes. For example, the March of Dimes was founded to address polio and today it exists to improve the health of mothers and babies. When this happens, sometimes the shift isn’t as clear as it was for March of Dimes . . . the ‘WHY’ gets fuzzy . . . and the challenges ensue.
Some organizations experience mission creep because their resource development strategy wasn’t well-defined and board members let staff chase all sorts of funding opportunities regardless of what it was for or what they do. The end result kind of looks like a McDonald’s restaurant that also sells electronics and chiropractic adjustments. In short, the ‘WHY’ gets fuzzy.

I believe that good non-profits revisit the questions of What-How-Why on a somewhat regular basis. I applaud my non-profit friend for using this YouTube video to frame and stage an engaging boardroom discussion. If you have a little time today, I suggest you click-through to YouTube and view the video. If you like it, then forward it to your board president and have a discussion with them about its value. If you’re both excited and engaged, then share it with your board and talk about it as a group.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qp0HIF3SfI4]

If you end up doing any of what I just suggested, please circle back around to this blog post and share your experience in the comment box below. We can all learn from each other.

Here’s to your health!