Nonprofit University Blog

Recently, I wrote asking whether nonprofits need to take a higher moral ground because of the public’s perception of nonprofits.  If, as so many assume, that the nonprofit sector is all about helping others and making the communities in which we live and work better places for all, oughtn’t we, I asked, adhere to the highest of moral and ethical standards?

Not being naïve, and wanting to be realistic, I am willing to lower expectations of others (though not of myself or those with whom I associate).  But that does not mean I have to give up standards altogether.   Recognizing that there is ample room for debating (which I do not want to do here) the notion of whether being moral and ethical is an absolute—you are or you are not–or allows for degrees—action a is less moral than action b–I do see degrees of immorality in people’s behavior.  I know this by my “appall meter.”  When I hear of the questionable behavior of an individual or organization, my reaction registers on the appall meter.  The further to the right on the meter the needle goes, the more infuriated and appalled I am.

Thanks to a study by Consumers Union (publisher of Consumers Reports), I am practically seething, and definitely seeing red!  Consumers Union looked at the cash reserves of 10 Blue Cross Blue Shield affiliates and found that in 2009, seven—yup, 70%–had a surplus three times the amount regulators say is needed for the organization to remain solvent.  Three times!  And as you no doubt recall, depending upon where you are sitting, if you were a Blue Cross Blue Shield client, starting around 2006, your nonprofit was getting notices of increase in your insurance premium anywhere from 8% to as high as 35%, so I heard.  Gosh, wonder where they got those surpluses?

Lest the reader forget, Blue Cross Blue Shield is, technically, a nonprofit.  (While it has allowed some of its affiliates to convert to a for-profit model, this is not the case of the ten affiliates that Consumers Union studied.)  As such, and as any nonprofit, Blue Cross Blue Shield has a legal and moral responsibility to serve its mission, which in the case of this health insurer is to provide affordable and accessible health care.   And, as is once again true of other nonprofits, Blue Cross Blue Shield has a moral responsibility to run a sound business that allows for long-term delivery of that mission and, equally important, sustainability.  It is unquestionably a best business/nonprofit practice to have six to twelve months of reserve to ensure organizational solvency during lean times. It is not a sound nonprofit practice, however, to garner those reserves on the backs of clients by raising fees beyond a reasonable standard—such as the cost of living.  And at some point, the acquisition of reserves by sticking it to the client becomes morally repugnant.  Those seven affiliates have arrived.

The Blues say it needs such a large reserve to pay its operating expenses, citing, in particular, the cost of accreditation and technological improvements.  I just wonder how many of those nonprofits that paid Blue Cross Blue Shields increased rates needed to dip into their reserves when it came time to pay its accreditation fees or the cost of making technological improvements.  Or did they forego seeking (re-)accreditation and/or make do with the current technology available to them because their reserve policy prohibited them from touching that money or, worse, they had no reserves in which they could dip?

Let’s be mindful:  Blue Cross Blue Shield is not alone.  There are other nonprofits out there that are protecting themselves at the cost of their clients, and therein forsaking their missions.  But at some point, word gets out, and the needles on the appall meters of Americans everywhere start moving to the right. What will reserves buy then?

We talk all the time about business partnerships—we must find the win-win for the nonprofit and the business, we must develop these valuable partnerships, etc., etc., etc.  (I can never say that without thinking of Yul Brynner).  Most of the times, however, it is the nonprofit approaching the business with that win-win proposition.

While not at all the same win-win proposition mentioned above—as those are more like the theatre approaching restaurants in the town to provide a discount to theatre goers showing a ticket for that night’s show—these two ideas about which I just learned have their own, very decided win-win.

Sovereign Bank Stadium in York, Pennsylvania, is now available—rent free—to nonprofits hosting community events.  Last week, the owners of the Stadium, the York County Industrial Development Authority (YCIDA), and the Stadium’s primary tenant, the York Revolution, a professional baseball team that is a member of the Freedom Division of the Atlantic League of Professional Baseball, made the announcement of this new program.

But there is more.  There is a competition involved, and having use of the Stadium rent free is the prize for all runners-up.  First prize—or what they call Diamond status—comes not just with free rent, but a $5,000 marketing package, $500 donation to off-set the other costs of the event and a 25% discount on the cost of lights and sound.  Platinum status will receive free rent, the marketing package and the donation, while three organizations will receive Gold status and get the free rent and $500 donation.  Not shabby at all!

Without taking anything away from the YCIDA and the York Revolution, there is something in this for them—as well there should be.  As their press release announced, YCIDA wants to “increase community visibility” of the Stadium and maximize its use for “public and community purposes.”  Again, not only is there nothing wrong with that, it is a great idea.   How many days of the year and how many hours of a day does a Stadium—or any other locus of entertainment–go unused?  But there are costs involved for unused space; why not get some good civic credit for those bucks?  Certainly, YCIDA could rent the space out and try to recoup some of the costs of unused space, but it has chosen not to do that.  And, in fact, the YCIDA and the York Revolution are taking this good deed one-step further by adding, for the winners of the competition, some other costly benefits.

Across North Carolina, malls with empty spaces—know any malls like that?—are letting nonprofits use the spaces for free or nominal rent, and sometimes even free utilities are included, making the malls’ gifts even greater.  Granted, in exchange for free or nominal rent nonprofits face a very short turnaround for moving out should a full-paying tenant be found.  But in the meantime, rent money is saved.  And equally, if not more important, great exposure is gained.  (Imagine the price tag for that!)  People walking by see the nonprofit at work, drop in, learn, volunteer, donate, whatever.

Again, this is a win for the mall owners.  Mall owners don’t like empty spaces.  Done: space filled, responsible tenants found.  Like all businesses, mall owners reap the reward of being (perceived as) a good corporate citizen.  Done:  nonprofits are helped with an in-kind donation and good citizenship easily displayed and noted.  Associations develop in consumers’ minds:  nonprofit X and mall Y.  Mall owners do better with consistent tenants and low tenant turnover.  Done:  nonprofits can turn into paying tenants.

As with Sovereign Bank Stadium, this civic goodness is costing mall owners some bucks.  But they, too, recognize that subsidizing rent or the cost of utilities is in their own best interests and the interests of the community of which they are a part and which they serve.  Kudos all around!

Let’s hope other businesses will follow suit.

This is a most vulnerable time for nonprofit executive directors.  Already stressed by having to do more with less, too many now are threatened by the very thing that should be their greatest partner—their board.  Yet, in too many cases, rather than providing that vital assistance, boards are using executive directors as the scapegoat to hide their own ineffectiveness.

I have railed before about boards failing to do their job, either in whole or in part—and I am sure I will do it again in these pages.  But when their failure leads to capable and exemplary executive directors losing their jobs, my blood truly begins to boil.

But first, let’s get one thing straight:  there are quantities of executive directors who do deserve to lose their jobs because of their performances.  Those executive directors who delegate more than they do, are absent more than they are present, who blame others for problems and failures, have excuses for everything that happens, who don’t understand the basics of running a business or managing people, who can not lead and/or manage, should absolutely be removed from their positions.  Unfortunately, however, too many of the boards with this kind of executive director haven’t yet awakened from their somnolent state, or the one thing these executive directors are doing well is snowing their slumbering boards.  So, if you are a member of one of these boards:  please, wake up! Develop a performance review process for the executive director, with clear benchmarks, preferably tied to your strategic plan, and start holding your executive director accountable.  If s/he is found lacking, develop and implement an improvement plan.  And if that doesn’t work, then let him/her go.

The ineffective executive director, however, is not my concern today.  Today, I am concerned with the performing executive director who is doing her/his best in an extremely tough economy that for so many nonprofits has produced diminished funds for increased delivery of services, and a board that is not pulling its weight.  With increased focus on just what nonprofit boards are actually doing, brought on by the new Form 990, watchdog groups and just heightened awareness by donors of all shapes and sizes, boards are coming to understand that they need to be actively—even proactively—engaged in their roles and responsibilities and not just absorbing information and rubber stamping what the executive director suggests.  So more and more boards are getting engaged:  they are beginning to really look at those financials, to ask questions about program performance and achievement of goals, to assess the executive director’s performance, to look at the diversification of income streams, etc.  And in so doing, they are realizing that the organization may be falling short:  the financials may not suggest a rosy, sustainable future; the programs may not be cost effective or meeting those promised outcomes; raised dollars have fallen sharply off (beyond what the economy would predict); even the executive director’s performance may not be as strong as they would like.

This is all very fine and good, as recognizing a problem is the first step in fixing that problem.  But too many of these boards are seeing the solution at as letting go the executive director.  This, however, is totally a knee jerk reaction; additionally, it is completely lopsided reaction, completely freeing the board from taking any responsibility for the organization’s less than wonderful position.  And let’s face it:  if it was totally the executive director’s fault, we wouldn’t need a board of directors in the first place.  But we do.

Let’s remember:  the structure of a healthy nonprofit is one part board, one part executive director and one part staff and volunteers.  A healthy nonprofit needs each of the three legs of this three legged stool functioning to its fullest so that the synergy that happens when those three totally functioning legs work together can be realized.  When the reaction of the board is to fire the executive director without assessing its own performance and contributions to the current status quo, without holding itself equally accountable for performance, it turns a three legged stool in a two legged one.  And that isn’t a stool at all!

A colleague here in Philadelphia (though he consults internationally), David Curry coined what I call a rallying cry:  “disruptive governance—be responsible, provoke performance.”  I’ll add to it:  save the truly hard working executive director:  be responsible, provoke performance and accountability for all legs of your nonprofit.  For that is the only true way to become a high performing organization.

It is not often that the IRS gives us a clear “heads up” as to what are some of its favorite things to “catch” nonprofits doing wrong.  But such a heads up has come in its interim report (released May 2010) on research it has been conducting on how well colleges and universities comply with reporting regulations.  DO NOT STOP READING THIS JUST BECAUSE YOU ARE NOT A COLLEGE OR UNIVERSITY; THIS APPLIES TO YOU!

The IRS sampled 400 public and private colleges and universities offering four year degrees or higher; they received responses from 344.  When I initially read this number, I thought to myself—“Hmm, the other 56 weren’t spooked by the IRS?  Wonder what will happen?”  The answer?  Thirteen of these nonresponders are receiving a full examination by the IRS!  (No clue what is happening to the other 43).

So, message #1:  when the IRS asks you for something, respond!

While the subjects of this current research were colleges and universities, the IRS has made it clear that the issues uncovered by this research are not unique to this portion of the nonprofit sector.  Most importantly, it intends to apply the lessons learned through this research to the whole sector.

So, what piqued the IRS such that it is now going to pay greater attention to these areas for all nonprofits?

1. In responding to the survey, colleges and universities reported more unrelated business income—advertising, corporate sponsorship and facility rental—than they reported on their 990-T.  (Form 990-T must be completed by every nonprofit earning $1000 or more in gross unrelated business income.)  The IRS is now conducting “full examinations” of those schools with discrepancies!  Message #2:  when sharing information with the IRS—provide the same data to the same questions, regardless of how many times the question is asked or on how many different forms.

1. In reporting how much they were paying their highest paid “officer, director, trustee, or key employee” (otherwise known as ODTKE, in the report!), it seems the majority of schools claimed a “rebuttable presumption” in determining the compensation.  (Arguing a rebuttable presumption means the school—or any nonprofit—used “an independent body to review and establish the amount of compensation in advance of actual payment, use of appropriate comparability data to establish the compensation, and contemporaneous documentation of the process used to establish the compensation in the particular instance.”)  And what this means is that the burden of proofing that the compensation awarded the ODTKE is “excessive” falls to the IRS.  (And it seems that everyone and her and his brother want to cry “Excessive compensation!” when it comes to how much the head of a nonprofit is earning.)  Obviously, therefore, the IRS would not like an over-reliance on that rebuttable presumption.  (Which probably explains why the IRS is also doing a “full examination” of those schools!)  Message #3:  Truly do your homework in determining your highest paid ODTKE’s compensation, and should you claim a rebuttable presumption, a) be prepared for your “full examination” and b) make sure your rebuttable presumption is solid!

My messages have been, intentionally, a little glib.

So, message #4:  be aware!  You are on your own.  It is a rare oversight agency that is about helping the organizations it oversees.  Rather, for the most part, oversight agencies tend to be about compliance:  did you dot your i’s and cross all of your t’s?  And if not, and here they come down hard, why not?  What are you hiding? With what are you trying to get away? How are you trying to cheat?

My final message is anything but glib.  The IRS has put the nonprofit sector on notice:  the 990 is a serious document; treat it as such!  It is reading them—closely.

The world looks to the nonprofit sector as the caring, nurturing sector of the economy.  We think of ourselves in that way, as well.  But honestly, we do not have a lock on those descriptors.  While there are many nonprofits that, regardless of their mission, do truly embrace, and live, a caring nurturing mantra for their clients, employees, volunteers, communities, and the world, there are for-profits that do so as well.  And there are certainly many nonprofits and for-profits where ideas such as caring, compassion, kindness are never discussed, let alone lived.

All of that said, however, I do believe that there is a spoken—“Of course nonprofit employees don’t expect to be paid a decent wage; they work for doing good, not a pay check”—and unspoken expectation that nonprofits will live by a strong(er) moral order and code, where equity, fairness and inclusivity dominate and clear distinctions between right and wrong are noted and abided.  But do we really and fully?  Or, do we pick and choose how and when.

For example, how many scandals that stem from illegal activity happen at nonprofits about which the world—including donors–never knows?  Too many!  (And yes, the same question can be asked of for-profits, and answered similarly.  But sadly, society’s expectations, as noted above, seem to differ for the two sectors).

While your mind may have immediately raced to the abuse scandals of the Catholic Church, I’m thinking of many more examples:  sexual harassment that leads to a dismissal but not a criminal prosecution; embezzlement that leads to a termination and an effort to recoup the stolen assets, but not a criminal prosecution; the theft of organizational property that leads to a firing but no criminal prosecution.  Making these situations even worse is the fact that when called for a reference, many organizations will not reveal the wrongdoing, advised by attorneys to simply acknowledge that the person was an employee from time A to time B.

Thus, unless the terminated employee decides to tell his/her story, the nonprofit never need reveal to the general public the wrongdoing that took place within its organization.  But, by failing to call the wrongdoing what it really was—a criminal act—and prosecuting accordingly, is the organization condoning such illegal activity?  Is silence, in this case, condoning?  By possibly allowing this alleged criminal to find a new place of employment and repeat the criminal activity, is the nonprofit complicit in the wrongdoing?  Has the moral compass of these organizations gone amuck?  Or should we expect nothing other, as organizations’ responsibility are to themselves and their immediate clients and not to teaching lessons to the larger community and taking moral stands?

So, is there a moral stand on this?  Do we, as the expected protector of decency, good and community well-being, have a moral obligation to invest only in socially responsible companies and to accept donations only from socially responsible organizations and individuals?  Is our job, as a board of a nonprofit, to maximize the return on our investments even if we invest in a company not included on the Domini Index of social investments, for example?  Or, is it our job to balance that desired return on our investments with attention to the product, work conditions, employee practices, etc., of the companies in which we are investing?   Should a youth-serving organization invest in Pepsi and Coke or accept grant or sponsorship money from them? Should an organization serving ex-cons invest in Smith and Wesson, a company with a 52 week low and high of $3.75 – $6.98, respectively?  (This provides a very accessible entre into the stock market for many small nonprofits, and quite a nice return if bought and sold at the right time in that 52 week period.)  Do we as nonprofits have a moral responsibility to sacrifice return for cause?

Recently, it was announced that Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter’s program to provide a $10,000 tax credit to businesses that hire ex-cons was a failure as no businesses signed up.  Do we, as nonprofits, the sector that is expected to champion the underdog, have a responsibility to lead the way—meaning no incentives needed—in hiring those with checkered pasts?  Do we have a moral responsibility to give people a second chance—even if that isn’t what our mission is directly about?

I end where I started, for I do not have an answer on this.  Which road do we take?  There’s the low road of minimum standards of compliance, the high road of moral integrity, or a hybrid of the two — that leads us to where?

This is the story of Goldilocks and the three executive directors, though there is no happy ending here.  After all, this isn’t a fairy tale but real life!

For the last three years, I’ve been facilitating what we call CLEAR Circles (Cultivating Leadership Excellence and Responsibility) for emerging leaders.  Emerging leaders are individuals who serve in management positions reporting directly to the organization’s executive director.  CLEAR Circles started almost eight years ago for us as groups of executive directors who meet once a month for nine months for two hours of peer-to-peer problem solving.  Three years ago, we created our first circle for emerging leaders; this year we have three such circles.

Over the years and over the emerging leaders, I’ve begun to hear a theme that distresses me no end:  most executive directors don’t know how to be executive directors.

This executive director is too manic! What, the first time I heard this description, exactly did that mean, I wondered?  This is the executive director whose mantra appears to be “let’s do this; let’s do that” without any regard for how “this” or “that” will be funded, staffed, sustained, etc., let alone whether it fits with the mission.  Some might think that manic (from mania, “excessive or unreasonable enthusiasm”) much too negative an appellation for what is really very creative—do I hear some people saying “visionary”—leader.  But I would have to disagree.

The executive director who assigns idea after idea of new programs to his direct reports without regard for the implications and ripple effects for the organization as a whole, is not a leader or manager of any sort.  I’ll admit that creativity, thinking of new ways to fulfill those mission promises, is a very exciting and rewarding part of being an executive director.  But doing so without regard to sustainable revenue streams for the program, staffing, mission fit, and what starting something new will mean for existing programs is irresponsible, inconsiderate and simply bad management and leadership.  Manic executive directors scare me; they are to me the Queen of Hearts in Alice in Wonderland and may as well be saying, “Off with their heads!”  The effect is the same for the staff members who are required to drop everything and respond to this day’s or month’s “brilliant idea” and the clients who suffer as a result.

This executive director is too passive.  Apparently, there are an awful lot of executive directors out there who cannot say “No,” “Enough,” “This has to stop,” “We have to let you go,” etc.   Yet, at the same time, they have no problem letting their direct reports be their “hatchet” person, the no-sayer (which is very different from being a nay-sayer), the deliver of “uncomfortable” news.  What is that about?  And apparently, there are an awful lot of executive directors out there who are very mysterious—and I don’t mean exotic and exciting.  I mean it is a mystery as to what it is that they do!  This is the executive director who is out more than she is in, the one who is so frequently unavailable, whether in the office or not, the one who can only do one thing at a time (though expecting everyone else to juggle incessantly), the one who never responds to anything.  This is the executive director, who, in essence, leaves the ship rudderless but empowers no one to pick up the slack.

This executive director is too irresponsible—my label, not the emerging leaders.  They are much, much kinder and talk about the need to “manage up.”  Managing up is a euphemism for making a boss’ life easier while the employee takes more and more onto her plate.  Things that the boss should be doing!  I know that many management gurus and career coaches think that managing up is good:  it gets the one managing up noticed, builds his skill set, demonstrates competence, etc.  To me managing up sounds like enabling the boss to continue not to do his work while someone else works 12 hour days and the boss gets all of the credit.  Oh, what fun!  May I please be the one to do that?

It is true that there are times when a good, strong executive director should be creative and enthusiastic to turn around a dying organization or breathe new life into a service area.  Yes, there are times when, in an effort to develop someone’s leadership potential, it is right for the executive director to step back and say, no, this time I think you are ready to do this unpleasant task and severe the relationship with this consultant.  And, absolutely there are times when it is good for the executive director to work unnoticed in the background, perhaps laying the ground for someone else to receive the kudos and attention.  And there is no doubt always room to provide the boss with a little nudge and offers of support.  But these are sometime things and should be part of the same human package.  No one of them should ever be the dominant modus operandi of an executive director.

I know near perfect executive directors are out there.  If you see Goldilocks, point her in the right direction.  She’s feeling rather tired.

Leadership Ventures, a nonprofit in Indianapolis with a mission to build and support the volunteer and executive leadership of nonprofits, has only one message on its multi-page website.  It is a “Dear John” letter addressed “Dear Friends.”  As of 30 June 2010, Leadership Ventures will severe its relationship with the world, closing down, a causality, so they say, of the economy.  To me, it is the causality of shortsightedness and a failure to understand.

I do not know Leadership Ventures; in fact, I only learned of them in reading about their demise.  So, why am I mourning?  It isn’t the first and it won’t be the last nonprofit to close its doors; and, as readers of this blog know, I am a fan of slimming down the nonprofit sector.  So, why do I want to scream at the top of my lungs?

People simply do not understand the importance of nonprofit boards.  They do not understand the important job—and yes, it is a job, albeit that wonderful oxymoron of descriptors, a volunteer job—that boards have to do for the nonprofits they lead.  They do not understand the immense value-add nonprofit boards can bring to the nonprofits they lead.  And because they do not understand this, they do not recognize the significance of professional development to allow those in this volunteer job to develop and/or hone the skills and knowledge needed to do this job well.  The need for professional development does not impugn the skills and knowledge that board members bring with them, the skills and knowledge that they use day in and day out in their day jobs and may bring to bear around their nonprofit board table.  Professional development specifically for board members, however, addresses the unique roles and responsibilities of being a nonprofit board member, it helps board members grow into being the best board member they can be.  And based on the thousands of board members I’ve met over the decades—whether serial board members like myself or first-timers, and everything in between—every one of them could use some help in being stronger, better board members.

And the good Board of Leadership Ventures found that out.  To fuel their decision making process, the Board commissioned a feasibility study to understand for real whether there was a need for the services of Leadership Ventures.  Their data showed “a high need for governance training and the development of charitable leadership.” Leadership Ventures had been providing that service, having helped over 30,000 paid and volunteer leaders over the course of their lifetime.  So, that was the good news.  The bad news was that the study also found that “the resources are not there to sustain them.”  Huh?

A nonprofit has the data to prove a) the need for its service, b) the successful provision of that service and c) the absence of competition for that service, but no one wants to fund them going forward.  What am I missing?  Why do we—board members and donors—not understand the centrality of board work to the success of a nonprofit? Why do we—board members and donors—accept the fact that professional development is of the essence in our day jobs but not in our volunteer jobs?  How do we—board members and donors—let a champion of achieving the best nonprofit boards possible close its doors—in Indianapolis, small or large town, USA, anywhere?  Don’t we understand that without educated, smart-working boards, nonprofits will only be a shadow of their full potential?

Merriam Webster defines empathy as “the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another of either the past or present without having the feelings, thoughts, and experience fully communicated in an objectively explicit manner.”  Say what?

WordNet, brought to us by Princeton University, puts it nice and sweetly, defining empathy as “understanding and entering into another’s feelings.”  Well,  according to a recent study from the University of Michigan’s Institute for Social Research, current college students are not nearly as good at understanding and entering into another’s feelings as college students of the 1980s and 1990s were.  This, you might think, doesn’t bode well for the nonprofit sector, but I am not so sure it matters in the least.

Let’s begin with the questions.  And, please, do not get me wrong:  I am a long-time fan of the work of the Institute for Social Research and believe that the Institute and folks affiliated with it do great, great work.  But some of these questions are ridiculous, and in some cases violate the rules of constructing good questions.  And I know it is a little late in the game to be quibbling over the questions, because if these are the questions used 30 years ago, then these are the questions that have to be used today if comparisons to the past are to be made.  I fully understand that, as a point of logic and as a researcher myself.  But how do you ask if they have tender and concerned feelings about people less fortunate than they.

I confess, I do not generally have tender feeling towards them, but I am always greatly concerned about them, to the point that I will and do take action.  I cannot answer that question with a 5 (out of 5).  Does that make me not empathetic?  And when I see someone being taken advantage of, unless they are in some ways incapable of helping themselves, I do not, as the question asks, feel protective of them; I do, however, feel enraged and want to take action to prevent such behavior happening again.  Once again, I could not answer this question with anything close to a 5 (out of 5).  And I cannot answer “correctly” (by which I mean the right answer for an empathetic person) the question that asks whether I am “quite often” touched by things that I see or the one inquiry as to whether I am “soft hearted.”  Yet, in answer to the question that asks directly, how well does the statement “I am a very empathetic person” fit you, I can answer that question, in a heartbeat, with a 5 out of 5.  I have now taken the survey three times, each time getting a different score (which should NOT happen in good research), ranging from below the well below the average of current college students–51 out of a possible score of 70­­–to an equal spread above current college students.  Take the survey yourself.

Taking the survey for the first time and seeing where I fell, which was above the current college student average, I began to wonder.  I’ve spent my whole career working in the nonprofit sector, working to help others; and this work began in elementary school.  Have I gotten less empathetic with age?  Or, does empathy, as measured on this standard of empathy measurement, not really mean much when it comes to how we actually conduct our lives?

So, I asked the seven other folks who work at The Nonprofit Center to take the survey and let me know their scores (anonymously, if they preferred).  I wanted to check things out:  did I need to be worried that the future generation of leaders as represented by current college students isn’t going to be interested in helping others? would they abandon the good works of the nonprofit sector?

The score I received on my third taking was the lowest score among the staff here.  The score from my first taking, however, was neither the lowest nor highest, and by a considerable margin in some instances.  The lowest score was shared with me with an off hand comment to the effect of, “I must not be very empathetic.”  But when I responded to this person by saying, “But I know you would do anything for a person in need,” I was told the following story.  Driving down the street one night, this employee, let’s call her Carla, saw an elderly woman fall.  She and her friend got out of the car to help the woman but could not lift her.  A man, let’s call him Joe, walking down the street stopped, helped lift up the woman and got her to Carla’s car.  In driving the woman to her house, Carla, who had been very unhappy with how the fallen woman had eyed the man who stopped to help, made sure to converse with her friend, in a voice loud enough for the fallen woman to hear, something to the effect of how you can’t judge books by their covers.  Upon arrival at the woman’s house, Carla helped her up the steps, made sure she was settled, asked if there was anyone—friend or relative—who she could call, and then left.  And yet Carla’s empathy score fell below that of the least empathetic college generation in 30 years!

The demonstration of empathy is not how we score on a test; it is how we chose to live our lives, day in and day out.  Fifty-one out of 70:  you don’t scare me!

But just in case, here’s a link on how to increase your empathy.

I subscribe to several virtual clipping services that send me, daily, the headlines of stories about nonprofits from around the country and, occasionally, from around the world.  I subscribe to several because, despite the redundancy, there are, more often than not, unique items on each service.

But why do I do this?  I get more than enough e-mails on a daily basis so why add more that I need to read?  First, it allows me to maintain a national perspective.  Are the things going on in Philadelphia, for example, unique to the City of Brotherly Love or is the same thing happening in The Big Apple, Sin City and/or The Big Easy?  Second, it allows me to keep on top of the recurring issues that plague nonprofits, big or small, old or new, mid-Atlantic or southwest.  Third, it helps frame some of what we develop and do here at The Center.   And fourth, it keeps me chuckling!

To wit, one of today’s clipping services had the following combination of stories that had my going.  Headline number one:  “Again—Politics and Charity Strange Bedfellows.”  Nothing strange about it.  It just shouldn’t be!  It is right up there with dating your boss or having the executive director be on the board or nepotism.  There are some things that simply do not go together.  In this case, the strange bedfellows are a California state senator running for a US congress seat who used $175,000 from his state senate political account (which, by California law can be used to make a donation but cannot be used to fund a Congressional race) to make a donation to a Colorado-based nonprofit—actually, according to his latest campaign report, it was a $25,000 donation and a $150,000 loan.  In turn, the Colorado nonprofit ran ads a few weeks before the election featuring the state senator promoting a concert for veterans at a resort and casino that appears to be in the district of the sought seat.  The ads were not an endorsement of the politician, but timing is everything and perception is absolutely reality.  There is nothing strange about these bedfellows, though plenty of other adjectives can apply:  imprudent, unwise, ill-advised, injudicious, and just plain stupid.

My favorite headline of the day, however, was this one:  “Charity that Protects Rhinos Condones Their Killing.” I confess that I had to read the headline several times, sure that the writer had confused his condones and condemns or that the proof reader had fallen asleep at the job.  But, alas, neither of those thoughts was the truth of what happened; the truth is the headline.  It seems that the British charity, Save the Rhino (and the name mostly says its mission) has created one of the most convoluted logics I’ve ever had the struggle of trying to understand in exchange for, to date, £32,000 (around $47,000).  Save the Rhino has linked horns with Safari Club International, an organization that auctions off rhino “trophy hunts to [wealthy] shooting enthusiasts.”  Excuse me?  I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall of that board meeting as the trustees figured out how to justify putting the words “save” and “trophy hunting”  in the same sentence!  But it gets better when you hear the “logic” from Save the Rhino.  It uses phrases like not being “sentiment-driven” and “sustainable use of animals” with “not wanting to see animals killed” and “looking at all the different ways we can make sure we get money for conservation coming in.”  Sustainable for whom?  The rhinos or Save the Rhino?  It seems that Save the Rhino has shifted its sight from mission to rhino derriere.  What was this organization thinking?

Nonprofits, pay attention! We do not operate in a vacuum; our actions do have consequences; others are watching and adding two and two and getting four.  There is rarely any truly any easy money.  Think carefully about the implications of what you do, no matter the size of the “reward” money being offered.  You do not want to be the headline that makes folks chuckle.

Back in the early days of the third coming of the women’s movement in the United States, by which I mean the 1960s movement, there was a push, which for many continues today, for women to seek out and use other women providers.  You needed a plumber?  Find a female plumber or “Plumber and Daughter.”  You wanted to consult an attorney?  Go to the female associate or the woman in solo practice.  And so on.  The thinking was that we would support our community—our sisters–and by doing so, we would all grow stronger together.

Some years later, environmentalists adopted the mentality, and proudly put it on bumper stickers for all to see, “Think globally, act locally.”

These two ideas had a head-on collision in my brain as I learned of a nonprofit facing the possibility of dissolution because the local branch of the bank that held its line of credit was now having its strings pulled by the new owners of the parent company.  Historically, the local branch understood the cash flow vagaries of the nonprofit.   It knew what was happening in the state legislature with funding for this part of the sector, and how the county government was behaving.  It knew, first hand, the track record the nonprofit had of almost maximizing the credit limit and then paying it back down to zero.  It knew that this nonprofit was not only good for the repayment but good for the community.  After all, both the bank and the nonprofit are/were of the community.  Both had a vested interest in ensuring the success—and future—of the other.

The sad part is that we see this every day.  Nonprofits take their business out of their communities, stop acting locally, oftentimes forsaking the independent provider for the larger, “we can do more” provider.  Are pennies saved?  Probably.  Is the “more” being used?  Probably not.  Are sustaining relationships established? the kind that will work with you through the hard times because of that history between you, because of the shared investment in the community?  Most likely not.

This is not a “You’ve Got Mail” story, where all independents are good and large conglomerates bad.  Size has nothing to do with this story.  Rather, this is a who is your community and what do you owe that community story?  It is a who is invested in your community to the same degree that you are story?  Nonprofits are constantly looking for others to invest in them.  In fact, we’ve raised that to an art.  In the process, however, we seem to have forgotten that relationships are reciprocal, and that we, too, must give back.  If we want to serve our community we must invest in that community to ensure its richness and sustainability.