Nonprofit University Blog

Sometime after Newsweek and The Daily Beast joined forces, the last page of each issue of Newsweek is now “My Favorite Mistake.”  Each issue some bigwig—from business, entertainment, even politics,  talks about his/her favorite mistake that s/he has made along the way.

Sometimes, they have been game-changers in that person’s life, such as Paula Deen reluctantly leaving her home town of Albany, Georgia; other times, it was just a hugely embarrassing moment, such as Jeremy Irons, fixated on finding out when it would be appropriate to smoke at a luncheon at which he was sitting next to Princess Diana, lit up after getting both her permission and a chastising for doing something harmful to his health, only to realize the next day that it has been National No Smoking Day.

As the first month of the new year ends, I thought I would share some of the common mistakes that we see nonprofits make over and over, in hopes that, going forward in 2012, fewer will repeat the mistakes of others.

1. Do not use “being corporate-like” as a universal slur in the nonprofit sector.  Having a succession plan or marketing protocols or forecasting out five years is not a negative, but best practices of all sustainable organizations, for-profit or nonprofit.  There are good businesses practices that we should take from the corporate world, unapologetically, while leaving others behind.
2. Do not bury your head in the sand, or at worst, encourage, or at best, allow, your board to do the same.  The longer you ignore a problem, the more difficult it will be to resolve.  That goes for a staff or board member who needs to be removed for underperforming or that grant report that isn’t going to be as strong and positive as you had hoped, to taking a hard, honest look at the financial future for your organization.
3. Do not ignore the concept of ROI—return on investment.  In business and in personal investing, the axiom “it takes money to make money” is widely accepted as valid.  You can’t increase your money in the stock market without risking some money with which to invest.  Yes, it is a risk, yet millions of people do it every day.  Why? Because it is a calculated risk based on sound analysis.  Thus, hiring a dedicated staff person to increase raised income is a calculated risk that, if done correctly, more often than not pays off.  Engaging a development consultant to a feasibility study for a major donor campaign is more likely to lead to a successful outcome than is setting the purpose and goal for the campaign on wants, hopes and wishful thinking.
4. Do not act as a mobile phone company in building your board.  Leave connecting friends and families to the phone companies and build your board strategically, based on the expertise, connections, demographics, and personality traits that the board, and organization, need in order to be successful.  Look in places beyond your smart phone for these new board members.
5. Do not run a program, nonprofit or board as if it were Twitter and Facebook.  There you “like” people and programs for the mere sake of liking.  In running a program or organization and managing a board, performance comes first; liking comes second.  Just because you let someone go because s/he is underperforming does not mean you cannot like that person.  But liking someone is not necessary and sufficient for allowing him/her to stay in a position, paid or volunteer, if what that person needs to get done isn’t getting done in the expected and sought manner.
6. Do not assume that you are great, special and wonderful simply because you are a nonprofit and, therefore, everyone should be more than happy to help you for free!  You run a business and so do the vendors from whom you are looking for help.  Consultants, accountants, lawyers all need to run profitable businesses so that they can be there next month, next year, when you need their help again.  Profitable, however, does not always mean obscene hourly rates, but more often than not rates that cover costs and allow for a little profit for wiggle room.  Remember, you are one of almost one and a half million nonprofits in this country alone, all thinking they are special, wonderful and deserving of all of the free help they need.   There is only so much that any one individual or organization can give away for free and still survive.
7. Do not chase dollars and forsake your mission simply because we are going through tough economic times.  Nonprofits exist to serve their missions and the economy in which we operate does not change that proposition.  Rather, develop a strong business model that supports the programs that serve that mission.
8. Do not forget the people who, day in and day out, are in the trenches making sure your mission is carried out.  A tough economy is no excuse for trampling on the good will, psyche and morale of employees.  Expressions of gratitude are free and go a long way to boosting employee morale; random shortened workdays—coming in late, going in early—cost little and garner great return.

This list could go on and on, but this will do for starters.  This is not meant as criticism, but rather as a favor, hoping to allow you to see yourselves in others, learn from their mistakes and do better going forward.

Several years back, a funder introduced me to a group of her grantees as the “bad cop” in the tag team which was about to do a presentation, a persona that continues today.

Call me what you will, but I am on a crusade to help you help yourself, your organization, your group move forward so that you can maximize the delivery of your mission.

Earlier this week, I had a 45 minute, heartbreaking conversation.  And despite that, I played the bad cop throughout.  Telling the truth, telling it directly, doesn’t have to come off as an attack.  Perhaps if we worried less about hurting people’s feelings and more about the goal that needs to be accomplished, individually and collectively, we’d all be more successful.  Of that, I’ve no doubt.

This intense conversation was with an executive director who is at the end of her two year plus rope trying to get her board to do its job.  She has educated, encouraged, nudged, pushed,  brought in outside experts.  She’s even tried leading.  All to no avail!  Nothing has moved.

After a recent attempt by an outside expert to move this board off the dime, the newest board member sent an email to the full board outlining what needed to be done, what he was willing to do and asking others to get involved.  Besides the executive director’s response, he got one other response.  He never even heard from the board president!  As a small organization, no matter how well she does her job as executive director, no matter how hard she works, the ability to maximize that mission is truly curtailed by a board that fails to do its job.

Years ago, when I was teaching undergraduates, I had a very bright young woman who was clearly struggling with an addiction of some sort.  At first, I thought it was alcohol; later decided it was drugs.  Turned out it was both.  I probed gently, then more seriously.  She responded; told me her story, her issues, her addictions.  I tried repeatedly to get into rehab, into counseling, to talk to skilled counselors and not just me.  She had no problem spilling her heart out to me, telling me all that was wrong, but never listened to my suggestions, advice.  I even offered to take her to a counselor, rehab, etc.  I turned to a friend who was an addiction specialist and she told me that I could do all the talking, all the leading, all the handholding I want, but until the addict wanted to be helped, nothing I did would make a difference.  One night, I got a 3:00 am phone call from this student; she had hit rock bottom.  I picked her up, took her to 30 day program and to her hard work and credit, she’s been clean ever since.

I have come back to addiction theory again and again in working with nonprofits—individuals, boards, organizations.  Until the individual, board, organization, etc. wants to be helped—and I mean truly wants to be helped—there is nothing anyone else can do, except go through the motions.  Or, worse, which we see all of the time, enable the addiction by doing for the addict.

The executive director who takes over the event that the board swore it was going to run is enabling.  The executive director who writes all of the handwritten notes on the solicitations and all of the handwritten thank yous because the board hasn’t stepped up to the plate is enabling.  The executive director who goes out and recruits new board members because the board simply wrings its hands, is enabling.

There are those who love the problem so much, they really aren’t interested in a solution.  They love to talk about the problem, massage the problem, look at it every which way from Sunday.  And the worst part is that in talking about it, again and again ad nauseum, people actually think they are making progress.  And calling in an outside expert to talk about the problem shows just how serious they really are.  But truly fix the problem?  But fix the problem? Don’t be ridiculous.  Who throws their love object away?

This isn’t a one-off problem.  It gets repeated again and again in my email, my phone calls, my face-to-face conversations.  Today, I talked with a wanna-be executive director whose current executive director told her board a year ago that she would be leaving the end of 2012.  For most of 2011, I heard this wanna-be talk, again and again, about the board that had done nothing to prepare, about the executive director who seems to have already “retired” and how she was doing it all.  January 2012, everyone is still in the same place as a year ago, and it now looks like the board will just “tweak” the job description to make it fit her.  And, surprisingly, she still wants the job.

I had another conversation with a member of a senior management team who is saying a year later the exact same things she said about her boss, her organization’s position, her co-workers, her potential for growth in the organization, her frustrations, her disillusion.  If you listened to a recording of our conversations we have had on a rather periodic basis throughout the year, it would be impossible to know which was first, second, third, except for the fact that my urgings and suggestions become less enthusiastic, as the neon of the signs blinked brighter and brighter.  These people are in love with their problems; they’ve yet to hit rock bottom—if they ever will.

This is a trap into which too many nonprofit employees far too easily fall.  After all, most work in the sector to help, to try to make things better.  Guilt rises quickly and furiously, like bile in the throat, at the thought of walking away leaving things unfixed.  So, people hang-in there, go back, try again—and again; soon, the dent in the wall is a full-fledged chasm and years have gone by.  Truth is, this is not helping—anyone or anything; it is only hurting.  Good people with expansive energy, first rate ideas and strong skills are wasting their assets on people and organizations that do not want to achieve greatness, let alone mediocrity.

All of us in the nonprofit sector—from staff to board to other volunteers—must practice loving the solutions more than we love the problems.  Or, we must succumb to our own addiction.

There’s a happy face on the cover of the current issue of the Harvard Business Review.  Never, ever thought I’d see that!  It’s the come-on for the issue’s theme:  happiness.  Here is HBR, in many people’s minds one of the premiere business journals, doing a whole on happiness in the workplace:  what makes people happy on the job, how happy employees work better, how happiness can increase the odds of being successful, how happy employees make for more profits, and more.

The idea is such a no-brainer, you have to wonder why people haven’t embraced it sooner.  Perhaps they were waiting for the data, which is now here in bulk.  Daniel Gilbert, social psychologist on Harvard’s faculty and author of Stumbling on Happiness, is interviewed in this issue of HBR.  He says, “I know of no data showing that anxious, fearful employees are more creative or productive.  … people are happiest when they’re appropriately challenged—when they’re trying to achieve goals that are difficult but not out of reach.”

Again, and not to impugn any of the scientists working to prove these statements true, as I always prefer to have scientific knowledge to back up my behavior and thinking, this is a “Duh!” moment and not an “Ah ha!” one.  Gretchen Spreitzer and Christine Porath, from the University of Michigan and Georgetown University respectively, have an article in this issue entitled, “Creating Sustainable Performance.”  They write,”Happy employees produce more than unhappy ones over the long term.  They routinely show up at work, they’re less likely to quit, they go above and beyond the call of duty, and they attract people who are just as committed to the job.”

So, why are so many nonprofit employees unhappy?  Because they work in environments that, and for bosses and with colleagues, who squelch “happiness.”  I don’t need to list or describe what this looks like; you know it.  You know it because either you’ve been unlucky enough to either have worked in or are currently experiencing such a workplace environment or you have a friend or family member who has experienced this lack of luck.  It is a work environment where it simply is not possible to thrive.

Spreitzer and Porath point out that happy employees are, in fact, thriving:  they are satisfied, productive and “engaged in creating the future.”  What employee wouldn’t want to feel satisfied, productive (because then you must be valued) and responsible not just for what has already been but for what has yet to occur?  In their vision of vitality, there are two components working simultaneously:  vitality and learning.  They point out four things that an employer can do to create a thriving work environment—and not one costs a dime!

1. Give employees the discretion to make decisions.  Too tight a rein and you dampen vitality.  Uncomfortable with this seemingly open-ended invitation? There are tools for that!
2. Share information throughout your organization, rather than dispensing it as if were something that needed to be earned to know.
3. Love this one:  “minimize incivility.”  Truly, did we need scholars to tell us that working in an uncivil workplace isn’t a recipe for happy workers?
4. Provide performance feedback.  Not the stuff formal stuff that comes with paperwork and formal meetings and is all too frequently, and wrongly, tied to compensation, but the small stuff, the good stuff—and the bad.

The trouble, too often, is that the folks who foster the type of workplace where employees cannot thrive—and be happy—are the very same people who lack self-awareness and objectivity, those who cannot take a step back and ask of themselves, let alone others, “How am I doing?” And, far too often again, these are the very same leaders whose boards do not do performance evaluations—and I am talking about the formal kind here.  These are the boards that have no to little clue as to what is happening in the workplace, the status of morale, the rate of turnover, etc.  And yet, these are the very same board members who have been, for the last three years, making decisions about whether to freeze or cut salaries, reduce hours, put programs on the shelf, and more.

To be honest, I am not terribly hopeful about the number of unaware rulers of their roosts waking up, board members suddenly seizing their rightful responsibilities.  So, let me complete the cycle and pass on Spreitzer’s and Porath’s tips that any and all of us should do to take control of and improve the quality of our worklives.

1. Take breaks for renewal.  Not talking long, but long enough to break out of the mire, breath and come back a bit refreshed.  So, take a stroll, meditate, read something relaxing, do a crossword.  Heck, tweetfor five minutes or so!
2. Take it into your own hands to make your work more meaningful; don’t sit around waiting for something to fall into your lap.
3. Look for and seize those learning, growth opportunities.  Even in flat, small nonprofits, there are opportunities to step out of your comfort zone and do something different.
4. Stick with the satisfying, energizing relationships at work; ditch the ones that take you down

I’ve written before about the body of research showing that a simple thank you or a small acknowledgement of a job done well rewards so many of us more than money.  I’ve written about Daniel Pink’s work revealing all of the research that shows that other things that have nothing to do with money—flexibility, the ability to be creative, independence—make for happier, more productive employees.  And yet, things don’t seem to change.

We don’t need money to make our employees happy.  (It doesn’t hurt, but there is so much more we can and should be doing.)  Gilbert, in his interview, notes the work of psychologist Ed Diener that has demonstrated that frequency of positive experiences is a better predictor of happiness than the intensity of those experiences.  So, how about we all just start being nicer to one another? 

Here’s a new year’s resolution that doesn’t show up on the routine list  of working out more, spending less , being a better person.  But it should be one of the ones that you don’t break—ever.

Everyone must adopt a code of ethics and live by it, no ifs, ands or buts.  I’m almost embarrassed to be writing this, to be suggesting that people in the nonprofit sector don’t routinely operate from an ethical base.  After all, we are supposed to be the “good guys,” the decent ones, the ones who are good because we do good.  All too often, though, this seems to happen while lying through our teeth, sidestepping the truth, telling only what we think others want to hear while deciding for them what they don’t need to know.  Turns my stomach, actually.

Over the holidays, I was introduced to a television show that is currently in its fourth season.  (That tells you something about my television watching habits.)  The show is “Leverage,” where a group of four criminals lead by a mastermind non-criminal use hacking, fighting, grifting, and thievery to avenge the wrongs done by greedy, ruthless, unethical people to give back to their victims who are without redress—or where the only redress is an iffy one through a system that will take way too long to review their grievances.

They are modern day Robin Hoods who use criminal behavior to avenge others’ criminal and unethical behavior in order to make things right for the victims!  Yup, here two wrongs do seem to make a right.  The characters of Leverage have a very clear code of ethics; when they stray or start to stray, the others in the group quickly call them on it.  (It may come as a surprise to some, but criminals most definitely have a code of ethics of their own; it may not be yours or mine, but it is theirs.  Some codes say never use guns, or victimize the elderly; all have child molesters as the scum of the scum who deserve whatever they get).

Regrettably, it seems that those of us in the nonprofit sector have to be reminded that we, too, must have a code of ethics by which we live our professional lives (and, I would hope, personal lives, as well, but that’s not my purview in this blog); and our peers, and bosses, must call us on it should we start to stray.  So, if the shoe fits, consider yourself called!  Perhaps we have enjoyed, a little too heartily, pointing the fingers of one hand at the greedy, dishonest, manipulative bankers who many believe brought down the economy while all too frenetically patting ourselves on our backs with the other hand.  All as we walk into the board meeting knowing we will distort reality “a tad” so the board won’t know, or agreeing to do what a client wants even though best practices say that what is wanted is far from the right thing to be doing, or saying your board member donation is truly a stretch gift while we give to another charity three times as much, or chasing money instead of chasing mission, or telling a grantee to go left when center is really what is “right” and best.  Too often I see individuals’ end goals trumping organization good and–ethics.

Somewhere along the way, we seem to have lost sight of professionalism, favoring doing what is best for me at all costs over being a professional.  A somewhat fungible concept, I, and apparently quite a few others, think that David Maister hits a key element of professionalism when he says it is “never compromising your standards and values.”  This, of course, assumes first and foremost that you have a clearly defined set of standards and values and that your organization does, as well (its core values, is a good place to start).  It might include such basic things as honesty, integrity, doing no harm, bringing no shame to more complicated things such as protecting the dignity of all, courage and walking the walk.  And then, of course, it requires that we hold ourselves accountable to those standards and values.  Not compromising.  Strong language, that!

In 2012, let’s see the sector that does good truly do so by being good, ethical and professional.  It would be terrific if all involved, from mission-driven organizations and their employees to funders to consultants and vendors, agreed to commit to being truthful and candid, as opposed to expedient and self-serving; courageous, and follow the perhaps more difficult, yet right and less convenient path rather than the easy one;  risk-takers and say no when saying yes would compromise integrity, best practices, the best interest of others rather than enhance self-interest; and respectful, such that we value the importance of bringing benefit to others (and organizations) even if it means we, ourselves, do not benefit.  And my list could go on and on.

The important thing is that we all have such lists, such values and standards which we do not bend, no matter what.

This is going to sound all wrong, but would everyone and their mothers, brothers, aunts and uncles just stop fundraising? Please!

I just went to my browser and there was a message asking me to join a bunch of celebrities and “do good for the world this holiday season.”  Seriously?  My browser is now doing fundraising?  It wants me to give money to celebrities’ causes merely because they are celebrities?  How dumb does my browser think I am?  (Or, how dumb is the vast majority of the world?)  I know the intentions are good, but I fear more harm than good is actually resulting.

First, intellectually I understand the draw of stars (though personally it makes zero sense to me), but what my browser and its celebrities are doing is creating competition in a one-off venture instead of creating one-on-one sustained relationships.  It would be a much more powerful and beneficial arrangement if each celebrity worked directly with a charity, becoming its celebrity spokesperson and working with the charity to craft a special holiday campaign message.  And then, not to disappear after the holidays are over.  Truth is, charities need money to do good for the world all year ‘round. And truth is, people get the same tax break, if that matters to them, whether they give January 1st, December 31^st  and any time in between.

Second, people should be giving to good causes who run good businesses and do an excellent job of delivering on their mission.  Just because a celebrity selects a charity doesn’t mean that the organization is doing a good job of delivering on that mission.  As you may recall from my previous post, this year’s purchase of Christmas ornaments that I bought for my nieces and nephews all support a nonprofit.  Before I purchased the ornaments, I checked out the 990s of all of the organizations.  Even though my contribution was small by many standards, I wanted to be as confident as I could, not knowing the organizations personally, that my money would be used well and wisely.  Over the decades, I’ve seen too many celebrities endorse organizations that are, sadly, more flash than delivery, more Oz than function.  We should all want our contributions, regardless of the amount, to be used for really doing good—and doing it well.

Third, in this particular event, the browser will donate $25,000 to the cause that raises the most money during this challenge.  I’d much prefer that the company make a smart, business decision on where to give its $25K rather than rewarding a popularity contest.  All of these on-line contests where people “vote” for their favorite charities and that brings in money is nice for revenue but it isn’t good for building a donor base which is what builds sustainable donors and, in turn, sustainable nonprofits.  One-time money is nice if there is a one-time need.  But if it isn’t for that purpose, then it is anything but nice unless the organization has the ability to replace that money going forward with continuous funds.

Fourth, while the vast majorities of nonprofits can always use more financial assistance today, and every day, we all also need our donors to be committed donors.  Thus, we need them to be thinking donors, donors who have not just a true passion for our mission but who also believe in the ways and means in which we are delivering our mission.  We need them to like and believe in what and how we do things more than the next organization feeding the homeless, protecting the environment, educating our youth, exposing us to culture, etc.  We need them to love us for us, and not for the celebrity who linked his/her name to us for the holidays.

And fifth, celebrities tend to pick “big” nonprofits to support—nonprofits that work across the globe, a continent, a country.  These are important causes and many do great work.  Just as there is a “Small Business Saturday” where shoppers are supposed to forsake the large, chain retailers and shop the small, local businesses, we need always to “shop” the small, local nonprofits that day in and day out work to make the communities where we live and work healthier, stronger, better, more vibrant, and so much more.

Development, or should I say good development, to be of true, lasting value to an organization must be tied to that organization’s ability to reach out to that donor again and again and again.  It must be a thoughtfully created cycle that is designed to nurture and value tried and true donors while always bringing on new donors.  For this to happen, donors must believe in the organization and its work, not follow their browsers.

Every year I give each of my nephews and nieces a Christmas tree ornament, from the tme they are born until they get married.  My thinking was that I didn’t want the first Christmas tree of their own to be bare or have cheesy ornaments or lacking sentiment.  When they were all young, it was easy, as “age appropriate” ornaments abounded.  As they matured, I did the hand blown glass ornaments, the themed ornaments, the sentimental ornaments.  But each year, it has gotten harder and harder—and, truth be told, more and more expensive.

This year, I confess, I was really struggling.  I was tired of the same ole, same ole.  And then I decided that this was the year for charity ornaments:  ornaments that were sold to benefit a charity.

Sad for me to admit, I decided on this course for this year while shopping in Bloomingdales after Thanksgiving.  They had a display of ornaments, each designed by a “celebrity” (only one of whom I recognized).  Some of the ornaments were pretty, some sweet; others didn’t appeal to me.  The lesser of evils–both in terms of design and charity it would support—had the creator’s name in huge pink letters across the ball.  Yuck!  Silly me:  I wanted the purchase of the ornament to benefit charity, not have the ornament be an advertisement for the charity—or worse—the ornament’s celebrity designer.

For quite some time, I have bought my holiday cards (and note cards, coffee mug and umbrella) from CASA—Court Appointed Special Advocates for Children—of Multnomah and Washington Counties (the Portland, Oregon area).  I loved the cards for the art, the artists, the cause, and the knowledge that once the production costs were covered, the money would go to CASA to help the children, perhaps even some of the very artists who created the cards.  On the back of the cards was an indication of the first name and age of the child artist and a sentence or two about CASA.

This year, I didn’t get my announcement of the availability of the cards.  At first I was annoyed:  how’d they drop me?  I’ve been such a great consumer over the years.  But then I went to the website and was immediately saddened.  There I found the following message:  “After 20 years of fundraising for CASA programs in Multnomah and Washington Counties, along with those across the country, CASA Cards must close its doors in the face of economic hardship. We sincerely thank you for your support and loyalty to our important cause for the past two decades.”  What a statement on our times.

I wanted my ornaments to be like my CASA cards, made by real people for a cause that I truly believe in.  So, I went where so many of us go these days when we are on a mission:  I went to the internet.  To my amazement, my search was so much harder than I could have imagined.  I searched widely and deeply, over and over.  Well into my searching, I hit what I was sure was the jackpot:   a site with the address www.ornaments4charity.com.  Clicking on it, I expected to find my savior:  a one stop shop for all the charities selling ornaments to fund their causes.

What I found was so much better, and what should be an inspiration for everyone.  Ornaments 4 Charity is a family endeavor:  mom, dad, a 4^th grader, and a pre-kindergartener create ornaments each year as a family service project.  Every member of the family has his or her role in the creation, packing and mailing of the ornaments and managing the business.  Each year, the family picks a different charity to support.  This year, their choice was a perfect lesson for the youngest in my family:  100% of the proceeds will go to buy fleece blankets for children in the Stephen Center (Omaha, Nebraska) and local domestic violence shelters; the blankets are the children’s to keep when they transition to permanent housing.

As you may know, I don’t live in Omaha.  The last time I was in Omaha, I was probably the age of many of the children who will receive the blankets.  But I care deeply about children who are living with turmoil, regardless of where they are.  Thus, I am delighted that my purchase of three ornaments (well, two made by the Carlsons and one packaged by the Carlsons but to be made by my nephew) will contribute to a blanket or two.  And, as I have confessed earlier in this blog, when my son was little, we struggled with how to teach him the need to help those less fortunate.  Mr. and Mrs. Carlson have come up with a creative way that allows a family of any means to act on the importance of giving back while simultaneously, and subtly, educating their children about their good fortune and the misfortunes of others.  Truly an inspiration.

Next holiday season, as I seek holiday ornaments for my nieces and nephews, I don’t want to be accosted by celebrity designed (not even made) ornaments–as if I would buy an ornament because it has someone else’s name on it!  Rather, I will head straight for Ornaments 4 Charity, while hoping that without diluting the power of the original, copycats will have reproduced, not quite like rabbits.  There is great need and millions of children needing to learn the importance of giving back.  More than enough for everyone!

Thank you, Carlson family and best wishes for the new year.

I am sure that if you are fortunate, as I am, you have eaten your way through the recent Thanksgiving holiday and anxiously anticipating the holiday feasts still to come.  Thus, I’m pretty certain that for most of you, your body is well fed.

But how’s your soul doing?  This is a need which I hear repeatedly, mostly from people explaining to me why they have decided to leave the corporate world and join the nonprofit world.  I heard it again in a recent  story on NPR about an unemployed young man in England looking to find a job; turns out his career counselor, who left a job in banking because he needed to feed his soul and help others, is himself being made redundant the middle of December.  So, feeding the soul is not simply an American need!

There is a lesson here that every nonprofit should learn—if it doesn’t know it already–and then be particularly mindful of every time it thinks of asking someone for money.  Thus, it is a particularly important lesson this time of year as hundreds of thousands of nonprofits do their end of the year appeal.  It plays directly into the course of being a donor centric organization, something I think all organizations must be.

While people who do not work in the nonprofit sector give to charities for a variety of reasons, from payback to personal connection to hope, and more, there is little doubt that for most, if not all, people also give to feed their souls.  This need to think or say “I’m helping” or “I’m making a difference” does not, in any way, diminish their gift or the other reasons spawning their giving.  But we also must be mindful of it.  And I don’t think many charities are doing so well in that department!

Reading the solicitation letters I receive or looking at solicitation ads in various media outlets, I’m not finding the soul food—the part that allows me to see how giving to this particular charity is going to redeem, let along nourish, my soul.  And I’m looking for it—not because I give to feed my soul, but because I know so many others do.  I want to see how many smart charities are out there, making it easy for donors to connect, not just give.  Much time, energy and money has been spent by nonprofits everywhere making it easy for donors to give on line, via Facebook or Twitter, using Paypal or other third-party sites.  We’ve made the act of giving as convenient as possible for the individual preferences of each donor.

I know most organizations think they have spent a lot of time and energy, maybe even money, crafting the perfect solicitation, the one that will compel the potential donor to become an actual donor.  Most, however, seem to fall way far short!  I’m hearing too much about me the organization and what we’ve done and nothing or not enough about the donor.  Instead, there should be more about what the donor wants to know and not what you want the donor to know about you.  Explain what donors’ gift investments—and, if a repeat donor, his/her investment gift, in particular—accomplished.  It isn’t about what you, the organization, did, but about what happened as a result of donors’ gifts?   In knowing the good work they enabled, donors’ souls are fed.

So, stop reading this, grab your solicitations and, with a most critical eye, submit them to review.  If you find no food for the soul, scrap them and get to work!

A number of years ago, there was a scandal within the world of academia:  it was said that some professors at some of the most prestigious institutions of higher learning were dumbing down their grading systems.  Apparently, a sizeable number of students, and parents, assumed that if you were smart enough to get into these esteemed academies, you were smart enough to receive nothing lower than a B.  Thus, no matter the true quality of your work, if you took a class with those professors who bought into that thinking, or succumbed to the pressure, you were always at least a B student.  Not bad!

We see a parallel practice in the world of nonprofits.  We allow people who are not doing their jobs, and not trying or caring to try to do their jobs well, remain in their positions, week after week, month after month, year after year.  Frequently, we even go beyond that:  we allow them to think that they are doing well by not pointing out negative behavior in performance reviews, or continuing to award raises despite the underperforming, or making excuses for them.  And just as those students who really work to earn the A or B come to resent the professor and the slackers who get the B, so do other employees come to resent the boss and the slackers who get the same rewards as they.

Why is it so hard to understand that when we allow people to believe they are smarter than they truly are, know more than they really do, are performing better than they really are, we are only hurting ourselves, our organizations, our communities?  I’ve wondered about this from my days in academia—and one who would never dumb down a grade no matter what or who asked—to my current days working to help nonprofits perform at their peak.

I continue to be baffled by this, but I recently had a little “Ah hah!” moment when I read a statement that said so and so was a “knowledge and change management expert.”  Truly, I had to read this twice.  I know that many people have a hard time accepting change and that wide scale change can pose challenges to organizational cultures and the people of that culture.  So, on some intellectual level, I get that people may want some help in moving change forward, adapting to change, etc.  It doesn’t sit well with me, and it is an indication of where we have landed as a dumbed-down society, but I’ll get to that in a second.  But an expert to help us with knowledge management?  Really?  Unless we are talking about managing the sources of the knowledge gained—the books, newspapers, research papers, journals and magazines, conversations, etc.,–just what are we talking about?  Someone is going to help me manage the knowledge in my brain?  Just how dumb have we become?

We have spent and continue to spend inordinate amounts of money on trainings, books and consultants to help us do what we no longer can figure out how to do on our own.  I am sure many readers have their favorite gurus, names I won’t bother to mention as this isn’t about one guru or another, on who you rely to tell you how to think better, lead better, succeed better, do whatever better.  In so doing, what they really have taught you is how to rely less on yourself and to have less faith in yourself.  In so doing, they have dumbed you down.

I wonder how much time and money we as a society have wasted chasing down the key to enlightenment, to being the best we can be? how much energy has been diverted looking to others to teach us how to find this magical piece of information?  how much wisdom we have missed while looking to others to teach us how to find wisdom?   how much good will we have trashed sending people to hear others, in essence, tell them they are stupid for not knowing how to organize their own knowledge? how much have we wasted relying on others instead of ourselves?

In these extremely tough economic times, nonprofits must be especially protective of their resources, financial and human, and spend them wisely.  But that does not mean that price and convenience should be the only factors under consideration.  And yet, again and again, I see price and convenience driving decisions instead of quality and benefit; convenience trumping content; time investment eclipsing return on investment.  In so doing, we have gone over to the dark side:  we have successfully dumbed down our organizations and ourselves.

I have frequently written over the years about the importance of understanding that for-profit practices are not inherently wise and good simply because they are part of the vaunted for-profit sector, and, alternatively, nonprofit practices are not inherently inferior.

Each sector has some of the right answers and/or best practices that could work equally well in the other.  We must stop automatically praising one and denigrating the other.  It is not, after all, a competition.  Each sector contributes to making our communities and our lives better.  We need trash picked up, roads and buildings built, secure places to deposit and invest our money just as much as we need preserved land, places to feed and shelter the homeless, learn new trades, pay tribute to art and culture, educational opportunities and more.

All too frequently, however, I feel as if I am blowing in the wind.  There seems to be so much mutual disdain on both sides of what appears, at times, to be a chasmic  divide, that it blinds us to seeing what we might learn from others.

Case in point:  recently, I have been doing a lot of thinking about and talking to staff and board members about fundraising.  I don’t know whether it is the end of the year and everyone’s thoughts turn to the final fundraising push (a ridiculous approach that I think we need to abandon), and there’s a lot of concern about fundraising transforming into a 24/7 activity.

I’ve also been doing a lot of work with groups on their mission statements.  The majority of people, when asked whether they “like” their mission statements, think their mission statements are good, will answer yes to both questions.  Yet, when I look at these mission statements, I think they are vague, unclear and leave me with more questions than answers.

There are four questions that a good mission statement should answer.  Most mission statements miss two out of the four—and one of those missed is, from my point of view, the most essential one to answer.  The four questions:

1. What difference or impact are you trying to make?
2. What are the categories of means you use to make that impact?
3. On whose behalf are working?
4. What sets you apart, makes you unique, vis-à-vis other nonprofits?

The first question is the one that is essential.  It answers the question of why an organization needs to exist, what would be lost if the mission were to disappear.  How often do you tell the story of your nonprofit, explaining all that you do and how you do it but never mention why you do it?  Solicitations, verbal and written, go on and on about all of the people fed, classes held, viewers attended, performances done, acres preserved, etc., but don’t explain the larger why for all of these activities.  While it is interesting to know your means, it is crucial to know the why.

Recently, I was asked by a very impressive high school senior to be part of the TedX event she was organizing at her high school.  She wanted me to talk about leading a life of passion.  She’d been inspired to select that topic by watching Simon Sinek’s Ted Talk, “How Great Leaders Inspire Action.”  Naturally, I watched Sinek’s talk.  If Sinek, talking 100% from the corporate world, doesn’t get you to understand the importance of the “why” in the nonprofit sector, then I politely suggest that you need to remove your blinders.

If you wish your organization—be it nonprofit or for-profit–to survive as an organization, you must be willing to look for the smartest advice and the very best practices, both built on solid research, regardless of side of the chasm you are on and from which side the information comes.  We all want the same thing:  success.

The rule “Don’t ask, don’t tell” is, fortunately, defunct.  At least in the military.  I think, however, it is alive and well in the culture of too many nonprofit boards:  if we don’t ask, we don’t know; if we don’t know, we can think everything is still great; if we think everything is still great, we don’t have to do anything.”  And so it goes.

This practice was the subtext running through my mind as I looked at the results of our survey checking in on executive directors’ departure plans.  This survey was prompted, as similar versions have been in the past, by CompassPoint’s release of Daring to Lead 2011.  In 2006, when the last Daring to Lead was released, we checked to see how our local picture compared with the national one; and so, in a much more down and dirty version, we did the same this time.

Though the results of Daring to Lead are interesting—

• 67% of executive directors anticipate leaving their jobs within five years; people’s plans have been delayed by a shrinking job market, loss in retirement savings, no perceived successor;
• only 17% of organizations have a formalized succession plan—and scary, our results are far more troublesome.  Actually worrisome is more correct, not because of the numbers but because of what is causing the numbers and the seemingly disregard by boards of directors for the situation at hand.  The “don’t ask” syndrome at work!
• Of the 80 executive directors who responded to our survey, only 12% said they have given very little thought to leaving their current position.  Yet 18% know they will be leaving by the end of 2012 and another 21% say they don’t have a specific departure date but will definitely be gone by 2016 at the very latest.  Another 36% say they have no time frame for leaving but seriously thinking about it.  Okay; nothing too scary there.  If we lose approximately 40% of our executive directors in the next five years, we will be ahead of the national numbers.

It is, however, the reasons executive directors give for why they will be leaving and are giving more and more serious thought to leaving that should give all of us in the sector great, great pause.  The number one reason given for leaving is retirement:  46% of respondents said it will be time to retire.  Nothing we can do about that except send them off nicely and wish them well.  But the next three cited reasons no one can ignore, not even those with a retiring executive director as I would bet large sums of money that these reasons may have contributed, for some, to a sooner rather than later retirement.

The second and third reasons for why executive directors will leave are separated by a mere percentage point and little difference in content:  40% will leave to achieve better work-life balance, something they do not feel they can do in their current position, and 39% will leave to reduce the amount of pressure they feel from their current position.  There is no surprise here, as these were the number one and two reasons we heard back in 2006.  And while it is no surprise that nothing has been done to alleviate this situation, it is extremely disappointing that nothing has been done to alleviate the situation.  But, if you don’t ask, you can’t know.  (Just like that rule in fundraising:  if you don’t ask, you can’t get!)

The fourth reason given for eventual departure really startled me, but not because of the message and only because the executive directors were willing to deliver the message outside of a private conversation.  The content I’ve heard again and again, but always in that private conversation or in a group of fellow executive directors.  The fourth reason—ranked only a percentage point below the third reason (38%)—is that executive directors are tired of trying to get their boards of directors to do their job!  Among many things that make this confession notable is the fact that fundraising fatigue in this economy ranked fifth with 31%, while overall fundraising fatigue was cited by only 29%.  In other words, board fatigue way outscored fundraising fatigue!  What does that say?

Boards, by their inaction, are pushing their executive directors out the door.  And that is their worst nightmare!  Without an executive director, the board really must step up to the plate!  So, why aren’t boards working on redressing the work-life imbalance?  Why aren’t they working on ways to reduce pressure for the executive director?  Why aren’t they learning what they are supposed to be doing as a board and stepping up to the plate?  That would be far, far easier than having to hire a new executive director that may have far less patience for the onerous conditions in the workplace and be out the door before the board settles back into complacency and has to repeat the cycle!

They aren’t working on it because they don’t know about it.  They don’t know about it because they haven’t asked.  Without the ask, the executive director isn’t telling.  So boards continue on, oblivious to the reality that awaits them when their executive director does eventually leave—which they all do, in case you haven’t figured that out.  They will not be able to simply hire a replacement, but will, instead, need to restructure that top tier of the organization, they will need to raise more money to cover the increased salary costs and they will need to be more board like and work–yup, I said it, work—in partnership with the new executive director.

CompassPoint’s title of Daring to Lead is quite appropriate.  It takes a lot of guts to step up to the plate as an executive director, particularly in these times.  But the challenge extends beyond the paid leader; the glove must be dropped at the feet of boards.  And so, I dare you to ask your executive director about her/his work-life balance? the pressure felt? the level of frustration with the board.  I dare you to give your executive director the space and comfort to answer these questions honestly without fear of reprisal and retaliation.  In other words, I dare you to lead!