Nonprofit University Blog

I am troubled by how little we learn from other people’s mistakes.  Perhaps it is arrogance that leads us as individuals and leaders of organizations to think that we are smarter than others, we could never…  But, truth is, the vast majority of us aren’t smarter than others, and we could do whatever.

There is no loss of stature or pride to say, “Oh, what a mistake that person/organization made.  Let’s just take stock to make sure I/we am/are not risking making that same mistake.”  The loss of stature and pride comes—and it comes big time—when you don’t learn from others and down the road make that very same mistake.

So, I am saddened by how few have taken stock in light of the mistakes of others, most recently Penn State and Susan G. Komen, though going back we can find so many ripe examples.  (And, please, don’t say it is too early to know whether people will learn from Komen, because it has just happened.

In light of what hasn’t happened at nonprofits in the aftermath of Bernie Madoff, Penn State and the thousands of mistakes headlined in local papers and other media month after month, year after year, there is absolutely no reason to believe that anything will happen next month, next year.)

Perhaps if I spell it out, give folks a start of a primer, it might guide the introspection and make things a little easier.

1. A board has a legal obligation to make sure that our organization adheres to the law.  As a board, however, it also has a moral obligation to create an organizational culture that is supportive of and conducive to the best possible execution of our mission and built on an ethical base.  We may, as a board and organization, go beyond the minimum set by the law; we simply may not do less.  Thus, if the law says that if you learn of an employee or someone on the facilities of our organization molesting a child, and you are not in one of a handful of positions, you must report it to your supervisor, an organization with a mission to serve, educate (intellectually, morally, physically), nurture may go beyond that and require a far more aggressive response.  Not only may we, it would seem a no brainer that we must.  How can our mission charge us with enhancing the lives of our clients, be they children, youth or adults, through whatever means—be it education, health care, food, art, etc.—and not do our utmost to protect their physical and mental health?  Is an employee of a nonprofit theatre legally obligated to report a sexual attack witnessed in a theatre bathroom?  No.  Should the moral and cultural norms of that theatre require such reporting? Absolutely yes.  Who sets those standards and expectations?  The board.

Simple questions:  board members, how many of you have had a conversation about quality of your organization’s culture? Its norms and values? Its ethical fiber?  Executive directors, how many of you have given thought, asked the board to give thought, to the ethical standards set forth for the organization?

1. It is amazing to me how little thought is actually given to the mission of an organization when decisions are made.  When board and staff are asked, in some form, the equivalent of “how well does your program/organization/board use the mission as a compass in all of its decision making?” the most common answers fall at the negative end of the response spectrum:  rarely, never, occasionally.  How is this possible?  How is it that every decision that a board, executive director and/or every other staff makes isn’t rooted in the context of “how will this decision affect our ability to deliver on our mission promises?”  How?  How is it that the decision tree—actual or just a thought processes—doesn’t carry all the way through to that end point:  how will trying to cover up the truth now play out down the road?  How will cessation of funding for a long-time grantee play out in the media?  What seems like expediency now, a good idea now, can cost a lot down the road.  Just ask the Catholic Church (specifically right now, you could ask the Archdiocese of Philadelphia), which has as part of its mission “exercising charity” and healing “the sufferings of all who are hurting.” Ask Komen how well they thought about their mission—“ to save lives and end breast cancer forever by empowering people, ensuring quality of care for all”—in deciding to rescind money from the number provider of breast screenings to poor women of all ages?

Simple question:   how well do you—be you board member, executive director or staff member—use the mission as your compass in making decisions within your organization?  Is it your guide for the big decisions and the little ones?

1. “A good reputation is more valuable than money,” so said Publilius Syrus back in the first century B.C.  Doubt many people read his maxims anymore, but perhaps this is one that should be de rigueur reading for everyone affiliated with a nonprofit. Earlier this year, Convio came out with its predictions of the top trends for nonprofits in 2012.  One of its predictions is that peer-to-peer information exchange is going to have a greater influence on individual donor decision-making than information received from a nonprofit.  In other words, people are going to be more likely to rely on referrals from family, friends and colleagues as to the good and deserving nonprofits to support with dollars (and, one might assume, time).  The December report entitled “The Study of High Net Worth  Women’s Philanthropy and The Impact of Women’s Giving Networks” found that in nearly 90% of high net worth philanthropists, women were the sole decision maker or shared the decision equally with their partners.  Further, women donors were far more likely to have a strategy to their giving, to be influenced by a personal experience with the organization and public knowledge of that organization.

Simple question:  where does your organization’s reputation stand on the net value continuum?  Just how valuable is your good name? “Regard your good name as the richest jewel you can possibly be possessed of – for credit is like fire; when once you have kindled it you may easily preserve it, but if you once extinguish it, you will find it an arduous task to rekindle it again. The way to gain a good reputation is to endeavor to be what you desire to appear.”  (Socrates)

1. Donors, bigger is not always better.  Just because a nonprofit has a national presence, a known name, a ribbon on a bazillion products or an instantly recognizable logo, doesn’t mean it is an organization worthy of your donation.  Do your homework!  Peel back that onion! There is so much good work being done by nonprofits whose names aren’t household words, which do their good works right in your community, which are totally trustworthy because they truly value every donor and their good name.  Just because an entity is a known commodity, just because you have used its services once, just because you have given in the past, is not sufficient reason for a gift; dig a little!  And then judge an organization, warts and all, on its worthiness.

Simple question:  donors, what do you really know about the nonprofits to which you give your hard-earned money?  Have you read their 990, looked at the composition of their Boards of directors, seen evidence of impact, googled the executive directors and board presidents?

None of us is perfect, nor should we expect any one or any organization to be so.  But we risk not even going in the right direction if we can’t and won’t use the bumps and chasms on other people’s/organizations’ roads to make our own smoother.  And the smoother the path of a nonprofit, the better it can be at fulfilling its mission.

Those of you read my blog know that I don’t tend to run lukewarm or be ambivalent.  Wishy washy is just not my style.  (Though I am an extreme introvert, despite what others think, and  thanks to Quiet:  The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking, I can now easily muster the evidence to prove it; that is, if I want to talk.) If I don’t like something, you know it.

I’ve ranted before about underperforming boards, those that don’t know what they are supposed to do and don’t care to learn it; those that allow a handful of board members to do it all and the rest ride those coat tails; those that repeatedly, because of their underperformance put the ability to fulfill the organization’s mission promises at risk every day, day after day.  Then there are those boards that sit back and let the executive director do it all.  And, more often than not, despite the chatter to the contrary, the executive director wants it that way.  And such control is just downright dangerous.

I have never been a fan of controlling executive directors, from those who micro manage to those who must do everything themselves.  Such a leadership philosophy only serves one end:  that of the executive director.  What it doesn’t serve, and what every executive director should be serving, is the organization’s mission.  Running a nonprofit can never, ever be about ego; it must always be about mission.  Unfortunately, that is not always the case.

My distaste for, and my angst over, controlling executive directors has been exacerbated as The Nonprofit Center is asked to do more and more work with nonprofits in the area of succession planning.  Don’t get me wrong:  I am delighted that boards are finally heeding the call and planning for what we all know is inevitable:  the departure of the executive director.  But succession planning exposes, writ large, that controlling executive director, and the hole out of which an organization must dig.  Ironically, and tragically, though, too often the digging can’t happen until the executive director has left.

I became aware of just how many “I must do it all” executive directors there actually are out there about five years ago when we started doing more work with emerging leaders—those people who report to the executive director, some of whom want to be executive directors down the road, some of whom aren’t sure and some know absolutely not!  Here, I repeatedly heard of the micro-managing leader who never gave employees room to spread their wings (or, worse, clipped them at every chance), make mistakes, recover and learn; the leader who stockpiled information as if it were gold, not even being willing to put it on display every now and then; the leader who parsed the information to the board so that it never got a full picture but just enough of a one to think all was good and the executive director even better; the leader who encouraged the development of silos as things are easier to control that way; and my list could go on and on.

What I find truly sad about this, beyond the obvious, is that there are so many executive directors out there who would love to have the capacity to hire more staff with which to share the workload and responsibly, while those with plenty of staff hoard it all as their own.

Recently, I had a conversation with several executive directors, none of whom I knew but because of how I met them I assumed “they got it.”  We were taking about strategic planning and I was asked whether the executive director needed to be on the strategic planning committee. I said no; and the reactions—the intake of breath, the tensing of the body, the stunned looks on faces—were immediate and palpable.  I went on to say that putting other senior managers on the committee (as well as other staff members, depending upon the size of the committee) was a free and wonderful professional development opportunity, giving another staff member or two an opportunity to interact with board members in a serious setting, be an organizational leader, be a communicator with the rest of staff, etc.  The executive directors’ concerns were ones of loss of control:  how will I know what is going on? how will my opinions get known?   The truth is that in strategic planning an executive director’s voice should be but one of many, and his/her opinion but one of many.  The executive director’s true value in a strategic planning process isn’t his/her vision for the organization going forward but the wealth of knowledge s/he has to bring to the table.  But, in a well-run organization (dare I say an organization prepared for an unplanned departure of the leader) there should be more than one person who has that wealth of knowledge.  And the vision that is created in the strategic planning process must reflect a process that tapped a wide array of voices that were then sifted through a filter created and held by a group.  A strategic plan built on the dominant voice of one, even if that voice is that of the executive director, is a poorly crafted plan that does a disservice to the mission and the organization’s people.

The thinking that if “I am not in the room I will not know” begs the question of communication within an organization.  There is some communication in an organization that absolutely must come top down.  But all?  Hardly.  Perhaps the constant lament that we hear from executive directors being overextended is less to do with the job of being an executive director and more with how certain executive directors do that job.  If you believe that you and only you can represent the organization internally and externally, you will be overextended.  This is where giving up control and sharing comes into play.

One of the places where an egocentric executive director—oh, did I say that? for sure, none of these executive directors would ever describe themselves that way—does an organization great harm is in not creating a shared responsibility for fundraising.  I’m not talking here, as I have before, about becoming a donor centric organization; I simply mean sharing the information, the relationships, the work for wooing donors.

Executive directors should not be puppeteers, pulling all the strings, speaking all the lines.  They should be directors, who assemble a great team, assign roles, provide general guidelines for role execution, and then step back and let the team bring its star power to the execution.

None of us likes having egg on our face. Susan G. Komen for the Cure is currently wearing it big time. As they attempt to regroup from a series of recent blunders, we can look at the Komen example and learn from it.

First mistake:  think very, very, very carefully before hiring someone who has recently run for, and lost, political office.  Or, for that matter, someone who is stepping down from political office.  Politics have never been for the weak-willed or mild- mannered.  And while there was a time when politics may truly have been about doing what was best for the whole—be that country, state, or local constituency—that is clearly no longer the case.  Today, politics is too often about personal agenda.  If you think for a moment that that personal agenda stops the second one loses a political race or steps down from office, then I have a bridge to sell you.  Unless truly ready to retire, travel the world, spend all of the time with grandchildren, politicians are always looking and angling for their next office.  This is never, ever a good match with the vast majority of nonprofits.  (For those of you unaware, Karen Handel, hired in April 2011 as Komen Vice-President for Public Policy had lost the Republican gubernatorial run-off election in Georgia in August 2010.  As of this writing, Handel has resigned under the pressure of the past week.)

Second mistake:  do not hire someone who has very publicly criticized, or, in this case, called for the cessation of funding to, a key partner in your work.  It seems ridiculous that there is a need to put that statement in writing, but clearly there is.  So, here it is.  Why would you want someone on staff, charged with helping to fulfill your organization’s mission, who damns a partner because s/he doesn’t like one of its program areas but it is doing a fabulous job of providing the service on which you have partnered?  And, going forward, how can you trust the judgment of the executive who would make such a hire?  Who would bring onto staff someone who has publicly vowed to bring down a partner organization?  If an executive can make an error of judgment of that magnitude, what other errors is that executive, and that organization, going to make?  Too risky to continue to invest in that organization!  (For those of you unaware, Karen Handel had as part of her political platform the cessation of funding to Planned Parenthood.  Yet that did not deter her being hired for her position at Komen, a position that has to report to the CEO.  In full disclosure mode, Komen’s CEO has strong ties to the Republican party, having served as ambassador to Hungary at the behest of George W. Bush and being a generous donor to the party, as well.)

Third mistake:  not thinking through, thoroughly and carefully, policies created to guide the organization’s work.  We create policies to introduce efficiency and equity into our operations and procedures.  With policies, we have a process to follow for those repeat situations, such as giving grants or accepting gifts or signing checks, so that with each instance we don’t have to start from scratch and figure out what to do.  Policies, however, work best when they are clear, precise and leave no room for figuring out at that moment what something means.  Komen’s grant giving guidelines, for example, said that any organization “under investigation” was ineligible to receive funds.  There were no adjectives qualifying that investigation.  So any investigation could disqualify an applicant: a federal investigation, a criminal investigation, an investigation by the IRS, an investigative reporter doing a story.  Lots of room for interpretation.  Does an investigation by a congressman who doesn’t like an organization constitute an investigation?  Apparently so, because it was Rep. Cliff Stearns’  (a Republican from Florida) investigation of his suspicions that Planned Parenthood was wrongfully using federal money to fund abortions that was the “investigation” that prompted Komen to make the decision to withdraw Planned Parenthood funding.   Had Komen’s board really thought through what its goal was with the policy and setting out the criteria of being under investigation—what kinds of investigation would throw up a red flag about the ability of an organization to use its funds as promised in the proposal, whether an investigation had to be based on hard evidence or just be a witch hung–the language of this policy would have been, and should have been, more precise, as all policy language should be, and the policy would have better served the organization.  It would not lend itself to manipulation by one staff member, as unnamed sources at Komen have said Handel did with the express goal of bringing down Planned Parenthood.  It would not have put Komen in the position in which it now finds itself.

Fourth Mistake:  not thinking through the consequences of a decision.  By all reports, Komen has been grappling with the funding of Planned Parenthood for some time.  Granted not all individuals interested in preventing and curing breast cancer are pro-choice; nor are they all anti-choice.  But what is well known, and supported by much evidence, is that people on both sides of the choice debate are very passionate, vocal and active.  They are not the type to sit back and let things pass them by. Thus, it should have been no surprise whatsoever to anyone that pro-choice Komen supporters would react swiftly by voicing their outrage, withdrawing funding, pouring funding into Planned Parenthood.  After all, Komen is a one-trick pony:  it is breast cancer, only breast cancer, and all the time breast cancer.

Planned Parenthood, on the other hand, is screening for breast, cervical and testicular cancer, contraception, pregnancy testing, comprehensive sexuality education, menopause treatment, testing for and treatment of sexually transmitted diseases, and, oh yes, they do vasectomies, tubal ligations and abortions, predominantly for people at or below 150% of the federal poverty level.  Komen knows it is not the only game in town, or in the country.  It should have thought through the consequences of its decision, weighed the pros and cons, and made a decision.  The fact that it could so quickly—within 48 hours—reverse a decision that should have been thoroughly examined and discussed before being announced says Komen didn’t do the very thing it should have done.

And finally, number five (although most definitely not 5^th in importance): Komen Foundation CEO Nancy Brinker is both the de facto leader of the Komen board, while her son and several close friends and political associates serve on the board.  How many worst practices are contained in this sentence?   A review of the Komen board reveals that Brinker has the likely votes to control board decisions at any given time, and that those votes are individuals personally loyal to her and of like political leanings.

As a consequence of these mistakes, Komen has lost credibility in many people’s eyes.  It has gone from being viewed by many as a rock solid nonprofit, whose ideas many have emulated, to an organization with questionable practices and very problematic thinking.  It has been accused by many of making a funding decision based on politics rather than mission and return on investment, playing favorites rather than being objective, brutal accusations for any organization to overcome.

To its credit, however, it has recognized some of its mistakes and is working to correct them  (or at least perceptions).  Or, was that, too, a political decision, with the possibility of another reversal coming down the road?

My sister’s second career is as a fifth grade teacher in a Washington, DC public school.  She is just starting the unit on the Civil War, and this year, as she has done for the last four, she introduces the unit by talking about oxymorons.  Each year, some of her students know what an oxymoron is; some don’t.  She gives the usual examples, jumbo shrimp, good grief, sweet tart.  This year, she found a new example that we both found quite amusing:

This time next year, when she starts this unit, I may have a new one for her that neither of us will find funny:  ethical nonprofit.  Many decades ago, when I was still a “naïve young thing,” I would have been aghast at even the thought of the possibility that there were unethical nonprofits.   If the organization was a nonprofit, if a person worked or volunteered at a nonprofit, s/he/it was ethical.  Period.

It is like airlines who give you tea (drink it only when sick), no roll (generally the only edible thing in an airline meal), no dessert (50-50 proposition) just because you ask for a vegetarian meal.  We don’t eat meat, but, I assure you, there are plenty of vegetarians who indulge in other things that are bad for us!  Not all vegetarians are health fanatics; not all nonprofits operate from an ethical base.  I’ve come a long way—in both my eating habits and my view of the real world!

If fact, I’ve come so far along, that increasingly, I am finding fewer and fewer nonprofits that operate from an ethical base, and that the ethical ones are the exception rather than the rule.  How dare I say this?  Let me count the ways!

1. It is completely and totally unethical to assume the position of nonprofit board member unaware of your roles and responsibilities yet go forward being a board member, pretending that you know what you are supposed to be doing.  This is how organizations end up with rogue executive directors, “misappropriated” money, bad press, scandals, etc.  Board members, please:  nonprofits are NOT in the land of make-believe; they are not a board game.  They are real organizations, with real purposes and money, and real successes and failures that have real consequences for the lives of so many.  Failure to know what you are supposed to do while continuing to “make it up as you go along” is ethically bankrupt!  If the shoe fits, correct it immediately.
2. It is unethical to use a position of power to silence those who disagree with you, who question the propriety of what you are doing, who make you uncomfortable with what you are doing.  To wit, the board of the Heifer Foundation who fired its chief executive, Domingo Barrios, because he questioned possible conflicts of interest of four board members who served on both the board of the Foundation and Heifer International, the latter founding the former to raise money for it.  (An increasingly common occurrence, it should be noted:  a large organization creates a second organization with the sole purpose of raising its money.  That phenomenon is a whole other blog in and of itself!)  If one of the legal requirements of a board member is to always put the best interests of the organization of the board on which s/he sits ahead of personal and any other interest, how can serving on two such intertwined boards not, on a regular basis, present conflicts of interest and challenge the clarity of thinking when it comes to “best interests”?  The Foundation claims that it has “established policies in place to address potential conflicts of interest,” but if everything that the press has revealed is true, it seems those well established policies failed—big time.  I’d check your moral compass if it took a lawsuit to make you question the situation.
3. It is unethical for a board member who is fundamentally opposed to a key responsibility of board members to remain on a board, all the time fighting—and not executing—that responsibility.  Board members:  if you cannot understand, for example, why board members must fundraise and refuse to do it, get off the board.
4. It is unethical for there to be familial or other personal relationships between board members and staff members.  Oh, the conflicts it raises!  Remember item 2, above, and that legal requirement of putting the best interests of the organization ahead of personal interests?  When your spouse or child, parent or sibling is on the staff of the organization for which you are providing oversight, how can you truly put aside family ties and make decisions that are in the best interest of the organization when such decisions might adversely affect a family member’s financial and psychic health and well-being?  Seems so obvious, and yet it happens again, and again, and again.
5. It is unethical to allow employees and volunteers, including board members, to remain in positions long after it has become known—and documented, if necessary—that the individual is not performing up to speed.  The ability to deliver on the promises of the organization’s mission—the whole reason everyone is there—is diminished exponentially with each incompetent and/or slacker allowed to remain in his/her position.
6. It is unethical to provide better care, attention, nurturing, etc., to your clients than to your staff.  And it is heinously unethical to joke, albeit apologetically, about the poor wages paid nonprofit employees all the while doing nothing to improve that state of being.  Go out and raise some money; give a larger gift; do something to set this injustice right! Doing nothing should never be the response.
7. It is morally corrupt—way beyond unethical—when the core values and culture of an organization not only tolerate but seem to accept people caring more about a formerly esteemed individual than about those harmed by that individual’s failure to go beyond the “mandatory minimum” of a job description or the law and pursue a basic tenet of morality:  protect children.   To wit, the alumni (and though not at this Town Hall meeting, students, faculty and staff) at a recent Penn State Town Hall meeting whose main concern for the University President was “Why’d you have to fire Joe?” Really?

It is true that there is nothing written anywhere that says nonprofits are supposed to be more ethical than for-profits.  It is just one of those expectations—as with vegetarians:  you do one thing that operates on a higher moral ground or is healthier, we assume all that you do all things on a higher ground or that are healthier.  Thus, because all that we do is done to benefit others—that theoretical higher moral ground–there is a strong expectation that we will do everything on a higher moral ground.  And the sad truth is that we just don’t.

The sadder truth is that if we each don’t immediately take control of ourselves and then our organizations, I will be offering my sister a new oxymoron for her fifth graders next year; and no one—our clients, our funders, the public–will be laughing.

Would you be interested in joining us for a conversation about nonprofit ethics?  If so, please email ulmer@lasalle.edu with what interests you?