I am happy to report that I have data to support what I had always assumed (or was it hoped?):  most parents want their children to become philanthropic.  According to a recent poll conducted by the Harris Interactive Service Bureau, commissioned by Pearson Foundation and the Penguin Group, 90% of the 500 parents surveyed say “it is important to raise children to become charitable adults.”

Wanting and succeeding, though, are two very different things.  And apparently, most of the 90% of those parents aren’t being very successful for the simple reason that they aren’t doing the right things to get their desired results.  Sometimes, it appears, they are talking out of both sides of their mouths, while other times they simply may think they are doing the right thing when, in fact, this research shows it isn’t the right thing.

Take, for example, this startling finding:  though 90% of the parents wanted their children to become charitable adults, only 34% of the parents said it was “very important to them that their children gave of their time and resources to help others.”  But of the 500 teens (ages 13-18 years) who were surveyed, 42% of the “teen givers” (defined as those who frequently or often volunteered to help others and raised money for a cause, brought others together for a cause or donated money; teen givers comprised 29% of the group) said their parents cared a great deal if they gave of their time and/or resources to help others, compared to 15% of the non-giving teens who said the same.  If that isn’t a confusing message:  become a charitable adult but you don’t need to start now.

Or, this finding:  teen givers were more than twice as likely (29%) as non-givers to have a paying job and more than twice as likely (31%) to help neighbors.  Only 13% of parents required a paying job, though 26% did require helping neighbors.

As an educator and bookworm, I am particularly heartened by the finding that 45% of teen givers were read to as a child on a daily basis (compared to 35% of non-givers).  Fortunately, 68% of parents believe that there is a strong connection between reading and a child’s ultimate giving behavior.

Looking at the group of teens as a whole—the givers and non-givers together—the number one factor influencing teens to give back and become charitable is their parents.  That should come as no surprise.  (In fact, if Senator William Proxmire were still alive, and had this research cost far more than I am assume it did, I’m sure that finding alone would make this a candidate for a Golden Fleece Award.)  So, parents/guardians—and grandparents, aunts, uncles, and key influential adults–listen up:  model the right behavior; include the children in your life in your philanthropic activities and discussions on how to use your charitable dollars; and read the ten parenting tactics for producing charitable teens.  It just might ensure that our children will inherit a kinder, gentler, more caring world.

Now, I am really pissed (it’s my blog – I can say that).  I recently wrote about jurisdictions around the country suffering from insufficient resources that are look to nonprofits to fill some of the gaps.  Perhaps through rescinding tax exemptions of the past or by creating new taxes on their services (i.e., beds in hospitals, tuition payments to colleges and universities, etc.)

Case in point: the headline “Delinquents get a break in tax amnesty.”  It seems that Philadelphia and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania are giving those who owe back taxes (dating back as far as 1986!) 54 days to step forward, pay their taxes and have all penalties waived and only have to pay half of the interest owed.  It is anticipated that this amnesty program will raise $25-$30 million for the city and $190 million for the state.

I am not going to bother to do the math, but imagine what each jurisdiction could raise if they weren’t giving law breakers—yes, last I heard it was still a legal requirement that you file a tax return every year and pay whatever money is owed the respective government–relief.   Imagine if they had to pay all they owed and 100% of their penalties and interest.  Wouldn’t that add a little fat to government coffers?

Tax amnesty programs are not new, and they certainly aren’t unique to Philadelphia and Pennsylvania.  But at the same time that jurisdictions are offering businesses tax amnesty programs they are crying so poor that they need to rescind property exemptions for nonprofits and create new tax programs for nonprofits (i.e., hospital beds, college and university tuition).  Something here does not compute!  Nonprofits have not broken any laws whatsoever.  In fact, the vast majority of nonprofits of which I am aware have continued to work extremely hard to fulfill the promises of their mission despite huge loss in funds to support that work.  What are governments talking about doing in exchange?  Increasing their operating costs by rescinding tax exemptions and adding new ones.  Where is the logic in this?

Perhaps on some planet, or in some person’s brain, it makes sense to add to the burden of those who are already strapped, but continue to do their good works, while letting off the hook those who have spent years, and in some cases decades, being scofflaws.  It just doesn’t work in mine.  In fact, my mind wanders to questions like, “Whose palm is being greased?” and “What deals have been brokered?” and “In whose employ will these politicians land once they leave elected office?”  Because shy of that, I can find neither rhyme nor reason to understand excusing criminals while punishing the do-gooders.

Even in death, my father is still guiding, teaching and showing me the way things should be done.

This past weekend was my father’s memorial.  Though we did not officially invite anyone to speak at his memorial, my sister, brother and I knew well in advance that several wanted to share their remembrances.  The evening of the memorial, we asked any one else who wished to say something, to please feel free to do so.  And the floodgates opened.

My son, who was to be the last speaker, made many a false start up to the podium, only to have to stop as yet one more person stepped to the front to share memories.  And to a person, they all told the same story, with different specifics.  They spoke of how my father had mentored them, though if my father had been asked whom he mentored, he would, in his self-effacing manner have said, “No one.”

They told of how he would pass their desks as he was heading out to a breakfast or lunch and ask if they knew so and so, and when a negative answer came back, he would say, “You should know him.  Come along.”  They shared stories of how my father feigned being too busy to attend a meeting, and would they please go in his behalf, quickly learning that this was my father’s ruse to allow younger employees more exposure and responsibility. They shared memories of the opportunities he had given them, the faith he showed in them and the loyalty he bestowed, the doors he had opened, and the lessons he taught on their craft and, most importantly, the ethics of their profession, all the while lamenting the fact that the profession had strayed far from his ethical standards and expectations of the profession.  They all spoke of how my father had changed their lives and given them the wonderful and interesting lives they have had since having the good fortune to work with or for my father.  And they all spoke of what a dear friend he had been and the hole that now resided in their hearts.

I have known for a long time my father’s mark on his profession, and even on the lives of some of the people who spoke that night.  (The scope of his mark, however, I had way underestimated.)  And even though he would never admit it, I have known for a long time that many, a young person coming into his presence immediately gravitated to him as their mentor and were never disappointed.  But what I never realized until that evening was how well my father understood mentoring.  As with everything else that he did in life, from student to professional, husband to friend, father to grandfather, he aced it!

My father was never “taught” to be a mentor; he just did it.  He intuitively understood that the future of his profession rested on getting the right people into it, cultivating and nurturing them, sharing the ropes with them, setting the standards for them and then letting them fly—with his organization or another.  My father was never asked to mentor; once again, he intuitively understood that, as a leader in his organization and his profession, this was his responsibility.  Not a responsibility for which he was paid, but a responsibility that was his duty.

Sadly, too many in leadership positions within the nonprofit sector (and I am told the same is true in the for-profit sector) do not mentor.  Today, mentoring those who are coming up behind us seems to have become a lost art.  Why?

I’ve several theories, but no proof on any, hence why they remain theories.  First, it is not behavior that tends to get extrinsically rewarded.  I’ve reviewed criteria for a lot of performance evaluations, but I’ve yet to see one that evaluates how well the person mentored.  Supervised? Yes.  Even how well the person coached, from time to time.  But mentored?  Still searching.  Second, people complain that it takes time and they are just too, too busy.  Really?  Letting someone else represent you at a meeting takes time?  Introducing people around takes time?  Ensuring adherence to the standards of the profession?  Okay, that takes time.  But it takes even more time in the long run dealing with the problems caused by employees who cut corners or violated the professional code of ethics.  Third, people think they don’t know how to mentor.  How did this happen?  As more and more programs developed to “teach” people to become mentors, we turned a powerful art into a pseudo science.  Fourth, and, most sadly of all, leaders today do not think it is their responsibility.

Nonprofit leaders, hear me now:  it is your responsibility.  If ever there was a time when we needed to cultivate, nurture, cherish, and encourage the young people in the sector, now is it.  And I do NOT want to hear, “Oh, but if I mentor her, she might leave and go work somewhere else.”  Of course she might, and more power to her—and the sector!  Mentoring is not something we do for our organization; it is something we do for the sector—to ensure that there will always be bright, smart, and dedicated employees wanting to continue the good works of their mentors and the sector.

As a teacher, I am often told by students, years after graduation, that I was their mentor.  Upon reflection, I don’t think so; I was their teacher and their advisor.  And while teaching and advising are both part of mentoring, it is by no means all of mentoring.  As an executive director, I was recently told by someone that I was her mentor.  I was puzzled and surprised and wondered what I had done to be perceived as her mentor.  Saturday evening, listening to all the mentees of my father recount how he had mentored them, I knew that I was, indeed, her mentor.  After all, my dad mentored me.

I do not believe in coincidence; I do, however, believe that when multiple, yet disparate, sources point out the same thing, it is important to pay attention.  So, when days after hearing a story on NPR about ROWE–results-only work environment–my reading of Daniel Pink’s book, Drive, brought me to his discussion of ROWE, I knew I needed to pay attention.

According to Pink, ROWE was the invention of Cali Ressler and Jody Thompson, two human resources professionals.  In a ROWE, employees simply have to get the work for which they are responsible done in accordance with the standards and time frame of their employer; where, when and how they do it is entirely up to them.  You don’t want to come into the office on Tuesday because you want to see your child’s play or spend the day with friends or go golfing or to the spa, great!  You need to go to the doctor or dentist or take your car into the shop, there is no need to count your sick or personal days.  Do it.  And then, just be sure that you do the work for which you are responsible.  No one is watching over you, seeing if you are at your desk on time, doing your eight hours, monitoring your conversations.

To me, a ROWE is a workplace culture that recognizes that most people are professionals and do their work because they recognize and accept that it is their responsibility, and they may even want to do the work; and, of course, they recognize that, in the end, doing the work justifies getting the pay check.  But they are not doing the work simply because they are monitored and scrutinized, supervised and time checked.  Rather, they are doing the work because, for a variety of reasons, they want to.

Imagine how people feel when they are treated as adults instead of children?  Why must we replicate the structures of primary school in a professional workplace—getting approval to leave early to go to the doctor or take vacation only when our supervisor says it is okay?  How empowering is that?  But if our workplace allows us, as adults–as a ROWE does–to balance our work life with our personal life, won’t we become happier, perhaps even more loyal, employees?  In Pink’s example of a workplace that first tested ROWE as an experiment and then permanently adopted it, the CEO noted that with the ROWE, productivity rose and stress declined.  Further, he believes that as long as the compensation he was offering was within the ballpark of his competitors, employees would not jump ship from the ROWE for simply more money.  What more could you ask for?  Interestingly, though, two employees left the company because they could not adjust to the freedom the ROWE provided.

This CEO believes that as more folks of his age (read young) become heads of organizations, ROWEs will be become more prevalent.  But what does age have to do with respecting your employees, providing them with the opportunity to balance the demands of their work and their personal lives, treating them as professionals instead of children who need to be monitored?  Why do we need to wait for baby boomers to be replaced by generation x or yx or whatever?

Granted, perhaps not all businesses will lend themselves to implementing a pure ROWE.  Nor might all positions in an organization.  But what about hybrids?  Everyone gets a day a week where their jobs have to get done regardless of whether or when they show up at the office. Or all caseworkers have to be in the office four hours every day between the traditional hours of operation, but where, when and how they get the rest of their responsibilities done is up to them.  The development and membership staff, on the other hand, can have a ROWE.  After all, not all employees have the same jobs, so why should all employees have the same conditions of work?

I hear all of the gasps and accusations of “not fair!” and “It won’t work!”  But neither will more years of no or minimal raises.  As leaders of nonprofits, we must be creative in how we support and thank our employees.  If not a ROWE, then come up with something else.  But come up with something.

No matter how cynical you get, you can never keep up.”
-Lily Tomlin

The chant is getting louder:  “Tax the nonprofits!  Tax the nonprofits.  It’s the answer to all our problems.  They get away with everything.”

Every day I’m reading of another jurisdiction looking to tax nonprofits–all or some–from Honolulu seeking to rescind the property tax exemption of nonprofits to Pittsburgh wanting to not only rescind the property tax but put a tax on tuition paid to its numerous colleges and universities; from Kansas seeking to add a sales tax to the items nonprofits purchase, to some of its local jurisdictions wanting to rescind the property tax exemption for all nonprofits, to Georgia that is considering just rescinding the property tax exemption just for hospitals, while Rhode Island’s legislature is considering rescinding the 7% sales tax exemption for its 6,600 nonprofits.  The Boston Globe recently reported  that a task force is readying recommendations that would eventually seek up to the equivalent of 25 percent in contributions from tax-exempt entities in that city.

And the list goes on and on.

Why?  Because state and local governments’ coffers are, like everyone else’s, running low.   So, where to turn to reverse the coffers’ drain?  Let’s go for the deep pockets!  Let’s go for the nonprofits!  Whose brilliant idea is this?

The reality is that they have picked wisely for they have picked the weakest link in the chain.  Try suggesting an increase in residential property taxes and immediately the hue and cry is raised.  Neighborhood associations take up the attack; politicians from the opposite side of the aisle of the mayor’s/governor’s party start hurling barbs; political advisors start predicting defeat for the party in the next election.  The local association of realtors may even get involved.

Or, try as Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter recently did, and propose that one way to make up some of the shortfall in the City’s budget would be to tax soda sales.  There was an immediate outcry from the heavy, deep pocket soda manufacturers and the unions of employees involved in the production and delivering of soda.  And of course, the voice of shops that sell soda and restaurants that serve soda chimed in as well.

When the suggestion is made that the property tax on for-profit businesses gets increased, you know what happens.  The associations of every kind of property-owning businesses descend on the politicians, as do those responsible for wooing future businesses to the area.  After all, we don’t want to frighten off the businesses.

And of course, the local politicians will all chime in on whichever cause(s) is most represented in his/her district.

So who rushes to the aid of the nonprofits when they are threatened with taxes that most simply cannot afford?  With the exception of the large hospitals and universities, and the small minority of equally large nonprofits that more resemble for-profit businesses than a nonprofit, most nonprofits don’t see—or have–the available time, personnel or money to go argue their cause.  Thus, they are an easy target; few fight back.

Unfortunately, because too many in society do not understand what nonprofits do, don’t see them operating around them, don’t know how they are influencing their daily lives, nonprofits become an easy target for cynicism.  To too many, we are scoundrels and beggars who hide behind the nonprofit shield and “get away with too much.”  There is less recognition of the good that nonprofits do, of the help they quietly provide to communities day in and day out, of the enrichment they add to our lives, the succor given to those with no where else to go, of the problems they redress, etc.  And there is little recognition of the millions employed by nonprofits who work for far less than they could earn in the for-profit world because they want to provide such services, because they want to ensure that our communities are vibrant and healthy.

But, hey, let’s go ahead and make it even harder for the good guys.

It is time for the sector to get rid of the “gratitude factor” and remember why we are in the game to begin with. It is the gratitude factor that makes us keep long-time non-performing and under-performing board members on our board long past any “normal” person’s tolerance.  It is the gratitude factor that allows non-performing, under-performing and non-team players to stay on staff long past even the longest of times lines for improving performance.  And it is time for this to stop.

It goes along with what I’ve said before:  we are the “nice” sector.  We are so concerned with being nice to staff and board members, being understanding and caring, that we forget to what our first and foremost allegiance must be:  our mission.  The only thing which we must bend over backwards to nurture is that mission.  But when the gratitude factor controls an organization, it is being nice to neither its mission nor the vast majority of its staff and board to whom we really should be grateful for they truly work for and push forward the mission.

Don’t get me wrong:  I believe very, very strongly in the fact that an organization’s personnel policies must be as respectful, kind and supportive of its staff as the organization is to its clients.  We should want to do all that we can to keep those who do their jobs well as we want to keep those who are good clients.  But we have limits to how far we bend for our clients and passing those limits means consequences.  Don’t play by the rules, clients are gone:  for example, don’t pay your dues into the membership association, you aren’t a client any more; don’t show up to your job training site for the fourth time, you aren’t a client any more.  A client who violates conduct expectations—punctuality, being a team member when called for, disrespects property, etc.—will experience repercussions.

Yet, I regularly hear stories, complaints, laments about employees who have worked at nonprofits for years, sometimes decades, who do not perform their jobs, either because they don’t want to or are incapable of doing so, who are less than polite to colleagues, who ignore protocol, who overstep boundaries, who terrorize offices, who fail to comply with corrective action plans, and the list goes on.  These are not your once in a while stories; I have heard four such stories this week alone—and it has been a slow week in terms of stories!  And the stories cut across the organizational chart, from the receptionist to the executive director to a board member(s).

Why?  Why do we allow this?  Because we are grateful.  Grateful that someone is willing to hold the title (can’t say do the job) for the salary being paid and the conditions under which s/he works.  Grateful that someone is willing to fill the board seat so that the minimum in the bylaws can be met and the “difficult” (a myth that it is difficult) task of replacing that board member won’t have to be done. So, the gratitude factor allows us to be an inefficient, ineffective and wasteful organization—all because we don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings, don’t want to play the heavy, don’t want to do the work and expend the energy that replacing that “problem” would cause.

The reality, however, is that so much more work, time and energy is already being wasted managing this problem, the tensions and, worse, this person causes, the anger and other emotions of the true workers, the negative impact on organizational morale, and this list, too, goes on.  All of this means a loss of resources that should be going to further the mission—the real reason why everyone is there.

It is time—and I do mean immediately—to fire these people.  Let them go from the board; let them go from the payroll.  They are poisoning the organization in ways seen and not seen and depleting the resources for mission service.  It is time to stop being grateful for mediocre or less than mediocre service to the mission; it is time to stop being nice to the wrong people.

Go fire and hire.

We are our own worst enemies.  We perpetuate myths, we engage in worst practices instead of best and we straddle ourselves with behavior and attitudes that can do nothing but harm us.  It is time for the nonprofit sector to take control of itself and prove to the rest of the world that we deserve the respect that we so crave.

First, let’s bust the myth that our employees do NOT deserve livable, competitive salaries.  They absolutely do, and you know it.  While many nonprofits have begun to address this, adjusting salaries and bringing them in line with what the real market will bear, others still cling to the notion that nonprofit employees get their reward in the mission work and aren’t there for a decent salary that ensures a reasonable quality of life.   And as long as there are any nonprofits living that myth, the rest of the world will continue to cling to it.

To wit the current hue and cry over the 2008 compensation of the CEO of Boys and Girls Club of America.  According to the Boys & Girls Club of America’s 2008 Form 990, the CEO made $988,591 in total compensation in 2008– $593,926 salary, the rest “other compensation.”  She also had 8 colleagues who also earned over $100,000, for a total of $1,862,519 in salary and a bit more than $300,000 in additional compensation.  So, in total, this organization spent $3,151,937 on its nine highest compensated employees.  The organization also reported total revenue for 2008 as $107,150,617.  Which means that in 2008, the Boys & Girls Club of America spent 3% of its revenue on what should be presumed to be its nine most senior managers.   These nine employees report working an average of 58 hours/week, with a range of 45-70.

Too much?  When I googled the question as to what the for-profit ratio of salaries to revenue should be (as this is not an area I claim to know anything about), I got back all sorts of figures, with a low of 16% to a high of 50%, and much here seems to depend upon the industry.  No where, however, did I see a figure as low as 3%.

Yes, it is true, that Boys & Girls Club gets almost $41 million in government grants.  And yes, it is true that, as with many for-profits and nonprofits, the Boys & Girls Club experienced an almost $14 M dollar loss in 2008, approximately 13% of what it did bring in.

But still.  Compare this with the salary of the AIG CEO installed in the aftermath of the meltdown of America’s financial industry.  In October 2009, Obama’s “pay czar” approved the salary of $10.5 M, which included $3 M in cash, $4 M in stock options and $3.5 M in annual performance bonuses, to be prorated for 2009.  At the time, the pay czar said this package was comparable to other CEOs in the post-meltdown world.  Too much?  Too little?

How do you decide in a vacuum?  Shouldn’t the salary and possible bonuses be determined based on the scope of the work being required to perform and the quality of the performance of that work and not the whether the organization is profit driven or mission driven?  That mission-driven organization is just as dependent upon its leader running and managing a successful business as the profit-driven organization; its leader needs the same savvy, skills, smarts, and leadership essence that a for-profit organization needs, if not more.  For, after all, as we are regularly reminded (as if those in the nonprofit sector need any reminding at all) that we are using other people’s money—from taxpayers to foundations and corporations to individuals—to fulfill the promises we make in our mission.  It could easily be argued that it takes more skill and savvy to raise money and ensure that those promises are kept, and Peter Brinckerhoff states that nonprofit employees work much harder than for-profit employees.  So, who is to say that nonprofit CEOs deserve a lower standard of compensation?

My son recently had to write a paper either agreeing or disagreeing with the statement that went something like this:  Marx preached a philosophy of freedom.  As he so often does before he has to start constructing an argument, he asked me what I thought.

Well, it has been a long, long time since I read Karl Marx, but it was an easy answer for me.  Absolutely!  Marx was all about freedom—freedom from the systems and structures that alienated ourselves from ourselves and breaking away from a world view that didn’t really let us see the world very clearly at all.

I confess that I didn’t—and still don’t—always understand all of Marx.  But the part about cultural revolution, that I get completely.  It is cultural revolution that is needed to rattle the cast iron cages that contain so much of what people think, barring any new ideas or possibilities.  And cultural revolution is the answer to my current, though not new, frustration.

I am so far beyond tired of the nonprofit sector being treated as the stepchild of society.  The sector that tirelessly caters to the marginalized populations of society that those not marginalized are oh so relieved to have someone else looking after gets marginalized itself.  The sector that preserves the pockets and expanses of nature’s splendor so that all of us can run, walk, picnic, and restore our souls gets kicked to the side like the empty plastic bottle blighting the trail.  The sector that lifts our spirits and plays to our imaginations and creates the possibilities of “what if …” by bringing us museums and theatres and both experimental and tried and tested art, music, dance and more gets no standing ovations or rave reviews, as it wasn’t deemed worthy of sending a reviewer.

Just what am I talking about?  I am talking about the sector that ensures that our society remains human yet receives so little attention—or the right attention.

On the first night of my MBA class on nonprofit management at La Salle, I always ask the students to tell me how many nonprofits they interact with in the course of an average week.  Most tell me none.  But when I ask how many attend a religious service on a weekly basis, or run in a park, or attend a cultural event, or—and this is the one I love—attend this university—then, and only then, does the invisible start to become visible.

I am talking about the many people who put board service on their resumes to attract the right attention for themselves but who don’t have the time, commitment, passion, awareness, to give their right and proper attention to their role as board member.  (For the record, there are some who take their job as board member very seriously.  And to those, I say thank you, and join the revolution!)  I am talking about the people who drop the $25 check in the mail to their favorite charity while on the way to parking ($20), dinner ($110) and theatre ($260).

Mostly, though, I am talking about taking the nonprofit sector seriously and recognizing the contributions it makes to ensure the quality of life in all of our communities.  I am talking about being realistic about the cost of running these businesses and a willingness to pay for the “sexy”—the programs—and the mundane—the lights, computers, mortgage or rent, etc.  And I’m talking about bringing to the board table the same work ethic, level of commitment and intention to do the job expertly as is brought to the paying job.

Employees of the nonprofit sector are, for the most part, highly skilled, extremely capable and absolutely dedicated to doing both well and good.  And though this is great, it is not sufficient if we are to maximize the benefit this sector brings to all of us.  To achieve that, the sector must be embraced in public, not behind closed doors; it must be brought out of hiding and into the light; it must be truly valued as an equal player in the production of goods and services and as a contributor to the economic engine that drives this country.  And those who volunteer in this sector must understand the importance of their job and only take it on if they are willing and able to do so with the level of professionalism that drives them in their day job.

Unfortunately, I am not optimistic that such change will occur—shy of a major cultural revolution.  Marx would like that!

Are nonprofit boards antiquated?  I’ve give a lot of thought to this topic.  There isn’t a nonprofit executive director in this country who, frustrated beyond her/his last straw, hasn’t asked that question.  Or, let me correct myself, hasn’t made that question a statement:  “!#$%^&*!  Boards are so antiquated.  Why do we even need them?”

The reality, however, is that the theory of nonprofit boards is not at all antiquated; it is the practice that that gets in the way. But, truth be told, when boards are practicing as the theory says they are supposed to, they help a nonprofit beyond even the measure that the most gifted executive director could achieve on her/his own.

There really are three key responsibilities that nonprofit boards need to be executing, and executing well.  Unfortunately, most do all poorly—if at all; some do a bit here and there well; and only a handful really do all three and do them equally well.

1. Oversight: this is really clear and simple and yet one that far too many boards do so badly to their own detriment.  How hard is it, truly, to provide financial oversight?  Granted, it does mean that every board member needs to take the time to understand the financial status of the nonprofit at the time s/he joins the board and then how to monitor that status on an on-going basis.  That includes understanding the financials, reviewing them monthly, asking questions when things do not appear right, taking the risk of being viewed as the “troublemaker”, etc.  To do otherwise means that his/her organization could be tomorrow’s headline because the board treasurer, executive director, CFO or any combination of the above or others have embezzled, robbed Uncle Sam, or some other wrongdoing.  And trust me:  it isn’t hard to be the overseer.  The board collectively, and each individual member on her/his own just has to commit the time.

How hard is it to oversee the executive director?  Unlike the executive director who probably has multiple direct reports, each of whom has to be evaluated on a regular basis, the board only has one employee to supervise:  the executive director.  It is far easier to catch missteps or intentional bad behavior if a board is providing oversight of its one employee through the development of a clear and open process for regular performance assessment and development.  And yet, anecdotal evidence tells me that the vast majority of executive directors do not get regularly evaluated by their boards of directors.

I will, however, grant you that overseeing—by which I mean creating it and then on some regular basis reviewing/monitoring—policies is the most cumbersome in the oversight arena, as for most nonprofits there are lots of policies that the boards have created.  But even this doesn’t have to be onerous.  A simple system that sets up a calendar of what year each policy should be reviewed allows a board to spread this oversight responsibility over several years.  This prevents the situation, for example, of being in 2010 using personnel policies that were last looked at in 1999; and that prevents unwanted problems.  And all of this isn’t to say that some times circumstances arise where a policy needs to be reviewed out of its “regular cycle,” such as reviewing investment policies when the economy is crashing all around you.

1. Strategic thinking:  most people join boards because they think they can help the organization and because they really want to help.  Bringing their strategic thinking capabilities to every board meeting is a crucial way to help, and yet it so frequently doesn’t happen.  And quite honestly, most of the time it isn’t the fault of the individual board members but the fault of the way board meetings are structured.  The vast majority of board meetings are not set up to allow for strategic thinking.  Just look at the agenda for, I’ll be kind, 80% of the board meetings around this country.  The agenda is simply a list of reports from committees and individuals (the Executive Director, the Board President, etc.).  This is the mistake that too many boards make.  They equate doing board work with receiving the data (all those reports) instead of understanding that the data is a tool they need to do their real board work.  Board meeting time should be spent questioning the data, making sense of the trends in the data, asking the tough questions the data reveal.  In other words, applying strategic thinking at every board meeting as opposed to doing what so many boards do:  reserving strategic thinking to the once every year or several year strategic planning retreat.  No organization, big or small, profit or nonprofit, will be sustainable if strategic thinking is a tool only periodically pulled from the box.

1. Revenue generation:  yes, one of the key responsibilities of nonprofit boards is to ensure sufficient revenue to execute organizations’ mission promises.  But before a board is ready to engage in this revenue generation, it should have first assessed all of its programs to be sure they are a good fit with the mission, to determine if they are built on a sound business model, to assess whether they are, indeed, delivering on the promises they claim.  Because you cannot be a successful fundraiser for a program that isn’t worth it.  So, step one is to make sure the nonprofit is doing only what it should be doing and doing it well.  Then, the board’s responsibility is to determine how the money will come in—and the only “correct” answer is through a diversified revenue generation strategy.  What combination of raised and earned dollars is the right fit for the organization at this point in its life cycle?  And how will board members make this happen?  Will they bring their friends’ checkbooks to the table? host a gathering? cultivate relationships? support the business planning for a social venture? bring in that large gift?  But, as with the financial oversight, it truly isn’t hard to be successful at generating revenue, but it does take time—and training and practice and knowing the options.

None of these three areas of board responsibility is hard to do.  But two key things are generally missing at most nonprofit board tables, which leads to the lack of execution.  There is an unwillingness to say, “Despite being a superbly accomplished person in my day job, I do not know how to be a good nonprofit board member.  Could you please teach me?”    And there is an unwillingness to recognize that being a board member is a job, albeit one which every board member volunteers for, seeking intrinsic rewards rather than looking for monetary ones.  And like any job, success at the job requires a commitment of time.  When, and only when, these two impediments are overcome will we see nonprofits truly flourishing.  And then no one will waste any time asking the question:  are nonprofit boards antiquated?

Recently, my brother became the CEO of a rather large, international, publicly traded company.  And when I received my first e-mail from him over his new signature, I was a little surprised to see that he was still using the diminutive version of his name.  So, I shot him an e-mail back saying I would have thought he’d now switch to his “real” name.  His response came back equally quickly, stating, “God, no.  Imperious, egocentric corporate cultures are the hobgoblins of hurting companies.”

My brother and I have clearly taken very different career paths, but the worlds in which we travel are not so very different, as witnessed by his comment.  He has spent much of his career turning “hurting [for-profit] companies” around and then handing them off to new, permanent staff.  I have spent a fair amount of my career helping nonprofits become stronger organizations in order to maximize their ability to fulfill their mission promises.  But like my brother, I have found that it is “imperious, egocentric” individuals and the cultures they create that undermine nonprofits’ good work.

When I hear of things having gone wrong at nonprofits—the kinds of things that make headlines—I’m always struck by how incredibly “stupid” the act was:  obvious conflicts of interest, misuse of raised funds, embezzlement, failure to pay the IRS, and the list goes on.  My immediate question, sometimes to myself, sometimes out loud, is:  was this person/board stupid or arrogant?  And the answer always is arrogant.

How do I know this?  Because I have seen too many people, the brilliant ones as well as the not quite there ones, who want to be really successful at their jobs do their homework.  They find out what they need to know to run their nonprofits the “right” way so that they can get on and fulfill the mission work they signed on to do.  They ask the questions about restricted dollars and understand, from the gitgo, what can and can’t be done; they understand the importance of complying with all of the rules and regulations, filing the right papers, paying the right taxes.  They understand that they are responsible to their clients and the public and that earning and maintaining their trust is paramount, and they want to do it all well.  And doing it well has nothing to do with being smart or stupid; it has to do with being honest, understanding the rules and playing by the rules, because you know that no matter how wonderful you are or your organization is, rules must be obeyed.  Smart, not stupid.

But there is, however, a cohort of individuals who have risen to–or put themselves at–the top of their org charts that know all of the rules, know how the game is supposed to be played and yet choose to go their own way.  This is not stupidity; this is arrogance.  This is arrogance that is so consumed with self that it thinks it impervious to being caught or punished and cares not about the consequences of such behavior to the clients and public whose trust has been betrayed.  This is arrogance that is so blinding that it cannot see the eventual downfall to self and the organization.  It cannot see that s/he is leading a hurting company.

I am a huge Jim Collins fan; he got me on my second reading of Built to Last. So, I periodically go to his website to see what new things he might have posted.  The home page currently opens (and may have for quite some time) with a series of four quotes, two of which strike me as key ideas that those who suffer from a large dose of arrogance should ponder, as should those who employ these arrogant leaders or have elected them as their peers at the board table.

Greatness is not a function of circumstance.  Greatness is largely a matter of conscious choice and discipline.

Humility+will=Level 5.

(Level 5 refers to the highest level of leadership.)

Discipline, conscious choice/free will and humility, all present together, are the characteristics of a great leader and, in turn, what will build a strong organizational culture.  Arrogance has no place in that equation.