Tag: nonprofits

No hobbies

~ Sasha ~ 6 Comments

People dabble in everything.  Restaurants and bed n’ breakfasts are popular semi-serious pursuits – romantic ideas right up until the moment when you’re mopping the floors or scrubbing pots with ammonia at 2am.  Then, they’re just hard work.

Of course restaurants that don’t work flame out (not 9 out of 10, which is the conventional wisdom, but three out of five in the first five years): if not enough people come through the door to buy dinner – or if you don’t manage your staff right, or purchasing right, or any other number of things – you don’t make ends meet and you’re forced to close up shop.

Nonprofit work is a sometimes hobby too, but without the floor-scrubbing to keep us honest.  So nonprofit service, philanthropy, board service or a part-time CEO role can be something we do a little bit on the side, when it’s easy and convenient (meaning: a little bit well) because, well, doing something is better than doing nothing.

It’s not though.

Doing something poorly and inattentively, especially service work, can be worse than nothing, because we’re making promises we can’t keep to people to whom too many promises have already been broken.  Real lives, real hopes, real dreams walk through our doors every day, and if we don’t treat these dreams with the respect, the seriousness, and the professionalism they deserve, we and they are better off just staying home.

We can do this just a few hours a week, do this as part of something bigger, do this in whatever way works in our lives.  But no hobbies, please.  It’s just too important.

 

Dear nonprofit

~ Sasha ~ 3 Comments

[Here’s the link to yesterday’s letter: Dear (potential) donor]

Dear nonprofit,

Speak up for yourself!  Don’t play the supplicant, tin cup in hand, hoping that some change will fall from that purse (or that pocket).  Your time is precious and the playing field is level.  You offer something of great value, both to the beneficiaries of your work and to your (potential) supporters.

Believe that and start treating yourself with the respect you deserve.  Believe that and start treating your potential supporters with the respect they deserve.   Be clear what you’re talking about and why, state out loud your hopes and expectations for where this conversation is going, risk saying early on what your goals are – knowing full well that the whole thing might crash and burn because you had the nerve to say something out loud that others were thinking.

It is true that the best partnerships take time to develop, that they can meander and take surprising twists and turns, that it’s not usually a straight line from here to there.  So be open, be generous, explore and share your dreams.

But by all means act like an equal partner in the endeavor, because you have so much to offer.

Sincerely yours,

Your (potential) donor

Dear (potential) donor

~ Sasha ~ 2 Comments

Dear (potential) donor,

Please, please, be careful and clear with your intentions, with your time, and with our time.  I know you don’t want any special treatment, and I know you don’t want different rules to apply to you…but they do.  (Nonprofit) folks will always take that extra, exploratory meeting with you, that broad-ranging conversation to better understand the sector, the work they’re doing, all the little intricacies that are their special sauce.  They’ll do it because they honestly want to share with you, and they’ll do it because it’s very difficult to tell the difference between a casual conversation and an active exploration of a partnership that leads to a funding decision.

(Worse than loose exploration, please, please, please, don’t make commitments that you cannot or will not keep.  There are few things more debilitating than that.)

It’s true, it really is their job – the nonprofit’s – to draw the line, to be clear, to ask you the tough questions.  But it’s a hard thing to do, and sometimes they won’t.  Sometimes they’ll talk and talk and talk, keeping that distant hope alive that sometime soon you’ll see that glimmer of what you’re looking for and decide to write a big check.  No, that’s not the only thing they see when they see you coming, but it is certainly part of what they see, and they’re going to give you more leeway than they would give to someone else.

So, please, explore, talk, brainstorm, ask questions, give advice, but also insist on clarity if they’re not being clear.  If you know you’re not planning to fund them, but the conversations are going great, you have a chance to speak up, to level set, to explain where things are and explain why you’re talking – because there are many ways to partner, and funding is just one of them.

You’ll be doing yourself and them a great service by speaking up.

Very truly yours,

Nonprofits

[coming tomorrow: Dear Nonprofit]

The nonprofit chasm

~ Sasha ~ 1 Comment

Here’s how a former CEO (for about a decade) of one of a well-known, well-respected U.S. charity started his story about his time there:

“It was a federated structure, so as CEO I raised only 20% of the money.  So of course I had no power and no authority.  Sure, I had it on paper, but really I had nothing.”

So here’s the chasm we have to cross in our sector: the good CEOs obviously get it, they understand that who you take money from is who you are; and they understand the inextricable link between what funds come in (and who brings them in) and power, strategy, and decision-making within the organization.

Yet at the same time there’s general agreement that nonprofit fundraising is still mostly broken, that fundraising jobs are career dead-ends, that fundraising is “overhead” (read: waste, something to be minimized).

Here’s a thought: let’s borrow a page from the corporate playbook.  Let’s take our best, highest-potential up-and-comers and put them through multi-year leadership rotations through ALL major functions in the organization (and no, it doesn’t count if they do 7 program rotations, one for each of your program areas, and then 1 “back office” rotation to cover HR, marketing, and fundraising).  That way no one gets to the top without having been on the front lines.

Oh, we also need a little more rabble-rousing.

The spirit of service

~ Sasha ~ 12 Comments

Most people get into nonprofit work because they want – in some way, big or small – to change the world.  This spirit of service defines our missions, which are not vague platitudes about “delighting customers” or delivering “superior results to our stakeholders,” but are real, tangible, and laudable: end malarial deaths in Africa by 2015, feed the hungry in New York City, make the foster care system work for kids, enable every kid in Harlem to go to college.

And yet.

And yet we get busy with “the job,” and it can become more real and more palpable than the mission.  We sit at desks day after day looking at spreadsheets or writing yet another report, and though we hear the echo of why we’re there, this original purpose can morph – not immediately, but eventually – into background noise.

We’re wired, fundamentally, only to experience fully the reality in front of us.  And because our daily interactions, the stresses of life, the honest considerations about our own goals and aspirations, dominate our experience, there’s the risk that this day-to-day reality gets decoupled from the spirit of service we expect to pervade our work.  And so, like at any job, there are high points and low points, successes and disappointments, days when our contributions are recognized and days when someone (peer, boss, donor, board member) is careless in how they speak to us.  We, too, have highs and lows.

Unless.

Unless we take every opportunity to stoke the fire that burns within – for ourselves and for our peers.

Unless we look for chances to keep that flame lit, by giving our employees, our volunteers, our donors a chance to feel, breathe, see and touch the service that is at the core of what we do.

Unless we create space to swap stories, whether close by or far away, of people whose lives have been transformed by our work.

Unless we find moments, hours, days, to pull back from the frenzy that pervades our days (how could it not? The problems are so big, our urgency so great) to reconnect to the original sense of what we’re here to do.

We are blessed to have the privilege to serve others.  And it is a privilege.  There is no higher calling.

From that kernel of truth, I’ve no choice but to wonder: is it naïve to think that we might conceptualize our professional lives differently?  Is it possible that the question “what’s best for me, for my career, for my life?” should pale in comparison to the question “am I doing the most good I can possibly do?”

Because I do believe that one has a different orientation when one says, “I’m here to make a change in the world” (goal-oriented, and with it ego) and when one says, “I’m here to serve.”  To be sure, if we, our employees, our volunteers, our donors do not feel nourished, respected, honored, and challenged, then there is no way we can serve others effectively.  But are careers dedicated to service fundamentally different?  What is the right balance here?

Frankly my dear…

~ Sasha ~ Leave a comment

I saw a woman today ringing her bell for Salvation Army holiday collections – mostly what I noticed was her big yawn and the fact that she was texting while ringing her bell.

She’s just doing a job.  But you’re not.

If you’re not fully invested, we aren’t invested at all.

NextGen:Charity talk tomorrow

~ Sasha ~ 3 Comments

For those in the NY area, I’m speaking tomorrow at the NextGen:Charity conference.  It’s an exciting line-up of speakers including so many people I admire and respect…too many to list them all, but folks like Seth Godin, Scott Case (Malaria No More), David Saltzman (Robin Hood), Jonathan Greenblatt (Worldchanging.com), and Joanne Heyman (Heyman Partners), to name a few.

Tickets just sold out but you can follow the conference on Twitter and as soon as I find out about video (either simulcast or after the event) I’ll post the link here.

Here’s the list of speakers (click for details)

 

For those in the NY area, I’m speaking tomorrow at the NextGen:Charity conference.  It’s an exciting line-up of speakers including so many people I admire and respect – too many to list them all, but folks like Seth Godin, Scott Case, David Saltzman, Jonathan Greenblatt, and Joanne Heyman, to name a few.

Last I heard a few tickets were still available with a discount.

For those in the NY area, I’m speaking tomorrow at the NextGen:Charity conference.  It’s an exciting line-up of speakers including so many people I admire and respect – too many to list them all, but folks like Seth Godin, Scott Case, David Saltzman, Jonathan Greenblatt, and Joanne Heyman, to name a few.

Last I heard a few tickets were still available with a discount.

For those in the NY area, I’m speaking tomorrow at the NextGen:Charity conference.  It’s an exciting line-up of speakers including so many people I admire and respect – too many to list them all, but folks like Seth Godin, Scott Case, David Saltzman, Jonathan Greenblatt, and Joanne Heyman, to name a few.

Last I heard a few tickets were still available with a discount.

Run and hide! (nonprofit hiring)

~ Sasha ~ Leave a comment

File under: you can’t make this stuff up.

I was asked to fill out a survey about salaries and hiring trends in the nonprofit sector, and one of the questions is:

What is the determining factor in hiring staff for your organization?

a. Budget

b. Filling vacancies

c. Grant requirements

d. Organizational strategy

Other (please specify)_______

Help!! Is our sector really this broken?

Is hiring due to “organizational strategy” fourth on a list of four?

Does the fact that “grant requirements” beats it out make you more worried about our ability to fundraise successfully (so that strategy and business needs can drive our actions) OR about the fact that you would be required to hire someone because you got a grant?

When oh when will we get out of the echo chamber?

The big ask

~ Sasha ~ 1 Comment

A colleague asked me today, “what different strategies would you use to ask someone for $250,000 as opposed to $50,000?”

The first thing to clarify is whether you’re asking the same person for these different amounts of money.  Put another way, are you asking “how do I get someone to shift from making a donation that’s not a big decision to making a donation that is a big decision?”  Or are you asking, “how do I get up the nerve to look someone in the eye and ask them for a quarter of a million dollars (or more!)?”

Regardless of which of these questions you’re really asking, in each case you need the same basic elements.  You need a story that is real, compelling, that has emotional content.  A story that you believe in, that you think is important.  A story that is true for you, for your organization, for its beneficiaries.  A narrative that resonates with and reinforces the world view of the donor.  A narrative that the donor can be a part of – can place themselves in and, in the best of cases, can help write themselves.

The size of the donation (the “ask”)?  It has to come out of this narrative and this truth – you can’t bolt it on afterwards and have any hope of success.

So, going back to the two questions, if someone is giving much less than then can, then the story is not holding true for them on some level.

If you are asking for much less than you should, then the story is not holding true for you on some level.

Which one is it?

Changing a Dinosaur’s Mind

~ Sasha ~ Leave a comment

A few weeks ago I wrote a post about the “inefficient” nonprofit marketplace that asked two questions: whether the nonprofit marketplace is any more inefficient than other markets (mutual funds, cosmetics); and whether improving the quality of information available about nonprofits will have a significant effect on the efficiency with which capital is allocated in the sector.

This post led to a great conversation with an active philanthropist and nonprofit Board member I’ve gotten to know who, it just so happens, is an investor herself and knows lots of active, successful investors.

Her observations, and the resulting questions, are the right ones.

She observes that people around her who are overwhelmingly deliberate about how they manage their investment capital are, in her words, quite often not deliberate at all about how they manage their philanthropic capital.  Put another way, the majority of capital deployed for investment is deployed with the intention of maximizing financial return (whether or not that in fact happens due to systematic biases, crummy products, etc.), and it’s not clear that the majority of funding that she observes going into nonprofits even has the intention of maximizing social impact.

This brings me back to the great post by Renata Rafferty on Dinosaur Philanthropy from the Tactical Philanthropy Blog.  Renata writes:

Those of “us” on the “cutting edge” of philanthropy…tend to navel gaze, looking ever more deeply into how our groovy new ways of thinking about philanthropy are….well, groovy.

On-the-ground reality in everyday communities, however, is more about gala slippers on the ground than eco-friendly boots on the ground.  I live in an extraordinarily wealthy community, where millions change hands between individuals and families….and influence plays a HUGE role in where the money goes – but the influence has little to do with a real understanding or examination of community needs, community assets, and who is doing fine and deserving work…

Sometimes I feel like one of the few left on the dock watching the philanthropy boat sail away, leaving behind the well-intentioned, kind, caring, wealthy people who are so generous with their giving, but who just aren’t part of the “cool crowd.”

This all brings me back to my hope that we’ll right-size our expectations and the promises we make as we charge ahead (rightly) with efforts to improve the availability of information about the effectiveness of different charities.  This is important, necessary work that will lay the foundation for how we think about and understand charities in the future.  AND at the same time it is completely possible that the direct impact of this work on Renata’s “dinosaur philanthropists” (an intentionally provocative name to be sure) is that of a tree falling in the forest that no one is around to hear.

What I think we need also need are strategies that look hard at where most of the philanthropic (especially individual) philanthropic money is, how giving decisions for this money is made, and from there to think about actions that are likely to have direct impact on THIS crowd.

Put another way, solving the data transparency problem is absolutely important, but it’s kind of like giving a screwdriver to an investment banker – it’s not the tool she uses to do her work.