Posts Tagged ‘human resources’

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Dear Nonprofiteer, Why didn’t I stay a volunteer?

February 22, 2012

Dear Nonprofiteer,

I need some advice.   I have been a paid employee of a non-profit for the last eight months. Before this I was an unpaid volunteer for several years. There are three of us in the office—the ED, the founder, and myself.

The Executive Director

For the last eight months I have been doing most of her job, and my own. As a result I am easily working sixty or more hours each week. Attempts to change this environment have been met with hostility. Despite repeated requests I still have no job description. My working relationship with the ED is close to breaking point. Simply put, I do not want to go into work tomorrow. I have my concerns about her integrity. At the start of the month I was told we were 20K above budget. Last week I overheard her tell the founder we were 40k under budget. I have no proof of mis-, mal- or nonfeasance, and to find that information would be extremely difficult. I would like to prepare a fact laden letter to the Board, but have very little proof.

The Board

I believe the Board has lost confidence in her ability. Their relationship with her appears strained. I also believe they have lost focus on what is best for the organization. A majority of the board are employees or board members of another organization, a non-profit in the same field. We take on the debt. They profit. The cynic in me wonders if there is an element of tax avoidance occurring. Despite repeated requests I am not shown Board minutes. There are open spaces on the Board, but only people friendly to this other organization are accepted. I have nominated two extremely qualified candidates to open positions. Emails inviting them to meetings have been “lost”.

The Numbers

We are a forty year old 501c3. There are three full time employees. During our busy periods we employ around 100 seasonal workers. Our turnover is approximately 300k a year. We provide a service to approximately 1400 children, teenagers and adults. We are four weeks away from the busiest time of our year.

The mission of the non-profit is very important to me. I want to do whatever is best for the long term health of the organization.

I have considered handing in my notice and writing an open letter to the Board explaining my decision. I love this organization though and don’t want to leave it. I have also considered raising my concerns with the state AG, but fear that could spell the end of the organization. Unfortunately I do not have the ear of anyone on the Board that I can speak to in confidence about this.

I am really torn as to what to do. Please advise.  Signed,

Concerned in Carolina

Dear Concerned,

You’ve laid out the central aspects of the situation very clearly: the organization has trouble in the staff, trouble on the Board, and at least the potential for trouble in its finances, which will make it difficult to continue serving this large number of clients and paying this large number of seasonal workers.  As you describe your own position, you are essentially powerless: the Executive Director doesn’t listen to you, the Board is unaware of your concerns, and you don’t want to damage an institution that you care about by involving the authorities.

But that leaves the Nonprofiteer with a question: what, exactly, do you love about an institution with an inept and/or dishonest Executive Director and a Board whose independence may be compromised by its relationship with another organization?  If what you mean is that you love the group’s mission, that’s all very well; but that’s like the Nonprofiteer’s saying she would love her boyfriend if only he were 6’10.”  This is a phenomenon therapists refer to as, “It would be so great, if only it were different.”  It’s not different, and if you have no power to make it so, your only realistic choice is to find another agency to work for: one whose mission you can believe in AND whose governance and management support that mission.

You are best off to find that organization and secure that new job before you leave this one, and certainly before you write any kind of letter to anyone about what you believe and suspect is going on.

It’s rarely worthwhile to burn bridges with that kind of valedictory note—all you get is a reputation as an arsonist, while the people on the other side of the river continue to do what they’ve been doing all along.  But if you feel you need to, you must do some more research to confirm or refute your suspicions.  The Nonprofiteer doesn’t quite grasp the relationship between your agency and the other one for which you think it may serve as a form of tax dodge, so she can’t suggest exactly what you need to find out.  But it would have to be something as clear as your Board members’ being paid by the other organization, which then reduces its own account of taxable profit, for it to be worth taking to the state’s Attorney General.  The very “mis-, mal- or nonfeasance” for which you don’t have evidence is what would be required to cause the authorities to step in.

If you feel you must speak up but don’t have this level of proof, simply write a post-resignation letter to the Board president (with copies to the rest of the Board) laying out only those facts of which you’re certain: that the Executive Director is in the office only 3 hours a week, that she’s using members of the staff to run her personal errands, or whatever the case may be.  If the Board is compromised, though, this won’t make any difference; and if the Board is honest and diligent, it will discover all this about the Executive Director as soon as you leave, because there will be no one available to cover for her by doing all her work.

The Nonprofiteer’s best advice: find a new job, send a one-sentence letter of resignation to the Executive Director, and write an intemperate five-page screed blasting the entire agency, which screed you will then put in your desk drawer or the fireplace.  You’ll have the release of having said everything that needs saying without putting yourself at risk—one of life’s rarest pleasures!

Write again so we know what you do and how it goes.

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Posted in Boards of Directors, Conflict of Interest, Mission, Nonprofit management, Nonprofits--General, Personnel Issues, Social Service Agencies | Leave a Comment »

Dear Nonprofiteer, Should I face the music, or dance?

December 16, 2011

Dear Nonprofiteer,

If you could stand one more letter asking about Boards of non-profit arts organizations — or even point me in the right direction — I’d be very grateful!  I’ve been the school director for a small non-profit music organization for several months. The organization has two parts — there are performance choirs and then there’s the school.

But maybe it would be more accurate to say that there are two organizations, because I’ve been told that the school is “technically” for profit, meaning that only the performance choirs can receive grant money.  I’m not sure why, or even if, this is so, though I understand that we make more money charging for music lessons than we do sending out the performance choirs, whose members are paid a pittance that nonetheless exceeds the amount companies and civic organizations are willing to pay for being entertained by them.

The main problem: the performance-choir conductor is also Artistic Director of the entire organization, AND is Chair of the Board of Directors.  He is paid $20,000 a year for what’s supposed to be a 12-hour-a-week job, but in fact he doesn’t work nearly that much.  He lives a couple of hours away, so he only comes in once a week to rehearse, and not even that during the summer (or the Christmas holidays, or the Easter holidays, or St. Swithens’ Day!).  And whenever he can he schedules performances near his home rather than near the school, which means we’re not really serving our community.

Meanwhile, I work full-time (theoretically 40 hours a week but actually closer to 90, what with teaching as well as administrative work).  This huge job pays me $34,000 with no benefits.  The Board sees itself as my “BOSS” and reminds me of that often. In addition to the Chair, the Board members are 1.) one of the school’s teachers, who’s also the Board treasurer; 2.) a member of one of the performance choirs who writes the grant applications; 3.) the mother of a former student, who is paid to be secretary; 4.) the mother of a current student, who is paid to be DIrector of Development; 5.) another one of our teachers; and 6.) a lawyer who takes voice lessons from the treasurer.  In other words, NOBODY is without connections to the school and thus a personal agenda.

The school went downhill financially during my predecessor’s tenure, to the point where we’ll probably have to give up half of our space.  But when I say I need help with fundraising, I get, “Sallie Jo managed it.”   I’m expected to do everything Sallie Jo did but with more “Board oversight,” which means micromanagement and no actual help.  That’s not their role, apparently—their role is being my superiors, scrutinizing me, complaining to each other about me, and occasionally sending me a condescending note giving me reprimands and further orders.

As a seasoned professional who is keeping the place together single-handedly, I consider these missives insulting at best. But there is no one I can appeal to. Do you have any suggestions? Advice? Articles you could point me to? (Templates of letters of resignation?)   I’m near the end of my rope.  Signed,

Hanging on By a Thread

Dear Hanging:

This is like one of those children’s puzzles, “Can you spot what’s wrong with this picture?”  There are so many things wrong that even the youngest child can detect some of the problems, while others are so subtle that older children will be challenged.  Or, in other words: what a mess!

Once you’ve said that the Artistic Director is the chair of the Board, you’ve already described an organization in trouble.  One function of an arts Board is, indeed, to support the vision of the Artistic Director, but the other is to counter-balance that vision with business acumen and an awareness of what a nonprofit arts organization owes the community.  Even if every single member of the Board weren’t compromised in the way you’ve described, the organization itself would be hopelessly compromised by having a single person leading both the Board and the staff.

If the Board were independent, the fact that you and the Artistic Director both report directly to it would provide a healthy balance: he would say “I want to do blah-blah-blah” and you would say “blah-blah-blah costs three times as much money as we’ve raised in any year in the history of the organization” and the Board would weigh these competing points of view and make a decision.  In those circumstances, it would be a good thing that the Board knows it’s your boss—that would mean the Board knew that you and the Artistic Director were co-equals reporting to a common authority rather than an inferior (you) reporting to a superior (him).

But with a Board that’s essentially an extension of the Artistic Director’s personality, you have the worst of both worlds: multiple superiors and no equal colleagues.  No wonder you’re feeling besieged and insulted: you were hired with the title of a director and the status of a secretary.

That’s what the salary situation means: they’ll pay you less than half (on a per-hour basis) of what the Artistic Director makes, because he has more than twice your power.  The fact that you’re also earning less than the singing lawyer’s administrative assistant is just icing on the cake.

And now we get into the subtle stuff: what, exactly, is this nonsense about the school’s being “technically” for profit?  It either is, or it isn’t; it either files a Form 990 informational return with the IRS, or pays taxes on its profits like any other business.  It’s hardly unusual for an arts organization to run a school whose earnings help sustain the actual performances: most likely that’s the real function of the School of the American Ballet.  It’s a prestige training program for the New York City Ballet, and as a result it’s also a cash cow for the company.  But the Nonprofiteer strongly doubts there’s any ambiguity in the status of either the ballet company or the school, whether they’re independent or intertwined.  All the hair goes up on the back of her neck when she hears the word “technically;” in the nonprofit sector it almost always means some corner is being cut that shouldn’t be.

So let’s review: you’re overworked and underpaid in an organization where your input is ignored but your grunt labor is expected and taken for granted.  This may also be an organization with a dodgy relationship to the laws of your state concerning nonprofits and community benefit, and the laws of the United States concerning nonprofits and taxation.  Given all this—surprise!  You’re having a terrible time.

The Nonprofiteer ran a small nonprofit herself—a choir, as it happens—back before the glaciers melted.  It was a complete debacle, though it did provide one of the world’s fastest educations in nonprofit management.  It took her nine months to realize that she was on a dead-end path, and to quit.  She urges you to be more expeditious.

It’s a terrible economy and no doubt you want to work in the music world that you love.  But you’d be better off working as a temp and looking for a job with a functional school or music group than staying where you are and having your spirit ground down by fighting against impossible odds.

The Nonprofiteer’s advice: give two weeks’ notice and start the New Year off fresh.  As for templates of resignation letters, the simplest are the best.  Justifiably angry as you are, don’t burn any bridges.  Just write, “Ladies and Gentlemen: I’m sorry that I will be unable to continue as the director of [Name] School.  My last day will be [date].  Thank you for having given me the opportunity to work with you.  Sincerely, [you].”  If you just can’t stand the thought of writing something so polite, write a letter that expresses how you really feel—and then put it under the chestnuts and roast away.

Submit your letter today, and you’ll have yourself a merry little Christmas.  You deserve no less.

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Posted in Arts Organizations, Boards of Directors, Conflict of Interest, Nonprofit management, Nonprofits--General, Personnel Issues | 1 Comment »

How not to handle succession in the arts

November 17, 2011

There could be worse ways to handle succession planning than the one chosen by the Miami City Ballet, but it would be hard to think of one. The Board of Directors, concerned that the ballet company would collapse when its famous artistic director Edward Villella retired, decided to test its own theory by forcing him out before he was ready to leave. Some Board members blame the outcome on Mr. Villella, who apparently refused to greet several of them at the company’s gala; but it’s hard to blame him when one of them called a meeting with him for the purpose of handing him a book on succession planning.

The Times article reaches for the classic suits-versus-artists narrative, saying that Villella’s ouster reflected the Board’s determination to place business stability above artistic product; but that’s unfair. The Board is responsible for the continued health of the company, and a failure to consider new leadership when the current leader is 75 would be a dereliction of duty. But what we’ve got here is failure to communicate.

As Chicago’s Victory Gardens Theatre Board learned back in 2000, you don’t call in the company’s artistic engine and hand him his walking papers–or even the sort of broad hint contained in the gift of a book about succession planning. You’re talking to someone about his life’s work and his passion, and you can’t talk to him as if he were a CEO who had been recompensed all these years in cash and expected to be recompensed the same way in retirement. An artistic director who is compelled to retire–and yes, indeed, some of them need to be–has to be offered a form of compensation congruent with what he’s been receiving up until now, something involving artistic control–even if it’s only the control inherent in leading the search for his own successor.

And even if the artistic director’s retirement creates the opportunity for the Board to step into its proper role of leadership–say, supervising the managing director instead of having the artistic director do so–that’s an opportunity to be pursued once the new artistic director begins. From the Board’s standpoint, having the managing and artistic directors report co-equally is a way to lighten the artistic director’s load while assuring that the Board itself receives comprehensive information. But from the standpoint of the incumbent artistic director, it’s a slap in the face, and suggests that the Board wants to interpose a business person (and a businessperson’s veto) between the artist and his vision.

Of course the Board IS the boss of the company, including the artistic director. But the most effective bosses wear their power lightly, in cooperation rather than conflict with the artists they mean to be serving. By this measure, the Board of the Miami City Ballet just fell on its face.

A word to wise arts Boards everywhere.

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Posted in Arts Organizations, Boards of Directors, Coverage of nonprofits, Nonprofit management, Nonprofits--General, Personnel Issues, Succession planning | Leave a Comment »

The power of thanks

October 28, 2011

So here’s something the Nonprofiteer heard yesterday: if an agency’s response to every initial donation is to have a Board member pick up the phone and call the donor to thank him/her, the likelihood of a second donation increases by something like 80%.

What’s terrific about that (other than the obvious, donor retention) is that picking up the phone is often the biggest hurdle Board members need to clear to become effective fundraisers.  So if they get used to picking up the phone in a completely non-threatening situation–when their only task is to say, “Hi, I’m a volunteer Board member of agency X and I just wanted to thank you for your gift–we really appreciate your support”–you’re halfway (well, maybe one-third-way) to getting them to pick up the phone and ask their friends to come to a benefit event or a fundraising lunch.

Sounds like the ultimate low-cost high-yield endeavor.  Has anyone tried it?  Is it as good as it sounds?

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Posted in Benefit events, Boards of Directors, Fundraising, Nonprofit management, Nonprofits--General, Personnel Issues, Private Philanthropy, Relations with funders, Volunteers/Volunteerism | 3 Comments »

Tom Sawyer was wrong

June 2, 2011

This branch of Habitat for Humanity has chosen to charge volunteers for the privilege of helping out.

When the Nonprofiteer pointed out that volunteers give more readily to the agencies they serve than non-volunteers, she wasn’t advocating admission fees.   Volunteers may have paid to paint Tom Sawyer’s fence, but Twain’s point was that they were stupid.  Your volunteers aren’t.

Even if mandatory “contributions” (oxymoron watch!) weren’t offensive in suggesting that volunteers’ time has less than no value, they’re practically the definition of penny-wise and pound-foolish: people will pay what you require (or not) and then regard their giving to the agency as being done for the year.

Or forever.  Please stop this idea before it kills again.

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Posted in Benefit events, Charity scandals, Coverage of nonprofits, Current Affairs, Earned income, Finances, Fundraising, Housing, Nonprofit management, Nonprofits--General, Personnel Issues, Private Philanthropy, Relations with funders, Social Service Agencies, Volunteers/Volunteerism | 4 Comments »

Dear Nonprofiteer, Victory on points?

April 22, 2011

Dear Nonprofiteer,

I recently saw an offer to serve on a non-profit board where there was a monetary donation requirement each year, but the amount could be substituted by service or other activities through the scale pasted below. Here’s the way they phrased it:

To ensure active participation, members earn points for financial contributions and volunteer service. We ask that a contribution of $250 be made in order to remain as an Associate Board member. You can, however, combine a cash donation of $100 with your fundraising and volunteer efforts by earning these points:

Sample Opportunities to Earn Points
Opportunity Points
Additional cash contribution of $50 50
Plan a Board Social or Fundraising Event 50
Serve in a leadership role 50
Secure $100 event sponsorship 15*
Represent [agency] at a public fair or presentation 15*
Sell a ticket to a fundraiser 10*

I was wondering, is this a common practice? I’m actually thinking about recommending it for another board where I’ve been asked to donate money.

Signed, Victor on Points or Technical Knock-Out?

Dear Knock-Out:

The Nonprofiteer knows that some larger organizations use this point system, but for smaller organizations she thinks the record-keeping and arguments about “what counts” are more trouble than they’re worth.  Obviously it depends on the size of the required contribution, but in general everyone on a Board should be expected to give AND participate, and in roughly equal measure.

This is expressed in a number of different formulations: Board members offer the three Ws (Work, Wealth and Wisdom) or are expected to provide the three Gs (Give, Get and Govern). Whichever initials you use, the point is the same: Board membership is not an either-or proposition but a yes-and one. The best way to assure fulfillment of these expectations is to adopt a clear statement of them for Board members, and go over that statement with every Board recruit. “Every Board member is expected to make a $500 contribution, and buy a ticket to the annual gala, and attend monthly Board meetings, and serve on a committee . . .”. That way, no one agrees to join the Board who isn’t prepared to do all those things.

People are fond of making exceptions to this in two cases: for Board members perceived to be significantly poorer than the rest of the group, and for those perceived to be significantly wealthier or better-connected than the rest.

In the first case, the Nonprofiteer’s advice is: don’t count the money in other people’s pockets. Poor people are more generous than rich people generally, and thus are often less upset by minimum Board gifts than their wealthier counterparts. If a rich Board member can just write a $500 check while a poorer one has to ask 10 friends for $50, well, that’s just another example of ways in which poor people have to work harder than rich people. And, as $500 per year is less than $10 per week, most working people—regardless of their assets—can afford it.

In the second case: if someone tells you s/he’s too busy to actually do anything but s/he’ll be glad to be on your Board, remember this motto: if they can’t do the time, they can’t do the crime. Someone willing only to lend his/her name and write a check should be placed on an Advisory Board (create one if you have to, or dub the person a “Special Advisor” and put him/her on the stationery), not on the Board of Directors. If you do put such a person on the Board proper, s/he will have all the legal responsibilities of Board members without being there to discharge them—a recipe for disaster and hard feelings, should the agency be socked with a bill for unpaid withholding taxes or a lawsuit from an injured client.

In short: the Board is a governance institution, and governance includes assuring that the agency has the resources it needs to fulfill its mission You shouldn’t have to negotiate with your governors about their tasks, which is what a point system suggests. Rather, they should be the ones setting their own goals and meeting them, and attracting others who will do the same.

And that’s the final reason not to use this point system: no one wants to serve on a Board of lazy people. Your group is more attractive to prospects if everyone’s revved up and ready to go on every possible front. You can find such people, provided you don’t declare defeat and stop looking.

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Posted in Benefit events, Boards of Directors, Finances, Fundraising, Nonprofit management, Nonprofits--General, Personnel Issues, Private Philanthropy, Volunteers/Volunteerism | Leave a Comment »

Ownership and its Discontents

February 16, 2011

Many years ago the Nonprofiteer lived briefly in a cooperative apartment building, which looks like a condominium building but differs from it in a fundamental way. In a cooperative, owners don’t own their units: they just have long-term leases. What they own instead is stock in the landlord—a corporation whose sole asset is the building.

Being landlords, coop boards act like landlords: they determine who may move into the building, and what sort of alterations may be made to the units, and even how much heat any individual owner receives. As a result, coop owners are deeply involved, monitoring Board actions closely because those actions may intrude significantly on their lives. At the same time, they’re favorably disposed to any regulation promising to maintain or enhance the value of their units. They’re prepared to accept considerable restrictions on their own freedom of action for the privilege of restraining others’ freedom of action. The entire system is like living in the United Nations—for better and worse.

This came to the Nonprofiteer’s mind because in the past week she’s facilitated two Board meetings at which people have threatened to quit. (Perhaps this suggests she should alter her style of facilitation, but she prefers to think that she’s just making people face the hard questions.) At the first meeting, a Board member confronted for the first time with a clear statement that he was expected to make a personal financial contribution announced, “If I don’t get credit for using my corporate connections, I quit!” At the second, the Executive Director responded to a consensus that individual counseling was outside the agency’s mission by saying, “If you’re telling me I can’t listen to people’s problems and try to solve them, I quit!”

If people threaten to quit while talking about difficult issues like money and mission, what does that mean? It’s obviously necessary to press on the most sensitive spot, the issue that needs to be resolved before anything else can be accomplished; but is “I quit!” (whether acted upon or not) the only possible response?

People who serve on nonprofit Boards do so out of passion for the agency’s cause, and what they get in return for their commitment of time and energy and money and belief is a sense that they own the agency. When an “owner’s” understanding of the agency is challenged or contradicted, naturally it feels as if his/her property is being stolen. “I quit!” means “I’ll throw this in the trash before I let you take it from me.”

It’s good that Board members consider themselves owners of the agency, but bad that so many of them misunderstand the nature of that ownership. They don’t own their own little condominium understanding of the agency’s mission or its means of achieving it. Rather, they co-own the agency with the rest of the Board, and it’s the whole Board that owns the understanding of mission and means.

This often makes Board membership difficult for people who are natural leaders. They’re accustomed to acting without consultation, or with the kind of consultation that acknowledges their superior knowledge and/or power. But on a nonprofit Board, those who act without consultation risk either distorting the mission to match their private vision or provoking the adoption of significant restrictions on everyone’s freedom of action to prevent that distortion from taking place. Neither is a good outcome.

The ideal circumstance is for all the owners to realize that they’re members of a cooperative group whose sole asset is the institution, and that securing that asset’s well-being is the task they all face together. When that’s clear, disputes about what the institution is or does or deserves from its Board members can be negotiated among all the owners, and no one says “I quit!”

Now, how to get there?

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Posted in Boards of Directors, Mission, Nonprofit management, Nonprofits--General, Private Philanthropy, Social Service Agencies, Strategic Planning (and the tactical kind, too) | 4 Comments »

A delicate balance

January 27, 2011

If fundraising is concentric circles, as consultants often say (you ask your friends and then their friends and then their friends’ friends), then it seems to make the most sense to start asking right in the bosom of the family: from your staff and volunteers.  Indeed, this is what most nonprofit executives think of when they hear the phrase “Charity begins at home”!

But staff and volunteers are in quite different positions with respect to your organization, and so they can’t be treated alike in terms of asking for money.

Often agencies are afraid to ask their volunteers for money on the grounds that they’re already getting the volunteers’ time, and it would be greedy to ask for more.  But in fact no one is in a better position to appreciate the value of the work you do, or the scarcity of resources under which you labor, than a volunteer.  Further, though not all volunteers are privileged, they are at least people who have leisure time to donate, which suggests they’re not grindingly poor.  If your volunteers show up at the office with a cup of Starbuck’s in hand, consider what that represents: 1 Venti/day@$2.50 x 5 days/week x 52 weeks/year = $650.  So they’re probably spending more on coffee than you’d think of mentioning in an initial ask.

Will any volunteers take umbrage at being asked to give money as well as time?  Sure; a certain percentage of the population finds discussion of money distasteful and crude, and such people may well be represented in your volunteer corps.  But you’re not any poorer for asking them, and there’s very little reason to think they’d stop volunteering at an activity they enjoy because you asked them a question to which the answer was “no.”

Don’t extend this blithe attitude, though, to asking your volunteers to ask for money.  Direct-service volunteers are apt to be offended if they’re asked to do other kinds of volunteer work, such as fundraising, because the request suggests that they’re not already working hard enough.  You understand the difference between time and money, and your need for both; your volunteers are equally sophisticated.  So ask them for money, not for more time.

Staff members are a different issue.  People who work in nonprofit agencies are already donating enormous sums to the agency, in the form of foregone income–-the money they could be making working in the for-profit sector.  In this sense they are almost certainly the top donors to the agencies at which they work.

The Nonprofiteer took a nonprofit executive job for half the salary she had been earning as a practicing lawyer—a not inconsiderable sacrifice, though one she was glad to make.  But when members of the Board suggested that she also write a check to the agency, her attitude was, “The very second the Board gives $25,000 a year to the agency–-collectively, let alone individually!—it will have the right to come back and ask for something more than the $25,000 worth of lost wages I’m already giving.”

To be fair, hers is a minority view.  Many agencies regard staff donations as some sort of measure of staff commitment to the agency.   But staff members indicate commitment every day through the work they do, the salaries they accept, the health insurance they lack.  At some agencies they even demonstrate their commitment by working overtime for which they don’t get paid—and by not ratting out their employers to the U.S. Department of Labor or the state agency charged with regulating wages, hours and working conditions.  The fact that our agencies do socially valuable work doesn’t entitle us to exploit our laborers, though of course for many years nonprofits have survived their lack of financial capital by consuming human capital instead.

So don’t ask your staff for money, and do ask your volunteers.  Maybe they’ll donate enough to make it possible for you to offer the staff health insurance, or paid sick leave, or even a raise.

Well, one can dream, anyway.

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Posted in Boards of Directors, Fundraising, Nonprofit management, Nonprofits--General, Personnel Issues, Private Philanthropy, Relations with funders, Social Service Agencies, Volunteers/Volunteerism | 7 Comments »

Fired up to volunteer

December 13, 2010

The Nonprofiteer first learned of the work of catchafire.org several months ago through our mutual colleagues at Mission Research.  She’s been getting around to writing about Catchafire’s work placing high-skill volunteers at New York nonprofits.  Now that founder Rachael Chong has been interviewed on NPR’s Marketplace, the Nonprofiteer realizes that time waits for no blogger.

Rachael describes her organization as “Match.com for volunteers and nonprofits.”  A nonprofit pays a low fee to have Catchafire figure out its needs (“scope its projects,” in site jargon) and find a volunteer with the right skills to accomplish the task.  (At the moment the group operates only in New York, which mysteriously has one of the lowest volunteering rates in the country, but it hopes to expand to other communities in fairly short order.)  Volunteer in, do project, volunteer out, bada-bing, bada-boom—the whole thing happens in a New York  minute.

The Nonprofiteer applauds Catchafire’s mission and part of its approach–the part about helping nonprofits figure out what they can actually do with high-skill volunteers other than asking them to stuff envelopes.  But for every volunteer who wants to root, shoot and leave she knows two who are looking for a long-term volunteer home, and though obviously a Catchafire volunteer isn’t precluded from becoming a permanent volunteer, s/he comes in branded as a person who will, and therefore probably only can, do one thing.

The Nonprofiteer is also concerned about sending a single volunteer to do a project, even if it seems apparent that a single pair of hands is all that’s required.  Many people volunteer to alleviate their loneliness (or, more positively, to connect with others) and a single-person project—even in the midst of an agency with lots of people—is likely to be isolated, and isolating.

The Taproot Foundation, which likewise uses a project-based model of providing assistance to nonprofits, addresses the isolation concern by assembling a team to complete each project.  The good news is, each volunteer gets to know and work with other high-skill volunteers.  The bad news is, teams of volunteers are to nonprofits as hairballs are to cats: tolerable on a temporary basis but unlikely to be integrated permanently into the system.  High-skill volunteers searching for a cause about which to stay passionate and a home in which to express that passion instead find the opportunity to be coughed up.

The Nonprofiteer’s theory is that both groups are treating the symptom [failure to use high-skill volunteers] rather than the cause [staff hostility to the use of volunteers].  It may be that only the symptom can be treated; but in her own practice, the Nonprofiteer works to help organizations identify and overcome the sources of staff resistance, so they can make use of high-skill volunteers on an extensive and long-term basis rather than a restricted and short-term one.  We all know that staff turnover is expensive because every new person has to be trained; the same must be true of volunteer turnover, and therefore solutions requiring constant orientation of new people create problems of their own.

But may the best model win!  And if nonprofits use some high-skill volunteers better as a result of any of these approaches, we’ll all win.

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Posted in Coverage of nonprofits, Current Affairs, Mission, Nonprofit management, Nonprofits--General, Personnel Issues, Volunteers/Volunteerism, Women's Issues | 4 Comments »

Dear Nonprofiteer, Who quit and made me president?

November 4, 2010

Dear Nonprofiteer:

Recently I started serving on a board of a small social service organization.  In the last six months our board president has slowly retreated from his leadership duties due to a variety of personal issues that he’s facing and I find that I’m essentially left driving the bus.  What resources are there that you would recommend for those seemingly newly anointed to oversee a nonprofit?

Signed,Nickeynewguy and Lost

Dear Nickey,

Of course the best resource is the Nonprofiteer it/herself–the site has no search function, I’m sorry to say, but if you just keep trolling backwards you’ll find numerous bits of advice for Board presidents.  But here’s the central thing to remember: even if you’re suddenly the Board PRESIDENT, you’re not suddenly the whole Board.

So the first thing to do is call a meeting of the Board (with the Executive Director in the room—s/he will be your most valuable partner) and say, “Well, I appear to have become president by default.  This wasn’t your choice and it certainly wasn’t mine; so let’s figure out what has to be done and divide up the tasks.”  In other words, make it clear from the word Go that you’re not going to be in this alone.

Second, if you’re the sort of person who ends up leading by default, that means you’re a natural leader in one way or another.  I’m going to proceed on the assumption that your leadership flows from quiet competence rather than noisy charisma (otherwise you’d have been Board president to begin with).  So use that quiet competence to help the Executive Director and your fellow Board members think through:

  • What do we have to do that’s urgent?
  • What do we have to do that’s important?
  • Are we letting the urgent get in the way of the important?
  • If so, is the urgent really so urgent?
  • If so, do we need more people to address things, urgent and important alike?
  • If so, who will lead a brainstorming session to identify and recruit prospective new Board members?

Note that I’m not suggesting you do the recruiting, though you may be the most motivated to do so, having suddenly awakened to a whole set of unasked-for responsibilities. Nor should the Executive Director do it—s/he’s got plenty to do already.   But the only way you can do your job is to make sure other Board members do theirs, and the best way to get them activated is to give them the fun job, namely, thinking about who else would just love the work you’re doing if only they knew about it, and then talking to those people with great enthusiasm about what you do.

Any Board member who can’t run, or at least participate whole-heartedly in, a recruitment campaign should be given some essential but boring task like reviewing budget vs. actual expenses or assuring compliance with the Federal and state filing requirements.  That person should have to report at the next Board meeting, as will the recruiters.  As soon as you’re having Board meetings where Board members talk to each other (instead of sulking, or reporting to the Executive Director or to you as though you were the only responsible parties in the room), you’ve got this presidency stuff down pat.

For more detailed guidance, the Nonprofiteer strongly suggests checking out any of the sites on the blogroll (in the right margin), as well as going to boardsource.org, which as its name suggests specializes in making Board service as straightforward and resource-rich as possible.  The Boardsource “Knowledge Center” is chock-a-block with guidelines, forms and checklists to help you make sure the essential bases are being covered—even in the center fielder’s absence.

And as further questions arise, please feel free to write again!

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Posted in Boards of Directors, Nonprofit management, Nonprofits--General, Personnel Issues, Social Service Agencies, Strategic Planning (and the tactical kind, too), Volunteers/Volunteerism | 2 Comments »

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