April 12, 2021

Let’s say it was 24 hours before you were born

From John Rawls, A Theory of Justice, 1971…as told by Warren Buffet and modified by Simone Joyaux

Let’s say it was 24 hours before you were born, and a genie appeared and said: “What I’m going to do is let you set the rules of the society into which you will be born. You can set the economic rules and the social rules and whatever rules you set will apply during your lifetime and your children’s lifetimes and even the lifetimes of your grandchildren.”

And you’ll say, “Well, that’s great. I get to define what kind of world I want to live in.” But you’re smart, too. You ask: “What’s the catch?”

And the genie says, “Here’s the catch. You don’t know if you’re going to be born poor or rich, of color or white, female or male or some other sexual identity.”

Now what rules do you want?

March 24, 2021

Philanthropy’s Moral Dilemma

My first book, co-authored with Tom Ahern…Keep Your Donors: The Guide to Better Communications and Stronger Relationships, published in 2008. The final special chapter, is called “CODA: Philanthropy’s Moral Dilemma.”

Later, I made this book chapter into a stand-alone publication…a document in the Learning Center in this website. A document included in workshops and courses that I teach…over and over.

I started that chapter with 3 quotations…I often use quotations in my business books … quotes from various sources, even romance novels and sci fi fantasy!

Philanthropy’s Moral Dilemma…my manifesto…starts with 3 quotations:

• One from Alfre Woodard in the special book Robin Hood Was Right. (Today her reference to “every man, woman, and child” might be altered to better reflect sexual identity.)

• The other from Howard Zinn – You Can’t Be Neutral on a Moving Train.

• And as Pope John XXIII said, “Justice comes before charity.”

In this manifesto, I wrote about: The politics of power in philanthropy. The moral dilemma facing philanthropy. Power, sometimes silent but ever present. Privilege, the driving nature of power. Understanding the two types of philanthropy. Tradition dominates. The less social justice we have, the more philanthropy we need. We are complicit. Philanthropy as a democratizing act. Attacking the moral dilemma.

And here’s the conclusion to this 2008 manifesto:

Here is one of my favorite stories, told by Warren Buffet based on John Rawls A Theory of Justice. I modified Buffet’s words somewhat. For me, this story represents philanthropy’s moral dilemma.

“Imagine that it’s 24 hours before you were born. A genie appears and says: You get to set the rules of the society into which you will be born. You can set the economic rules and the social rules and all the other rules. The rules you set will apply during your lifetime and for the lifetime of your children and even grandchildren.”

Just imagine how thrilled you are with this offer! But you’re smart. You ask, “What’s the catch?”

And the genie says: “You don’t know if you’re going to be born poor or rich, White or of color, infirm or able bodied, homosexual or heterosexual, or female or male.

“So what rules do you want?”

My (Simone) answer is: I know what rules I want, equity and social justice for all.

I know that to create this world requires social change / progressive philanthropy, not only traditional mainstream philanthropy.

I (Simone) know that this means transformation, more probably revolution. I think it’s time for more subversive acts like asking cage-rattling questions. Confronting complicity and challenging privilege and power. Exploring morality and speaking out. Increasing philanthropy for social change.

= = = = = = = = = =

I ended Philanthropy’s Moral Dilemma with these words:

But I have hope.

“La esperanza muere última.” Hope dies last. (Jessie de la Cruz, retired farm worker recounting the days before Cesar Chavez and the founding of the United Farm Workers. Studs Terkel uses this 2003 book Hope Dies Last: Keeping Faith in Difficult Times.)

= = = = = = = = = =

How naive was I? I’m writing this issue of Simone Uncensored on March 24, 2021.

I look at all the shootings………… The usual targets, our Black friends, neighbors, community members – and now school children and………. The USA which ranks 53rd in gender parity throughout the world’s nations………. Denying reproductive justice and sexual identity……….

I feel guiltier and guiltier. I aim for shock and discomfort – particularly when I’m speaking at some conference somewhere. I often introduce myself like this: “Hello, my name is Simone Joyaux. I’m a white, heterosexual, well-educated and affluent woman. All that unearned privilege.”

And I watch some people twitch at that self-intro.

• There were a couple of written reviews that said “I didn’t come here to hear that stuff. I came to learn about fundraising!” (My response, if I could have contacted them: “Fundraising and nonprofits and government and for-profits and all of life are about this stuff!!!)

• Then a woman came up to me at the end of a live presentation. She asked me, “May I hug you for what you said? Because I can’t marry a women I love.”

Sometimes I feel lost and so sad…even as I recognize my unearned privilege.

February 16, 2021

Opinion…Expertise…Nonprofits…For profits

Sometimes it feels like an endless fight…Ah tristesse…

You’re the fundraiser. You study and study and read and and … But your boss keeps telling you that you’re wrong.

That big donor (so often a wealthy white guy) wants to share some thoughts and give you advice about how to be a better CEO. “Well, Missy…”

And seeminly everyone is singing the same refrain: “If only you nonprofits would just behave more like the for profits. Then everything would be fine.”

Hmmmm….. Check out these resources.

  • “What Business Execs Don’t Know – But Should – About Nonprofits” Authors: Les Silverman and Lynn Taliento, Summer 2006. Stanford Social Innovation Review. 
  • Good to Great and the Social Sectors, a monograph by Jim Collins
  • Small Change: Why Business Won’t Change the world, Mike Edwards

Next step after your reading: Graciously anticipate that these peeps (board members, donors, business execs, etc.) are going to tell you (albeit graciously maybe) that you, the fundraiser or nonprofit exec, are wrong. Anticipate! Then pre-empt their comments by sharing research and articles and and and … So those non-experts just might stop themselves from intruding inappropriately.

By the way, check out my new resource on my website…focusing on the CEO’s role (job description) and the distinctions between governance and management. The document is called: “Just another resource tool…Focused on governance and management“.

Now get back to reading that article about what  business execs don’t know – but should know – about nonprofits.

January 13, 2021

An idea I have

I’m reflecting on my 32 years as a full-time consultant. (On January 1, 2021, I started by 33rd year as a full-time consultant.)

Wow! How marvelous have these working years been!!!!

So I have this idea: I’ll compile lots of my writings over the years… And then post bunches of pages in a “compilation” book… Online.

The compilation will be posted on my website and announced in my newsyletter and on this, my blog.

Different articles and resources from different years…on different subjects…

I’ll probably even recruit someone to do a really cool cover.

But the document itself will be a downloadable PDF. And I’m thinking for free…As a gift to everyone I’ve learned from, worked with, whatever…

What do you think?

 

August 3, 2020

Thinking about reading and writing and my frustration/anger/sadness

I’ve always been an avid reader.

When I was young (maybe 9 or 10 or so years old)…My mom kinda yelled at me: “Simone! Put the goddamn book down and go outside and play.” I think maybe I asked her if I could take the book with me. Just imagine her response.

Until my mid teens…every summer I would ride my bike to the library and take out 7 books. Get a glass of lemonade and go to the basement where there was a couch and it was cooler than outside or upstairs – and no one came downstairs to bother me. I’d read a book a day.

What was I reading for fun then? Probably lots of the same stuff I read now for fun : Romance novels but only selected romance novelists. Sci fi fantasy – but that’s new – since I was student teaching and an 8th grade student explained why sci fi was so cool. Spy, thrillers.  That’s my fun time.

What else do I read now? When I’m learning and enhancing my craft and stimulating my brain? Business books. Some of my favorite authors: Business books NOT specific to the nonprofit sector/philanthropy: Seth Godin. Jim Collins. Peter Senge. Malcolm Gladwell. Chip & Dan Heath. Peter Senge. Daniel Goleman. And and and and ….

For the nonprofit sector, I think I might require all staff to read  John Gardner’s monograph Building Community. I’d require all senior staff to add these two monographs: Ken Dayton’s Governance is Governance Is Governance and Jim Collins’ Good to Great and the Social Sectors.

So this blog is recommending just a few of the books that I’ve found most useful/helpful/special/important to me. I think all of these are particularly important to any senior professional in any field – including  the nonprofit sector – especially the CEO and CDO. If I were a CEO or CDO today, I’d insist upon a Book Club for senior staff.

By the way, none of the books recommended below focus on the nonprofit sector, governance or fundraising. But I’ve found all of these useful, helpful, still relevant, hugely meaningful…whatever…to my decades of work in the nonprofit sector.

And here’s more reading for the top-notch professionals. The non-siloed thinkers. The lifelong learners. Those who integrate various schools of thought and fight silos and use conversation as a core business practice and read across disciplines and….

The Hidden Brain: How our Unconscious Minds Elect Presidents, Control Markets, Wage Wars, and Save Our Lives, Shankar Vedantam

Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other, Sherry Turkle

Permission Marketing. The Icarus Deception. Seth Godin (And there are many more! I just picked those 2 for this moment.)

The Fifth Discipline, Peter Senge

Good to Great, Jim Collins

Between the World and Me, Ta-Nehisi Coates

The Self-Made Myth: And the Truth About How Government Helps Individiuals and Businesses Succeed. Brian Miller & Mike Lapham

You Can’t Be Neutral on a Moving Train: A Personal History of Our Times, Howard Zinn

Robin Hood Was Right: A Guide to Giving Your Money For Social Change, Collins, Rogers, and Garner

And these 2 books by Mike Edwards do focus on the nonprofit sector….. Small Change: Why Business Won’t Save the World and Civil Society.

If you live in the USA, have you read any of these books? And if you live in another country, how does any of this pertain to your country? These books are about society…so they certainly do apply to the nonprofit sector, too.

  • Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America? Barbara Ehrenreich is the author. The book was published in 2001…a New York Times bestseller. And while those 19 years have certainly shown some changes and new stuff and and and… the overall story is pretty much the same…and even worse in some cases. Check out Ehrenreich’s “sequels”. Bait and Switch: The (Futile) Pursuit of the American Dream (2005). And This Land is Your Their Land (2008).
  • And here’s another useful book The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power, Joel Bakan.

Okay. I have to stop now. So many. So much.

I just get so tired of hearing so many people whining about having no time to learn more…read…visit the meaningful and learnful stuff on the Internet. Blah blah blah. If someone isn’t a lifelong learner, how can that someone be a professional?

I believe in lifelong learning – and I don’t see enough of it. I actually read a note somewhere sometime from a consultant who said… “I don’t read books anymore. I’m a consultant now. I know this stuff.” (If I could have found this person, just imagine how I might have responded!!!)

Okey dokey. Enough now.

P.S. Happy birthday and bonne anniversaire, my Tommy…

June 15, 2020

I’m too angry & frustrated. So here’s another thought…

I’m just too angry and frustrated. And this is about boards and bosses and ignorance and… [But there is a P.S. at the bottom about recent happenings in this racist US of A.]

Me (and you) are righteously angry towards board members and bosses who think they know more about fundraising than the fundraising staff. You and I are often appropriately angry towards board members who pay attention to body of knowledge and research expressed by lawyers and accountants and doctors and… But ignore and insult and trespass against resesarch and body of knowledge from fundraisers.

I’ve ranted about this forever and ever and over and over…

But here’s a new thought. A more gracious perspective. I don’t always have to be so angry!!! So here goes. What do you think?

We have to get across to all staff and all board members — everyone in every single nonprofit around the world — that a competent nonprofit organization does NOT need fundraising IDEAS.

Like any profession and professional, there’s academic and practitioner research and multiple bodies of knowledge about what/why/how to do fundraising. Fundraisers don’t seek new ideas. Like any competent professional, fundraisers read and study and learn. Fundraisers are lifelong learners following the international leaders in the field…reading the research. Etc. etc. blah blah blah.

I think that board members (and often bosses, too) are trying to help those poor fundraisers by coming up with new ideas. But why? What’s that about? These bosses and board members don’t suggest ideas to accountants, lawyers, medical doctors, road construction workers, house builders…

Hell…I wouldn’t even offer ideas to tech experts and guitar players or my hair dresser or …. I figure they all studied. Read the research. Followed highly knowledgeable practitioners and researchers. Practiced and learned more!

I think some board members, donors, bosses, whomever… are trying to help by suggesting ideas. Bless their hearts. Bless their hearts? I actually thought that was meant graciously. Until a Southern friend of mind explained to me: “Bless your heart” is actually not a compliment. It’s more like “what the hell you moron?!” (I can’t remember where I read this moron statement. But it sure is cool.)

Where does this not-so-good helping hand come from? Why don’t board members, bosses, whomever realize that fundraising (and governance and management and…) are actually professions with bodies of knowledge. WTF?

I think there’s a whole lot of disrespect for the nonprofit sector. Let’s be honest. If any of us could have gotten a job in a for-profit … you know, a “real job”…we wouldn’t be working in the nonprofit sector. (Surely you’ve experienced that snide reference sometime in your life.)

So the BIG BIG message that we have to get out there to our bosses and board members and and and … The nonprofit sector is different than the for-profit sector. And also similar in some ways. And professionals in the nonprofit sector know the distinctions and similarities.

  • There is a body of knowledge in fundraising and donor-centered communications. Financing is different. Measures are different. (Just read Jim Collins’ monograph Good to Great and the Social Sectors.)
  • Asking for gifts is not totally like selling. And your fundraising staff darn well better start learning about philanthropic psychology.
  • Without a culture of philanthropy, that nonprofit won’t thrive. It’s like Peter Drucker kept trying to teach us all [for-profits and nonprofits]: organizational culture will eat strategy for breakfast, lunch, and probably dinner too.

So back to the very big message that nonprofits and competent fundraisers and top-notch nonprofit leaders must must get out to their board members and others:

  • Fundraising is NOT NOT NOT about coming up with ideas.
  • Fundraising is about learning the body of knowledge…following the research…building the capacity and competency of the nonprofit and its employees and volunteer, including board members.

Thank you kind board members and bosses….The best fundraisers do not need ideas. The best fundraising programs aren’t looking for ideas. Follow the research. Now. Just do it. 

Hire well. And let the top-notch fundraisers do their work. Thank you!

P.S. I wrote this Simone Uncensored blog before George Floyd and yet another need to say that Black Lives Matter. I can’t even write about this “fucking country” although I’ve tweeted some. And unless you really know me and what I’ve done over the decades — not just writing but acting out — don’t you dare tarnish so many of us who you claim aren’t doing enough.

November 18, 2019

Starting the new year … with better governance …

I’m pretty much always thinking about governance. That thing that boards do.

Board = collective. Board member = individual. These 2 terms are NOT NOT not NOT never interchangeable.

And here’s what Colleen, SMUMN Cohort 28 wrote in summer 2019….governance….management….

“The thing that struck me most about my time spent [in the governance course at SMUMN] thinking, reading and acting out all things governance, was the balance of giving the best of me and willingly receiving the best of others. I wrote about it a little in my final project: how people come together to lead.

“I view leadership of a nonprofit as a separation of powers, not too dissimilar to our American governmental system in theory. I like the idea that people can come together, challenge and be challenged so that the result is the strengthening of an organization. I walk away with a much better sense of the importance of a strong CEO and how that person interacts with the governing board. Really, I have a greater intellectual respect for staff I think. In the back of my mind, I think I gave boards too much responsibility. I thought they needed to have all the answers, Not so.”

So how’s your governance going? And your management?

November 11, 2019

Ranting about governance…

Did you read my special blog posted by Vitreo in its blog, The Provocateur?

 

October 22, 2019

Governance…your board…your board members…tips to help you!!

I so enjoyed teaching governance twice at SMUMN this past summer. I’ve shared comments from Cohort 27 in previous “Notes from my dorm room”.

Now I’m sharing comments from Cohort 28. I hope these comments challenge you to examine governance in your organization…question your approach and level of knowledge…learn and make change!!

Mackenzie said: “I am extremely nervous about the amount of work it will take to make great governance. [But], I’m looking forward to the challenge.”

Greg gives us something to laugh about: “Good governance. How do you make it happen? I wish it was as easy as getting fatter. Or mandatory, like aging.” And more seriously, he says: “The CEO and board chair/board members don’t have to agree, but they have to learn how to disagree with respect, using facts and data to support constructive discussion…. [T]hey have to be able to say uncomfortable things. They don’t argue to win; they argue to resolve.”

Rachel reminds us: “CEOs ned to be a governance expert.”  And…”The board is a collective.”

Nate reminds us that “we need to do a better job of bringing strategic questions and topics to our board in order to have more strategic conversations.”

Luke said: “I discovered the difference between management and governance. This, to me, is the most important part. The board and board members must understand thei roles. If they do not, it is a MESS.”

Lisa commented: “I love the fact that power – for lack of a better word – is distributed. There are checks and balances, and that there are people ideally together working on your mission and there to help. But it’s not a perfect system. If it was, it would be incredible. But not everyone is on board. People don’t know the rules, and people don’t want training. So it is up to the ones of us who know what’s going on to step up and help others understand.”

Samantha notes: “The relationship between boards and staff is often unbalanced.”

Colleen’s insight: “The CEO needs to be the most knowledgeable person in the room about board governance (in addition to the organization’s operations.) Previously, I’d really thought that was up to the Board Chair.”

What’s happening in your organization? How will you learn and lead change?

October 7, 2019

More notes from my dorm room…

It’s fall. But I still have memories from my time at Saint Mary’s. This year I taught governance to 2 different cohorts…Cohort 27 and Cohort 28. And here are some more great insights from Cohort 27. Insights that you can use to stimulate your thinking, encourage you to learn more, and challenge the assumptions you might already have regarding governance.

Aaron said: “Governance is such tricky business for the untrained…But in reality, it is a set of guidelines to make the most use of everyone’s time as well as serve the organization to achieve its mission. [Governance] is not some mythical land where good organizations live and bad are denied. It is common sense coupled with good behavior.”

Brandon said: “The dialogue we had in class helped me see that it’s sometimes important to just acknowledge an issue. A board may not be able to command an end to racism, but the board can have a meaningful conversation about building a policy on diverseity. Smaller steps in part of a larger journey.”

Tyler said: “We can start by influencing what we have learned at our organizations. We can expand that by serving on a board ourselves and implement changes that we know to right in getting those organizations to do good governance.”

So what will you do with these insights? Most boards are mediocre at best…Darn few are really good. If you want governance to be better at your place, learn more!

Get non-profit resources in your inbox