Nonprofit Management

Sometimes I wonder if we sufficiently realize that various things are quite different. What happens when we don’t realize that these various things are indeed different? I suspect we don’t invest sufficient time and the right resources. I suspect we don’t engage the right people in the right way for the right end.

For example:

• Event, program, or movement: Is that thing you are doing a one-off event, a longer-term program…Or have you started a movement?
• Program or organization: Is your mission (and very existence) really an organization or a program that belongs inside another organization? I see too many organizations struggling to be independent nonprofit organizations, when they are really only a program (albeit a great program) that should be part of another organization.
• Status quo or change: Are you embracing the status quo – unknowingly or intentionally – instead of exploring change? Are you most comfortable with the status quo? Or can you commit to change?
• Invite or ask: Is there a difference between “inviting” and “asking?” Is the difference only in my mind? Or is there some subtle but important distinction in the experience you offer me as a donor or volunteer or customer? Are you inviting me…or just asking?
• Buyers or givers: When I think about fundraising events, my mind goes to buying. People are buying a product. I just read some research (but don’t remember where!) about people attending fundraising events. Many of those purchasers don’t care about the nonprofit – and don’t even remember which nonprofit it is. Many are buying a ticket to an event because they like the event or want to hang out with friends or… Do you want buyers or givers?
• Features and benefits. Activities or impact: There is a difference between features and benefits. It’s a fundamental and critically important difference in communications. Another angle is activities or impact. Good fundraising and good sales focus on benefits, not features. Top-notch organizations – nonprofits or for-profits – describe impact and results, not activities.
• Recognize or understand: Do you want me to recognize why you matter? Or do you want me to understand? Recognition seems more limited, more surface. Understanding, well that’s different. With understanding, I might become part of the tribe. With understanding, I could join the fight to make change.

So… What do you think?

Distinction or difference or … See my musings a bit later in this blog, after this background:

I’ve told you before that I read a lot. And, yes, I read business stuff.

But I read popular culture, too. Popular culture…Soap operas to Terminator movies. Romance novels to mysteries. Teen fiction and Ian Fleming. Comics. And so much more.

Popular culture is actually an academic discipline, not just the fun that we all have. One of my professors at MSU – and a dear friend of our family – Russ Nye (Pulitzer Prize winner) wrote The Unembarrassed Muse: The Popular Arts in America. Wonderful book. And Russ co-founded the Popular Culture Association, “shaping a new academic discipline that blurred the traditional distinctions between high and low culture.” (Wikipedia)

I’ve always been a huge popular culture fan… Even with a masters degree in 20th century French and American literature – and part way through my PhD in the same (even though I never intended to teach at the university level; I just liked the study).

So I just finished another novel by Daniel Silva, with his character Gabriel Allon, Israeli spy and art restorer. The English Girl. And in the book is this statement: “Maybe it was a distinction without a difference.”

Hmmm… a distinction without a difference…a distinction with a difference… Insightful and useful.

For example:

• I’m forever writing about the distinction between the board (the group) and the board member. I can tell that people think this is a distinction without a difference. But that’s just plain wrong! The distinction between the board and the board member  is big – and that distinction makes a very big difference over and over. Just read my various blogs. And see the materials in my Free Download Library.
• Or how about the distinction between the board chair and other board members. That’s a distinction without much of a difference. The board chair has no more authority than any other board member, despite fantasies to the contrary. You can read about that in my blogs, too.
• Is there a distinction between fundraising and fund development. Sometimes I think of “fundraising” as primarily the asking part. And I think “fund development” is more expansive and inclusive and strategic. But is the distinction particularly important, making a huge difference. To me, not so much.

Do we sometimes get caught up in the distinction…only to realize that the difference isn’t sufficiently substantial to matter? Do we even think about whether a particular distinction makes an important difference?

I’m forever collecting and creating cage-rattling questions (CRQs according to my students at Saint Mary’s University!) Maybe an important question for nonprofit organizations, boards, staff, fundraising, planning … maybe an important question for life is: What are the distinctions that make a difference – and what will we do about it? Or how about these CRQs:

• How do we determine whether the distinction makes a difference?
• How do we engage in conversations about distinctions that matter and those that don’t matter?
• How do we avoid getting caught up in a conversation about distinctions that do or don’t make a difference – only to find ourselves stuck in a distinction without a difference?

Thanks, Messieurs Silva and Allon.

What do you learn from novels?

I’m sitting in my dorm room listening and watching K.D. Lang sing Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah…the opening of the Vancouver Olympics, 2010. The performance is quite glorious. My Tom said he got tears in his eyes. I understand. Cohen’s lyrics. Lang’s voice and phrasing and…

Thanks to Cathy Mann for introducing that in the Cohort 23 classroom.

Welcome to Saint Mary’s University Masters Program in Philanthropy and Development.  I’ve taught here since 2000, beginning with Cohort 9. Leadership. Governance. Organizational development. Strategic planning. Ethics. Fund development. Global philanthropy. Cross-cultural philanthropy. An amazing program.

So back to Cohort 23…and some of their cage-rattling questions. CRQs is what we call them!

• To what degree does exclusivity benefit or detract from a community’s health?
• What role does experiencing life differently play in the health and effectiveness of a nonprofit corporation?
• To what degree does social justice matter in a society?
• To what degree can an organization have a greater impact in its community if it keeps the same process over and over without the willingness to change?
• What stops us from fixing things?
• How do we integrate segregated communities?
• Why do we wait until the intervention time to consider solutions?
• To what degree are communities changed when other cultures migrate in?
• To what degree does sameness at work help or hinder an organization’s effectiveness?

And now, how about some bumper stickers? These are rather long – but we like them anyway!

• A crisis is a disruption. Disruption does not have to be a crisis.
• Group dynamics are not more important than the learning.
• You can visit “Pity City” but don’t unpack your bags.
• Establish a feedback and recognition culture
• Courageous conversation
• Money is neither good nor bad. But our use of it can be.

Did you listen to K.D. Lang yet?

Thank you Cohort 23!

“Of course,” you respond.

But wait. Don’t just give that facile, easy answer.

Instead, visit Wild Woman Fundraising. See this specific issue, July 8, 2013…about jingoism and propaganda.

Check out these insights from Alice Walker and Mazarine.

Consider statements like these – and learn more…

“I’m using every ounce of my will, my intelligence, my heart and my soul.” Alice said that. Can you?

“Does working at a nonprofit get you off the hook?” asks Mazarine.

“How about militancy,” ask Alice and Mazarine. Where do you stand on that issue?

Always remember, as Mazarine says, “Just because we work at nonprofits doesn’t mean we do meaningful work.” So ask yourself: Does your nonprofit do meaningful work? How can your nonprofit do more meaningful work more meaningfully? And how about you?

Read the wild woman’s e-news.

Check out Pam Grow’s July 3 newsletter for small shop fundraising. Check it out even if you operate in a medium or large development office. This issue is about the workplace environment, workers in the workplace.

First, how sad that it’s a “problem” to enjoy your work. Just imagine: You can alienate co-workers when you like your job and actually demonstrate that you like your job. Pam offers important insights about that.

Then there’s the all-too-typical reaction from so many non-fundraising colleagues about what fundraisers do. The uppity distasteful attitude too many staff have towards fundraising. The “I-don’t-know-what-you-fundraisers-do-but-I’m-pretty-sure-it’s-bad-magic-and-slightly-unethical attitude. I remember that one! When I was a chief development officer, the marketing department actually called what we did a “dirty” activity and tried hard to avoid us. So little understanding of fundraising. No culture of philanthropy in the organization.

Then there was my CEO who, “for various reasons,” didn’t do doing anything about the situation. The Grow Report newsletter highlights that approach. Excuse me? How is that leadership on the part of the CEO?!

But I experienced that CEO approach, too. My CEO actually required that the development department and marketing department go to a counselor to talk about not getting along. With the counselor, the marketing department talked about friendship. I talked about professional behavior and collegial work relationships. The counselor told the marketing department to cut the crap, shape up, and behave like professionals. I wish my boss had told them that in the first place.

I think it’s the job of the development office to help build a culture of philanthropy in the organization. I think it’s the job of the development office to try hard to build the understanding and ownership of donor-centered operations, love of donors, impact by donors, fundraising ethics, etc. etc. blah blah blah.

Development officers must stand tall, walk proud, tell wonderful stories. And if the jerks continue to be jerks, ignore them. Well, and maybe advise your boss to deal with the situation or lose good staff. And that could be you!

People regularly exclaim about how much I read. Especially fellow professionals seem admiring that I read so many professional books.

But I can’t imagine being a professional without reading lots of professional books and reading lots of blogs and e-newsletters and and … I figure we’re supposed to read a lot – and not just in our own narrow field but across professional fields. I periodically quote some consultant who said that if you read lots you’re knowledgeable and when you read lots and lots, you become an expert.

I read on airplanes. Sometimes I only take a business book on an airplane, forcing myself to get through the stack in my office. Sometimes I cheat on the airplane and buy a novel.

Mostly I read business books and political books when I’m on vacation. I’m relaxed then. The ranting and raving resulting from the political books is not quite as neurotic when I’m on vacation. My life partner Tom doesn’t think I need several pills and a locked room when my ranting and raving is on “vacation mild.” And I always make sure I read at least one business book on vacation. But I aim for more than that!

I read novels when I’m working. The novels help me relax. The novels are fun. I’m particularly partial to romance novels, science fiction fantasy, and spy/police type novels. I love Judith McNaught and Nora Roberts (who also writes as J.D. Robb). Guy Gavriel Kay and Jennifer Roberson. John Sandford and William Kent Krueger and David Baldacci and …

And I find important meanings in the novels. For example, take a look at my book Keep Your Donors. You’ll see that the chapters begin with  relevant quote from novels. Quotes about learning and data and emotions and more…all from novels.

So today, 4th of July 2013 USA, I just finished The Hit by David Baldacci. And here’s an interesting quote…

• “The White House. It was often a place of near chaos buffered by moments of intense calm, like the eye of a hurricane. One could tell that inches past the serenity lurked possible bedlam. This was one of the serene moments. The precise location of the possibly hovering bedlam was as of yet unknown.”

Hmmm… Have you ever worked in a place like that? Moments of serenity buffeted by moments of bedlam. The constant imbalance of calm and chaos. The ups and downs, anticipation and fears of instability. The stress and terror of such a workplace.

Do you thrive in that environment? Some people do, I suspect. But do they burn out quickly? Or do they explode or implode, taking out others and themselves?

Does leadership allow this serenity and chaos? Does leadership promote this corporate culture? Do you consider this good management and a healthy workplace? What does business literature say? Is there a difference between good management and effective management? Can effective management be bad management? Does this serenity/chaos management produce creativity and innovation?

What kind of planning and managing and thinking does an organization do that has lurking corners – or corners with lurking stuff? What kind of planning and managing and thinking and oversight and insight is going on in an organization where chaos and bedlam are just a few steps away…down a hall, around a corner?

How do your staff experience (or describe) your organization? Any hints of serenity awaiting chaos? What would your board members and other volunteers and your donors think if your organization were described that way? That way that David Baldacci described the White House?

(And by the way, do you think that is a fair description of the White House? Do you suspect that? How does that make you feel?)

What have your novels been suggesting to you lately?

By the way, I’m heading back outside with another one…a novel…this time a romance. Or maybe the new Guy Gavriel Kay book.

And manage to it.

That’s what Pam Chapman, board member of the Newport Art Museum, said the other day at a meeting.

We were talking about the body of knowledge in fund development and governance. She said, “Organizations need to learn the body of knowledge so they can manage to it.”

If an organization learns the body of knowledge/best practice, then the organization can devise systems and processes and metrics to manage accordingly.

Thanks, Pam, for that nicely stated statement.

I hope you’ve read Jim Collins Good to Great for the Social Sector. It’s so good. And if you’ve read this monograph or his book, Good to Great, you know that Jim asks several questions of corporations – and that includes nonprofits, of course:

1. What are you deeply passionate about?

2. What can you be best in the world at?

3. What drives your resource engine?

Most often, nonprofits probably talk about their resource engine as: charitable contributions and, perhaps, some revenue (e.g., ticket sales, course fees, whatever).

Back in 2009, I presented at the AFP Great Lakes Regional Conference in Rochester, NY. One workshop used Collins’ work. The presenter asked “what drives your resource engine?”

And workshop participants responded: Good relationships. Reputation for excellence. Making an emotional connection with people. Donor-centered operations. Great customer service.

Wow! Yay yay yay! Thank you colleagues there in Rochester. What drives your resource engine? Not charitable giving – but rather: good relationships; reputation for excellence; donor centrism and customer centrism; making an emotional connection with people.

How smart you are! Thank you for reminding us all.

I couldn’t resist passing on this blog from Dianna Huff.

Dianna’s office used to be in her home. Then her office moved outside her home. Now, Dianna’s office is moving  back into her home. Pros and cons for each location. Lots of chatter amongst us business owners about whether “officing” in the home or outside the home is better or worse. (I think “officing” could be a useful new word in business vocabulary.)

Focus or distraction. Productive or not so much. Creativity and thinking space. Lots to think about. Dianna’s blog helps.

Read www.theagitator.net of Monday, August 13, “Down with Fundraising Nonsense.” Roger Craver and Tom Belford, the agitators, propose this audit as a strategy to identify (and then eliminate!) those “huge, non-productive, expensive time-wasters and complexities that add little value, but serve as enormous barriers to change and forward movement.” Tom and Roger also remind this that everyone in the organization is usually complicit in such time-wasters.

So here are some of the items on the No Nonsense audit checklist. Read them all – in glorious detail – at www.theagitator.net:

Rule #1. If you can’t measure it, then by definition it’s Nonsense and you should eliminate it.

Rule #2: Even if you can measure it, if it’s so frighteningly or expensively complex so as to not be easily put into your plans and programs, you should eiminate it.

Rule #3: “Time” is king…And there’s lots of detail about various nonsense categories like meetings and copy and spreadsheets… Read it all!

P.S. I think this Nonsense Audit works for everything we do, not just fundraising!