Open Letter to New Executive Directors

Dear Executive Director Following a Founder,

If this were easy, it would be easy. The job of serving as the first Executive Director after a founder–in any situation, in any organization, in any economy–is probably the hardest job in the nonprofit sector.

Taking it on requires tough skin and an iron stomach. And somehow, through it all, being steadfast in exhibiting excellent management skills, strategic vision, an ability to generate excitement and bring in partners, and more. One person, even a strong leader, alone cannot accomplish the job. This job is big. And probably, typically, best designed as an Interim Position.

If the situation presented to you by the board upon your employment was anything like typical, you’ve had to generate fresh programming and refresh the institutional identity on not much more than spit and duct tape.

And if you’re feeling discouraged, it’s because you’ve been trying things and the results aren’t as dramatic as you’d hoped. Probably you’re looking at financials that haven’t much changed.

It’s reasonable to get tired and to feel discouraged and burned out, which happens anytime you try and give everything and the early results suggest it didn’t matter.

Don’t give up. Together, you and new, trusted board members can examine the remaining problems with straight up honesty and integrity. You need to be “critical friends” (emphasis on both) to each other and to the organization. You need to develop (with key allies) an energizing vision and a credible plan for turning things around and moving everything ahead. The beautiful thing is the potential impact a renewed organization can have.

Good luck, and my sincere wishes for inspiration, wisdom, courage, friendship, and creative expression,

Social Enterprise is Foxy

Talk about “social enterprise” often tends to emphasize business innovation or the franchise business-flavored nonprofit model (overly simplified: a relatively straightforward program scaled fast and all over, with big startup investment from government or tech money) over any other nonprofit models that, even if small or local, can work.

The idea, perhaps not spoken directly, is Business (equity-building) is big, efficient, innovative, and good and Nonprofit (nonequity) is small, inefficient, unimaginitive, and bad.

That’s too simplistic a view, of course. And it doesn’t take into account the very different finance rules by under which nonprofits have to –creatively– bootstrap to operate.

My feeling is that good ideas for fixing the world need serious investment, and the trick is to fit particular ideas to the particularly appropriate legal structures and business models that have the best chance of the most impact.

The other thing that bugs me about this topic (which, BTW, I’m totally into) is…can’t we say that any nonprofit with an efficient financial model and having successful social impact (however rare they may be) is a social enterprise?

Humble and Flexible Philanthropy

Last month, Sean Stannard-Stockton, @tactphil, invited folks to offer a word to describe good philanthropy, along with a sentence defining it and a paragraph to further explain. He received lots of thoughtful and passionate entries, with which he reated a very lovely wordle.

I suggested two words, one which Sean chose to highlight.

Humble

Humble means understanding deeply one’s role and how to fit into and onto the production.

Humble philanthropy knows “no small actors, just small parts.” It knows it’s place in the ensemble–key and critical, but not the only or most important. It plays appropriately to the size of the stage and the house. It understands the house acoustics and knows how (and when to project). It draws from technique, experience, hard work, and improvisation. It amplifies the energy from the text, the other actors, crew, director, producer, and audience.

The other word I suggested:

Flexible

Flexible philanthropy responds specifically and on a case-by-case basis (from a wide angle perspective).

Flexible philanthropy recognizes that there isn’t just one problem, there isn’t just one response, there isn’t just one business or financing or program growth model, there isn’t just one best type of leader, and so on. Flexible philanthropy understands that the best investment connects a unique collection of elements (particular leaders, particular communities, particular stakeholders, particular environments, particular clients/customers, particular histories) to help amplify impact.

This discussion takes us to a project led by the person who for nearly 20 years I have called “the most huggable man alive.” Mark Rosenman. To me, this is his Name because he is warm, generous, and tall and kind with a signature beard. And also because he is tough and solid and unafraid to challenge the established systems governing philanthropy and wealth in this country. More on his project in a future post, www.caringtochange.org Psssst…he’s soon going to be releasing a report on ways to improve impact in philanthropy. Watch for it.

Is Your Employee All That Great?

Useful framework, not fluffy. Jim Collins explains how you’ll know when you’ve got a solid employee. Discovered via Behance – 99% solution.

He suggests six attributes:
1. Shares core values
2. Understands that she doesn’t have a job, she has responsibilities.” And they can answer the question I am the one person ultimately responsible for X or Y or Z. Now think about it as an air traffic controller doesn’t have just a job, has a responsibility to keep the airplanes safe. You think about a surgeon doesn’t just have a job to do cutting and sewing, but actually has a responsibility for the safety of the patient.”

Love number two!

3. She does what she says, period. “Which means they’re very, very careful what they say they are going to do.”

This one is hard, especially for creatives (and for “givers” or “pleasers”). Being disciplined about the commitments we do make? Saying no up front to interesting possibilities? Tough, but critical.

4. Doesn’t need to be tightly managed because she is self-disciplined, motivated, managed, and driven. “And as we wrote in Good to Great, the moment that you being to feel the need to tightly manage someone you might have made a hiring mistake; guide them yes, teach them yes, manage them no.”

5. She has passion for the work and its purpose.

6. She “displays a window and mirror maturity.” This is what I have always said about good (meaning honorable) leadership: You share the credit and take the blame–less than you deserve in both cases.

Who’s Zooming Who?

International library, civil society, philanthropy pro Carol Erickson writes a thoughtful piece on the long-standing, under-acknowledged problem in philanthropy she calls the “donor deception dance.”

This same problem happens here, among U.S. funders and U.S. grantees. Just last night, I had dinner with an long-time friend in town for “strategic planning” at a national organization to come up with a plan and evidence of having done “something” in the last year under an enormous grant from a Big Name Foundation. In preparation for a site visit from the program officer. In two days.

I doubt that organization is squandering cash. I’d bet that they are doing important work and that there was some kind of stumbling block that they maybe didn’t feel “safe” discussing with the funder. Maybe (I honestly don’t know about this particular case and am projecting) other projects moved up as strategic priorities for this year, maybe the staff can’t–and shouldn’t–deliver the project in the way the leadership (or grantwriter) envisioned, maybe they know that there’s a better way to address the problem and they wish they had money for that, maybe this was more the funder’s pet project than theirs. Maybe they simply need a little more time to plan.

But we’ve all been to that party, either on one side or the other:
• Dance Partner A: Harried nonprofit exec side, practically pushing to do so much on such limited margin, tempted to overpromise or restrict information and access to peers (let’s be honest).
• Dance Partner B: Deliberate, thoughtful, safely salaried (let’s be honest) foundation officer, academically pushing suggestions that no matter the intention, will be understood to be directives and wanting to hear and see only evidence of wild success.

We must be more honest with each other. We must be more open. We must see each other as peers–each side with resources and assets to put toward The Problems. But how? It’s really hard. But I think it works, as with other relationships: building trust through real and personal interaction. Breaking bread.

This is where I would like to see (have always wanted to see) much the national organizations (like NCNA, Council on Foundations, Independent Sector, NCRP, the national foundations, the RAGs and affinity groups) facilitate more, deeper “networking” among Nonprofit Leaders (not “Grantees,” not “Practitioners”), Foundation Officers, and Donors.