Board Re-org?

Much has been said recently about the need to re-think the Executive Director role in light of the combination of that Boomer-heavy position's transition to GenX and Gen@ combined with those generations hesitancy to even take on the position. I think that discussion is important and, while no clear models have surfaced yet, worth pursuing.

But what about boards? We all need them, we all should want them to operate as efficiently and effectively as possible. We want diversity of background, a great skillset, and commitment to our cause. So should we just do the same-old same-old, or try a new model?

While no model is for everyone, and certainly starting from scratch is unlikely for pretty much any nonprofit not in a huge crisis, tweaking your board model now and then to match both the needs of the organization and the capacity of the board members is probably a good thing. And that's the topic of my January issue of the Mission-Based Management Newsletter: Reorganizing Your Board of Directors.

Take a look. There may be a tweak there that's good for you.

Book Club Books worth a look

My book clubs are starting up again tomorrow for the January to June cycle. For the first set of calls, our books are:

Emerging Leaders: The Servant Leader, by James Autry
Advanced Leaders: The Wisdom of Crowds, by James Suroweicki

I love both of these books, and have recommended them to dozens of audiences over the past year or so. The Autry book is very, very practical. He describes his philosophy of servant leadership (you work for the people you supervise and serve them so that they can do their jobs) which I completely agree with, and then goes into very, very hands on applications of the theory. What do you do with employees who are having an office romance? What about an employee who is undergoing chemotherapy and wants to work, but whose presence is upsetting other workers? How do you lay off someone well?

Really good stuff.

Surowiecki lays out the premise that crowds (in most cases) make better decisions than a few experts. Through story after story he shows you that getting input into your decisions is worth the effort. I also agree with this, but it's important to remember not to just take a poll--as a leader you have to make the final decision---and live with it.

Excellent reading, and neither is overly long. The Servant Leader you can read easily on a snowy afternoon, or a long plane ride. Wisdom is a little denser, but just as fascinating.

Subscription is now easier, Disaster Planning

A shout out to David Simms at Bridgespan who asked me to put a subscription link on my blog---it's been on my list to do for about a year and I haven't. So, thanks to David's prompting, I did...it's just above my picture on the right. If you like what you see here, subscribe!

If you want other subscription options, just let me know, I can add them easily.

In an unrelated issue, I was in Alaska this past week, speaking to the Foraker Group's Leadership Summit. Great group of people, lots of fun. Many thanks to everyone at Foraker for making my time so easy and fun.

One of Foraker's priorities this year is to have all Alaska nonprofits have a disaster plan. In that vien, here's the Techsoup Disaster Toolkit. I've posted on this before, but it's a great set of resources for any organization.

Who's the Best?

We all feel that our nonprofit organization(s) rock, and that their mission is important. But which is "the best"? In fact, is there a best?

A new website, Seekler, is trying to find that out through the development of community lists, where users rate their best charities, best books, best restaurants etc.

Here's the current list of "Best Charities"


Scroll through the list to see all the nonprofits, and click on the "Powered by Seekler" text at the bottom to go to the site. If you want to add your two cents, or give your nonprofit the props it deserves, log in as a user (it's free) and add your own listing of the best nonprofits. Your list will be included in the community list immediately. It's fast and easy.

You can also see lists of Best Nonprofit Books, Best Charity Mission Statements, Best Charity Job Sites, etc.

Check it out....and in full disclosure, I need to tell you that this website is developed by Pretheory, my son Ben's startup. Ben and his business partner have decided to make charities one of their focus areas, so check back and see how the listings grow.

Technology Planning

As regular readers know, I'm huge on nonprofits using their technology to do more mission. This ranges from better websites, to using web 2.0, to better marketing materials, and on and on.

Such use demands good planning, synching the IT needs of the organization with mission, vision and strategic planning. Even though the cost of tech is down, it's not free, by any means. So, good stewardship requires good planning

TechSoup to the rescue: See their area on Tech Planning for tons of good ideas on this subject. And remember you can get your new software at TechSoup as well, for significantly discounted prices.

At last, some educational metrics

Happy 2008 to all...and some good news from late last year, when the Nonprofit Academic Centers Council announced its new guidelines for both undergraduate and graduate study in nonprofit management. I'm really glad to see these, as I get a request a month from some program somewhere in the US that's starting up. Good work to the NACC!

Also, if you go to the NACC site, you can see a list of member centers: the colleges and universities that belong, along with contact information. If you're looking for some continuing ed, or getting an advanced degree, you might be surprised to find a program close to where you live.

Unrelated but topic for a post in the near future....who is the "Best Nonprofit"? Whose nonprofit has the "Best Mission Statement"? Which fundraising special event is best? All of these and more will be referenced in an upcoming post later this week.

If a picture is worth.....

I've been telling audiences this past fall a lot about generation change and nonprofits, and about upgrading their websites to include video. Most boomers moan and don't even think about the idea, since they assume I'm talking about huge production cost. We (and by we, I mean boomers) were raised when a 5 minute video HAD to be professionally produced and cost thousands of dollars. And, we had to wear a tie....ugh. As an aside, a three-fold brochure also cost thousands to be professionally designed and printed--and we had to print 10,000 copies to make it "affordable." No wonder our marketing print material was old, out of date, and non-targeted....

But back to video. The bar on "good" video has changed, and YouTube changed it. If you haven't been there, go a take a look. Go to www.youtube.com and search for, say, Charity, or Nonprofit. You'll see stories about nonprofits, video produced by nonprofits, etc.

And what you'll see is that the quality of the video varies widely. Which means that video posted on your website does not have to be 60 Minutes quality. It has to be reasonably good, but most important, it needs to tell a human story. For people under 30 (by which I mean the donors, volunteers, staff and board you want) video is the most compelling way to catch their eye and tell that story.

A couple of places to get help. First, YouTube has a nonprofit program to get you started. Go here to check it out.

Second, the Chronicle of Philanthropy has an article on nonprofits using video in all kinds of cool ways.

Still pics are great---video is better. Costs are down, and impact is high. Hmmmm. Sounds like a formula for success to me.

Mulling about legacies

At the end of the year, a lot of us review the past 12 months (think of all those holiday newsletters you get), read lists of "ten best" this of 2008, "best of" that for the year, etc. We get ready to set our goals/resolutions for the next year.

On a more mundane level, if we're on a calendar fiscal year, we also have to deal with work plans, budgets etc for the coming year. All of us as individuals think (at least briefly) about any tax planning we need to do before the end of the year.

All of this is pretty normal, customary; the usual.

But this year, I've been thinking a LOT about an email I got from someone I recently met in Florida. He sent out the copy of an obit whose last line was:

"He leaves behind approximately 6.5 billion people worldwide."

Funny, on first look, and certainly original. But it got me thinking about legacy, what we leave behind us, about how we help those who come after us do better, live better, be better than us.

Nowhere in our society is leaving that legacy more important than in the nonprofit sector. No one has more of the job of building better, fairer, more just communities, of educating, protecting, caring, healing, enthralling more than nonprofits. Its the core of what we do. Its mission.

And while most of us are justifiably concerned with helping here and now, what really happens if we foment effective change is not just improving things now, we improve them for the 6.5 billion others---and their children, and their grandchildren. So, should I change my idea of good stewardship? Should it be not only for today, for this year, this decade, but for beyond my lifetime? I think so, and I'm still sorting that out.

What do you think?

More on nonprofits and Social Networking

JoAnn Fritz, in her regular About.com column on nonprofits has a great set of resources for anyone looking to expand their presence on the web beyond just a website.

http://nonprofit.about.com/od/nonprofitpromotion/tp/Resources-for-Social-Media.htm?nl=1

includes help on blogs, social networks, etc. Definitely worth a read. And this time of the year, it's good to think a bit about what we plan to do next year.

For many nonprofits, 2008 needs to be the year they hitch a ride to Web 2.0.

Nonprofit Warning Signs

The December issue of The Mission-Based Management Newsletter came out early this month and I neglected to post about it. This month's topic is Signs of Organizational Trouble.

Here's the intro to the management tip:

"You wake up and feel lousy. Head hurts, throat is raw, no energy. Signs of a cold, or the flu. Not good.

You are going down the highway and up ahead all the brake lights are coming on and every vehicle is slowing down. Uh-oh.

For those of you who live in tornado country, it's blustery and the sky turns green....get to shelter, and right now.

All of these are signs of trouble, ones that we've learned to watch for and diagnose quickly. In the three cases above, if you take action quickly, you can prevent (in order) being sicker longer, having an accident, or getting badly hurt. But what about signs of trouble for your nonprofit? Wouldn't your staff and board like to have some early warning signs that would help prevent larger problems?

In this issue, we'll look at some signs of trouble that I've developed over my time as an exec, a board member and in 25 years of consulting. These come from my 2004 book Nonprofit Stewardship: A Better Way to Lead Your Mission-Based Organization. In the book, these are all listed in one chapter, but here, I'll break them down into management, tech and marketing categories to go along with the format of the newsletter. Let's start here with the management items on my list. Signs of trouble for a nonprofit include (in no particular order):"

Check it out, and remember you can look at past four years of past issues, by topic by scrolling down to the bottom of the newsletter. Also, you can sign up for the newsletter (it's free) by emailing subscribe@missionbased.com

At the speed of net.

Really interesting paper (thanks to Cheryl Taylor for the headsup) from University of Massachusetts Dartmouth's Center for Marketing Research entitled "Blogging for the Hearts of Donors: Largest US Charities Use Social Media". It's well worth the read.

The paper discusses the use of Web 2.0 applications in fundraising and community awareness work. From the promo page for the paper"

" This research proves conclusively that charitable organizations are outpacing the business world in their use of social media. Seventy-five percent of the charitable organizations studied are using some form of social media including blogs, podcasts, message boards, social networking, video blogging and wikis. More than a third of the organizations are blogging. Forty-six percent of those studied report social media is very important to their fundraising strategy."

Good reading for anyone who is thinking about NOT increasing their online presence.

The Boomers ride in....

As regular readers know, part of generation change is that the Boomers are (and will continue to) come to nonprofits AFTER their first career, some as employees, some as volunteers. Business Week in the December 17 issue deals with this in a series of stories under their regular feature called "Second Careers" The two stories of the four in this issues set I liked the best were:


http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/07_51/c4063indepth653719.htm?chan=magazine+channel_in+depth+--+second+careers
about picking the right board of directors to get on, and

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/07_51/b4063210311897.htm?chan=magazine+channel_in+depth+--+second+careers
about ways to work for nonprofits after your first career is done.

By the way, I see tons of this kind of transition going on, and it requires patience on both sides....there is usually a bit of culture clash!

Learning in Tampa

Had a great time in Tampa working with Achieve Management, The Children's Board of Hillsborough County and the Nonprofit Leadership Center of Tampa Bay. Their hard work had gathered around 150 people to discuss Generation change. Each participant got a copy of Generations, and they were a very interactive, fun group to work with. All in all a great day for me and, I hope, a useful one for them.

One interesting vignette from the day: in the early afternoon, we broke into 8-9 groups and discussed the one thing that the group was most vexed about or most critical regarding their nonprofit and generation change. After 40 minutes or so, the groups reported out. I expected at least 3 groups to talk about inter-generational conflict, a couple to talk about executive transition, perhaps 2 to report that the age of their board as their big problem.

I was so wrong. 9 groups; 9 different issues. I've been saying that generation change is a broad issue, but I keep learning how broad every time I go out and speak.

And, as always, I heard some new questions or new, critical twists on old ones. Here are a couple.

1. "You tell us to recruit younger board members in groups. But with a small board (18) and term limits there are years where only one or two slots may come open--and we have other skill set needs. What do I do?"

2. (From a GenX supervisor) "How do I get a Silent Generation staff employee who is totally tech-averse to buy into our our email-based reporting system?"

Both of these questions highlight very good hands-on applications of the generational shift. I gave both people a few suggestions, since I couldn't answer in any depth since I didn't know all the details.

The answer to the first question is, in brief, prioritization and balance. Which skills are more important to your organization-and I understand that Generational representation may not be the priority right now.

The answer to the second question (again, lacking a lot of specifics) seemed to me to be mentoring--having a younger staff peer assist the older one until she became adequately comfortable with the technology needed to do the job.

As always, when you teach, you learn. I learned a lot!

If you have a minute....

This morning, as I recover from the amazing food that my brother-in-law has been feeding us over the holidays, my daughter Caitlin turned me on to a great site if you can spare a minute....

Free Rice is a site where you challenge your vocabulary and help feed hungry people all at the same time. You take a rolling multiple choice vocab test and for each answer you answer correctly, ten grains of rice are donated through the United Nations. The words get harder as you get more right, and you get to see the results of your efforts in a bowl of rice on the site.

Very cool. Feed your brain and someone else's belly.

Leading by example....good for "Good"

"Good" Magazine, has announced its annual "Choose Good" campaign. Each year the mag selects 12 worthy nonprofits who get 100% of the subscription fees for a set amount of time. This year's nonprofits include Kiva, YouthAids, and ten more terrific organizations.

This is a terrific idea, and one that puts money where "Good"'s mouth is. Which is a lot more than I can say for former President Clinton's "share" of revenues from his new book, "Giving". In my view, since he makes no bones about the fact that he's gotten rich from speaking since leaving office, he should have given all of his royalties to charity...it would only be leading by example.

I suspect the book is excellent, since Clinton has done many good works during his first 8 years out of office, and I got to hear him speak on this subject at my son Adam's graduation in April, but I'm not buying it....I'm going to the library and then sending the cost of the book to a charity. I urge you to do the same.

Long time gone (again)

About a month ago, I was a bit surprised to see that my last post had been a month prior to that...and here we are in late November already. Time flies...when you're in the air...

Looking back at earlier postings from 2006 and 2005, this break is not unusual for me in the fall, when I am on the road what seems like constantly. Since my prior post on September 15, I've been in Minneapolis-St. Paul, Seattle, Chicago, Houston, Denver, Portland OR, Rockville MD, Northern Virginia, San Francisco, Holyoke MA, Denver, Boston, Atlanta, Columbus and Fort Wayne. And, I'm probably forgetting someplace....

What did I learn? Lots. Nearly all of my lectures were on Generation Change, and the depth and breadth of the issue just keeps growing. I heard many stories about inter-generational conflict, about the difficulty of retiring, about the cost of benefits. I got great stories to share, and heard of terrific generational adaptations that some organizations are doing.

Speaking of which, the Annie E. Casey Foundation and its Building Movement Project has a new paper out on the nonprofit leadership transition entitled Next Shift: Beyond the Nonprofit Leadership Crisis. Well written, it discusses the need for an entire re-thinking of the Executive Director's role. I agree that we need to revisit this issue, and applaud the visibility this gives it.

There is no question that the issue of Generation Change is on people's minds. Not only was the BoardSource conference in San Francisco in October all about the issue, at least 6 state associations have contacted me with this as their theme for their annual conference. In fact, my "normal" break from travel in January and February is not going to happen this year. Just look at my training schedule, and you'll see the predominance of the topic.

One more thing: The current issue of the Mission-Based Management Newsletter is on Generation Change and Marketing.

Good stuff, fun stuff, important stuff.

990 in transition

As most readers probably know, the form nearly all nonprofits in the US have to fill out annually for the Internal Revenue Service is undergoing its first major revision in over 25 years.

The IRS 990 has become a much more important tool of late, since it is the major data point that many online nonprofit watchdogs such as GuideStar use as they rate the management effectiveness of an organization. With the added transparency requirements of Sarbanes-Oxley, more and more nonprofits are putting more and more time and effort into their 990's including, sadly, efforts to game the form, particularly when it comes to accounting for administrative costs.

Enter the US Senate and their hearings on nonprofit management and accountability. Of the many recommendations made last year, the one that I believe will have the most long-term impact is the change in this form: pretty much everyone will be affected.

The IRS says that one of its goals in the redesign is "to the extent practicable, to minimize the burden on the filing organizations". Good idea. We'll see.

New is a requirement that all nonprofits who have over $25,000 in revenue file the 990 every year. Less burden? And, all nonprofits have to prove that they have a variety of governance policies in place for their board. Again, a good idea in the abstract. But necessary for a small nonprofit like a soccer team booster club? I dunno

If you haven't already, you should take a look at the draft form, and the IRS has taken the very unusual step of posting the draft of the redesign online for people to see and comment. Take a look at the form, and other information on the 990 from the IRS here.

For some perspective and insight, here is an article on the new 990 from Joanne Fritz.

Death, taxes and the IRS 990. All inevitable, so get prepared -- at least for the 990 -- now.

Getting online where the younger generation is....

My first lecture(s) of the fall marathon were fun and rewarding. I met with a group of Easter Seals staff in Cincinnati. Great folks doing great things. We discussed generation change in two ways: first generally for the organization as a whole, and second around HR--hiring, recruitment, retention issues.

In between, I spent a lot of time talking to participants about what their organizations are doing (and not doing) in this arena, and their responses synched perfectly with the early results from a mixed group of nonprofits I'm researching for the Foellinger Foundation in Fort Wayne.

To wit: the vasts majority of nonprofits are not going after younger people where they live and communicate---and for high school and college kids, that's on MySpace and Facebook. I've posted before ("Let 'em in and Prosper", "Using Web 2.0") about the value and benefits of using social networking, either through the big portals, or sites like Ning, where you can create your own network. But if you want to go after the younger set, MySpace and Facebook are de riguer.

Of course, TechSoup has a number of articles on how to get on with Facebook and how to benefit
from that interaction.
Check out: A Beginner's Guide to Facebook, and Promote Your Cause on Facebook in Six Easy Steps

Check them out....

Not so bad, not so good.

Lester Salamon and Stephanie Geller at the Listening Post at Johns Hopkins have published Communique #8, entitled "The Nonprofit Workforce Crisis: Real or Imagined?".

This piece (like everything from Salamon) is definately worth the read. It details the latest "sounding" of nonprofits, in this case regarding their ease/difficulty of recruiting and retaining qualified staff. The results are both unsurprising and very surprising depending on the issue.

Unsurprising:
-87% of nonprofits find recruitment "somewhat or extremely challenging".
-Of various kinds of staff being recruited, qualified fundraisers were the most "challenging" to find.
-People of color are also "significantly more challenging" to recruit. This is a huge issue for nonprofits working to increase their staff diversity.
-87% of nonprofits feel that the "inability to offer competitive salaries" is a key barrier to recruitment.

Very Surprising:
-A very high percentage of nonprofits are happy with their recruits' qualifications (86%), and commitment to mission (83%). This is terrific, but not what I have heard from execs. Hence my surprise.
-The negative effect of turnover is very limited. A variety of indicators were asked regarding the effect of staff turnover. Responses were very positive, with less than 40% across the board, saying that the turnover was harmful to mission. This is really good news.

The authors also talk about strategies for successful recruitment.

Overall, this is good news, I think.

Read it and post your opinion here!

Generation Change and Technology

As recent posts suggest, different generations are using technology differently. There are tons of great resources online and in print for nonprofits, but not so many on the interface of technology, nonprofits, and different generations.

Thus, this month's Mission-Based Management Newsletter, which is on just that topic. It borrows a lot of its content from the chapter by the same name from my new book "Generations: The Challenge of a Lifetime for Your Nonprofit".

While you're reading the newsletter, remember to scroll down to see a director of past issues by topic. And, you can subscribe (for free) by emailing me at subscribe@missionbased.com