Non-Profit Chas

In the late 1990s, the board of directors of a summer camp sold half of its land – 45 acres with a private pond and recently constructed cabins – for about $45,000. They did this to pay an expense they knew was coming. They should have planned for it, right? They could have found the money elsewhere instead of selling a significant asset for such little money, right?

What will leaders in the years 2020, 2050, or 2100 think? Will they question my actions? Will they criticize our leadership?

Since getting involved with non-profit organizations, I often find myself coming across decisions made by previous boards and executives. From my perspective in 2010, it’s easy to question the rationale behind these moves. And with an organization of any age, there are a lot of moves to question.

From land sales to mergers to program closings, I’m sure past leaders had reasons for their actions. I’m sure they were doing the best they could, and believed they were acting in the organization’s best interest.

What will leaders in the years 2020, 2050, or 2100 think? Will they question my actions? Will they criticize our leadership?

To help our future leaders understand why we made our decisions, I’m making sure to document everything. Board meeting minutes include notes on discussion and rationale. Hard decisions have reports, data, and other background attached so that those who take over for us may better understand how they got there.

If nothing else, I hope that they can learn from my mistakes just as I’m learning from those of our past leaders.

Is it truly altruism if you’re getting intangible benefits such as resume-building experience, connections and friendships, or even personal fulfillment?

Very few of my friends are involved in non-profits in a volunteer leadership capacity. They may have volunteered in the past, but they’re concerned with their jobs, their families, or they’re just being protective of their personal time. They already feel too busy and don’t see how volunteering could possibly benefit them. Sure, it’s a noble cause, but once you graduate college and get into the real world noble causes go right out the window. Right?

A few months ago, I was interviewed for a magazine article on Generation Y non-profit leaders. One of the questions was “how do you convince Generation Y to get involved in a leadership role?”

The answer falls somewhere between engagement in the cause and selfish, personal interest.

Selfishness is the opposite of altruism. Giving is supposed to be pure, for the benefit of the cause alone. Or so you might be told.

Organizations send donor receipts clearly stating that the donor has not received any material benefit for their donation. If there’s a thank you gift, the value of the gift has to be taken out of the tax-deductible amount.

But what about intangible benefits? How about the satisfaction of making a difference? It’s entirely possible get hooked on the high of helping someone else. Is that wrong?

Still, there are even more selfish benefits of volunteering, and those are often the reasons people get involved with non-profits.

For millennials early in their careers, the opportunity to stretch their skill sets, work on big projects, and network with more connected and powerful professionals can be a very attractive proposition. Sure, it’s hard work but it can pay off – especially when you don’t get a chance to do these at your regular job.

Personally, my volunteer service has helped me get promotions and new opportunities. I’ve been asked to work on projects in finance, human relations, fundraising, strategic planning, public relations, marketing, and a number of other professional skills. Because the non-profit organizations had a need and I volunteered, I got to add these to my repertoire long before my day job ever gave me the opportunity.

Volunteering also puts the rest of my work in perspective. The daily dramas of a cranky client or colleague are nothing compared to the highs and lows of a cause you care about. Defusing an angry parent in a custody dispute or watching a camper make a personal breakthrough are far more memorable and important in the grand scheme of my life.

So back to the title topic: Is it truly altruism if you’re getting intangible benefits such as resume-building experience, connections and friendships, or even personal fulfillment?

From my vantage point, who cares?

“In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.” Desiderius Erasmus

The Land of the Blind

Let’s make a generalization: If you work for a non-profit organization, you are living in the past. You’re doing something outdated, for reasons you can’t quite articulate, and at an unknown cost – especially consider the opportunity cost of doing something less efficient.

Fortunately for you, the eager non-profiteer, so is everyone else. Here are three stories (no names, to save face) of non-profits that might sound familiar:

Tools: the Legacy Computer

In 2006, one organization I knew had a very old computer sitting in the corner of the office. It served one purpose: to host a very old piece of donor management software on a very old operating system. Only one person knew how to use this software, and it wasn’t very helpful anyway. Not only that, but it was increasingly difficult to support the failing hardware. There were dozens of opportunities to upgrade or find a new system over the course of about a decade. The cost to the organization was measured in lots of time and the occasional hardware replacement.

Professional Development: It’s Getting Worse Every Day

“If you aren’t getting better, you’re getting worse.” Executives, employees, and board members need to invest some portion of their time in professional development to get better at what they do, or they’ll soon find themselves incompetent. Worse yet, they won’t even know they’re incompetent.

A large non-profit had very low turnover, which meant that hundreds of its employees had been in essentially the same job for 15+ years. These employees were more likely to be unhappy, but wouldn’t quit their jobs. They weren’t let go because they were technically doing their work, but they weren’t providing the value of their more engaged, productive counterparts. This meant that the more engaged employees were more likely to get assignments, sometimes overworking them. The cost to the organization is in lost opportunities, some unnecessary overtime, and higher turnover of the best employees.

Process: File, Print, Repeat

A few years ago, another organization needed to print about 900 letters to fold, stuff, and mail to constituents. One of the staff members dedicated an entire day to hitting File > Print and then printing a single copy. Once it was printed, she did this again. Two down. After a whole day of the most inefficient software use I’ve ever heard of, someone found out and pointed out that she could just hit File > Print and enter the quantity to print out. The cost to the organization was 7+ hours of this employee’s time, and the cost of her pay.

Be the King

Nearly every non-profit is under-resourced and over-burdened, leaving no time or money to invest in new tools, professional development, re-evaluating their processes, and so on.

What these non-profits rarely realize is that they could save money and time by investing in those resources. There’s an ROI on many of these things, and it’s worth investigating.

It doesn’t take much to gain a tremendous advantage over other organizations while freeing up your own resources. There are tons of ways to do it: books, seminars, networking, and lots of online options:

• Delicious.com general non-profit links
• Delicious.com non-profit technology links
• Idealware: Reports and Articles
• TechSoup – Technology Donations and Discounts
• TechSoup Learning Center
• NTEN Learning/Resources

• Non-Profit Blogs at AllTop.com

  Tip: If you’re new to reading blogs or you can’t find time to keep up with them check out my Feed Reader 101 post on how to keep tabs on thousands of articles each month in as little time as possible.

Our Camp Fire council had a discussion recently about how other youth organizations have changed over the years to meet new challenges and opportunities, respond to market forces, and simply try new things.

This article from Comcast Finance talks about Girl Scout cookies and the breakdown of where the money goes:

And that there is a point of question. Stated in such a vague way—spanning the country all the way from the Land of 10,000 Lakes to the great Garden State—we can’t help but wonder, where exactly does this largest chunk of cookie sales ($1.70 to $2.00) go?

The Girl Scouts have seen significant declines in their cookie sales, leading to the closure of a number of councils, their camps, and their various programs. In the 90s, when the low-carb craze hit their cookie sales were badly affected. A local Girl Scouts council survived by implementing a separate development fundraising program (I attended a seminar on this a while back). The development program led to a much more sustainable (and financially lucrative) program.

This reminds me of our council’s long history. Decades ago, when we had thousands of participants in our year-round programs, our candy sale fundraiser was very lucrative. We also relied on a major grant source. Those two things dried up over the course of time as participation declined and the grant money went to other needs. Without the scale of thousands of kids selling candy, it became a very weak source of income.

I take three lessons from this story:

1 – People buying cookies (or candy, pizzas, or Christmas wreaths) aren’t necessarily engaged donors who are supporting the program, they’re just buying cookies. Don’t force willing, engaged donors to go through your cookie sales program to give you money.

2 – Diversify your income so that you’re not subject to the whims of one particular market. People love cookies, but people also love fad diets.

3 – Be accountable and transparent about your finances. A $10 box of cookies doesn’t seem like much, but supporters want to know that their $10 is going to the right place. They’re asking the questions, so you should be prepared to provide the answers.

Sure, there’s a lot of demand for transparency in non-profits. Donor-investors expect you to run lean and clean, with as much efficiency as possible. But let’s face it: that’s not the goal of a non-profit. Your goal is your mission.

Dartmouth’s development office produced a fantastic 2 minute, 21 second video explaining their “business model” to donors. It’s done with some sweet animation and a sense of sarcasm that rarely succeeds. But in this case, it makes you sit back and appreciate just how difficult it can be to run a top-notch institution of higher education. Read more about their approach…