As a counterpoint, this month I offer up some “thankful” comments about and from nonprofit leaders.
These are things I’ve actually heard nonprofit leaders say, or close paraphrases, to the best of my recollection and/or based on looking back at interview notes I’ve taken down over the years.
Our donors are really amazing. Getting to know them is one of the best parts of my job as Executive Director.
I really enjoy working with the rest of the staff. The team has really gelled over the last few months. It gives me such a thrill to see them working so well together.
It feels so good to start work every day knowing I’m making people’s lives better.
I love, love, love our volunteers.
My board is our secret superpower. They provide so much great energy for our work.
When we lost our largest funder, our board really stepped up and helped me find a path forward.
I’ve only been at the organization a couple of years, and I’m sure I’ve made several life-long friends already.
When one of the students [we’re teaching] eyes just light up because they’ve learned something new, I have to resist the urge to go give the a high five.
I know this sounds nerdy, but I love crunching data with our fundraising database.
[AND LASTLY, MY FAVORITE]: The strategic plan has been incredibly helpful as a roadmap and in securing big gifts.
In honor of Halloween 2021, here are the the scariest things I’ve heard from nonprofit leaders. These are paraphrases as I wasn’t writing them down at the time. If you read one of these and don’t think they’re scary, let me know and we can discuss.
I don’t have time to plan. I’m just too busy.
I don’t want an engaged board of directors. They’ll just get in my way as Executive Director.
I sent an email to my board asking for someone to volunteer for a task and nobody responded. I guess they don’t care.
I’ll be so glad when we get our Development Director hired and I can cut back on most of my time fundraising.
“I hate hitting up people for money,” said by a Development Director.
Not really something said, but I had lunch with a new Development Director. It was a get acquainted meeting. They talked about themself the whole time and didn’t ask me a single question.
My staff’s pretty mediocre, but I’ve just come to accept that’s the way it is.
I don’t care what the data says, I know it’s true.
“It’s not that I don’t want coalition partners, it’s just that I think the other organizations who’re doing similar work just keep making stupid decisions.” (Pretty sure that one’s an exact quote).
Nonprofit leader: “I was really upset with the decision we made to X.”
Me: “But you didn’t say anything during the meeting!” I replied. ‘If you disagreed with the potential decision, why didn’t you speak up?”
“I didn’t want to make anyone upset,” he replied.
Have you heard any of these before? Something else scary to share?
Good facilitation is a core part of my work. Since I had already begun facilitating many meetings online pre-pandemic, the switchover to all virtual meetings for the last 16 months being virtual was seamless. There are some clear best practices I like to follow.
Lately, though, I’ve been fielding questions that have prompted me to think harder about “hybrid” meetings. These are meetings where a majority of people are in a single conference room, but one or more other participants are participating remotely.
I’ve done this a few times over the years, but usually with just one or two remote participants. In those cases, it was understood the remote participants were being “allowed” to participate remotely, but with a recognition the experience was going to be inferior.
But as more organizations work in a hybrid space with employees permanently in the office and others permanently at home, it is critically important remote participants are genuinely and fully included as meeting participants.
That’s going to be challenging. I have no doubt that facilitating these so-called “hybrid” meetings is more challenging than either in-person or all-virtual.
I’ve come up with some tentative strategies (best practices) that I’ll be following and recommending in the months ahead. But I would very much like to hear back from others who’ve facilitated or experienced such meetings and have further thoughts.
So here are my tentative hybrid meeting facilitation strategies. Eight of these are technology related and ten are more general.
Let’s start with the eight technology focused recommendations.
Don’t simply re-create a virtual meeting by having all the in-person participants on their computers individually on zoom or whatever platform is being used. You might as well not be in person if that’s the approach. (However, if everyone does has a laptop and the potential to participate in zoom during breakout sessions, that’s great – see below).
If you have staff that will regularly engage in remote meetings, invest in second video monitors for them that can hook into their laptops. They are not expensive and they absolutely boost productivity when they can both participate in a zoom on one screen and also view a shared document. (This is something I’d recommend for those who use remote staff even in the absence of hybrid meetings).
Make sure audio is high quality. Invest in a high-quality microphone so that people participating virtually can hear anyone in the room. That may mean a microphone system. It also means a high-quality speaker so that those in the room can hear those participating virtually.
Think about what video from the room to project for those participating via the internet. That may very well mean two videos, or even three. These can be detachable webcams hooked into laptops via USB cables showing a combination of participant faces in the room and any whiteboard or flip chart that will be used.
If there is a portion of the meeting when you will share a document on a screen that everyone needs to see, figure out how to simultaneously project it on a big screen (for in-person) and also share online for remote participants.
Also think about video from the perspective of in-person participants and their ability to see remote participants. If the room allows it, set up a screen and project remote participants onto it, as large as possible (up to life sized if possible). This will give in-person participants a constant reminder to treat them as full meeting participants. If feasible, set up the speakers for remote participants next to this screen, so the voice will emanate from the visual image.
Test the audio-visual set up in advance so that you’re not floundering for the first 10 minutes.
To capture meeting notes, use an online white board or focus a remote camera on a flip chart so everyone can see what’s happening.
Beyond these technology recommendations, here are ten additional recommendations.
Try to reserve meeting time for things that require active discussion, using preparatory meetings shared in advance to get people on the same page. Consider generating some of the input prior to the meeting using polls, googleforms, etc., rather than using up meeting time for it.
Use an icebreaker or some other method to ensure everyone in the room and everyone remotely is talking at least once in the first 5 minutes just to get everyone engaged.
Think about how to integrate remote participants into breakout sessions. Don’t just default to have the remote participants always be their own breakout. If you have the physical space where you’re meeting and extra laptops for the setup, figure out if you can do breakouts where the remote participants are distributed among the in-person. For example, this could involve mini zoom meetings for groups of 3-4 people with 2-3 of them in a corner of the room and one remote.
During overall sessions, the facilitator needs to pay special attention to the remote participants. Don’t make the default be “and what about those of you not here” as something that only comes up at the end. Sometimes ask them for opinions first, sometimes in the middle, sometimes at the end. Mix it up just as you would if they were in the room.
Establish a clear groundrule not to have sidebar in-person conversations where a couple participants aren’t paying attention to the main ongoing conversation, but rather having their own conversation. This is probably something you should always have as a groundrule, but sidebars are especially challenging for remote participants as it becomes even harder for them to hear accurately what’s going on in the room.
Likewise, establish a clear groundrule that remote participants shouldn’t multi-task , where they have the meeting on one screen, but their second screen is being used for something unrelated.
Have a second “facilitator” assigned who’ll pay special attention to the remote participants. This can be a meeting participant (as opposed to truly a second facilitator). Remote participants should be able to reach out to them via chat or text during the meeting if they have an issue to address. Also, ideally someone other than the facilitator is “in charge” of the technology.
Schedule sessions to have more shorter breaks. A traditional 3-hour bock might involve 80 minutes, followed by a 15 minute break, and then an 85 minute session. Instead, have an initial 55 minute session, then 7-8 minute break, then 55 minutes, then another 7-8 minute break, then a final 55 minutes. It’s just harder for people remotely to stare at a screen for more than an hour at a time.
After breaks, where in-person people may have been chatting about the meeting topic, give a couple minute opportunity for them to share any “aha” moments that those on remotely should also know about.
Especially if your team is going to be doing these more frequently, acknowledge the challenge openly in the beginning of the meeting and your hope to run an inclusive process, while seeking feedback for future meetings. Don’t assume you’ll get this perfect the first few times you run a meeting in this manner.
So what do you think and what have you experienced?
Any of these recommendations seem off to you?
Has something worked well for you that I’ve left of this list?
Please use the comment section to share with everyone.
Quite a few times in my years as a consultant, I’ve encountered Executive Directors who accomplish tasks very effectively. Their writing is cogent. Documents they produce are always well-formatted. They are well-spoken in person, laying out clear ideas. They get a lot of stuff done. They clearly work a lot of hours.
Yet, their organization is floundering.
Almost always, it’s because they’re getting the wrong tasks done.
By “wrong,” I don’t mean they are doing tasks that are inherently counterproductive and take the organization backwards. It’s that they’re doing tasks that should be priority 6 through 10 when priorities 1 through 5 are crying out for more attention.
Peter Drucker wrote extensively about this 50 years ago in his seminal book: The Effective Executive. What separates the great from mediocre executive is a relentless focus on getting the right things done, not just doing things right.
In every organization I’ve encountered, the Executive Director (or CEO by whatever title)) could work 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and not run out of useful things to do on behalf of their organization. Of course, in the real world you have 35-50 hours per week on a sustained basis.
How can an executive stay focused on the top priorities in order to be more effective?
Here are my top five recommendations.
Recommendation 1: Actually decide rather than letting events push you around. I’ve met more than one executive who, beyond keeping a calendar, has nothing that could be described as a work plan beyond to-do lists scribbled on pieces of paper.
There are dozens of ways to give yourself a work plan. As an Executive Director, I used an Excel spreadsheet broken down by major categories of work and tasks within them, with deadlines. I’ve worked with an Executive Director who used a Word document effectively. Today, many executives have moved to online project management systems like Asana or Trello. (I use Asana for my consulting work planning).
Whatever technology you use, the bottom line is for the system to allow you to identify your big-picture goals (outcomes) that you aim to achieve, along with major activities underneath them. Whether the time frame is monthly, quarterly, or some longer period of time, it should be updated regularly.
Of course, a corollary to this recommendation is you shouldn’t skimp on planning time. More than once I’ve had an executive say they’re too busy to invest the amount of time in the planning that I am recommending to them. This brings to mind one of my previous blog posts: have you sharpened your axe lately? The short version: a timber cutter who takes 10% of their time sharpening their tool and 90% cutting likely cuts more than one who just ignores the need to sharpen their tool. Think of planning as sharpening the axe. 10%-90% may not be the precise ratio to shoot for, but in my experience there is no way to confidently “get the right things done” without taking real time to think things through, whether alone or with your team.
Recommendation 2: Don’t prioritize in a vacuum. Prioritize within your work plan by staying focused on your most important organizational goals and strategies. Whether embodied in an organizational strategic plan or some other document that the Executive Director writes up, the goals selected should clearly tie back to important organizational outcomes and the strategies should match up with the organization’s primary activities.
When a new idea emerges (presented to you or generated by you), assuming it’s not already clearly within the work plan, ask three questions as a filter before adding it to the plan:
Question one: Is the task squarely within one of our organization’s strategies? If not, it is almost always suspect.
Question two: Should I be the one to do this task? Just because it should be done, doesn’t mean the Executive Director should tackle it. What tasks should fall to the Executive Director and what to other staff, to contractors, or volunteer leaders? If it’s at all possible to delegate it, do so.
Another way of approaching this question is to ask: is this something that requires my participation either because of my unique skills or relationships? If not, is there someone else able to do it?
This filter is especially important for an executive to use when receiving requests to participate in meetings. More often than not when I encounter a floundering executive, they are heavily scheduled into meetings where they aren’t essential participants. They just don’t want to miss out on the “action.”
Question three: Is the task the cake or the icing on the cake?
Put another way, is accomplishing this task an essential element towards what I’m trying to accomplish or just a nice additive. Unless and until you are confident all the essential building blocks are being achieved, tasks that are merely positive should be shelved.
Recommendation 3: Use your calendar to block off the important tasks that you tend to struggle to complete. Schedule yourself into a block of time when you’re committed to just that task, avoiding all distractions. Often times in the nonprofit sphere, major donor fundraising is what tends to get pushed off for other things that seem more time-sensitive. That was true in my case. I finally forced myself to stick to a schedule where everyone on my team knew I wasn’t to be disturbed.
Recommendation 4: Cut out the easy time-wasters. Examples of these include:
The impromptu meeting with co-workers that takes half an hour that could be done in 15 minutes. At the beginning of any such impromptu meeting, ask: “what do we need to get out of this conversation” and stick closely to that subject.
The half-dozen times during the day you check your Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or other social media because there might be something relevant to the organization’s work. (This is one of my weaknesses). Unless it’s your job to manage these social media platforms, once per day should be sufficient.
The extra 15 minutes formatting a document to be perfect when it was already good enough to be understood. Occasionally you’re producing something worthy of that extra 15 minutes, but most of the time that’s 15 minutes better spent moving onto the next important task.
Recommendation 5: Beware of shiny objects. These are the opportunities that come along that seem cool. They may even come with funding. Perhaps you’re asked to speak to a group. Or to put together a media release on some breaking news of relevance. Often, these are things that may gratify the ego, but really aren’t essential building blocks to organizational success. Get used to saying no and feeling good about it because when you say no to something new, you’re saying yes to the core work you already have underway.
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Do you have your own techniques for staying focused on the right tasks? Please share them in the comments.
An Executive Director working for a former client recently invited me out to have lunch at a park and then go kayak on the river with her. We spent most of the lunch talking about the organization’s challenges and the potential role an upcoming strategic planning process could play in meeting those challenges.
Then we went for our paddle. Just a short one, about 40 minutes.
The Tualatin is a gentle river in a suburban area, but we saw (and heard) some lovely birds and this turtle sunning itself on a log.
Despite the short amount of time involved, the experience was enough to get my brain recharged and think about the incredible role that rivers can play in improving our communities, which was well-timed given one of my current clients is entirely focused on watershed protection. Thanks Jan!
In thinking about the experience, I was reminded of the parable of the three bricklayers and the importance of nonprofit leaders taking steps to ensure they don’t lose touch with their deeper purpose.
This is a variation on a famous parable that supposedly was first told by Christopher Wren, in 1671, while he was serving as chief architect for the rebuilding of St. Paul’s Cathedral in London.
A woman was walking down a street and came across someone laying bricks. The first bricklayer was dejected and doing a sloppy job as they laid bricks on top of each other. The woman asked the bricklayer: “what are you doing?”
The first bricklayer’s answer: “I’m putting bricks in a row and then putting another layer of bricks on top of them.”
Further down the street, the woman came across a second bricklayer. This bricklayer was workmanlike – doing their job in an apparently competent manner.
The woman asked the second bricklayer: “what are you doing?”
The second bricklayer’s answer: “I’m building a wall that will form the side of a building.”
As the woman walked even further down the street, she came across a third bricklayer. This bricklayer was whistling as they worked, obviously happy, as they methodically and competently put bricks together in rows, mortared them, and slowly built upwards.
The woman asked the bricklayer: “what are you doing?”
The third bricklayer’s answer: “I’m building the wall of a hospital that will save people’s lives.”
Is it any wonder that the second bricklayer was more productive than the first, and the third was most productive of all?
The first was given a task, but had no purpose.
The second had a purpose, but it was shallow.
The third had a task, a purpose, and the purpose was framed in a deeper way that could arouse passion.
So how does this apply to nonprofits?
Almost always, small, new nonprofits are like bricklayer three. They are founded around a purpose and that purpose tends to remain front and center as the team is built and tasks are divided up. Executive Directors who are founders are particularly like bricklayer 3.
Yet, over time – whether the organization grows or not – nonprofits often wind up treating their staff, board, and other volunteers like bricklayer 2, or even worse bricklayer 1.
I saw this repeatedly when I was an Executive Director interacting with other organizations, and I see it sometimes as well as a consultant.
As organizations grow, there is a tendency to focus on specific duties or tasks that need to get done at the expense of the mission. This is particularly true on the organizational capacity side of the equation.
It’s easy to stay focused on the purpose when you’re doing the programmatic work of your nonprofit that directly advances the mission. It’s harder to say focused on the purpose when you’re working on board governance, or fundraising, or information management systems.
These are the “bricks” that form the foundation of the organization, so it’s easy to get caught in the trap of focusing on the process of laying bricks or the fact that it’s a “foundation.”
Yet, in failing to keep your deeper purpose front and center, groups are likely to go off course as they lose some of the passion essential to fuel volunteer and staff activity.
Here are a few examples.
Your board is asked to raise money. You pay a great deal of attention in training them to the mechanics of raising the money and the need to hit certain financial goals. Yet, if the staff doesn’t repeatedly tie those financial goals back to the purpose as it talks to the board, the board is less likely to go the extra mile to ask their friends for money.
I’ve seen the same situation happen with staff playing a non-program role. Whether they’re doing your human resources, your database management, your accounting, or any of the myriad of other tasks that go into a medium or larger sized nonprofit, it’s easy to fall into the trap of training them in isolation on just their own jobs. Many nonprofits can find competent administrative staff to “lay bricks.”
Yet in my experience, administrative staff who’re repeatedly shown how their work is critical to your deeper purpose, are stronger performers. It may take a little extra time up-front to consistently keep the purpose front and center, but the payoff is almost always worth it. They will work harder and are less likely to leave for another job. And they will be more creative in finding ways for their work to better support the programmatic work.
How about volunteers?
A great deal of my experience managing volunteers is in the election context, so my example will lie in that realm. Election volunteers are asked to step out of their comfort zone to talk to strangers at the door or on the phone on behalf of candidates or issues.
In the election context, I repeatedly found that enthusiastic, repeat volunteers emerged most often when they were informed not just about the task at hand (the phone bank – bricklayer 1), and not just about the campaign (the phone bank as key to winning the election – bricklayer 2), but also the underlying purpose (the phone bank as key to winning the election so the candidate can lead on policies that save lives from dangerous levels of pollution — bricklayer 3).
So what are some management techniques leaders can use as a manger to avoid going off course by losing touch with your deeper purpose?
Three techniques come immediately to mind:
First, get really good at talking about your organization’s fundamental purpose, whether you call that your mission or otherwise. Make sure this is about underlying values and not first-order impacts. Keep talking about it. Just because you think everyone’s heard you talk about it before, don’t be shy about bringing it up again to reinforce the message.
Second, make sure the agenda for any significant meeting and the talking points for any presentation have some time set aside that connects the topic at hand to your deeper purpose. Even if you think everyone attending already understands your purpose, consistently reminding people of that purpose when they’re together as a group is a powerful way to build community and teamwork.
Third, as you grow, don’t completely silo those people who perform largely administrative or capacity building functions from your program work. They should be part of staff meetings or retreats that are focused on program. As you hire, train, and supervise these staff, make sure you find ways to continually connect them to the purpose.
In the end, of course, some people are going to naturally think like bricklayer 1, just as others are naturally going to think like bricklayer 3. But nonprofit leaders are absolutely in a position to make sure their organization doesn’t go off course by letting the purpose be lost amidst the details.
I recently was speaking with Amanda Caffall, who helped start and currently leads the Commons Law Center, a relatively new nonprofit. The Center is clearly thriving, even with the challenges posed by 2020, and I asked her to what she attributed their success.
Among the various reasons cited, she used a phrase about herself that struck a chord in me: “naive optimism.”
The optimism part was straightforward. Basic personality matters when it comes to nonprofit leadership. People who see the world as “glass half empty” tend not to perform as well in Executive Director roles as those who see it as “glass half full.”
People whose instinct is to ask: “how do we get this done?” tend to perform better than those who instinctively think of all the reasons a program or project will fail.
Of course, people who are pessimistic and focused on what could go wrong play a really important role within nonprofits in keeping teams grounded, helping avoid problems, etc. They make awesome chief fiscal officers. But usually not Executive Director.
But what about the word “naive?” Why does it matter in this context?
The key insight is that some people have been “educated” by seeing or being told about failure in all its myriad of forms. And as their naivety is hammered out of them, they become more likely to inappropriately second-guess themself and they can become paralyzed by indecision and excess caution.
“Naive optimism” is that lucky place some leaders find themselves in where they’re inherently optimistic and they haven’t yet “learned” something can’t be done. So they go out and do it – often by leading a team.
As I reflect, I can think of a dozen Executive Directors (mostly younger) who really shined in their roles because they combined strong leadership skills with “naive optimism.”
As a nonprofit Executive Director, do you ever feel like if you walk away, things will crumble?
I felt this occasionally as an Executive Director, particularly in my first few years.
Strategies I employed to get beyond this feeling:
Take deep breadths
Look back at my to-do lists and short-term plans, break them down in chunks, and think hard about what else can be either delegated or pushed off/let go.
Map out my major yearly, quarterly, and monthly tasks. Figure out which ones can be delegated. If to nobody right away, figure out how somebody can eventually take over those tasks. (Of course, for some, the answer is nobody because they’re inherent to the E.D. role).
If appropriate after #2 and #3, ask for help. Be candid with your board chair or, if that would be awkward, somebody else who you can confide in who will grasp the picture. Sometimes just talking about it’s enough to recognize you’re probably not actually holding up the wall.
What strategies have you used when you have this feeling? I’m looking for other ideas to share!
I’ve worked with quite a few clients over the last few years
developing strategic plans. A few have
called me and asked: what now in light of the pandemic?
I always start with the question: has the lay of the land
materially changed in a way that renders key strategies unworkable and/or goals
unobtainable?
Every time the answer has been “yes.” Usually, it’s because they fear (accurately I
assume at this point) that their plans hinged on fundraising that will not
materialize in light of the pandemic.
Other times, the change to the lay of the land isn’t about money, but
rather the fact that their programmatic work depends heavily on in-person forms
of outreach or other work that has become impossible.
Here’s four pieces of advice I’ve given Executive Directors and Board Chairs who find themselves in either or both of these predicaments.
1. Hug your donors, just not literally.
Any reasonable fundraising strategy involves a combination
of maintaining and upgrading existing donors (both individual and
institutional), while also seeking new ones.
During the immediate health crisis and the economic fallout,
organizations are going to have more success with their existing donor base as
compared to attracting new donors.
That means using multiple avenues to communicate with them (e.g. email, phone, online briefings, etc.). And for those donors who love you the most, be really candid with them about where things stand for you. They are the most likely to dig deeper to help you get through the crisis.
2. Don’t forget to plan
There may be a temptation in a crisis to mistake activity for productivity. It may feel “good” to get really busy, but it’s critical that you focus on the right things. That means reevaluating your goals (the ends you’re trying to achieve) and your strategies (the major types of activities you’re undertaking to achieve your goals). What priorities have shifted? What strategies are no longer tenable and what can replace them?
I recently facilitated a team meeting planning for a 2021 grant and we had a robust conversation about the ways in which the world will look different and what that means for their programs. We touched on everything from changes to volunteerism, to how people engage politically, to whom people are willing to talk. They may not have accurately predicted all these shifts, but it’s far better to have the conversation than to just plunge forward without thinking.
3. Don’t throw out the whole past plan
Some people are tempted to just throw out their strategic
plan and start from scratch. There may
be a few organizations for whom that may make sense. But for most, if your plan was solid before,
ask yourself: do you just implement the same
plan just over a longer time period, assuming everything takes longer? Or have the fundamentals changed such that
some of the goals or strategies needed to change?
In most cases, starting with the old plan and editing it makes more sense than a blank slate.
4. Give your staff (and yourself) time and space to grieve and experiment
Your staff are your most precious resource and it’s
important to recognize that they need special handling in this environment. Beyond the obvious shift many organizations
have to go through of suddenly managing an employee working remotely, staff are
likely to feel agitated, upset, uncertain, etc.
While not everyone has experienced the loss of a loved one
or even someone they know, there is a degree to which nearly everyone is
mourning the loss of the world as we knew it.
You should find ways to give people the space to share their feelings
and concerns, even if that costs you time and productivity.
The flip side is that the new context for some people provides a burst of creativity. I’ve seen this first-hand with another one of my clients where a staff person came forward with some really interesting and implementable ideas for taking real-world activities into the virtual world, with some potential amplifying affects for the group’s ability to communicate – at least in theory. As a manger, it’s imperative that you keep an open mind towards new ideas that are worth an experiment.
Have you had some experience managing or planning amidst the pandemic you’d like to share? I’d welcome additional thoughts or experiences.
I was recently asked to write up some pros and cons for an organization when it comes to different hiring approaches to take for an upcoming Executive Director transition.
Here’s what I’ve come up with so far. Interested in additional feedback.
In my mind, there really are three scenarios for any organization:
Scenario 1: Hire from within without an open search.
Scenario 2: Hold an open search with internal candidates welcome to apply.
Scenario 3: Hire an Interim Executive Director for a 6-12 month period and then figure out whether to move to Scenario 1 or 2.
Scenario 1 (hire from within) Pros/Cons
Pros
Maximizes odds the new E.D. will be a good cultural fit for the organization.
Minimizes risk that a new E.D. will try to take the organization in a sharply new direction
Minimizes the amount of training/on-boarding likely needed.
Cons
If there are two strong internal candidates, it often leads to the departure of the one not chosen.
Can lead to insular thinking in the absence of new strategic-level leadership.
Focus on current organizational culture can limit the ability to achieve a more diverse workplace.
Scenario 2 (open search) Pros/Cons
Pros
Has the potential to bring in someone with significant new relationships with funders, partners, and potential board member
The search itself can increase the profile of the organization.
Cons
Hiring of an external candidate can be discouraging to and even lead to the departure of a strong internal candidate who isn’t selected.
An external candidate who was strong on paper may prove to be a poor fit in practice.
Scenario 3 (Interim ED) Pros/Cons
Pros
Someone with expertise in the Interim role can help identify organizational challenges with a fresh perspective and advise the board on the best path forward and give a candid assessment of whether there is, in fact, an internal candidate who’s ready.
Cons
Additional period of uncertainty for funders/allies.
Harder for the outgoing Executive Director to “train” their successor.
Additional Notes
Of course, for some organizations Scenario 1 isn’t even a consideration if there’s obviously no internal candidate potentially available.
Scenario 3 would normally be used when the departure of an outgoing E.D. is abrupt, without time prepare. But occasionally I’ve seen it selected when the board desires significant change and needs time and expertise to figure out what change is needed.
Regardless of the Scenario, it’s advisable to have a 1-2 month overlap between the outgoing E.D. leaving that role and the new E.D. taking the helm. During this period, the E.D. plays a training and special projects role.
Are there additional pros and cons that should also be considered of the various approaches?
Why Volunteers and a Spiderman Theory of Volunteer Responsibility
Most organizations with whom I consult make some effort to involve volunteers.
Some are wildly successful. Others are not.
There are many factors that lead some to be more successful than others, but two stand out that I want to explore in this article.
First, most successful programs are crystal clear about why they’re mobilizing volunteers and they design their program accordingly.
Second, most successful programs find the right balance between asking volunteers to take responsibility and giving them power. That gives rise to my Spiderman theory of volunteer management.
Why Volunteers?
Before we can get to Spiderman, it’s important to first ask the question: why volunteers? There are dozens of potential answers, but in general they tend to fit into three big categories:
Getting more stuff done
Building power
Generating leaders
Getting more stuff done
If I’m a staff person for an organization, I can spend an hour doing an activity. 1 person x 1 hour = 1 unit of activity.
If instead I spend that hour recruiting volunteers and find one volunteer who’ll show up and do the activity for 3 hours, then I’ve magically transformed my 1 hour into 3 units of activity.
Of course, there are many assumptions here, such as the assumption of 1 hour = 1 volunteer recruited, that the volunteer can do the activity as effectively as the staff person, that it won’t take even more staff time overseeing the volunteer, etc.
Each organization needs to unpack the various activities for which it’s looking to use volunteers and run the math (using the best estimates you can for your rate of volunteer recruitment, how much training and oversight time will be needed). Then it can answer the question: will a volunteer recruitment focus lead to more bang for the buck than just doing the work without volunteers.
Building power
Organizations also use volunteers to build power. To the extent our organizations are trying to impact public decision-making, perceptions of political power matter. And in general, organizations who appear to be backed by lots of people have more power than those backed by fewer. And volunteer activity can be harnessed to be visible to public officials.
Beyond this general maxim, it’s also the case that public officials are more likely to respond to the pleas of their constituents than they are to paid staff for organizations. Of course, that assumes the constituents are on-message, well trained, etc. And not all constituents are equal – as much as we wish they were. Some constituents will be especially appealing to some elected officials based on their role in the community (e.g. business owner, clergy, neighborhood leader, etc.).
Generating leaders
Beyond building power and getting more stuff done, we also use volunteers to generate leaders.
Within our organizations, we’re always looking for the next set of board members and those willing to take on higher-level responsibilities. If we don’t involve volunteers at the more basic level, it will be harder to identify organizational leaders or take potential board members out for a “test drive” in some other role.
In addition, to the extent our organizations are part of movements, we are hoping to generate movement-leadership as well. In training a volunteer, they may wind up taking on leadership for an allied organization. At OLCV, I always took pride when our volunteers wound up serving as staff for other organizations after going through our training program. Since our organization’s vision was explicitly to serve a network/movement, we saw that as a clearly positive outcome.
Matching your volunteer program to your primary reason
It would be easy to just say: “we want all three of the above” as the reason for a volunteer program. But in my experience, especially when organizations are first really investing in their volunteer program, it’s important to decide their primary objective among the three, and then design their program accordingly.
A getting more stuff done emphasis may lead to a focus on clear, simple-to-do tasks and urgent campaigns around which to motivate lots of volunteers.
A building power emphasis may mean a focus not on the overall number of volunteers, but rather identifying volunteers from key audiences (the constituency being served, influential within the community, etc.).
A generating leaders emphasis may lead to a focus on a smaller number of volunteers recruited to take on higher-level tasks with a lot of training and relationship-building baked into the program.
Matching power and responsibility
That gives rise to the second point I want to make about effective volunteer programs – they find the right balance between asking people to take responsibility and giving them power.
That’s where Spiderman comes in. Spidey’s catchphrase is: “With great power comes great responsibility.” My volunteer corollary for that is: “If you want your volunteers to take on real responsibility, you must give them real power.”
Many organizations vest real power in their board and zero power in their other volunteers and then wonder why those other volunteers won’t take on more responsibility. This becomes particularly challenging if the organization’s plan relies on creating a core group of “mid-level” volunteers who’re there to do more than take on tasks, but less than the obligations of board service.
In my experience, the solution lies in providing zones of authority for these mid-level volunteers. These are areas where they have responsibility and with it, some power to make decisions – whether on organizational policy or allocation of organizational resources.
This can be scary for some boards because it means these mid-level volunteers can make mistakes. In my experience, though, as long as appropriate side boards are put in place, giving these mid-level volunteers (working through committees, task forces, work groups, etc.) authority can vastly expand their commitment to the organization – and from it the level of work they take on.
During my time at OLCV, this played out with multiple straight election cycles where our campaigns involved more than 1000 volunteers, heavily fueled by chapter steering committees recruiting their friends and families to volunteer.
Of course, your mileage may vary. The devil’s in the details.
Each organization needs to find the right balance given their organizational culture, lay of the land, and priorities. But better to think this through explicitly rather than leave it to chance.
Jonathan guided our passionate, yet inexperienced board of directors through a successful strategic planning process. Thanks to his skill, knowledge, and patience, we now have an invaluable blueprint for growth laid out in a direct way. Jonathan helped turn ideas and dreams into a solid strategic plan.
