Where are Nonprofit Standards?

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The amount of bad, blatantly unethical, or just plain wrong information that supposed experts give out, and which nonprofits accept, is staggering.  After all, it came from an “expert,” so how can you push back or question?  And what happens when this bad information gets lionized as truth?  Let me share some recent examples.

A few weeks ago, I got an email from a stranger who’d found me on the web.  He had an intricate story to tell of a board’s deceit, favoritism, unethical behavior, disregard of its own policies, and a muzzling of dissenters.  I was his last resort, having reached out to an attorney (who wanted a four-figure retainer before addressing any of his questions) and local nonprofit experts and the organization’s own attorney all of whom told him he had to keep his mouth shut, that the board could violate its own policies, that it was okay to have meetings without records being kept, just to mention a few examples.  No one had explained to him his options or advised him of the truth about what boards could and couldn’t do.  So, I did.  Not because I’m smarter than any of the others, but because I believe it is so important to build our sector on best practices, truth, ethics and the law.

What really scares me in this story is that most people would have been satisfied with what his first group of “experts” told him, thought he knew what was “right” and/or “true” and moved on.   But his profession is one that is built on data, hearing answers in the context of a particular situation, and, truth be told, questioning expertise.  So, he pushed on:  he just couldn’t get his head around the notion that our society would allow for such blatant disregard of truth, the law and moral behavior.  (After all, why bother creating a policy if you are just going to ignore when it is convenient and/or whenever you like?)

But what about those who don’t have that push for truth as part of their essence or who weren’t raised to question?  What about those who don’t have the luxury of time or resources to pursue multiple opinions and weigh them all accordingly?  Are they doomed to follow the bad advice of supposed experts?  And how do we assess “expertise” anyway?

These questions have come to consume a large portion of that area of my brain wired to worry—in this case, worry about our sector’s growing reliance on the notion that “anyone will do.”  This is disturbing for several reasons.

First, it fails to give important recognition to the nonprofit profession and all that is encompassed in that one key word—profession.  There was a time when there were no such things as nonprofit professionals; people did, indeed, do this as an avocation rather than a vocation; they hadn’t studied nonprofits, they didn’t know the differences—good and bad—between for-profit, government and nonprofit.  Like medical knowledge that was, for so long, built by studying only males, doctors assumed it transferred equally and similarly to women (which we now know is not the truth).   But that was then and this is now and there is a nonprofit profession.

Twenty years ago, it was exceedingly difficult to find an undergraduate degree program in nonprofit management/leadership/studies, now it is quite common.  Twenty years ago, it was impossible to find such a graduate program, now there are dozens.  But regardless of whose definition of a profession you use, and whether you count four or 10 and everything in between, there are a core of characteristics that define a profession—be it a medicine, education, architecture, landscape design—or nonprofit.  The core characteristics of a profession are:

1. a specialized body of knowledge leading to defined skills, abilities and norms;
2. a body of knowledge to which those in the professional continually contribute and expand and to which members continually return for on-going professional learning and growth;
3. bound by a distinctive standard of conduct and ethical code for the practice of the profession and in its relationships with clients, colleagues and the public;
4. clearly defined membership with a view to self-guarding the integrity and standards of the profession; and
5. its own professional organization(s).

Truthfully, while all of the characteristics are important, the most is the specialized body of knowledge that is continually reviewed, critiqued, added to, and drunk from by the members of the profession.

Years ago, my mother had a shoulder replaced; it didn’t work.  She’d gone to an excellent orthopedic surgeon who knew his profession inside and out.  But she didn’t need a generalist; she needed an orthopedic surgeon who specialized in patients with rheumatoid arthritis.  The second surgery with such a specialist took—but at great costs to my mother’s health.  Why, then, would any nonprofit executive director or board decide to work with just anyone when it comes to doing a strategic plan, for example?  Why go to someone who is an expert in strategic planning with for-profits when what you need is a specialist who is an expert in strategic planning with nonprofits?  And because it is free or at a discount isn’t the right answer, for trust me, it will cost you.  Respect yourself and the nonprofit professionals who are out there.

Which brings me to my second point:  the willingness to take anyone – such as these volunteer match programs who will set up with a volunteer that finds your project interesting -is the epitome of self-contempt and loathing – for your mission, staff, clients, donors, etc.  When we are more concerned with the bottom line—“they were cheaper”—and/or pleasing others—“Our board president wanted us to use her company people” or “He is a friend of a board member down on his luck”- than we are with getting the best product for the organization, be it a strategic, development or succession plan, for examples, we are showing out own lack of self-respect.

Our mission, our clients, our donors, and our staff deserve the highest quality of support, even if it means we- board and staff- have to work a little harder to raise some more money to pay for the professional rather than the one who dabbles.  As a professional (and, yes, I know, not all supposed professionals are created equal, but that is where doing your homework comes in), we promise to be steeped in our field or knowledge; we promise to have a cohort of other professionals with whom we can commune and consult if need be to make sure the product we deliver to our clients meets the professions standards and latest knowledge; we promise to meet you where you are and not to try and push your square peg into the round hole in which it will never fit but, sorry, we only know the round hole.

Those in the profession know the square peg and the square opening in which it will fit.  The person who is volunteering for six weeks to take on your project, who may well be a professional, albeit in engineering or investment counseling but not in nonprofit development or nonprofit finance, but for whom your project is a “feel good” effort is not the same as a nonprofit professional.  And in the end, not matter how cheap it may be, it’s not worth it.  Do you want someone wiring your house who is not a professional electrician but simply wants to try something different or feel good about herself or brag to his friends about helping the family that hired him just because his price was right?  So why would you do that at your place of work?

And third and final, using “just anyone” perpetuates the nonprofit whine (“Oh, woe is us, we are just a poor nonprofit and we never have any money—or self-respect”), which, in turn perpetuates the external perception that we are “just playing” at it.  If you are serious about your business and respect what you and others in the sector do, why wouldn’t you want to ask for help from those who share that same perspective?  Share it to the point that they have made themselves nonprofit professionals, not nonprofit dabblers and dilatants?

If you are serious yourself about wanting to have a professional organization, about the fact that this is not a game but an important enterprise committed to doing its mission, why would you elect to use those people who don’t dedicate their professional lives to working on the same shared goals – helping to improve the quality of life in communities and the lives of those in the community?  It is the irony of all ironies that those who benefit from the rise of a profession are the very ones now dissing it, along with those who have studied and worked hard.  They don’t want the skilled and knowledgeable and best; they want the cheapest.

Sometimes, it should be all about the credentials.  And, yes, sometimes, even for nonprofits, it shouldn’t be about the cheapest, as cheap the first time can end up costing more the second time.  Most DIYers know that to be true!