Marginalizing Board Members
I have no time for an executive director who intentionally shuts out the organization’s board. Putting it succinctly: you are a self-aggrandizing, stupid and, might I even go so far as to say evil person? You know who you are.
Whenever you think it necessary, you say all of the things you think you are supposed to say: all the different variations of “Woe is me. My board doesn’t do anything!” You make all of the right noises and say how hard you’ve tried to get Read more
Time to Brew the Tea
When it comes to reading, I often come intentionally late to the party. I figure if everyone else is talking about it, I don’t need to be reading it right then as the word is getting out. Which is why I find myself now, five years after its publication, reading Three Cups of Tea. It is, as everyone said, a nice read—at least as far as I’ve gotten.
There are many things that one can take away from this book and Greg Mortenson’s story; Read more
Blow Hard
I feel sort of shallow saying this, but don’t judge me until you read it all: what boiled my blood in reading The Philadelphia Inquirer article reporting on the Board of Directors of the Philadelphia Orchestra voting to declare bankruptcy and file for Chapter 11 reorganization was not the fact that the Board was risking losing this city—and the world—a world class orchestra.
Very, very sad, but it wasn’t what revved my juices. It wasn’t the fact that the Orchestra was in the position of needing Read more
Let’s Have a Party!
I recently ran into a funder I hadn’t seen in a while. In response to the standard question of “How are you?” she responded with a roll of the eyes and “This is ‘death by gala’ season.” We both laughed, but it is so, so true. Name the time of day you wish to eat, and there is a gala waiting—breakfast, lunch, drinks, dinner, dessert? It is all there. And it isn’t just killing funders; it is driving executive directors and staff over the edge.
There Read more
Strut your Stuff
On my drive into work one morning this week (all of 25 minutes), I heard three stories about cutbacks as the result of struggling economies. Some are done deals, others still in the proposal stages. There was the elimination of school bus service in a school district in Colorado (done), slashing the number of prisons in New York State (proposed) and the withdrawal of support staff in the courts of Florida (proposed). I particularly liked one person’s comment in the Florida story: would you send Read more
Nothing Personal
“Is this personal or professional?” asked the executive director of a multi-million dollar nonprofit of his direct report as he questioned a check request for less than $100 for a multi-session professional development program she planned on attending. The announcement of the series had been sent to to executive directors who were asked to share it with appropriate staff, and was offered by a very well-recognized management support organization dedicated to improving the operations, management and governance of nonprofits so that those organizations can become Read more
When is a Nonprofit Not a Nonprofit?
Last week’s blog led to a reader sending me a series of thoughtful questions (see comments). The first question, however, generated a swift and blunt reply.
His question asked how I would classify a nonprofit organization “whose only revenue stream is governmental grants. Are they a ‘non-profit’ or just a ‘quasi-government’ agency…?” I love easy questions like this. My answer? I classify this as a “nonprofit flirting with death!”
Forget the debate on nomenclature and focus on the big picture: long-term sustainability. Any nonprofit that is funded Read more
Gotta Right to Sing the Blues
Maybe it is time to have a new nonprofit classification. I’d call it “the really large ones that operate more like a for-profit than a nonprofit and give the rest of the nonprofit sector a bad name and make all nonprofits suspect in the minds of the public, the media and too many legislators.” But I’d call them “pseudo nonprofits” for short.
The current impetus for this thinking is Blue Cross/ Blue Shield of Massachusetts. The company revealed earlier this month that it paid its former Read more
Dirty Money
Now is clearly not a popular time to suggest that nonprofits should think carefully before accepting a gift—as gifts of dollars or those things that can easily translate into dollars—are such desperate commodities these days. But the reality is that now—and always—is the time.
Earlier this week, The Wall Street Journal published an article identifying a number of American and British nonprofits—institutions of higher education and think tanks—that had, knowingly, accepted gifts from the Gaddafi Family Foundation and/or the Libyan government. The prestigious London School of Read more
I’m So Tired
I like to think that I am a very tolerant person, and that I can listen to people complain again and again, even about the same thing. But I have reached my limit with one group of people and one of their constant complaints. I am tired, and I mean really, really tired (think Madeline Kahn as Lilly Von Schthupp in Blazing Saddles), of hearing otherwise capable and competent executive directors—and I am only talking about them, not the others– complain about being over-worked, never Read more
