SO close, and yet……………………

(We interrupt our series on the Nonprofit Martyrdom Syndrome for a breaking news report on a new social enterprise – well, sort of)

My morning ritual is scrambled eggs, coffee and a quick flip through my local news (that love/hate relationship in newsprint that we know as The Baltimore Sun – and a quick flip it is).  Turning to the business news this morning, my heart jumped with excitement about a prominent feature article.

This particular piece announced the opening of a new nonprofit in Charm City, The Baltimore Community ToolBank.  Kudos to the Sun for an interesting story, a good graphic, run in a prominent place.  Mr. Abell would have been proud – that’s how you sell newspapers.

Kudos too for an interesting take on a unique issue. Turns out that the reason this organization exists is so that “churches, schools and charitable organizations” can have a place to borrow tools when they need them for “service projects like building playgrounds, cleaning streams or rehabbing houses”.  Ok, that’s great. I like a good stream cleaning as much as the next guy. I also know that community service projects are a great way to engage constituents and build community spirit. The article states the need this way – “anyone who has ever volunteered for a community project and has had to stand around waiting for a shovel or rake will appreciate this.”  Sure, keeping volunteers happy is important.  And renting tools from your local rental shop can be expensive, putting a strain on limited resources. So the theory is that a lack of affordable access to tools is an issue in getting community projects done - interesting.  Maybe not as big an issue as some of the other social causes we are fighting, but certainly an honest attempt to get at a root cause (no pun intended). So, I’m intrigued and read on.

I do a quick Google and see that the Baltimore operation was established in partnership with The Parks and People Foundation, who I love and do great things; and funded by some good local heroes like the Abell Foundation. So now I know that there are some smart and well respected social innovators involved in the project, and my interest level goes up significantly.

So, how about the solution? These fine folks have formed a nonprofit that lends out tools (BTW, this is the third one, following Atlanta and Charlotte, with Cincinnati, Houston and Portland coming soon). Why a non-profit? Well, because the other options (buying or a commercial rental) are costly and can reduce the ability of the local group to get projects done. Again, I get that. But these ToolBanks don’t just let you borrow their wheelbarrows; you rent them.  The rental rate is “3 percent of the value of the tools, multiplied by the number of weeks to be borrowed”.  Oh, OK, now I get it, it’s a Social Enterprise, right? Yea! Earned Income! Fees that go to offset operating costs!  Now my fist is in the air and I’m hootin and hollerin!

Then, is read that “the tool fees won’t be enough to support ToolBank’s operations, so it will need continued support from businesses and foundations to remain viable”.  And with that one fateful line my heart went from glad to sad. If only.  If only the philanthropic support went to the startup costs, and the rental fees covered the ongoing operations. 

 

OK, that would mean that the rental rates would need to be a bit higher, sure. And if they were a bit higher, it’s likely that not as many projects would get done. But I’m willing to bet that it would still be more than are being done currently, and we’d avoid the situation where the ToolBank and the church it is serving might be applying to the same grantmaker or courting the same donor.  We’d have a great idea that is truly self-sustaining and helping others to achieve their vision.

Don’t get me wrong here. This is a good idea and an interesting model, with a lot of promise. So much promise that it really is a shame that they didn’t take that final step.

A really good social enterprise has three core attributes. It has a sound root cause social change theory, it runs its operations efficiently, and it doesn’t depend on grants and gifts for ongoing operations.  They say two out of three ain’t bad. Baltimore ToolBank is probably 2 & ½ out of three. So close……………..

(We now return you to our regularly scheduled program)

But it’s for the kids……

(Number 5 in a series)

A friend of mine teaches at a local private school. He tells me that anytime that a faculty member wants to get their way; the closing argument is that “it’s for the kids”. The obvious conceit is that it may in fact have little to do with the kids; but within the school’s culture and context, that argument is very hard to assail.

When it comes to the motives of both donors and staff, a similar construct exists in the lexicon of most nonprofits.  “It’s for the mission” becomes a catch all that obscures much of the actual behaviors and intent of many folks who seem well meaning on the surface.  Studies of donor theory indicate that while many donors act from altruistic motives, a good portion of them are driven by self-satisfying intentions such as ego, a desire for improved social status, or the ability to influence the agenda of the organization.  Good points all, but probably not a huge new revelation to most of you.

Those of you keeping score at home will recall that our last installment told the true story of a time when my darling bride was taken to task for insufficient personal sacrifice in the name of a nonprofit mission. You will also recall a promise to discuss the reason this happened. So here’s the theory of the day: Nonprofit Executive Directors are subject to the same range of motives as the donors

.

Yes, yet another strain of the dreaded Nonprofit Martyrdom Syndrome is the ego driven staff scenario, where the personal gain of the mission’s leader is what the goals are really about.  In the story I told last time, the absurd behavior exhibited by the local E.D. was driven in part by a need to be seen as “the best” by the national organization, and that somehow this translated into staying up all night in a bizarre hugfest. What this type of behavior shows is that the leadership is not really motivated by concern for the cause.  Sometimes it’s the ego rush of being in the spotlight. Sometimes it’s a need for control, or the desire to build or maintain an empire. Sadly, sometimes it’s the validation that comes from others who tell you “what a good person” you are. Regardless of the reason, the negative impact on mission of this kind of behavior should be obvious. Rather than share best practices and build a better operation, each chapter office is left to its own devices. Any first year MBA will tell you that such behavior is bound to create duplicative efforts and increase costs. In a misguided effort to improve performance, the national leadership creates a competitive culture that pits local operations against each other rather than encouraging collaboration.

The cure?  Create and implement a performance management system that clearly encourages collaboration and discourages competitive behavior.  And then (this is the hard part) hold your team accountable to collaborative goals. For example, the office that raises the most money should not be rewarded either directly or by accolade (no trophies, no “atta boy”, none of that). On the other hand, a poll of peers asking them which of their colleagues shared the most might be the subject of a great item in an internal newsletter.

Sensing a trend here? The astute observer (and I know you’re out there) will note that effective performance management was part of the prescription for the cure for our first strain of NMS, the pittance that passes for a pay scale in nonprofits.  Now here we go again with performance management as part of the answer to abuse in the form of excessive hours and lack of collaboration.  The simple answer to that is that Martyrdom is a human issue, and so Human Resource tools are appropriate in many cases.   

Perhaps the real issue is that we confuse dedication with sacrifice or that we think that a calling implies a complete 24/7 devotion (ask any Pastor, Rabbi or Priest how that’s working).  The truth is that we all need times of rest and renewal, and that the work we do is so important that the need to do it well is even more important.

Bottom Line:  Transparency in motive, and the courage to call out and correct behavior that is not healthy, will actually make us more able to care “for the kids”. 

A grand time was had by most

[The following story is true. The names have been obscured to avoid embarrassing the guilty, who are carrying a virulent strain of the dreaded NMS – Nonprofit Martyrdom Syndrome.]

It’s 3 am.  My darling bride is in a formal gown, and I’m in my best suit. We’re exhausted, collapsed into each other’s arms. We’ve just spent the evening at a $500 per plate gala fundraiser. It’s been one horrible night. Sounds like there should be every reason that it was a great evening. The problem?  We weren’t guests, we were staff.

At the time, my wife was a program manager for a regional office of a major national nonprofit; an organization with a noble and important cause. I had directly supported the effort myself by completing a few of the now ubiquitous “run for the cause” events that this mission had helped to popularize.

Said gala was the highlight of the year for these folks, and pulling off the event was my wife’s primary responsibility. Now I know you’ve been to many of these, so I can quickly describe the scene in very broad brushes:  Interesting and unique space, fully catered sit-down dinner, DJ, silent and live auction. The kind of thing you see in the “out and about” pages of your local newspaper.

12 hour days have been the norm for about 8 weeks leading up to this night, with the much of the labor focused on collecting, cataloguing and pricing all of the silent auction items, which then had to be brought down to the interesting and unique event space.  Across the dinner table, I learn that the team plans to do this in multiple shuttle trips in their own cars. “Why, that’s silly” say I, sensing an opportunity to earn some husband points. “You should rent a van and haul it all down in one shot”. “Oh, we can’t rent a van” says my dear one, “that’s not in the budget. And besides, who would drive it?” So, good sport that I am, I volunteer to rent the van (paid for out of my own pocket) and be the driver (of course, I’ve already taken the day off from work to be the supportive husband that I am).  

The auction gets set up, the caterer arrives, a grand time is had by all (well, by the guests anyway – paid and volunteer staff have been on their feet since early in the day).  The guests are now gone. Everything is packed up. The team is sitting around enjoying the afterglow of a great success. I suggest that we need to go home, because I have to go to work the next day. Hugs all around, thanks all around, high fives all around.  We climb into the rented van, make it home and pass out, still in our formal attire.

My darling bride sleeps in a bit, and makes it into the office around 10 am the next day. She’s told by the receptionist that the boss wants to see her right away.  She walks in, excepting a brief and upbeat post-mortem, but is greeted by a severe reprimand – not for being late to work (absurd as that is), but for leaving the event early.

This experience left me pondering a question that haunts me to this day. Why do organizations that do such great work caring for others show such little concern for those who do the work of caring?  Why do we expect human suffering as the standard behavior for those who work to relieve human suffering?

Now I know that your shop doesn’t do this. You provide a fair wage for a fair day’s work, and make sure your team gets the rest they need. You provide healthcare, paid vacations and all the other things that any good employer does. But I bet you know a few programs like the one in this story.  Programs where the entire team actively works each day to nail themselves to the cross (and in some cases will even climb back up when someone has just let them down).

And no, this isn’t a way for an aggrieved husband to air an old grudge – in fact; it’s an experience that has inspired much of my current work to redefine how social missions are delivered. Most if all, it’s a clear case of NMS. We’ll get to the cure for this one in our next installment.

   

 [P.S. – the next income for all this effort? Around $80,000. The net result on employee turn-over? Other than the Executive Director, 100% staff turnover within 12 months – and one member of my household who will NEVER work for a nonprofit again (just ask her).]

The high cost of tuition

(Number 3 in a series)

For several years, I had the distinct pleasure of building and growing a unique program that helped grow social enterprises.  We did such a good job that we were recognized by the United States Association for Small Business and Entrepreneurship for our innovative efforts. We helped over 60 organizations search for and find appropriate earned income strategies to help fund their missions.  It was during this time that I discovered one of the cures for NMS (Nonprofit Martyrdom Syndrome).

NMS, as you will recall, is a horrible disease that keeps may social benefit organizations from realizing their potential.  One of the symptoms of NMS is a pay scale that is well below what it should be for folks doing such important work. But the cure is at hand, and came to me in a conversation I had while running this exceptional program.

The basic structure of the experience was that local nonprofit leaders were teamed with university students for a semester long experience to explore the world of social enterprise. We promised that folks would leave the course with a better sense of the feasibility of earned income for their unique mission (and no, it’s not for everyone), as well as some initial thoughts about a model that might work for their organization (match tomission is critical). We hoped that some of them would move far enough along to think about actually launching a venture (about half of them did, and most of them are still in business).  For this we asked the nonprofits to pay three credits of graduate level tuition (about $1,800 at the time).

Each semester, we would hold a series of events to promote the program and recruit participants. At one of these events, the sincere and well-meaning executive director of a local effort took me to task for the “exorbitant”  fees we were requesting, and told me flat out that we would never get nonprofits to participate because they just couldn’t afford that kind of money (interestingly, we had a waiting list every year, but I digress). 

In a moment of inspiration, I requested permission to ask her a few questions about her shop.  First, did she have an office? “Of course”, she said. Next, did that office have a receptionist?  Again,"yes”.  I then proceeded to describe this receptionist. “Let me guess – late twenties, minimal education, low to moderate performance in the job, some attendance issues”. At this point, I’m getting a somewhat annoyed look.  Then, “you probably pay this person somewhere around $10/hour”. Now she’s thinking I’m either a psychic or a stalker, but gulps out a quiet “yes”.  Sensing I’m on to something,  “and you accept the substandard performance because you feel that your pay is substandard and that this is the best you can expect. You’ve never spoken to this employee bout improving performance. You’ve never had a performance review or set concrete expectations for this job.  And, I bet that’s how you run your whole office. “ 

Now some steam is starting to rise from the ears of my earnest colleague. Undaunted, I press on to make my point – “If you implemented a proper performance management system for your employees, you would not only have a more efficient and effective team, you‘d save enough money to be able to pay the tuition for this program.”  And that’s when it hit me.

Many nonprofits are locked in a performance management failure cycle. The guilt over low pay prevents them from dealing with employee performance. Carrying subpar employees on the payroll ties up the cash that is needed to build and grow programs.  It is – truly – a vicious circle.

What is takes to break free is a willingness to have uncomfortable conversations with your employees. It takes the courage to set clear goals and hold everyone (including yourself) accountable for achieving those goals. It also takes the strength to be able to let someone go when they are not measuring up.  At the end of the day, all of this is just sound basic human resources management. It’s also the cure for the most common strain of NMS – low grade compensation.  The good news is that fixing this is easy.

 

While a simple raise in pay would be a good start, a better way would be to implement a decent human resources management system. A system where pay rates are benchmarked to similar roles in both commercial and mission oriented firms, where performance expectations are clear, where rewards for exceptional performance and consequences for substandard results are both clear and quickly delivered.

Don’t think for a minute that I’m suggesting that this is easy. It’s hard work. But whether it’s my overworked and underpaid friend Billy, or the underperforming receptionist, the results are the same. I’ve seen it hundreds of times.  It’s like getting a new pair of eyeglasses.  You’d learned to live with you vision a bit blurry, and then one day, you suddenly see much more clearly. And the world is a much better place.

(next time,  symptom #2 - the 24/7 work week)