Nonprofit Physician, Heal Thyself!
By way of a personal update, I am in the midst of starting up a new charitable venture with some colleagues. I’ll say more about what we are up to, and why and how we are going about it, in an upcoming post. In the meantime, I thought I’d share some counter-intuitive notions about nonprofit leadership and management I’ve been grappling with in the run up to our launch.
Conventional Wisdom?
Over two decades as a consultant, board member, and funder in the social sector, I have come to hold several assumptions about successful nonprofits. Their leaders cast compelling visions. They have robust, well-managed organizations. They hone compelling theories of change for how their efforts will make the world a better place. They carefully plan, execute, and measure the results of their work. They build their leadership bench, preserve and enhance their culture, and scale their programmatic capacity to do more good. In a virtuous cycle, funders come to see these organizations as “anchor grantees” that warrant ample philanthropic support, enabling further growth.
Even as I subscribed to this conventional wisdom, I recognized it told only part of the story. As a consultant, I advised exemplary nonprofit leaders who in candid moments acknowledged that their own organization’s efforts, successful as they had been, fell far short of society’s needs. As a nonprofit board member, I took note when our organization dramatically increased its impact by freely sharing proprietary content and know-how with other organizations dedicated to our shared mission. As a funder, I saw nimble leaders with a knack for collaboration and supporting others provide much more bang for the buck than branded “anchors” beating their own drum.
I have also witnessed problematic aspects of “organizational maintenance” dynamics described by social scientists like James Q. Wilson and Steve Teles. Scaled-up nonprofits have to spend more time raising more money, often from funders with strong preferences for how they should use it. By dint of their size, large nonprofits are more exposed to the internal risks of turf disputes, coordination problems, wayward teams and employees, etc. These challenges can make it harder for organizations to stay focused on and advance their missions.
An Alternative Approach
Now that I am launching a new nonprofit enterprise myself, I am wrestling with the counter-intuitive wisdom embedded in these complexities. How best to pursue our mission: by building out a new organization, or by weaving a network? The options aren’t mutually exclusive, of course, but where should the emphasis lie?
Others have illuminated helpful ways to think about this. In the fields where I work, I have benefitted and learned from several leaders with a calling for weaving networks. They include Cynthia Gibson, Eric Liu, Kristen Campbell, Kristin Hansen, Mike Berkowitz, and Rachel Pritzker. Further afield, a conversation years ago with Kate Wing about nonprofit networks working on oceans and fisheries stewardship spurred my thinking in constructive directions.
I have more recently encountered and especially appreciate the wisdom of Jane Wei-Skillern and her collaborators at the New Network Leader Project. An article Wei-Skillern co-authored with Nora Silver, “Four Network Principles for Collaboration Success,” distills the core elements of this approach to social sector leadership. I quote from it here (emphasis added):
“Focus on mission before organization. Effective network leaders build strategies that advance the mission even when it does not result in direct benefits to their organization.
Build partnerships based on trust, not control. Leaders depend upon shared values and trust rather than top-down controls and accountability systems.
Promote others rather than yourself. Network leaders exhibit a strong norm of humility above all else, sharing credit and foregoing opportunities for individual advancement and institutional growth and brand building.
Build constellations rather than lone stars. Leaders who catalyze successful networks acknowledge their weaknesses as readily as their strengths. The goal is to build the larger system that is necessary for delivering on the mission, not to become the ‘market leader.’”
These principles are clarifying. However, running counter as they do to conventional wisdom, they also raise new questions for nonprofit leaders seeking to adhere to them. Here are the ones I have been asking myself:
How do you raise money to support work done with and through others given most funders want to support efforts of standalone nonprofits?
How widely do you cast the net in weaving the network? Where and how do you set the boundaries with respect to issues and organizations?
How do you strike the balance and flex the mix between leading and supporting roles, given you will need to play both?
If growth for its own sake is not the goal, what is the minimum efficient scale you need to optimize your contributions to the broader network?
There are no easy answers to these questions, but they feel like the right ones to be working through. I’ll share periodic updates on where we are coming out. Please stay tuned!
