From The Board of Directors
We are writing to report on the findings of the community process that was undertaken this summer by The Nonprofit Center task force. As you may recall, the Board convened a group of community stakeholders who had an interest in preserving the mission of this valuable community resource. This group was charged with exploring the needs of the nonprofit sector, assessing the viability of delivering those services and making a recommendation to the Board on how to proceed. We thank all who participated in our stakeholder meetings and/or filled out the survey. Your time and your thoughtful and honest feedback are appreciated.
From June through September the task force met four times, convened three gatherings of stakeholders and conducted a community-wide survey of the nonprofit sector. They also researched other organizations with missions similar to that of The Nonprofit Center that are successfully operating in other communities. The task force concluded that the greatest area of need was among smaller organizations, and this conclusion was supported by conversations with regional funders. For smaller nonprofits, the most valued and most-needed services are:
- Education and Training to support managers, staff, board chairs, and board members.
- Convening and Connecting individuals and organizations with similar interests, for example, executive director roundtables, grant writers, or organizations that could potentially partner on grants or projects.
- Offering Referrals to high quality service providers and experts who have been screened.
- Back Office Services such as financial, legal, human resource and IT services.
The need for these services appears to exist in Kitsap and Thurston counties as well as Pierce County. The task force recommended two possible courses of action to the board:
- Rebuild and rebrand the organization, focusing on the four areas of high-need identified above. This option would require the infusion of significant start-up capital and the recruitment of highly dynamic and visionary management and board leadership.
- Responsibly close The Nonprofit Center to allow the mission to be carried on by other interested parties in the community. This option would require the board to be conscientious about ensuring the well-being of current clients and protecting any assets of the organization so that they can be handed off to another organization serving the needs of the nonprofit sector.
After careful and deliberate consideration the board has decided that the course of action that will best advance the mission of serving the nonprofit sector and the communities we serve is to formally dissolve The Nonprofit Center. We will be taking steps over the next few weeks to do so responsibly and ask for your support and understanding throughout this process. The Nonprofit Center has added significant value to the Puget Sound nonprofit community and this is of course a direct result of the dedicated, committed and passionate past and current staff, volunteers, and community members who have so generously donated their time, sweat and tears for this vital mission over the years. The board wishes to thank everyone who has been involved with The Nonprofit Center.
For those agencies currently being served by Center staff for your financial services, Alan Strand and Christine Garst will continue to provide nonprofit bookkeeping services. Their professional and knowledgeable services will continue to be an asset for the nonprofit sector and we thank them for their contributions. Alan can be contacted at www.notforprofitaccounting.net and alan@notforprofitaccounting.net. Christine can be contacted at cbgarst@gmail.com.
Despite the challenges facing all of us and The Nonprofit Center these past few months, we are heartened by the task force process. It brought to light the significant level of community engagement and energy for the continuation of nonprofit capacity building services to exist in the south Sound. It is the sincere hope of the board and the task force that this positive energy will result in other organizations and individuals stepping up to rebuild, recreate and find solutions for improving the capacity of the nonprofit sector to make our communities better places to live, work and play.
We are confident that leadership will emerge from those who expressed a desire to continue this mission into the future and we encourage you to be an active participant in whatever should develop. Thank you for your continued support during this time and for sharing your thoughts, opinions and expertise.
The nonprofit sector has a proud past in this region and makes a significant impact in all of our lives. We are confident in the resiliency, passion and determination that exist in our South Puget Sound nonprofit sector.
Sincerely,
Dave Petrich, Board President
Joe Lawless Board Vice-President and Task Force Chair
“Sure I’ll join your board, but don’t ask me to raise money.” The number of times this statement has been uttered is uncountable.
“I can’t beg for money.” “What if they say no?” “I’m just not comfortable approaching my friends.” “I’ll do anything but fund raise.” It’s almost as if the response is automatic. In fact, I think many times it is.
I’m on a mission to change this little part of the nonprofit world. Fund raising can be fun – honest! All it takes is a change of perspective. And the greatest change of all is to realize that it’s not about you!
When you are raising money in the nonprofit world, you aren’t asking people to give you money for your personal use. You are inviting your friends and others to join you in investing in the future for the people your nonprofit serves. There are three key words here:
“Inviting:” Fund raising is not begging. You are involved with a nonprofit because you care about the mission of the organization. Let’s say you are on the board of an agency that provides child care for low income parents who could not work if they didn’t have this quality care for their children. You care about children, so you give your time and your money to this agency. Because you care about the children, you invite your friends and acquaintances to contribute.
“Join.” Everyone wants to be part of a group, especially a group whose members get to do good things. You do good things for children when you give to your agency. Your friends want to feel good too, and you can help make that happen by inviting them to join with you.
“Investing.” When you give money to your agency that cares for children, you are investing in a more positive future for those children. There is no better way to use your money. Your friends and acquaintances will see this too.
So, don’t be afraid to raise money. Be excited because you will feel good, your friends will feel good, and those children will be much better adults because of what you did.
The unexpected closure of a nonprofit organization often provides a message for anyone who serves on a nonprofit board. The board is responsible. The board always has ultimate responsibility for a nonprofit organization. Yes, the director is the operational leader, but the board is where the buck stops.
Every nonprofit board member must act knowledgeably for his or her organization so the same fate does not befall it. How do you do this? It isn’t easy, but it is essential. You ask questions, require full information, and verify results. If you don’t know how to read a financial statement, learn how. If you don’t know what something means, find out. If there isn’t enough money, raise it.
If no one on your board has legal or financial or marketing or management experience, expand your board. If you don’t know anything about planning or other relevant topics, make sure you and all your board members admit that lack of knowledge and get someone to teach you.
While the day to day operations of most nonprofits are handled by professional staff, the credibility and sustainability of every nonprofit is in the hands of the board. This responsibility is best met when the board and the Executive Director or CEO are a strong team of equals, each committed to fulfillment of the agency’s mission.
When that team doesn’t work – when one or the other partner doesn’t do their job with honesty and commitment, the ones who suffer are those who are served by the agency. The disservice is done to the community as a whole.
What should you do if you think your board is headed in this wrong direction? Bring everyone together to formulate a strategy. Find resources in the community. Talk to your funders. Whatever you do, don’t ignore the problems. They will not go away.
Our Executive Committee is causing trouble. What should we do?
This question has been posed to us a number of times, and almost always the situation is similar. Here’s a composite scenario:
Our board has 11 members, but the Executive Committee really runs everything. They meet every month to decide what the board should do. When it comes to the board meeting (we meet monthly as well), the Executive Committee presents its recommendations, and everyone nods quietly and approves them. Over the past year we’ve had more and more absences because people really don’t see the need to attend. When anyone makes a suggestion counter to an EC recommendation, they are put down for daring to raise a question. Our board meetings have become contentious, and we’re not getting anything done.
Sadly, this is an all-too-common situation. My recommendation is for the rest of the board members to stand up to this abusive practice (yes, I do think it is abusive) and make changes.
Before going any further, I do need to point out that there are situations when an active Executive Committee is appropriate. Some of them are:
- The full board meets only quarterly, and it delegates responsibility for routine tasks to the Executive Committee which meets more frequently.
- The board is very large and/or it is dispersed geographically, so it gives authority for specific actions to the Executive Committee.
- The Executive Committee is given authority by the full board to take action in an emergency.
You will note that in all these situations, the full board grants the limited–and specific–authority to the Executive Committee. The EC may not determine on its own that it has authority to do anything other than what is specified in the bylaws.
Are there solutions to this challenge? Of course. They’re not easy, but they work.
One strategy is to conduct an in-depth assessment and build a board development plan based on the results of that assessment. This work should be conducted by an outside, objective professional in nonprofit governance, and it should be grounded in good governance practices. (One example would be an assessment based on the principles of The Source, published by BoardSource.) The assessment should include confidential input by all board members, a review of board documents such as bylaws, board and committee job descriptions and minutes, and individual interviews with some or all of the board members.
The assessment report then forms the foundation of a board retreat, facilitated by the same outside professional. The focus of the retreat is to develop goals for board improvement which will become the core of a full Board Development Plan. Then the work begins. It will still be helpful to have the guidance of your consultant, especially if there are contentious issues that must be addressed.
If this is too much, some basic governance education is at least a start. This education should address, among other topics, the legal responsibilities of board members. For example, in the scenario above, those board members who don’t say anything at the board meeting are actually violating the law. Corporate law (even for nonprofit corporations) requires that each board member exercise the Duty of Care–taking care to make the most informed decisions as possible. Going along to get along does not meet that standard.
There is always the final option: dismissing abusive board members. I have been on a board that did this, and it was extraordinarily difficult. But I continue to be proud of that board. All the members stood together and said to the departing board member, “You are not acting in the best interest of this organization, and you have not been willing to change your behavior. We are revoking your membership in this group.” Not an easy thing to do, but it was absolutely necessary, and that board went forward to become a much more effective group.
Last week I had dinner with good friends and, as often happens, the conversation turned to nonprofits and community service. One of my friends expressed a frustration at wanting to be helpful at the leadership level but she thought she didn’t have much to offer, not being a business woman.
I hope I convinced her otherwise because she would be a very valuable board member for a nonprofit. She does have a great deal to offer in terms of community connections, values and outstanding common sense. She understands how groups should work, and she is great at follow-through.
She also doesn’t like fund raising. She doesn’t want to be told how much to give. On that topic she’s less than convinced, but maybe she can be brought around. I am not a fan of giving board members a specific amount of money they must give. Instead, board members should be invited to make a gift that is equal to their commitment to the organization. Let them determine what that amount is.
Our conversation turned to mission, and my friend talked about reading of a growing interest in people writing their own mission statements. She thought she might give that a try. I hope she does, and I hope all of you do. If you can write down your mission, then it will be much easier to connect with an organization whose mission relates to yours. And, if you share missions, you are going to be a fantastic board member, volunteer, staff member or donor.
