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How truly committed to inclusion is your nonprofit?

August 22nd, 2017

What to do. What to do.

Revulsion, anger, sadness, resolve. All of these emotions have been filling my head since Charlottesville. Well, really for much longer but seeing Neo-Nazis and Klansmen in the streets made them very raw again.

I found myself weeping reading some of the first hand accounts coming through my Facebook feed. Fear. Bravery. Disbelief.

I’m continuing to accept the challenge of confronting the protections of my own white privilege as I hear the anguish from my friends and colleagues.

I’m still shaking my head as to why we are still here, still at this point in 2017.

I believe the US desperately needs a Truth, Reconciliation and Reparations Process to take a hard look at its storied past on race. Our school history books have merely skated over the brutal aspects of US history that includes genocide, slavery, racism, and war crimes. We must come to a common understanding of what we have perpetrated as both a government and a people before we can begin to put an end to this hate.

It’s also time for a hard hitting inclusion reality check for your own organization.

If you want to respond to Charlottesville, it’s long past time to put an end to the half-hearted attempts at inclusion in your organization. Yes, your non-discrimination policy was a nice start.

But where are the individuals of color on your board? On your staff? Among your client base? At your events? Among your partnerships?  Who else are you leaving out?

What is staff’s response when a big donor makes a racist or bigoted remark? How will a fellow board member respond? It happens all the time. Shocking stories.

Get comfortable with discomfort, as a recent article in Nonprofit Quarterly advised.

I promise to remind you, to challenge you, to hold you accountable for fulfilling your espoused values.

There is much work to do. Let’s get to it.

Fundraising in the Age of Trump

March 14th, 2017

Protesters shortly after the election of Trump

Did the ACLU take your donors after the election?

One question asked of me more and more in the recent months is how the election is shaping charity. How can we, the local nonprofit doing what might be considered “non-essential” work—arts organizations, independent schools, small service organizations—compete with established national organizations that have a renewed relevance? How do we go toe to toe with the ACLU, Planned Parenthood, the International Rescue Committee?

The 2016 US President Election changed the landscape for charitable contributions. That’s an undeniable fact. It overturned established order in the United States across the board. In particular, it mobilized a groundswell of grassroots efforts. More than ever, people are putting their money into third sector solutions, looking for help in applying pressure to the public and private sectors.

So, yes, the ACLU, Planned Parenthood, the International Rescue Committee and others saw an uptick in donations in the last quarter. Often a huge increase as many donors went into emergency spending. I would not expect that to persist at quite this level for the next four years. I do think they’ll continue to have a prominent place in many donors’ minds (and their checkbooks) for that time.

You, the smaller nonprofit with a local or regional focus, may well have seen a decrease in donations at the same time those national organizations were seeing record contributions.

But did the ACLU, Planned Parenthood, and the International Rescue Committee take your donors away from you? The answer to that is, unless you provide the same services as those organizations, probably not.

Because they weren’t your donors.

A donor who, when faced with an emergency, chose to redirect their charity from a local organization they have a giving history with to a national organization they had no history with was not that local organization’s donor. Not in real, practical, terms. They were not a partner in the work. They were unconvinced by the case for support that the organization’s mission was worth funding.

It’s a mistake to view that as the success of the ACLU, or Planned Parenthood, or the International Rescue Committee in attracting those donors away.

That’s a failure in not convincing those donors to stay.

This election, and many of the donors who have been most called to action by it, put a high premium on grassroots efforts. If that’s the narrative takeaway, then how can it be that large national and international nonprofits hoovered up those donor dollars from grassroots nonprofits? If you’re a nonprofit, your job is to effect change. Your job is to overthrow the established order, to take people’s complacency with the way things are and blow it up.

The question you should ask yourself is not, “how do we compete with huge nonprofits?” The question should be, “Why is it that our donors didn’t perceive our work as vital, even in an emergency?”

Then go and tell them that you’re vital.

Because you are.

Feeling blue? Chin up, get to work, there’s lots of thinking and planning to

January 19th, 2017

Yes, the election left me gobsmacked.

But this is no time to act like a deer in the headlights. Hundreds in my community and across the US are already thinking and planning to prepare to act strategically.

You don’t have to be for or against the incoming administration to recognize that a lot is going to change.

As a board and strategy consultant, I’m troubled that very few of the boards with whom I’m working are talking about planning for scenarios that might be heading their way. While front line advocacy organizations are already moving forward, I’m not seeing discussions happening in very many other sectors.

I understand that there is considerable uncertainty. I recognize that it might feel like a waste of time to talk about the unknown.

But isn’t that your job as a governing board? Shouldn’t you be considering best case, worst case and starting to prepare a plan of action? Haven’t you enough evidence of the policy changes that are likely to be made to start planning for those changes?

Your board has a lot of thinking and planning to do.

Need an example? We’ve already in a profoundly new world order. Jobs are vanishing fast, not necessarily because of global trade, but because what can be automated will. And there are very few jobs that can’t be automated.

What does this mean for your clients? What about your donors? Your community? Your employees?

Here’s another: How is the shifting landscape of philanthropic giving affecting your organization, where the rich are giving more and the rest of everyone less?

And the big one: What policies have the new administration and the majority party been championing over the last eight years or eight months? How will that affect us?

If there was every a time for both strategic and generative thinking, it’s now.

When the proverbial sh*t hits the fan, it may be too late to mobilize a satisfactory response.

  • I’ve felt that way at least three times before in my voting life. But yes, this one seems completely different. Having been a member of Amnesty International for more than four decades, I’ve read the stories on how democracy can be lost seemingly overnight. 

 

“A Radical Revolution of Values”

January 19th, 2015

mlk-card“A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies. On the one hand we are called to play the Good Samaritan on life’s roadside, but that will be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho Road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life’s highway.

“True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring”.

Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., from “Beyond Vietnam” Riverside Church April 4, 1967.

I’d like to recognize all of our clients for their service, remembering that “everyone can be great because everyone can serve.”

On this holiday, I’m also sending a very special note of gratitude to our clients, past and present, who work tirelessly to end or reduce poverty, homelessness, war, injustice.

 

 

Take action this Earth Day

April 22nd, 2010
This just in from Women’s Voices for the Earth:

Our backyard compost bin

“Support & Strengthen the Safe Chemicals Act”

The Safe Chemicals Act of 2010 was introduced in Congress on April 15th by Senator Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ), Congressmen Bobby Rush (D-IL) and Henry Waxman (D-CA) to overhaul the nation’s failed chemical policy laws.
“This landmark legislation would do a lot to protect the public from toxic chemicals. For example, it would require basic health and safety information for all chemicals, ensure that chemicals meet a health-based safety standard that protects vulnerable groups, including workers and children. It would also provide fast action for some of the most notorious chemicals, like formaldehyde, lead, and toxic flame-retardants.
“The bill can be strengthened by making it harder for potentially harmful new chemicals to arrive in the marketplace, and easier to take known toxins out of the marketplace.

“For example, one provision would allow new chemicals on the market without having to meet the new safety standard. If ensuring consumer confidence and protecting public health are top goals in this reform, this needs to be fixed in order for the final bill to be truly protective of American families.

Click here to take action today by asking your Members of Congress to co-sponsor and strengthen the Safe Chemicals Act.”

Add your voice for women worldwide

March 8th, 2010

Today is International Women’s Day. “Equal Rights, Equal Opportunities: Progress for all” is the theme of this year’s commemoration.

From our vantage point here in the US, it can be easy to forget that many women around the world experience profound discrimination every day without protection of law. And millions of girls and women experience rape, domestic abuse, genital mutilation, and other forms of violence against women, regardless of where they live.

If you are at a total loss for an action to commemorate this day, you can add your voice to a petition being circulated by Amnesty International USA asking the United Nations to develop a stronger agency for women. You can find that petition here.