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You Can’t Min-Max Board Membership

April 6, 2016

by:

Joe Patti

I have a post about board recruitment over on ArtsHacker today where I call attention to a webinar Non-Profit Quarterly recently conducted on the subject.

My focus in that article was on how the webinar is a good resource for thinking about how you recruit for and structure your board. But there are a lot of philosophical issues raised in the webinar that I wanted to call attention to as well.

Presenter Anasuya Sengupta noted that when the responsibilities of board members are listed, duty of care, loyalty, fiduciary stewardship and compliance are standards across the entire non-profit sphere. She opines that this list sounds as if a lawyer wrote it up. This made me realize that while the purpose of a non-profit is generally service to a cause or community, that isn’t among the standard criteria for responsible governance.

Sengupta also suggests legality can be a low bar for ethics and risk aversion and compliance can be a very low bar for decision making. She notes that risk aversion and compliance are largely reactive orientations rather than the proactive approach non-profits should be taking. She says that these things, along with the legalistic list of responsibilities should be considered basic practices rather than best practices.

It occurred to me that this could be one of the results of the “run it like a business” philosophy we have seen espoused lately. Reduce costs, increase revenue, avoid risk, do the least possible for the most gain (aka low overhead ratio) all seem to be symptoms of this idea.

When your purpose is to deal with people on a social level rather than as consumers of goods and services, things are less apt to be neat and tidy. The whole endeavor of trying to involve under served audiences requires interactions with people who don’t know all the rules of behavior and possess basic knowledge of the usual audiences. Almost by definition, someone is likely to be discomforted in the process. Additional time and effort may be required to accommodate and educate them, including providing your services in a non-standard time, place and format entirely customized to the needs of the groups with which you are working.

Another presenter, Ruth McCambridge, said that even if you perfectly followed all rules for diversifying your board, your efforts might fail. This is because the underlying premises are flawed, most of which seem to be based on the idea that filling certain slots automatically solves that problem.

I go into a bit more detail in the ArtsHacker post, but briefly the problems are:

-recruiting members of under served communities: the person you recruit may be a member of that community, but not representative of that community.

-recruiting people who can raise/give money: In Human Service Non-profits, studies show recruiting board members for ability to raise money actually negatively impacted their budgets. In the arts, it does help build the finances.

-recruiting to fill a skill slot (lawyer, accountant): the person assumes they were recruited to provide that skill, doesn’t focus on general governance, working cohesively with entire board

The other bad assumption McCambridge mentions is that fund raising boards and working boards are mutually exclusive and you can only have one or the other.

Put in this context, I got the sneaking suspicion that the concept of a board of directors emerged during the Industrial Revolution because there seems to be an underlying utilitarian philosophy. So much of board composition seems to be based on the idea that if you find the optimal mix of skills or insights to match your institutional mission, you will realize success. If you are not successful, you must have the wrong mix.

Despite optimism about Millennials being more meaning and purpose driven than their predecessors, I don’t see this changing without focused, intentional effort. The prevalence of video gaming and the attendant Min-Maxing approach to gameplay will only serve to perpetuate this as an ideal.

Boards, State of the Arts, Working In The Arts

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Undiscerned Value Hidden In The Cracks and Corners

April 5, 2016

by:

Joe Patti

There have been a lot of library closings in the UK over the last few years so VICE went around and asked people what libraries meant to them and how they were using them.

People they spoke to valued libraries as quiet, distraction free study spaces; as a location to organize meetings; resources for learning and internet access; and as a plain old place to get reading materials and fire the imagination.

This reminded me of a post I wrote around 18 months ago about how the Columbus (OH) Metropolitan Library surveyed patrons asking what libraries meant to them in their youth and what they anticipated it would mean to them in the future.

By and large, the responses from Columbus were similar to those in the UK in that people valued the ability to access information and conduct the important activities of their lives.

As I quoted from a CityLab article in that post:

“The physical library will become less about citizens checking out books and more about citizens engaging in the business of making their personal and civic identities.”

One obvious question I didn’t raise in my earlier post is whether arts organizations can effect a similar change in the relationship the community has with their facilities. A frequent criticism of performance venues and stadiums are that they are only used when there is a performance resulting in a type of waste whereas museums are used more consistently.

While the location of some performance venues is not conducive to easy use due to the lack of sidewalks, foot traffic and general environmental dynamics, there may be other opportunities that would position the venue as more of a resource to the community.

On the other end of the spectrum, sometimes it is difficult to know if trying to improve the environment might be counterproductive. For example, I noticed an increase of people hanging out in our lobby sitting/laying on benches reading and listening to music on headsets. I had considered getting some cafe tables and chairs people could sit at so they had a surface to work on. Since people have mentioned they value the quiet, I wondered if adding more amenities might attract more activity and ruin the environment people had sought out.

In the last two years, I started noticing people hanging out in strange locations that I couldn’t imagine were comfortable to sit in. Even though there were outlets in these places, the people who consistently staked them out as their own didn’t often have devices plugged in. I think it was the fact it was even more quiet and private than the lobby.

Then there is the woman who occupied a slightly more private, though still visible nook to practice yoga.

If someone came by and asked for a room to meet/study in or a place to hold a yoga class, that would be difficult due to the level of activity in the building. But if someone only needs a corner for themselves and a few others, it is available, provided they aren’t picky.

It is in those minute, almost imperceptible circumstances that an arts facility can have the opportunity to alter the manner in which they are useful to the community.

Arts Facilities, Audience Relations

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Stuff To Ponder: Who’s Volunteering? Who’s Not Volunteering?

April 4, 2016

by:

Joe Patti

VolunteerMatch’s Engaging Volunteers blog recently drew attention to a Bureau of Labor Statistics report (BLS) that shows volunteer rates are continuing to drop.

As the post author Tessa Srebro notes, the BLS report gives us a lot of statistics about what demographic groups are more likely to volunteer than others, but-

What don’t we see? We don’t see the why.

There’s an endless supply of reasons that could explain why volunteer rates are falling. Last year, upon seeing the results, VolunteerMatch President Greg Baldwin argued that volunteer rates are falling because we as a nation don’t invest enough resources in the nonprofit sector. Without resources, nonprofits simply don’t have the capacity to effectively engage volunteers.

Someone in the comments of that post argued that the falling rates can be attributed to the fact that more people are overworked with less time on their hands. Others say people are simply lazier than they used to be.

I personally think it could be attributed to a shifting trend away from community involvement, due to the emergence of online communities, young people moving more often, and other factors.

There were a good number of comments to the Engaging Volunteers post and the number continues to grow. A large number of the commenters express frustration with the organizations they approached being un(der)prepared to train or employ them. Another common complaint was that the organizations wanted them to fulfill menial tasks rather than ones that challenged and engaged their interest.

I am not sure what the percentages have been in the past, but in this recent survey by BLS, the percentage of people who started volunteering after they were asked (41.2%) is almost exactly equal the number who were motivated to volunteer on their own (41.6%).

Given that this latter number represents those who are actively volunteering, it is possible that the percentage of people who are self-motivated to seek volunteer experiences is far larger than those who are motivated by the request of others. That 41.6% doesn’t include self-motivated people whose efforts were frustrated and are not volunteering.

As I have mentioned before, effectively utilizing free labor requires a significant investment of money, resources and attention.

There is a lot in the Engaging Volunteer’s post and the BLS report to consider and so much we don’t know about volunteers’ motivations. There seems to be an increasing desire to have a volunteer experiences be meaningful.

Thinking back to the Hewlett Foundation report I wrote on last month that suggested non-profit CEO’s were looking to continue working for a longer period of time with their organizations, albeit in a diminished role, perhaps it is not too far a reach to extrapolate that skilled professionals in general might desire to continue to apply their high level skills in a volunteer role after they enter retirement.

One last thing I wanted to point out for consideration is the breakdown of areas of interest for different demographic groups the BLS report shows. Knowing this might help your organization better design volunteer experiences for people. (Though you don’t want to stereotype.)

For example, while “Collecting, preparing, distributing, or serving food was the activity volunteers performed most often” according to the BLS report,

…main activities differed among men and women. Men who volunteered were most likely to engage in general labor (12.3 percent); coach, referee, or supervise sports teams (9.3 percent); or collect, prepare, distribute, or serve food (9.2 percent). Female volunteers were most likely to collect, prepare, distribute, or serve food (12.9 percent); tutor or teach (10.6 percent); or fundraise (9.9 percent)

There are similar trends based on education level, marital status and whether people have kids.

Info You Can Use, Volunteers

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Guest Post: Putting The Wrong Labels On Boxes That Don’t Actually Exist – Part 2

March 30, 2016

by:

Stephen P Brown

[box type=”info”]Read Part One First[/box]

It’s All About Relationships

So, what should we call someone whose primary role is to raise funds for the organization? Well, we could label them by what they actually do: Fund-raising Director. A little crass, perhaps, but accurate.

Or is it? Two arguments come to mind:

First, anyone and absolutely everyone involved with a non-profit organization, from the Auditor to the printer, from the Master of Ceremonies to the sweet old lady who ensures sink faucets gleam, is directly involved in fund-raising, without exception. Gail Perry puts it right out there in Fired-Up Fund-raising: “Fundraising is everybody’s job – both board AND staff.” If a performer or a security guard believes they are exempt, retrain or expel them. If someone who gathers data or fills out grant applications believes they are the organization’s exclusive fund-raisers, retrain or expel them.

When everyone takes a personally empowered responsibility for ensuring that donors give and grants are awarded, the outcome can only be a healthy financial environment, which will also help avoid scandals like San Diego Opera’s husband-and-wife shut-down debacle.

The Only Priority

Second, anyone who helps raise funds (everyone, according to the previous argument) is really a relationship professional. Income, including interest and dividends, comes from people, and the organization’s relationships are really the only priority that needs careful directing. “It’s All About Relationships. You don’t build a brand by begging for favors,” writes Issie Lapowsky in Inc magazine.

Once responsibility for developing all aspects of the organization is given to the Executive Director (all relationships), and responsibility for actualizing the mission is given to the Artistic or Program Director (internal relationships), the next most important responsibility is maintaining external relationships. Who by?

One such role could be labeled Relationship Director. But perhaps a combination of Director-level positions for Community Relations, Audience Relations and Performer Relations could work, as long as they all talk to each other to coordinate focused fund-raising campaigns and outsource or share teammates who fill out relevant grant applications. Maybe the latest trend of replacing sponsorships with partnerships requires a Cultural Responsibility Director instead.

Already we are struggling to identify a convenient box in which to put these roles.

Destroy and Rebuild

Tom Peters rants in his book Re-imagine! that we pursue preservation and value permanence, whereas he imagines “a world where the timid goal of improvement has given way to an unabashed commitment to destruction.” By replacing an incorrectly boxed Development Director with “leaders of relationships,” no longer does ownership of fund-raising rely on one person or isolated administration team.

If you can’t adjust to that concept just yet, at least remind everyone that your Development Director is actually raising funds, not developing the organization which is the Executive Director’s responsibility. Doing so will go a long way to helping your Board govern with clarity and put the right labels on the right boxes. Especially when composing job descriptions.

And that is just one example. Think on the term “Classical Music” for another.

But what if we take Tom Peters’ advice to destroy all the way, and simply remove the boxes?

There Is No Box

Throughout my life the maxim “think outside the box” has grated my teeth more than fingernails on a chalkboard. I realized early on that boxes only exist in the first place because we blindly swallow the elixir found in second-rate business guides written by self-published theorists.

For years my website flaunted the phrase “Don’t be fooled: there is no box” until one of my coaches suggested it sounds like the elixir found in second-rate business guides. They also suggest that if an organization is not growing it is going backwards, but as Nicky Hayward declares in There’s a Small Hotel, “I don’t think life is always about business manuals.”

Perhaps they have charmed us into believing that putting things in boxes is convenient: easily filed, easily programmed, easily found… but that only works if things are boxed and labeled accurately, of course, yet we already proved above that tends not to happen in our industry.

Embody The Role

If you want the world to value how you serve, a label is probably needed. Yet, putting labels on boxes that exist only in others’ minds is a balancing act and a perpetual guess. Let’s take special care in describing ourselves properly rather than adopting off-the-shelf or trendy lingo that sounds great, but does not actually embody the role or function we perform.

Which is…

[How do you make people’s lives better?]

Guest Posts

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