Executive Issues

In 2010, CASA of the Tennessee Heartland was facing some very serious issues. There was significant debt, the board and staff were unengaged, and things were looking bleak. Fundraising was going backward instead of forward, and while everyone knew something needed to change, no one knew exactly how to break the status quo.

Naomi Asher, who was promoted to executive director of the organization, helped turn her organization around 180 degrees and went from disaster to dynamo.

It is imperative that you understand board chair dynamics. Never take this responsibility for granted. Your organizational success as an executive depends in part on the progress of the volunteer board you help guide. Enjoy the experience, and embrace the ever-changing challenge.

Nonprofits often use one of two strategies when planning fundraising approaches for the upcoming year: determine how much they want to spend and how much they need to raise to achieve that figure, or examine what they raised in the year just past and use that as a basis for determining next year's figure. Organizations would be wise instead to take stock of their current resources and the universe of possible givers and donors, and develop a strategy aimed at building capacity to reach its highest possible level of giving.

For the nonprofit sector to start to demand a seat at the big-money table, nonprofits must stop apologizing for needing money. To truly begin to use money as a tool, nonprofit leaders have to stop regretting their need of it and start demanding that they receive enough and the right kinds of money to successfully accomplish their work. You can't simply decide to stop feeling bad about asking for money. Instead you have to find the confidence to identify and secure the right financing for your work.

In the nonprofit world, success is tied to relationships and trust. Both take a hit when the leader leaves and there's no clear successor or plan for succession. On the other hand, if there's a plan in place and someone is ready to step in, or there's a defined path to finding the next leader, you've answered many of the questions that supporters, partners, the board and even staff may have about the changes.

Do your workers just do their job, or do they understand their real job is to be part of your greater vision-focused undertaking? Unless you’ve created a culture of philanthropy in your organization — one where everyone who works there is fully informed and passionate about your work and the values you enact in the community — then you’re inevitably going to blow opportunities to garner vital support. Under-informed workers lead to disengaged workers. Disengaged workers lead to disengaged constituents. And here’s how it happens.

Like most small businesses, nonprofits are born out of passion and the desire to make a difference. While the financial goals of nonprofits and for-profits seem different on the surface, they’re actually both striving for the same thing: to generate revenue and then distribute it.

That’s why leaders of nonprofits might want to take a closer look at the for-profit world of business: There’s much to learn about running their organizations like a small business. Here are four key lessons …

Put yourself in the other person's shoes, and you may enhance your perception and improve your skills as a manager!

Enduring organizations take a proactive approach to innovation and growth.

Here’s the scoop: Development officers quit. Bosses fire development officers. Boards don’t play. Organizations don’t get it. This vicious cycle threatens financing of the sector. And this has been going on for years, and we aren’t really fixing it.

Hmmm. Anyone worried yet?

The scoop is old news if you work in the nonprofit sector. The scoop is old news if you read CompassPoint’s report, “UnderDeveloped: A National Study of Challenges Facing Nonprofit Fundraising,” released in January 2013.