Moving Past Fear to Improve Decision-Making Processes in Nonprofits

“Our fear of failure hampers our decision-making and results.”

“We take a long time to mull over decisions, and we constantly revisit decisions we’ve made.”

“If someone questions what we’ve decided, we immediately think we’ve done something wrong.”

If these statements from nonprofit employees I’ve interviewed resonate at all with your own experience in a nonprofit organization, you are not alone.

Whether you’re an executive director, board member, funder, staff member or even a volunteer in a nonprofit, chances are you feel frustrated with the inefficiency of your organization’s decision-making processes. It’s not surprising. With the veritable maze of interlocking decisions nonprofits face and the relative lack of clarity about who has power and who makes decisions, the mere act of making a decision can be time-consuming and inefficient.

What is surprising, though, is the underlying reason, which each of these statements implies but is rarely acknowledged: fear.

Think about it. Mulling over and revisiting decisions reflects a fear of failure. Worrying that if somebody questions a decision means you’ve done something wrong reflects a fear of making mistakes. Other sentiments I’ve heard expressed reflect fears of upsetting organizational harmony, of challenging authority and of stepping on other people’s toes.

Because making decisions is at it’s essence an act of power, it’s natural that for many, it provokes a whole slew of emotions, including fear. Typically, we see three major fears connected with decision-making in nonprofits: Fear of failure, fear of conflict and fear of rejection.

Fear of Failure
Nonprofits take on huge goals: To end hunger. To eliminate homelessness. They take on challenges that no for-profit company would ever attempt. For-profits are successful if their profits are increasing and their market share is growing. On the contrary, nonprofit organizations are rarely satisfied with their progress, since the needs seem never-ending. This is a perfect recipe for fear of failure.

On a personal level, people who lead nonprofits also fear the potential failure of disappointing the people and institutions that have given them time and money.

Fear of Conflict
People generally don’t enjoy conflict, but in nonprofits, an aversion to conflict can be a by-product of the familial atmosphere of the organization. As J.B. Schramm, chair of Learn to Earn at New Profit and formerly College Summit co-founder, said, “Looking at my own experience as a leader, there were times when I handled staff with kid gloves, concerned because they were working very hard for less money than they could make in the for-profit sector. Upon reflection, I realized that was a myth—and a little patronizing."

On the staff level, consensus and harmony are important in the familial nonprofit atmosphere and no one wants to feel ostracized from the group for violating the established norms. Staff are slow to question the existing process, and reticent to take on decision-making roles unless explicitly encouraged to do so.

These feelings can be further complicated by the unresolved and often awkwardly, if ever, discussed issues of race, gender, class, age and sexual orientation and their effect on decision-making in nonprofits. Whether we want to admit it or not, many nonprofit leaders have biases about who should be making what decisions in their organizations, and these biases are rarely, if ever, addressed.