Latest / The Nonprofit Podcast / Ep 147| Nonprofit Leadership & Management: Why Passion Isn’t Enough

Transcript

Ep 147| Nonprofit Leadership & Management: Why Passion Isn’t Enough · The Nonprofit Podcast

• 0:04
  SPEAKER_01: The Nonprofit Podcast, powered by Donor Bucks.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_02: Are you running your nonprofit on passion alone?
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_02: What if I told you that working smarter, not harder, could be the key to sustaining your mission and creating long-term impact?
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_02: Welcome to the Nonprofit Podcast.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_02: I'm Britt Stockert, fundraising strategist at DonorBox.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_02: We're here each week with practical actions that you can use today to increase donations and take your nonprofit to the next level tomorrow.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_02: Let's talk about there's this initial buzz when you start or lead a nonprofit.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_02: There's a honeymoon phase where everything feels possible, the adrenaline is high, you're on top of the world, and it's like you can do anything.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_02: But then what happens?
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_02: Reality hits, you're managing people, the never-ending chase for funding.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_02: You start juggling a hundred different things, and you're asking yourself, oh my goodness, what the heck did I sign up for?
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_02: Is passion really enough to keep this going?
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_02: My guest, David Rhode, his career it spans nonprofit leadership, consulting, education.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_02: He's the founder of.org consulting, the CEO of a nonprofit, an educator at the University of Pennsylvania.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_02: And now he's an author of Passion Isn't Enough, a practical guide for nonprofit leaders, which is gonna give all of you an honest look at what it takes to shift passion to longevity.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_02: David, welcome to the show.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks so much for having me.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: I'm excited.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_02: Hey, read your book, and I want to start here.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_02: It opens with some really tough but relatable questions for so many of us nonprofit leaders.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_02: You wrote, Am I over my head?
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_02: What do I tackle first?
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_02: What if I can't hit my numbers?
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_02: And I think these are questions that so many of us face in the first few years.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_02: And there is a really vulnerable point in that introduction.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_02: You talk about how early in your nonprofit leadership career a lot of your peers praised kind of the level of passion that you had, right?
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_02: And you even admitted that you had a level of confidence.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_02: And but then, but then you realize like there was a lot of stuff that you just didn't know.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that was an extremely refreshing, humble way to frame what so many of us are experiencing, but we're not quite honest.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_02: So I wanted to ask you, just to set the stage, can you share what was that moment of realization, that aha moment that, hey, passion isn't going to be enough to sustain me.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_02: There are many mistakes that I'm making, there's many accomplishments, but I need to have a reality check.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it's, I mean, this is such a key moment because, you know, if if I reflect back, um, passion definitely is what drew me into the sector, as is the case for so many people.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: But, you know, I don't think I knew what I didn't know, kind of thing.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: And so for me, the aha moment tied into when I needed my founding board to do more, especially as it related to fundraising.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: They really weren't equipped, or in other situations, they just weren't capable.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: And so I felt that um I needed to reimagine what that board would look like and kind of hit refresh.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: And once I did that, uh, I was able to then have a partnership with the board that involved strategic planning.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: And the board and I were able to kind of grow and sustain the organization together.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: But the aha moment was realizing that just having board members that were passionate to match my passion wasn't enough.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: They needed certain skills.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: I needed to be leading better.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: And as I figured that out, there were, you know, 2.0 and 3.0 on the board where things really started to take shape.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_02: Let's talk about kind of a core theme of this importance of building the right team.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_02: There was a moment in your book where you had worked at Procter and Gamble.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_02: And unlike many other companies of that size, the one thing that they did well was they invested in people because they saw their employees as a competitive advantage.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_02: And I'll tell you, we both know this.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_02: This is kind of tougher to find in the nonprofit sector.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_02: So thinking about our audience, they don't have HR departments, they don't have big budgets.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_02: How do you attract?
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_02: How do you keep people who are just as passionate as you are, but also bring in the level of skills that nonprofits need to really take their missions forward?
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I think you're on to a key moment.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, we are in a sector where compensation tends to run lower than the for-profit sector.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: So I think we have to offer different things and other things.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I think this feeling of making sure that when you bring somebody onto your team, that they they understand that this is not just about a feel-good moment.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we want them to have passion, you want them to have commitment, you want to have a connection to your mission.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: But what you also want to convey is this is a business and we're gonna run it the right way.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna evaluate you and we're gonna develop you.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: And so if people feel like they are making a difference, if our job is to make sure that regardless of how big the organization is, help people understand like what their role is and how it connects to the overall success of the organization, that we couldn't have done this without them and all of these pieces working together is what's creating this impact in our community, is what's creating this impact amongst the target population we are serving.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_00: I think specific things that uh leaders could do include the notion of, you know, creating a line item in your budget for professional development.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: You know, budgets are small and budgets are tight.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: But if people understand that you are trying to help them grow and you have some resources set aside that enable you to support that, then I think people will understand that they can grow within your organization and see themselves in the future and developing as a professional, not just as somebody who's there for the short term.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: So I think we really have to, you know, get commitment from the board and get commitment um in terms of priorities to making sure that we are developing our people and having these real, real heart-to-heart conversations with them about what do they want to see, how do they want to grow, what skills do they need, and make sure they can find them within your organization so they don't have to leave and find them somewhere else.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_02: And I think while we're on the topic of board and staff development, we should also be talking about volunteer development.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_02: I know many nonprofits I've worked for, they are not in a position to hire paid staff.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_02: And I think what's worked very well for them is they've focused on that development piece.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_02: They've created what I consider our volunteer ladders.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_02: So, you know, you bring in volunteers, you engage them on basic types of uh day-to-day roles.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_02: But then, you know, as they're there longer, you're really creating more autonomy, more ownership.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_02: You're also developing them and giving them more leadership roles.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_02: So when we're talking about leadership and management, it's also thinking beyond boards and staff and really using volunteers as another asset until you can get to a place to pay staff.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_02: David, what comes to mind in terms of volunteer development and volunteer support?
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_02: I can think of Taproot, Benevity, United Way.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_02: There's so many great professional skills-based volunteers that are really wanting to get out there in their communities and to provide the support to staff.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, volunteers are the secret sauce for so many organizations, but you can't just assume that people are going to show up and know what to do and feel like they're gonna come away and have a positive experience.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_00: Many times the mistake we make is we think of what can the volunteers do for us?
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: And we're we're extracting, you know, we are taking their time, they're doing a service for us, whether they're filling backpacks or whether they're um calling donors or whatever we ask them to do.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: And I think one of the things we need to do is we have to flip that a little bit is like understand what are the motivations for the volunteer.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: How can we create the experience where they're not just going to do what's in front of them that day, but that they're gonna become a brand ambassador and they're gonna be leading the fight for our organization when they go back home that day and tell people, oh my gosh, I had this incredible experience.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_00: This organization's really got it together.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_00: And yes, through that process, you're gonna notice that some of those volunteers sort of separate themselves from the others.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: There's the ones that just show up, and there's the ones that sort of take charge and have certain personality traits, and then you can cultivate them, maybe to become board members, but certainly there's there's room in between there where there are some leadership level positions within your organization.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: I work at an organization called Pen Pack, which provides pro bono consulting using University of Pennsylvania alumni as our consultants.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_00: And we are truly a volunteer-led organization.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_00: We have volunteers leading most of our committees.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_00: And our job is to really support them, give them structure, give them room to lead and make a difference, and for us to kind of make sure that they're on track.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_00: So you can use this model where it doesn't have to just be paid staff.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_00: I think you can, you know, take some risks, frankly, within an organization and elevate volunteers.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, people are looking for that based on where they are at within their their professional journey.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's maybe it's people that are later in their career and they're semi-retired and they have time to give back, or it could be moms or dads that are kind of home part of the time, but when their kids are in school, they've got a few hours.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_00: And so I think we have to be flexible and agile and figure out a way to take advantage of this vital resource.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_02: And and to that point as well, not overly rely on the volunteer model.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_02: I know so many nonprofits rely too much on volunteers for the bread and butter, and they they never budget to build capacity, which is counterintuitive to the work that we're doing, right?
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_02: In terms of the issues we're addressing and equity and so forth.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_02: So thinking a little bit bigger, let's talk about culture.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_02: Culture in terms of you can have a solid staff, you can have solid volunteers, but what if you're up against some macro level barriers?
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_02: How can nonprofits build support systems to reduce burnout and keep their culture strong?
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_00: We could talk for hours on this subject, but I will I will try to boil it down to a couple of things that come to mind immediately.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_00: So I think as leaders, we have a real responsibility to set that culture and to set expectations in terms of the kind of values and the way we want people to be treated.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_00: I think this comes down to at a fundamental level being transparent, being authentic, being honest.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_00: As leaders, we have that ultimately that responsibility.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_00: We must be those things.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_00: And once we do those things, people feel like when their leader shows up and says something, they know they can rely on that information.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_00: So that's at one level.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I mean, every culture can and should be different based on uh what the nature of the community is of your staff and what their needs are.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_00: I will say this when I when I founded Pitching for Baseball and Softball and led that organization, there was one very specific thing that I wanted our team to be, and that was responsive.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: When somebody called or when somebody sent an email, I wanted us to get back to them right away.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_00: I can't tell you literally how many thousands of times people said, I'm so glad you got back to me right away.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_00: It's great.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_00: Like we made this wonderful first impression.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_00: And as an organization, you can't emphasize everything, otherwise, you're emphasizing nothing.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_00: So I wanted my team to sort of follow that lead.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_00: And I think it was something that we emphasized.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_00: And you can emphasize anything within a particular organization.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_00: Everyone's culture should be sort of right-sized for them.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_00: That was a specific thing that I cared about and I wanted to celebrate it.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_00: And when people made these comments about getting right back to people, I would say, oh, look at this person, and really, and then they would see the same reactions and it would become a very reinforcing behavior.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_00: So culture is about reinforcing behaviors and the right behaviors.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_00: And if you have individuals on your team that don't embody those values and those actions, then you have a responsibility to either coach them up or replace them because the culture needs to be something that is a standard that everybody's held to.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_02: I love it.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_02: And in thinking about upscaling employees if they're not meeting certain company or nonprofit values, I think it's a two-way conversation.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_02: So for example, I think nonprofit employers, as much as they're having to upskill staff to meet the values of the nonprofit, the nonprofit also needs to be responsive to the needs and values of those within its culture.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_02: Have you heard, David, of the mom project?
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know about the mom project.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_02: A successful nonprofit.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_02: They serve working families.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_02: They're also run by families.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_02: And what they did when I think about culture, it was all in terms of just shifting its physical space, right?
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_02: It set up a four-day workload.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_02: It really embraced flexibility, remote options.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_02: And so when we're talking about culture, it's not just aligning culture to those that you're serving, but also those who kind of really maintain your missions.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_02: And so just thinking, thinking a little bit beyond that.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_02: Something that comes to mind that I know you covered in your book.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_02: And I know many nonprofits may not even be in this phase, but let's talk about transitions.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_02: Let's talk about succession planning.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_02: You, in your book, you had talked about a story about Gary.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_02: Um, Gary, he he was a CEO of a nonprofit called New York Cares.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_02: I think he had over two decades of leadership experience, 12 years as a CEO for this nonprofit, which is amazing.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_02: And you talked about this moment where he made a decision to resign.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_02: It wasn't because he was fired or laid off or ready to retire.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_02: Simply, it boiled down to two things.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_02: He stepped down because one, his board was equipped, they were ready, they were doing their governance roles, they were trained, they were ready to hire their next leader.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_02: And the second part of that was he was ready to pass a baton.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_02: And so to our listeners out there, David, how can they start planning for that transition even when the timing doesn't seem quite right?
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_02: What advice can you throw out here?
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, it's it's it's sort of a charged topic.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we don't want to talk about leaving our job, especially if we care deeply about it with the face of the organization in most cases.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I do think it's okay to normalize the conversation.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_00: And the way you do that is having, you know, a regular open dialogue with your board.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's just your board president, or maybe there's an executive committee, where you talk about the importance of the organization being ready and agile and what that could look and feel like and how the organization manages risk.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_00: And one of those risks obviously would be if you know the executive director decides to leave or gets hit by a bus or gets ill or whatever.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so I think the the the simple steps and the most important steps are a couple things.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_00: One is make sure that the work you're doing is documented.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we do so many things after we've been in the job for a period of time, like it comes to second nature to us.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_00: But we have to put things down on paper.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_00: We have to have our stuff organized.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_00: So if somebody came to our our Google Drive or whatever, that they would know what I'm doing and how I'm doing it.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_00: In my situation, when I when I left pitching for baseball and softball, years and years before, I began including more and more people in partnership meetings so that if I left the organization, that they would have another piece of connectivity to the staff and that they wouldn't feel like, well, David left, who would I talk to?
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_00: There was a whole bunch of people they do.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_00: And then I, you know, your job is to make yourself obsolete and lift up your people so that they can take over those relationships anyway.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_00: So I think putting things in writing, you know, making sure that you involve other members of your team and then long term, try to begin to cultivate and look around on your team to see if the next leader of your organization on your staff?
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_00: And if so, how can you get them ready for potentially taking over or at least becoming a more senior member of the leadership team and putting them on a track to get there?
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_00: So I think some of those things are the practical solutions that leaders can take and conversations they can um initiate with their board to make sure that the organization is ready and able to sustain uh a leadership change.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_02: Mm-hmm.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_02: And this might be a question we might get as a result in terms of timing, in terms of documentation and creating a succession plan and also initiating those partnership meetings.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_02: Is there like a sweet spot in terms of timing when to bring prospective new leaders in or is it varied?
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's the kind of thing where it you just embed that in your culture the same way we were just talking about culture a few minutes ago.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_00: If your culture is systems and thinking about the organization, then you're gonna want to do things in a certain way.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, I think we're trying to look at leadership transitions or the things that might take at least 12 to 18 months.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_00: So I don't think it's the kind of thing that, oh yeah, it's it's January 1.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_00: I'm thinking about leaving in April.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_00: That's like that's in five minutes as far as the organization is concerned.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, you need to create an off-ramp that is available.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_00: Whether you decide to take the exit or drive or keep driving down the road, at least you know that the organization has the readiness to identify um and onboard uh a leader in a way that's going to be meaningful.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_00: And I will say this it's it's simple things.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_00: It can be making sure that like passwords and all the things and banking information, all this stuff is organized in a way that if somebody else were to take over, that there would be an easy way for you to hand it to them and not start making things up on the fly.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_00: And the easiest way to do that is to think about if I came into a job, what are the things that I would want?
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_00: And are they readily available to me?
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_00: And if you take that lens, I think that you can begin to put some things in place that would make a transition uh more successful.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_02: And I wanted to throw this out there for everyone.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_02: If this feels a little still overwhelming, donor box, we have an amazing um succession planning guide that I think will serve as a great companion to David's book.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_02: So I will go ahead and drop it in the podcast notes.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_02: David, this has been a great conversation.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I know for me, nonprofit leadership, when we're talking about this topic, there are a lot of lofty ideas that roll around.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_02: And I did read your book and it's very actionable.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_02: It has great insights.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_02: And so for everyone listening, don't forget to grab a copy of Passion Isn't Enough, a practical guide for nonprofit leaders.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_02: David, where else can listeners find you and learn more about your work?
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um, that I'm I'm easy to find on LinkedIn.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_00: They could also find me through the website for dot.org and they could book time on my calendar.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_00: Those are the easiest ways to find me.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_00: I look forward to getting to meet more folks that way.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_02: Great conversation, David.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_02: If you're ever in Seattle, let me know.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_02: I would love to do coffee with you.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_00: Wonderful.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_00: Brett, thank you so much.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_00: I really enjoyed it.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_02: Awesome.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_02: Listeners, don't forget to check out the blog I reference on succession planning.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_02: It's a great companion to David's book.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_02: As always, thanks for tuning in to the Nonprofit Podcast.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_02: I hope today's conversation has you feeling inspired and just ready to take that next small step toward lasting impact.
• 20:51
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• 21:03
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• 21:07
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