Danville, VA & Chicago,
IL |
The
Travel Log
Our trip
began in the small Virginia town of Danville, and ended in the heart of
Chicago. |
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Danville - a rural southern town trying to
reinvent itself as its economy of textiles,
furniture and tobacco are no longer able to
keep the town flourishing. Chicago - one of Americas poster
children for rebirth.
Danville - a place of classic Virginia
gentility, where our favorite waitress, Dixie, nurtured us as if we were her
own children. Chicago - at the
airport, the cabbie yelled at us for having too much luggage, yelled at us for
not wanting to sit with it all in our laps, and yelled at us for not getting
into the cab fast enough. (Thank goodness the rest of Chicago was kinder and
gentler!)
Danville - our first day was blue sky sunny
and 70 degrees Chicago - our
last day was blue sky sunny, with the wind coming off Lake Michigan and a wind
chill of 14 degrees.
But most
importantly to us, In Danville, we
taught rooms full of leaders of small nonprofits - arts and human services and
economic development - all struggling to help their community through each of
their own missions.
And in
Chicago, we taught leaders from Bar
Associations across the country, daily trying to do their work in the most
ethical ways possible, to help both their own profession and their communities
overall, all while struggling against the stereotypes found in lawyer jokes and
political spin machines.
We are on the road a lot these
days, and wherever we go, we continue to learn as much as (and often more than)
we teach. Last month was no exception. A whirlwind 10 days showed us some of
the extremes of life in America, and reaffirmed for us the importance of taking
a more holistic and community-driven approach to the work nonprofits
do.
What
follows then is a bit of travel log, a bit of insight, and a tip or two for
doing the work we do every day.
The Work: Danville,
Virginia
In Danville, we did 2 intense days of facilitating and
educating 15 or so groups at a time through our Capacity Planning model.
We
confess that we love working in small and rural communities. In small
communities, the challenges are harder, the resources more limited, and the
spirit overwhelmingly willing to do what it takes. We were happy, therefore, to
be able to share a way of seeing organizational capacity that taps into the
collective abundance in every community, even in a small rural community where
the economy has certainly seen better days.
After
those 2 days, we enjoyed a spirited morning, facilitating discussion among some
of the regions funders, regarding ways they could work more closely
together to create more impact for the community.
In
Danville, one of our sponsors was a leader in the communitys economic
development efforts - the Institute for Advanced Learning and Research. We were
impressed with how forward thinking the Institute is overall, but more
impressed with their understanding that we cannot have strong communities
without a strong sector dedicated to community benefit!
The Work:
Chicago
In
Chicago, the American Bar Associations annual Bar Leadership Institute is
a whirlwind of workshops for the leaders of state and local bar associations
from all over the country - mostly board presidents and executive directors,
and most of them attorneys. This year the conference creators added a day of
workshops for those who wanted to hone specific skills. And they asked us to
teach 2 brief workshops as part of that effort.
The
focus of those workshops was supposed to be Board Orientation. But
one cant discuss orientation without discussing why we do orientation in
the first place - so boards have the knowledge they need to govern accountably.
Therefore, the sessions focused on far more than just orientation. They focused
instead on doing what it takes to ensure boards remain consciously accountable.
We were
struck by the forward-thinking of the ABA in bringing the topics of boards,
orientation, and accountability to their conference. If bar associations are to
be effective, it takes more than understanding the bar part of the
job. It takes understanding what is needed to lead and govern an association.
It takes asking those bigger questions: What is the association really here to
do? What are we really all about? How can we do the job even
better?
In no particular order, then, some insights from the
road... and a tip!
Boards
and Governance
From
attorneys running state and local bar associations, to mom-and-pop,
all-volunteer organizations, these two trips made clear the critical need for
all boards to understand why boards exist in the first place.
We know
the common practice is to talk about what boards should do. But
because those checklists rarely include the context of why, those
lists can only assist willing boards in specific functions (such as
accounting). Without that bigger context, those lists of board responsibilities
wont engage a board around walking a higher road. And that higher road is
what governance is really all about.
However,
when a board knows why it exists - when the context of the boards work is
the community it serves - then boards have a framework for making better
decisions. When a board understands that its job is to ensure the community
receives the very most benefit possible, and to further ensure that the
organizations work is performed within a core of community values, the
knowledge of that context invariably brings an Aha! moment from
which board members quickly figure out the right thing to do.
Thats exactly what we found in both Danville and
Chicago (and what we find everywhere we talk about this topic). Board members
enjoy discussing their shared vision for a better community, specifically as it
relates to their mission. They enjoy discussing the core values and
philosophies that will guide their work:
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How do
we plan to ensure community impact? |
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How do
we create a code of values and core philosophies to guide our work?
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How do
we ensure we have the capacity to get the job done, instead of a litany of
excuses for why are not providing the extent of benefit the community needs
from us? |
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How do
we ensure we prevent risk and liability from eating away at our capacity to do
that job? |
These
discussions of the things that matter most for any nonprofit organization are
significantly absent from congressional discussions and from the national
standards weve seen. And we fear that will further urge nonprofit
organizations to focus on money, rather than community benefit - their reason
for existing.
If you are not familiar with our
Community-Driven Governance Model, you will find more information on this topic
linked from this articles Resource Page.
|
Click Here |
From the
president of a large urban bar association, to the retired rural school teacher
starting a program for disadvantaged kids, it was exciting to see our
Community-Driven governance model resonate so deeply across disciplines and
across communities cultures. In both Danville and Chicago, the discussions no
one wanted to end centered around a vision for a better community, and the core
values that inform vision. These are the topics that create amazing boards,
leading amazing organizations, all towards creating amazing communities.
Consent Agenda
Tip
When we
talk about community impact and core values, people often ask: Our
meetings are already jam-packed. How can we find time to talk about anything
were not already discussing?
The answer is found in a consent agenda.
If you are
not familiar with a consent agenda format, you will find more information on
this topic linked from this articles Resource
Page.
|
Click Here |
With a
consent agenda, it is critical that board members read their materials prior to
the meeting. A common lament among boards using consent agendas is that board
members dont always do that reading.
As a
result, an item approved by consent agenda in April may come back up in July,
only to have a board member say, I dont remember voting on that! We
need to talk about it! And thats simply because he voted on the
consent package without reading what he was voting on.
So
heres a tip from the president of a bar association. I wish I had gotten
his name, because Id love to give him credit!
After
approval of the consent agenda, a form is passed around, stating, in effect,
I have read the items in the consent agenda, and I am fully aware of all
the issues approved on this date. After voting, each board member signs
his/her name.
That
board president said that this form went a long way towards
encouraging board members to read their materials and to know what
they were voting to approve. And so we share it with you!
Stop "Collaborating",
Start Sharing
Lately
we have come to disdain the word collaboration. While nonprofits
are told that collaboration equals success, in reality, that
success is often elusive. Instead, what we see in collaboration is
2 or 3 organizations sharing decision-making and funding, often to disastrous
results.
It is no
wonder. The nonprofit world has been sold on a fantasy that organizational
leaders will happily share control, share precious funding, share access to
their key funders, just because they are told that is the only way their
projects will be funded. Instead, human issues of ego, turf and control seem to
rule many collaborative efforts.
A child
of 5 could tell us this approach wouldnt work. Regardless how much ice
cream is promised, it is the rare child who will happily take turns, share
precious toys, share Mommys love. Why are we surprised when it
doesnt work with grown-up things like money, power, and community
influence?
Having
founded an organization based on a model of shared resources / functions at
every level of the organization, we keep careful watch over what works /
doesnt work about collaborations. Clearly, one of the most important
factors is trust. And just as clearly, one can see why trust-based
collaborations havent worked: Funders continue to use competitive
processes to award grants, and folks who compete have no reason to trust each
other.
Oddly,
though, many funders blame the nonprofits themselves for collaborations
failure. I wish I had a dime for every funder that tells us, The
nonprofits in our community just wont work together! It never
occurs to them to look instead at their own flawed logic - that a competitive
funding system is not the place to force trust-based collaborations between
otherwise competing agencies.
At Help
4 NonProfits, we believe systems
fail before people fail. In our experience, when we find a better
system, the people who were formerly considered part of the problem almost
immediately become willing partners in the solution!
If you are
not familiar with the core values and philosophies at the Help 4 NonProfits
Community Driven Institute, this is just one of them!
|
Click
Here |
We have
therefore worked hard to ensure that our workshops begin to create those
systems of trust, shared learning, and shared experience. Both the subject
matter and the structure of the workshops work to simultaneously help
organizations build their own internal capacity, while building shared
community capacity.
And
thats the approach we brought to Danville.
First we
facilitate all the organizations in the room as if
they were one organization - asking a question, having them consider it
together. For some exercises, we break up organizations, having individuals sit
with folks they dont know - the science museum with the food bank; the
sickle-cell anemia group with the tutoring organization.
For
other exercises, we facilitate discussion among all 40+ attendees, to share the
issues they face every day.
Only
after that large-group discussion do the individual organizations break out to
focus internally on the proprietary issues related to that topic.
As they
go back and forth, from group learning and sharing, to individual application
of that learning, organizations who might never be together all learn from each
other. And one of the first things they learn is that all community benefit
organizations, regardless of mission, want the same thing - a safe, healthy,
joyful place to live.
The
Capacity Planning sessions we did in Danville brought this home for us, as each
of our sessions does, everywhere we do this work. Every organization assumes it
should tackle Capacity Planning privately. Who would want to confess to a room
of competing organizations that your board has trouble finding people to serve?
That your personnel policies havent been reviewed in so long you
cant recall? That your signature event cost more to produce last year
than it brought in?
But
thats just what happened. Organizations new and old, large and small,
arts and human service and education and economic development, all learned
together about the issues common to all nonprofit organizations. They griped
about their boards together; they griped about finances together; and they
learned to build a vision together. Then they broke into groups within their
individual organizations, working on their own stuff.
And at
the end of the day, folks took us aside to tell us they wished they had had
more time to learn from each other.
The next
day, when we met with Danvilles funders, they talked of their
frustrations with competition, and we shared our thoughts about competition.
Then we shared the comments from the day before, that the organizations do want
to learn from each other and work together. We talked about building trust.
We
encouraged that group to examine the behaviors they model to the organizations
they fund. If they want organizations to work and share resources together,
then funders should do the same. If they want organizations to avoid
duplication, then funders should do the same. If funders cant walk that
talk, they should not be surprised when the organizations they fund dont
walk that talk either.
While we
frequently share these observations with funders, heres what we found in
Danville: by the time we left, they were making plans to get together again, to
begin figuring out how they could
walk that talk. Had we done no work but this one session, we would have left
Danville elated that change was possible, was beginning.
When we
aim for a sharing of effort, a sharing of focus, a sharing of resources, all
aimed at making our communities better places to live, it doesnt need to
be top-down, and we dont need to call it collaboration. We
just need to decide we will work together to make the community a better place
to live.
When
funders are Community-Driven, the possibilities that trickle down to the
community are overwhelming. Danville reinforced that for us so clearly, that by
the time our plane had left the ground, we had already decided to create a new
e-newsletter just for funders. Thank you, Danville!
To sign up
for our new enewsletter, Help 4 Funders,
|
Click Here |
Nonprofit Work is All
Faith Based
From the
word collaboration, we note the irony of another common term in the
world of nonprofits: Faith Based Organizations.
We note
this with irony because all of us in this sector, working to benefit the
community and the world - all of us live by faith. We may not be
Religion-Based - may not have our activities stem from a particular
view of God or worship - but one cannot do the work we all do without
faith.
That
becomes more and more clear as we work with more and more groups, from every
walk of life. Faith isnt about established religion. Faith is
about the human spirit - the thing inside us that separates us from the other
creatures with whom we share the planet. It is about life being better. And
every person working in the nonprofit sector taps into that spirit every
day.
If this
trip brought no other subject home for us, it is the conviction that the work
nonprofits do is all work of faith, from feeding the hungry to building
glorious works of public art. And as we spent time talking with pastors and lay
people alike, the one subject all smiled and heartily agreed upon is that this
is a sector filled with faith.
Our
workshops in Danville raised this topic as we watched a broad diversity of
organizations share their dreams for what Danville could be, long into the
future. They quickly realized that they all saw the same future - a future rich
in compassion, grace, respect, opportunity - a vision rich in the human
spirit.
We were
in Chicago the weekend of the St. Patricks Day Parade, when Chicagoans
tint the Chicago River the deepest Kelly green one could ever imagine - a green
so out of place that you couldnt help but stop, smile, giggle at how
GREEN it is! People laughed, pointed, took
photos of themselves in front of it. That silly green river made a difference
in their day, touching the spirit inside everyone who saw it.
Then
there was music, or sculpture, or a musical sculpture - how to describe it?
Long rods of rebar, sticking straight up out of the ground, each a few inches
from the next, creating a huge musical instrument that could be played by the
wind or by human hands - an 8 foot tall wind chime, held firmly to the earth.
At first, I tentatively clanged a few of those bars against each other. Then
more firmly. The next thing I knew, I was standing in the middle of them all,
dancing and running between them, clanging those bars of different tones,
making a joyful noise.
And of
course, there is Chicagos architecture - a veritable picture book of
faith and the human spirit, as Chicago recreated itself after the fire that
eliminated almost the entire city over 100 years ago.
Art.
Music. Faith that the community and the world can be a richer, more plentiful
place for all. While the body and the mind make life possible, it is the spirit
that makes life worth living. In Danville, discussions about the arts led to
discussions about a poverty of the spirit that keeps poor people
from ever thinking or hoping there is an end to their suffering. And in
Chicago, at the Bar Leadership Institute, we watched as discussion arose not
just about how to be more accountable to the dues-paying membership of those
associations, but a larger accountability - an accountability to do good in the
community.
Faith
and the human spirit at work again.
We were
fortunate in Chicago to spend time with the director of the Chicago Bar
Foundation - one of many such foundations across the country, whose mission is
to increase access to justice for those impacted by poverty, abuse and
discrimination. For a single mom trying to collect child support. For an
elderly victim of consumer fraud. For a disabled person fighting for the
education that will allow him to live independently. Access to justice speaks
directly to the spirit our country was founded on!
Faith
and the human spirit.
It is at
the base of all we do that is good. It is the way we express that which is
meaningful inside us.
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When we divide ourselves into mind/body/spirit, and
believe one is more important than the other, |
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when we
talk about feeding the poor without addressing that poverty of the
spirit, |
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when we
talk about teaching math but provide no means for children to express
themselves outside the work of the mind, |
we do
indeed lead lives of quiet desperation. |
When we
define faith and the spirit as only possessed by
churches, synagogues, mosques, temples - we are cheating ourselves of what is
really divine in each of us.
That is
what this whole sector is about - the faith that the human spirit can indeed
change the world. It is truly the only thing that ever has (she says, with a
nod to Margaret Mead...)
As we
work to bring a Community-Driven approach to the nonprofit sector, we will
continue to notice and talk about that integration of body, mind and spirit. We
can only build whole communities if we understand what it is to be
whole.
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We are
honored and humbled, every day, to work with truly faith-based organizations -
organizations of the human spirit. We learned more this past month, from the
small organizations in Danville, from the funders in that small community, and
from the bar leaders we met in Chicago, than we could have dreamed possible.
This
nonprofit sector has so much to teach, so much to share. By tapping that very
spirit, focusing organizations back on whats important - the communities
they serve - we know the human spirit will be a big part of creating change in
the quality of life in our communities.
After
all, the human spirit achieves what it aims for. It was the human spirit that
flew to the moon. It was the human spirit that created an internet that
connects the whole world. Together, our collective spirit will make our
communities better places. And we are honored to be part of that
effort. |