Archive for the 'Nonprofit Planning' Category

Cutting Corners: A Stop Sign on the Road to Changing the World

Published
by
Hildy
on February 12, 2008
in Capacity Building, Nonprofit Planning and Stop Signs on the Road to Changing the World
. 0 Comments

If this is the sector that was supposed to change the world, why has the world not changed? The answer to that question so often circles back to “organizational values.”

And when it comes to quickly getting to the heart of those values, no issue hits home like this one:

STOP Sign: Cutting Corners
As part of facilitating values sessions with boards, we ask this question: “Where is it ok to cut corners?”

Not surprisingly, most groups answer, “It’s really not ok to cut corners anywhere!”

Then we ask the follow-up question: “Where are you cutting corners now?”

Ah - the harsh reality of the talk we are not walking! Oh the pain of coming face to face with the “do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do” of organizational leadership!

In theory, cutting corners is something we like to think we don’t do. But when it comes to reality, there are many places boards indeed believe it is alright to cut corners. When budget time rolls around, organizations cut corners all the time!

And let’s not even focus on the most critical corners to cut - meeting community needs / building a better future for the community. Let’s focus on plain old operational issues where boards routinely cut corners at budget time:

• Board education
• Staff education
• Staff salaries and benefits
• Technology of all kinds
• Preventative building maintenance

The list goes on and on.

And why do I single out boards for cutting corners? Because boards are in charge of approving the budget. And because boards are at the top of the org chart. Boards are accountable for ensuring (or failing to ensure) that every decision the organization makes is rooted in the values the organization wants to be known for in the community.

And cutting corners is all about values. It is all about trade-offs, asking the question that quickly labels something a values issue: What is more important, this or that?

Not providing adequate education to the staff or to the board itself; not providing optimal equipment or facilities for getting the work done; and most critically, saying, “We do not have the luxury of focusing on long-term community impact” - that is cutting corners. It is a matter of trade-offs, a matter of “this” being seen as more important than “that.”

When boards aim their plans at ensuring they have adequate capacity, rather than thinking they are being “accountable” by failing to spend on needed infrastructure - just imagine what our organizations will accomplish!

That will all come back down to their values - on the answer to this critical question, “What is so sacred, we would never dream of cutting there?”

And that answer had better be, “What’s best for our clients, our staff, and our community.”

So what would you add to the list? What has your experience been? Where have you seen organizations cutting corners?

Find other Stop Signs in the series, “Stop Signs on the Road to Changing the World” here.

11 Ways to Focus Performance Evaluation on Accomplishment

Published
by
Hildy
on October 3, 2007
in Capacity Building, Changing the World, Nonprofit Planning and Tools to Use Now
. 0 Comments

Last week I posted about evaluating your Executive Director (and everything else about your organization) based on what they accomplish, rather than simply what they do. So how can you transform your organization from one that does things, to an organization that accomplishes things? Here are 11 ways to get you started:

1 - The Job of the Board:
The board’s job is to lead the organization to accomplish great things for the community - to aim the organization at its potential, on behalf of the community. So Step 1 is knowing, if the buck stops with the board (which it does), the board’s role is all about accomplishing vs. doing.

2 - Learn from the Past:
Check out your last “strategic” plan. Why do I put “strategic” in quotes? Because that’s what you will look for: Was the plan really strategic? Was it aiming to accomplish something critical? Or was it just a big long to-do list?

What would have been different about the plan itself - the wording, the planning approach, the questions the plan answered - if it had been more focused on accomplishing?

3 - Plan Annually:
Really. Every year gather the leaders of the organization to determine what your organization will accomplish over the following year. If you are not planning annually (and especially if it has been a LONG time since your last plan), I can almost guarantee you are just doing, rather than accomplishing.

4 - Planning (Again):
During your annual planning session, determine what you want the organization to have accomplished by the end of the following year. Ask yourselves:
• What do you want to be different / better next year than it is this year?
• How do you want your community and your clients to be better off than they are today?
Base your plan’s to-do tactics and strategies on that.

5 - Planning (One More Time!):
In creating those plans, as you ask, “What will be different?” make the next question, “For whom?”

Then examine: How much are you aiming at making your organization better vs. making your community better? While both the organization and the community are important, in the long run, one is more important. If we are going to create amazing communities, that has to be the highest priority on the list.

(Bonus tip: Aiming at making a difference in the community and engaging the community in that effort will make your organization stronger internally as well. Check out the ‘True Story’ in the middle of this article)

6 - Plan Now to Measure Later:
Once you have determined what you want to accomplish and for whom, determine right then and there how you will measure to know if that has happened.
• What indicators will you look for?
• If you are successful, how will you know?
• If you are not successful, how will you know?

7 - Make Definitive Assignments:
One of the reasons folks end up doing rather than accomplishing is that doing is what they were assigned. They were assigned to “make a call,” rather than, “gathering the information that will move this project forward.”

So when you make assignments - any assignment - make sure those who are receiving the assignment know what they will be held responsible for accomplishing, not just doing. “By next year/month/week, we want you to have accomplished X.”

8 - Annual Report:
Make your annual report all about what you accomplished. Don’t talk about what you did unless it is in the context of what all that doing eventually accomplished. What is different now than it was a year ago? For whom? Why is that important?

Too often annual reports are a litany of what we did. If we are doing a lot and accomplishing little, who cares?

Bonus tip: Write NEXT year’s annual report now! Sit down right now, and sketch out what you want to be able to brag about having accomplished in next year’s annual report. Work backwards to fill in plans that will accomplish exactly that.

9 - Executive Director Evaluation - Planning Ahead:
Plan to base next year’s Executive Director evaluation on his/her accomplishments. Look at your annual plan, look at interim steps, look at all the directives the board has given at the board table, and determine: What do we want our ED to accomplish this year? What do we want to base our evaluation on?

Bonus tip: Create your ED Evaluation checklist for next year immediately after you create your annual plan. Provide that checklist to your ED, letting him/her know a year ahead of time, “Here is what we expect you to accomplish, and here is what we will be evaluating.” This is the most supportive way you can encourage your employee - your ED - to do the best job possible.

10 - Board Agenda:
For every item on your board’s agenda, know ahead of time what you want that item to accomplish. After having discussed that item, where will you be that is different from where you are now? If the answer is, “Nowhere different,” take that item off the agenda, and put it with your board’s reporting items or on its consent agenda. Your board does not have time to waste discussing things that will not make things considerably different after the discussion than they were before.

Bonus tip: Let the board and staff know at the beginning of each board meeting, “This is where we intend to be at the end of the meeting. This is what will be different an hour from now than it is now.” And encourage them to keep each other on task!

11 - Board Annual Plan and Self-Assessment:
Boards are used to creating plans for the organization. Boards are NOT used to creating plans for themselves. When boards fail to create an annual plan for what they want to accomplish as a board, they are guaranteeing that the board’s work will be aimed merely at doing.

Every year, have the board determine what the board wants to accomplish, and for whom. Will it be an orientation and ongoing education program for the board, to ensure future boards are in great shape? Will it be a plan for engaging the community?

Bonus tip: Once you know ahead of time what the board wants to accomplish, and you have a plan, measure to see how the board is doing. Are you making a difference? For whom? Now that’s a board self-evaluation with meaning!

12 - Bonus: What has worked for you?
Please share how your organization aims at accomplishing vs. doing. We want to be able to share great examples!

Executive Director Evaluation (and Evaluating Everything Else You Do!)

Published
by
Hildy
on September 24, 2007
in Capacity Building, Changing the World, Nonprofit Planning and Stop Signs on the Road to Changing the World
. 2 Comments

“We are about to evaluate our Executive Director. What should we ask him?” Ah, one of my favorite questions in the whole world!

Or here - one of my favorite meeting scenarios:

“Joe, you were going to get hold of Mr. Smith last week to move the project forward. What’s the status of the project?”

“I left him a message. He never got back to me.”

And the project is no closer to being done.

This series - Stop Signs Along the Road to Changing the World - asks, “If this is the sector that was supposed to change the world, what’s stopping us?”

And if ever there were something stopping us, it is that we keep focusing on what we need to DO, rather than what we need to ACCOMPLISH.


STOP Sign: Doing vs. Accomplishing
Let’s look at Joe’s situation in the meeting. Joe didn’t see himself as responsible for accomplishing something - he saw himself responsible for doing something. He made the call, he was done - even though nothing was accomplished.

Community Benefit Organizations* are really good at doing. We feed hungry people. We put on performances.

We are really good at measuring what we do. We fed 3,000 people. We had 400 people attend our performance.

And unfortunately, we are not aiming at accomplishing something; we are aiming at doing something.

When we see the purpose of our work as the doing, we get vested in the doing - even when our vision may be that we not have to do that work anymore!

“We fed more people at the food bank this year than last year.” If you see the purpose of your work as the doing part, that is good. If you are about accomplishing, however, that news may be good, or it may not be good. It may be better if fewer people needed the food bank!

“We had more people attend our performances this year than ever before.” That news may be good, or it may not be good. Were those people excited about your core mission of producing homegrown avante-garde plays? Or did you finally just give up on that core mission, and instead produced a season of musical sing-alongs to fill seats and pay the bills?

When we focus on what we want to accomplish (and especially who we want to accomplish that for), we do what we need to do.

The reverse is unfortunately not true. When we focus on what we do, we are not necessarily aiming at what we want to accomplish. More often than not, when organizations are focused on the doing part, they believe they do not have time for the accomplishing - and especially not “accomplishing on behalf of the community.” We don’t have time to think about building a prosperous, healthy community - we barely have time to house the homeless coming through our doors now!

(And even looking internally, how many organizations have we consulted to, who don’t feel they have time to focus on accomplishing Sustainability because they are too busy doing stop-gap fundraising to survive another year!?)

So how does that translate to evaluating our efforts? Evaluating our Executive Director, evaluating our board meetings, evaluating our organization’s performance? The first step is that we begin asking different sets of questions.

Instead of evaluating our ED on what he/she did, we will begin asking what he/she accomplished - and for whom. And we will begin to see that what the ED accomplishes is what the organization accomplishes.

Same goes for the board. Instead of using checklists to determine if the board did this or that, we would ask what we want the board to accomplish this year for the community.

If we expected accomplishment from our organizations, that would be what we would expect from our Executive Director, from all our staff, from our boards - from each other. We would know how to evaluate our ED, we would know how to make staff meetings actually move us forward. We would know how to do planning, and we would know what board meetings should look like.

There is a mile of difference between doing and accomplishing. One gets us closer to our dreams for our communities. The other is a Stop Sign along that road. Which path are you on?

Part 2 of this article is 11 Ways to Transform Your Organization from DOING to ACCOMPLISHING.

Are you new to this series - Stop Signs Along the Road to Changing the World? The archives may just open your eyes!

*Curious about our use of the term “Community Benefit Organization?“

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