Non-Profit Madness

By Mollie Fager, 10-10-06

Non-Profit Madness
How to go crazy in five easy steps

1.) Take a job as the executive director of an arts organization in a town that values recreation and prairie dogs over the matinee.

2.) Try to please multiple constituents such as: managing a staff of overworked artists; strong and vibrant art organizations residing in your arts center many of whom hold conflicting agendas on what they want from you, manage an all volunteer board of directors consisting of highly diverse, colorful personalities—most of whom are also your largest donors. Last, manage the relationship of a landlord that happens to be the local city government which your organization has a long and complicated history with.

Alright… well I know I said there were five steps to going crazy but I crammed about ten of them in # 2 and I do want to keep my job—so I better quit while I’m ahead. And yes I’m whining and yes—it’s been 2 months since my last blog, a mortal sin in the world of fast paced internet communication. My sincere apologies, but I must admit I’m tired and so busy with administering the arts that I haven’t gotten around to sharing the arts in my arts blog (but no worries, I’ve got a good blog brewing on the magic of live theater).

So this is a self-indulgent, whining blog. A blog for all the non-profit staffers and executive directors out there trying their best to manage their individual organizations and the boards, staff, donors, customers, patrons, members, local governments, etc. that come with it.

A colleague of mine who works for a larger arts organization in Denver once remarked to me that the executive director position is truly one the hardest positions anyone could possibly hold in their professional career. Non-profit executive directors struggle with the same issues that our for-profit brethren struggle with on a daily basis. However those same issues are amplified and dramatized by the very thing that draws us to non-profits to begin with….passion for the mission and our emotional attachments to the outcomes.

For example, in a for-profit company sure there may be a mission to provide greater technology, or enhance the health of humanity through organic foods, etc. but at the end of the day success is measured in profit. I highly doubt that you’ll find a failed for-profit championing its cause that even though it went belly up, by God the world is a better place despite the investor’s financial losses. In the for-profit world your board of directors are made up of shareholders who believe in the company’s mission but also believe that it will be profitable for them. I think you can trickle down this expectation throughout a for-profit venture, start-up, company, etc.

You can argue that those exact issues exist in the non-profit organization—i.e. a board member takes their philanthropic dollars and invests those funds in the service they want the non-profit to provide to their community. The return on their investment is some, typically qualitative, measure that this service has been provided. Lives are saved, changed, rehabilitated, preserved, conserved, nurtured, enriched or whatever the service may be. In the end though money is only an input, not a result. Ultimately your organization delivers a board or organization member, staff member, donor, etc. an affirmation that they have made the world a better place and have contributed a part of their own personal values into their community.

I’m in agreement with all of this and in fact I’ve barely scratched the surface. Volumes of academic research and mainstream writings exist on the workings of non-profit organizations. My point is to emphasize the enormous expectations that non-profits carry with them. After all, we’re dealing with a donor’s disposable income, a volunteer’s spare time, a professional’s willingness to (usually) be paid below market value, and above all a personal value system that drove someone to the non-profit organization in the first place. We expect more.

These factors are unique and create an emotional environment in which to conduct business (and let’s not even go there in talking about the emotional environment of an arts organization). This situation is inescapable in most non-profits, regardless of how “for-profit like” they really are. Maybe this is as it should be and this extra layer on the business is unavoidable and in fact welcome in the non-profit world. I invite other persons involved in non-profit management to share their perspectives.

In harkening back to my colleagues comment that the executive director position is truly one of the hardest management positions there is I can only say with much bias that I agree. If you happen to find yourself in the position of hiring an executive director or other staff from a non-profit organization that was successful, my advice would be to snap them up as quickly as you can. Chances are you’ve got someone who is highly capable and then some.

And I promise my next blog will cover an arts topic that underscores without saying why my own passion and personal value system joyfully compel me to do what I do every day of the week.
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