Lately there has been a lot of discussion about layoffs, firings and the loss of thousands of jobs monthly. The flip side of the loss of so many jobs in our economy is the huge influx of fantastic talent now looking for a new job. Additionally, the toxic environments that some organizations are creating for their employees are driving their most talented people into the job market as well (Check my earlier post for ways to avoid this at your nonprofit). For nonprofits that are able to weather the economic storm this is a great opportunity. Whether your organization is in the unique position to hire today or are making plans to hire in 2010 I want to encourage nonprofit professionals in charge of hiring to hire for talent first, drive second and a specific skill set last.

 I believe this is the best practice for all organizations, but especially for nonprofits. Nonprofits are unique for many reasons and one of the major differences for nonprofits is the need for their employees to “wear many hats”, learn new skills on the fly, and in some cases create and manage programs that didn’t exist the day before. The very things that make outstanding nonprofit professionals unique and valuable. This is the primary reason I am encouraging nonprofits to hire for talent first.  In other words, don’t hire someone to just fill a position, hire someone that can contribute to your whole organization for the long run.

Hiring for a special skill set first may be necessary in certain cases such as General Counsel, CFO, or accountant, however many more nonprofit jobs require less specialized skills and education as they do the talent to adapt, learn quickly, and accept new challenges as opportunities. Although this advice seems logical, it is not always followed. All too often resumes are reviewed and accomplishments graded, but talent and drive are ignored or given little attention. If you are not asking probing questions at an interview that give you insight into a person’s inherent talent and drive you are probably missing the mark.

I’ll admit that it is hard to ever be sure what you are going to get. Hiring anyone is a crap shoot even if they have the best resume and interview. Just remember to always be thinking about how well the candidate would do if they were asked to do something he or she had never done before. Or what would happen if someone else in your organization left tomorrow and the decision was made not to rehire (which is happening a lot nowadays), would this candidate be willing and able to adapt and take on those duties? If you are not hiring someone with the talent and drive to be able to handle situations like these than you are being short sighted and setting the candidate, yourself, and the organization up for failure.

If you know of specific situations that the candidate will probably face in the position make sure to ask them how he or she would deal with the situation or at least what he or she think they might do. I have asked candidates if they would be comfortable with picking up dog poop in the morning and speaking on a local news station in the afternoon. Something myself and my employees actually have done at an event. The question provided wonderful insight to the candidate’s personality, motivation, interest and general ability to adapt. One question specific to the position can be worth hundreds of generic, “what is your biggest stregnth?” questions.

Remember, the candidate may have all the skills in the world for a certain position, but if they don’t have great talent and drive he or she will be of little use to your nonprofit in the eleventh hour of a crisis that requires everyone to step out of their comfort zone and pitch in.

Here are a few interview questions that I have personally used to help me get a better understanding of the candidate’s talent, ability to adapt, and drive. I encourage you to formulate your own questions that will help you better distinguish a limited role player from an all around contributor to your organization. As always, please share interview questions that have worked well for you in the comment section below.

Example Interview Questions:

• How do you deal with failure/less than successful project/situation?
• Give an example of a high prressure situation at work. What was the source of the pressure and what did you do?
• How do you deal with having more work than it seems you can ever accomplish?
• What are you looking for in this job?
• What do you like most about the job duties listed?
• How do you deal with change?
• Describe the most difficult job/project you have been given. How did you handle it? What did you learn?

Illustration by: Michael Mucci

UPDATED 8-2-2010 – There is always a lot of discussion about the different generations in the workforce and how to manage each one better. The need to understand the differences between the generations is also essential in the nonprofit sector given the wide variety of generations typically present and working closely together. However, this blog post is about my generation, Generation X, and how we are playing a critical role, but under-appreciated, role in today’s nonprofit workforce.

Let me set the table with a couple definitions. None are perfect as there is no agreed upon standard but in general here are some ways to categorize the different generations.

Baby Boomers - is the group of people born during the demographic birth boom between 1946 and 1964.

Generation X - the group of people born after the baby boom ended, extending from the early-to-mid 1960s to late 1970s.

Generation Y – also known as The Millennial Generation, is the group of people born following Generation X. Most commentators used dates from the early 1980s to early 1990s.

Generation Z – is the group of people born after the mid 1990′s.

As part of Generation X I remember entering the workforce with a lot of discussion about Baby Boomers managing the difficult Gen Xers needs and how Gen Xers would need to learn how to manage up with Baby Boomer bosses. However, with the entrance of Generation Y to the workforce in the past few years there has been a sudden shift to focus almost completely on how to manage GenY better and how Gen Y can work more effectively with Baby Boomers.

I’m here to say don’t forget about us Gen Xers! We are still here and in fact will be here for many years to come. Not only that but Gen Xers will be the essential link between Baby Boomers and Gen Y for a long time.

Many Baby Boomers are already relying on Gen Xers to hold senior management positions and seeing us as possible successors in the future. While at the same time Gen Yers will likely be reporting to a Gen Xer, being interviewed by a Gen Xer, or at the very least working more closely with a Gen Xer than a Baby Boomer. Though the poor economy and the trend for Baby Boomers to delay retirement is limiting opportunities for many Gen Xers to take on head honcho roles there is still plenty of room for Gen X to assume middle management and number two roles at many nonprofit organizations. Many nonprofit professionals in my generation, Gen X, are now assuming higher level leadership and management roles in their respective nonprofit organizations as Vice Presidents, Directors, Deputy ED’s, etc., if not yet the head roles of CEO, Executive Director, or President.

This means that Gen Xers must continue to be more adept at not only working with Baby Boomers as our bosses but also Gen Yers as our peers and employees. What I want to emphasize here is that Gen X is a critical link in the management system at most nonprofits and both Baby Boomers and Gen Yers should be taking the opportunity to see how Gen X works, functions, and thinks in order to better manage both up and down.

The Baby Boomer nonprofit leaders should not only look at the young bucks comin in from Generation Y but more importantly they should examine the seasoned talent that are already present right under their noses in Generation X. This will help Baby Boomers find ways to better utilize their middle and senior management in moving their nonprofit forward in the short term. I believe they will also discover a very useful tool in Gen Xers to help understand and manage Gen Yers because Generation X overlaps in many ways with both Baby Boomers and Gen Y. We can serve as interpreters between Baby Boomers and Gen Yers.

For Gen Yers it wil be useful to study up on Generation X to see what will be expected of them as many will eventually report to a middle manager or senior leader and not a Baby Boomer CEO. Learning how to manage up with your boss is a key skill and it very well may be a Gen Xer not a Baby Boomer. Additionally, in the same way that Baby Boomers can use Gen Xers to interpret info from and Gen Y, Gen Yers can use Gen Xers to understand why Baby Boomers do what they do and perhaps help teach Gen Y how to explain themselves to Baby Boomers in a way that will be better understood and accepted.

All this is to say that Gen Xers can and will play an important role in the future of nonprofits, and should not be disregarded. We may not be as many in number but we can make a major contribution. Soon we will be focusing on the entrance of Generation Z and who knows what new challenges that will bring. Let’s start be having all generations agree that we will work together to see how we can better understand each other and in turn make the nonprofit sector even better.

Below are a few resources about understanding different generations, especially Generation X, that I found interesting. While no one can be generalized to fit perfectly into a generation or type it is nonetheless helpful to at least have a starting point or frame of reference when learning how to work best with other generations.

What are your thoughts on different generations working together in nonprofits? Does any generation have it better or worse? Do generations even matter? Please share your thoughts in the comments.

<Updated> MetLife released a great study in July 2010 that investigates many of the attitudes and employment views of the various generations. You can download the complete 2010 MetLife Study of The American Dream. It contains useful information to anyone looking to better understand the motivations and concerns of your employees.

Shortage Decade: Where Will the Next Generation of Nonprofit Leaders Come From? http://www2.guidestar.org/rxa/news/articles/2006/shortage-decade-where-will-the-next-generation-of-nonprofit-leaders-come-from.aspx?articleId=732

Gen X in the Newsroom – Kellogg School of Management and Medill School of Journalism http://www.mediamanagementcenter.org/research/genX.pdf

Generation X from About.com http://legalcareers.about.com/od/practicetips/a/GenerationX.htm

Generation X and The Millennials: What You Need to Know About Mentoring the New Generations http://www.abanet.org/lpm/lpt/articles/mgt08044.html

Mixing and Managing Four Generations of Employees http://www.fdu.edu/newspubs/magazine/05ws/generations.htm

New Learing Strategies for Generation X  http://www.ericdigests.org/1998-1/x.htm

Do you feel like this sometimes?

I had worked in the nonprofit sector for more than 5 years before I ever heard the term “nonprofit professional” to describe what I, and millions of others, do for a living. In fact, the first time I heard it was during a class at the U.S. Chamber Institute for Organizational Management that was designed to teach people in the nonprofit sector to promote their value to others. (I’ll talk about what an awesome program Institute is for nonprofit professionals in a future blog.) 5 years is a long time to be working in a career and not have heard any of your collegaues actually describe your career as a profession.

My message to all working in the nonprofit sector is to promote your unique value as a nonprofit professional to everyone you can find and do it with vigor.

I know you have all been in a conversation with friends or family and had to spend five minutes or more explaining to them exactly what you do and what “nonprofit” truly means. If I had a nickel for every time someone asked me how I could get a salary and still work for an organization that has no profit, I would be a rich man. However, this is time well spent and more of us need to do it more often.

We nonprofit professionals shortchange ourselves when we don’t talk about our profession – because that is exactly what it is, a PROFESSION. Working for nonprofits takes a certain skill set and we are faced with the same issues as our for-profit peers, in some cases we have even more constraints and issues to deal with than they do.Yet, the nopnrofit sector and in turn our very professoin is often maligned by the for-profit world as not difficult or so different as to make our skill set nontransferable to the for-profit sector.

Just the other day some colleagues and I were discussing how unfair it is that the for-profit sector looks down on us nonprofit professionals. This should not be the case at all and in many ways I believe we nonprofit professionals have much to teach the for-profit world, especially with regard to fiscal responsibility, managing multiple tasks, delivering on promises, customer service, staying on mission, and working as a team, to name but a few.

In short, I ask that everyone working in the nonprofit field start referring to themselves as nonprofit professionals and extolling the unique and difficult skill set that is necessary to succeed in our sector. All other professions promote themselves and we should be no different. The more people who do this, the more credibility we will all gain as professionals and the more respect the nonprofit sector will get. If enough of us do this hopefully we will one day not only be looked at with admiration by the for-profit sector but also as a sought-after profession.

What are your thoughts on the nonprofit profession? Have you ever experienced bias because you choose to work for a nonprofit? Any suggestions to share on how we can all work together to raise the status of the nonprofit profession?

However, nonprofits must recognize that “thankful” employees do not equal “happy”, “productive” or even “content” employees. In fact, it has been my experience that employees who are meant to feel that they should “just be happy to have a job” are usually unhappy, unproductive and very discontent. The joke is that by implying that an employee should be happy that they have a job, you are actually making them more fearful that they might not in the near future.

It seems to me that this concept of treating employees poorly and expecting them to be happy about it is a growing trend, especially during these tough times. This is leading to the steady decline of morale at many nonprofits and if left uncorrected, I believe could hurt nonprofit organizations in the long-term.

My message here is simple: Treat your employees better in tough economic times, not worse, and your organization will be rewarded!

Here are some of the many reasons to focus on improving your work environment and treating employees better now more than ever:

• It’s the right thing to do - Simply put it is the duty of an employer to treat its staff well.
• Happy and engaged employees are productive employees – Truly happy and engaged employees are naturally more productive and that will help lead your nonprofit out of the economic woods faster.
• Replacing employees is costly – A recent study showed it costs $4,000 to replace just one $8 per hour full time employee. That adds up if you encourage high turnover.
• Institutional Knowledge – When you lose an employee the cost of the knowledge, experience and training that goes with them is invaluable.
• Low morale discourage innovation – A nonprofit needs to keep growing and innovation makes that possible. Employees who are not happy or engaged will not be innovative and that will not move your nonprofit forward.
• Keeping and attracting the best talent - A nonprofit is only as good as the people who work and volunteer for it. If your nonprofit is perceived as a poor place to work or that employees want to leave then you will not only lose your most talented people, you will also never attract the talent you want and need. Just ask someone their opinion of a nonprofit that has consistently high staff turnover.
• Employees can be your best or worst advocate – Word of mouth is very powerful and employees who are not happy will not share happy news with their friends. This cannot only affect just talent recruitment but potentially member and donor recruitment. People don’t support nonprofits that can’t even inspire their own employees support them.
• Happy employees lead to happy “customers” – I disscuss the importance of great customer service in a previous blog
• Fearless employees will think long-term and step up – Employees who are happy and not in constant fear of losing their job will focus on the long-term benefits for the nonprofit. They will also tend to step up to challenges and take on additional work because they see it could lead to potential advancement in the organization.

These are just a few of the many examples of why you shoud be treating your nonprofit staff better. It is easy to say that employees should just be thankful for a job nowadays because the reality is there are few opportunities for them to jump ship and go to a better job. However, where will your nonprofit be when the economy improves? Will your organization have kept and hired the best talent to compete in the better economy or will you be sitting in a conference room with disgruntled left-overs with lack-luster talent?

Here are a few resources to help your nonprofit treat employees well and become a place people want to work and stay:

How to help your staff in difficult times http://tiny.cc/help953

Recognition + Appreciation = Employee Engagement http://tinyurl.com/luxqyr

Employee engagement is the key to innovation and competitiveness, says MacLeod Review http://bit.ly/rnZSc

Employee Satisfaction is Key to Company Success http://www.robinthompson.com/employeesatisfaction.htm

How Investing in Intangibles — Like Employee Satisfaction — Translates into Financial Returns http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article.cfm?articleid=1873

It will cost you $4,000 to replace just one $8 per hour, full-time employee http://is.gd/1sMNE

Employee satisfaction leads to customer service – Employee Relations http://bit.ly/llX7P

Opportunity Knocks Peoples Choice Best Nonprofits to Work For 2008 http://content.opportunityknocks.org/best-nonprofit-to-work-for/

Instead of going quietly into the night like many of us do, David Carroll made a music video and posted it on YouTube on July 6. The video has gone viral on the web and as of July 13 was viewed more than 2.5 million times, received more than 13,000 comments, been discussed on national news programs, and has led to interviews for Mr. Carroll on morning talk shows. The video even got United to admit their mistake and offer to pay for a new guitar on July 10. Mr. Carroll responded with a video statement declining the new guitar and instead noting that two more videos about the incident are still to come.

What can nonprofits learn from this customer service disaster?

Nonprofits should always remember that great customer service is KEY, if not king. All nonprofits service customers- whether they are members, donors, or beneficiaries. All nonprofits have people they need to treat well and assure that their concerns are listened to and answered appropriately. The reason is a disgruntled member, donor, or beneficiary can act like a cancer in your organization and spread discontent to others. For just as good news spreads fast, bad news spreads even faster.

Once there is a bad story, incident or even impression out about your nonprofit it is very difficult to stop and could eventually lead to the huge public relations disaster experienced by United. In effect, United has now ceded control of their public relations image to the power of one disgruntled passenger and will likely have to spend millions of dollars to improve their image going forward. All of which probably could have been avoided for, at the most $3,500, and possibly at the very least a little better customer service in the beginning by United.

I recognize that not every problem or complaint is valid nor can they all be addressed to the satisfaction of the customer, but at the heart of this issue is continued poor customer service. Nonprofits need to take note of this example and take better care of their customers be they members, donors, or beneficiaries. Here are some thoughts that might help your nonprofit avoid a complaint from becoming a full blown “United Breaks Guitars”.

1. Listen – No, I mean really listen to your customer to find out what his/her problem is and more importantly what he/she thinks would be a satisfactory resolution.
2. Apologize – This is usually a tough thing to do but it does help. Even if the complaint does not seem legitimate it is always useful to establish an understanding by apologizing. At the very least you can apologize for having made your customer feel so upset that they needed to contact your nonprofit. You are not validating their issue, but merely stating that your organization never wants to upset anyone.
3. Inform - Share with the customer the knowledge you have regarding the situation and what potential remedies are available. In this way you are demonstrating you are not trying to hide anything and all possible remedies will be considered. If there is no remedy that matches their satisfactory resolution then see if one of the resolutions available would also satisfy them. Also, inform them that this is hopefully a rare incident of customer dissatisfaction and you will do you best to remedy the situation.
4. Satisfy, compromise, and resolve – Not all customer issues can be resolved to the satisfaction of all parties but making the sincere effort to resolve it goes a long way. If a complete resolution cannot be found try to find a compromise. If no resolution can be found at all then make it clear to the customer that you are very sorry and the nonprofit’s best effort was made to resolve the issue. Be sure to leave on a positive note even if the customer could not find the satisfaction they desired.

If the customer’s issue looks like it is getting out of control or escalating quickly be sure to involve your superiors immediately and always document the exchange from beginning to end.  Sometimes customer issues cannot be resolved, but in the end it is about putting your best foot forward and realizing that one disgruntled customer lead to thousands of disgruntled customers.

I’m no expert in customer service, but I think ”United Breaks Guitars” is a great example of why world class customer service should be a priority for all nonprofit organizations. Your members, donors, or beneficiaries may not be part of a band or able to write catchy little tunes, but you never really know how much influence they have, so each one should be treated well if they call you looking for customer service!

Please leave some of your customer service tips or horror stories in the comments below. Thanks.

Resources on providing customer service:

Customer Service Tips in Nonprofit Organizations http://www.gaebler.com/Customer-Service-in-Non-Profit-Organizations.htm

Customer Service for Nonprofits http://www.fundraising123.org/article/customer-service-nonprofits

10 Customer Service Tips http://sbinfocanada.about.com/od/customerservice/a/custservtipslt.htm

The Ten Commandments of Great Customer Service http://marketing.about.com/od/relationshipmarketing/a/crmtopten.htm

60 Customer Service Tips for Entrepreneurs http://www.toiletpaperentrepreneur.com/blog/50-quality-customer-service-tips-for-entrepreneurs

T.V. interview with a nonprofit leader

However, when I first started working for Rebuilding Together I had no experience doing interviews with the media. This is the situation many nonprofit professionals find themselves in. Frankly, it is the position you hope to find yourself in after doing everything you can to get media coverage for your organization or program. I am by no means an expert on interviewing or a PR professional but I am writing a few tips on media interviewing that I wish had been shared with me before I had to step in front of the mic.

DO YOUR RESEARCH

• Make sure you are up-to-date and fully briefed on all the general statistics and history of your nonprofit organization. (i.e. mission, vision, who you serve, the need, etc.)
• Learn the specific information you will need to regarding the program, project, day, or event that you are being interviewed about. (i.e. what is the significance of the day, how many people are expected, why now, any VIPs, dates, times, etc.)
• If possible, determine what angle the media is trying to cover and research your information to offer what they desire. (i.e. if they are interviewing you to talk about veterans on the eve of the Iraq war anniversary make sure you have info on the number of Iraq war veterans you have assisted and why the need is great)
• If possible, try and get a list of questions that they intend to ask prior to the interview. This is usually difficult to get but when you can it makes the research and prep so much easier.

DETERMINE YOUR MESSAGE AND STAY ON IT

• Practice a “sound bite”. Just like politicians you will need to figure out what your primary message is and a very simple way to express it. The media has limited space and time, especially television news, the whole story may be only 1 minute long so there is no time to explain the entirety of what your organization does. Just boil it down to the main message you want the public to know in 10 seconds. This might include name of organization, special sponsors, a call to action, or fundraising goal. (i.e. “Save The People” has saved the lives of more than 200 people in Podunk and with more donations we can save hundreds more!”)
• Do your best to include your message/sound bite in the majority of your responses to questions. This does not need to be obvious or monotonus. The more successful you are at this the more likely the message will be included in the final cut of the news piece and that the public will hear it. (i.e. Reporter: What are the volunteers doing here today?  You: The volunteers are donating their time to help save a local Podunk citizen which makes more than 200 people “Save The People” has assisted!)
• Remember, the message may be different depending on the event, day, who is interviewing you or the goals of your organization at the time. Tailoring your message and sound bite can go a long way to getting it included in the final news piece and activating the viewers which is your ultimate goal.

STAY CALM, COOL AND COLLECTED

• Remember that you are an expert, at least you are more of an expert than the person interviewing you.
• Go into it with the knowledge that unless you, are a Governor that just disappeared without telling anyone to meet your mistress in South America and then lied about it, the media is not out to get you and is more likely than not there to HELP you get the story out about the good work your nonprofit is doing.
• Stay confident and know that you have done the research and preparation ahead of the interview.
• Even if you mess up don’t worry. If it is a taped interview or for a newspaper simply ask if you can answer the questions again. The reporter wants the correct information too. If it is a live interview the odds are that it happened so quickly that no one will notice. Unless is it is a truly massive mistake don’t try to fix it. By trying to fix it on live television or radio it will only make it more awkward and draw attention to the original mistake.

HELP THE REPORTER

• Understand that the reporter is there to do a job too. Help him or her by providing the info they will need to make it a great news story. (i.e. providing a press kit to the reporter is an easy way to do this)
• If it is an event, introduce the reporter to the person being assisted or show them to a place where there is something exciting occurring. Introduce them to a volunteer or member that has made significant contributions or always has something good to say.
• Always make sure to provide your contact information to the reporter. This provides them with a way to ask you follow up questions if necessary.
• Always thank the reporter for coming to the event and get their card so you can contact them in the future with other great newsworthy information.

SHARE IT

• Remember to try to find out when the news piece was aired or published. This is the final step and most gratifying when it was a job well done. You can either hire a paid media service to collect the clips or find them yourself online (Google news has a simple key word search). You can then send links to all your supporters or future supporters, post the link on your website and share it on Facebook and Twitter. It is a great visual demonstration of the good work your nonprofit provides.

FINALLY, REMEMBER NOBODY IS PERFECT

• Always remember that no matter what happens your have succeeded in spreading the word about your nonprofit a little further. Nobody is perfect and as with all things the more you practice you have the better you will become. Just know that mistakes can happen to anyone. Here are a few famous examples.

Famous Political Gaffes: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0408/9441.html

Stupid Quotes – gaffes, blunders and embarrassing words: http://www.thatsweird.net/gaffes_blunders1.shtml

Great Gaffes of the Rich and Famous: http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/editors-choice/2007/10/18/great-gaffes-of-the-rich-and-famous-86908-19969211/

I hope that this is a helpful overview for those looking to represent their nonprofit in the media. Do you have any helpful hints? Please share them in the comments so everyone can learn from your experience.

No doubt there are many positive things that nonprofit organizations can learn from the National Football League (NFL). These include things such as teamwork, strategy, marketing, building a fan base, etc. All of which I plan to expand on in future blogs, but in this blog I want to focus on one thing the NFL does poorly that nonprofits should NOT copy. (Full disclosure: I do not play on, coach or own an NFL team but sure wish I did.)

The NFL, as well as other professional sports, are well-known for their propensity to blame a failed or poor season on one person – the Coach. Time and time again an NFL owner will unceremoniously announce the firing of a head coach and the new hire of someone who is hailed to be the savior of the franchise. For example, before the 2008 NFL season had even officially concluded the NY Jets, Cleveland Browns, Denver Broncos, and Detroit Lions had all fired their head coaches. Typically the new coach comes in with great fan fare and in some cases a string of success stories with other teams. In many cases, the new coach discusses all the changes they intend to make in the organization in order to make it run better and take the team to the Super Bowl quickly. 

Here’s the problem. The majority of these coaches will either, effectively make no improvements in the winning record of the team, never get close to going to the Super Bowl or in some cases get fired after being even less successful than their predecessor. Coach Joe Gibbs is a perfect example, after coaching three different Redskins teams to Super Bowl championships in the 80’s and 90’s he came back to excited Redskins fans in 2004. However, after 4 seasons, just two playoff appearances and an overall losing record, he finally decided he couldn’t recreate the success of the past. What’s the explanation? I believe that two key factors have been left out of the success equation, the owner and the players. Both play integral roles in the success or failure of any NFL team. 

So how does this relate to nonprofit success you ask? 

If you think of a nonprofit as the NFL team, the board of directors as the owners, the executive director as the coach, and the staff as the players than important insights can be gained. The primary lesson is that a change in executive director leadership does not guarantee future success of the organization. Even if the new executive director may have won 2 metaphorical Super Bowls it does not mean he/she will repeat that success in the new position. The reason for this is the same reason why changing the coach does not always work in the NFL, because the board of directors (owners) and the staff (players) also need to be involved, supportive and in some cases replaced. In the end, the creation of a successful nonprofit organization is every much a team effort as it is to create a Super Bowl champion team.

This is not meant to say that in all cases it isn’t the right move to go with new leadership, but that all key pieces needed for success need to be looked at before major changes are made. Internal reflection may be necessary on behalf of the board to see if they are providing the proper vision and direction for the organization. The staff roles, responsibilities and accountability may need to be reviewed in order to determine if there are the “right people on the bus” and if they have the resources they need to be successful. All in addition to looking at the executive director to see if he/she has performed well or if they are being limited by some other factor. It may take a change in all of these areas or perhaps in none in order to move the organization forward. There is no magic bullet or easy fix in nonprofit organizations because they are complex and therefore require complex solutions. In these tough economic times nonprofits should try and improve the whole team and not just rely on finding the next star “coach” as a simple answer. Otherwise, come next season the nonprofit may find itself with an even worse record, a very high priced coach, unhappy owners, and discouraged players. 

Here are some other online resources for evaluating your whole organization for future success:

Tools for Evaluation and Assessment from Board Source – www.boardsource.org

Free tools and articles for evaluating your board and organization – http://www.nonprofitcenter.com/

ED Evaluation from Dorothy A. Johnson Center for Philanthropy & Nonprofit Leadership -http://www.npgoodpractice.org/Resource/Resource.aspx?resourceid=6369

Collection of other resources at Idealist.org – http://www.idealist.org/if/i/en/faq/28-64/11-77