"We are living in an increasingly multicultural world, and new ethnic groups are quickly gaining consumer power. Our company [nonprofit organizations] needs a demographically more diverse workforce to help us gain access to these differentiated segments" (Thomas & Ely, 2004)
Everyone has heard some version of this golden rule: do not judge someone's life until you have walked a mile in their shoes.
Showing posts with label Hang. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Hang. Show all posts
Thursday, April 30, 2015
Thursday, April 9, 2015
Is Two Really Better Than One? The Ups And Downs of Collaboration
Working better together. Connecting. Coordinated action. Sharing. Joint alliance. Partnerships. Coalition. All these terms and phrases provide a general description for what it means to collaborate. Your organization may choose to join forces with another for financial stability, diversification and expansion of services, or to avoid extinction (United Way, 2008; Yankey et al., 2008). In essence, the key to a successful collaboration is a strong relationship built upon (1) a shared mission, (2) trust, (3) similar stakeholders, (4) strategic plan, and (5) shared decision-making among all members (United Way, 2008). There are many different ways for organizations to collaborate with other organizations, often across various sectors, on a range of initiatives. Your organization's decision to collaborate may present challenges and opportunities as seen in the following case studies.
Nonprofit and government. This is a classic case of government agencies outsourcing services to community organizations to reach those hard-to-reach clients. The Massachusetts Department of Social Services (MDSS) proposed a collaboration with La Alianza Hispana (LAH) to provide culturally competent child protective services for Latino families. Although both MDSS and LAH have a common mission of improving services for the Latino community, challenges emerged as to how they will go about providing those services. Additional challenges included lack of trust, lack of shared decision making, and lack of ownership by members of both agencies (Sharma & Missey, 1998).
Nonprofit and nonprofit. Two very different nonprofits, Seattle Art Museum (SAM) and First Things First (FTF), formed a coalition after concluding that working together to pass a tax levy was more beneficial than competing for votes independently. The challenges SAM and FTF encountered was unequal distribution of roles and unclear roles and expectations from members (United Way, 2008). SAM primarily provided the financial resources, whereas, FTF had a strong volunteer base. This led to a lack of trust and mutual respect among the organizations as they tried to get both their tax levies passed. Though it is ideal to have a common goal, it is also important to ensure that all members feel acknowledged.
Nonprofit and for-profit. The Timberland and City Year partnership was established on a common mission of promoting social justice. Timberland's partnership with City Year earned them a reputation of a progressive business. Similarly, City Year benefitted by receiving Timberland apparel for their staff as well as financial resources. Like the previous cases, this collaboration faced the challenges of a shared vision and lack of strategic plan for sustainability (Sharma & Missey, 1998). Economic downturns resulted in a shaky future for the collaboration.
Evidently, challenges and opportunities are inevitable for collaborations. However by keeping in mind these simple ideas, your organization may be on its way to a better, more successful collaboration: (1) participating groups have a shared vision of the collaboration, (2) participating groups have a stake in the success of the collaboration, (3) encourage shared-decision making among all members, and (4) be open to the ideas and diversity of the members (United Way, 2008).
References
Nonprofit and government. This is a classic case of government agencies outsourcing services to community organizations to reach those hard-to-reach clients. The Massachusetts Department of Social Services (MDSS) proposed a collaboration with La Alianza Hispana (LAH) to provide culturally competent child protective services for Latino families. Although both MDSS and LAH have a common mission of improving services for the Latino community, challenges emerged as to how they will go about providing those services. Additional challenges included lack of trust, lack of shared decision making, and lack of ownership by members of both agencies (Sharma & Missey, 1998).
Nonprofit and nonprofit. Two very different nonprofits, Seattle Art Museum (SAM) and First Things First (FTF), formed a coalition after concluding that working together to pass a tax levy was more beneficial than competing for votes independently. The challenges SAM and FTF encountered was unequal distribution of roles and unclear roles and expectations from members (United Way, 2008). SAM primarily provided the financial resources, whereas, FTF had a strong volunteer base. This led to a lack of trust and mutual respect among the organizations as they tried to get both their tax levies passed. Though it is ideal to have a common goal, it is also important to ensure that all members feel acknowledged.
Nonprofit and for-profit. The Timberland and City Year partnership was established on a common mission of promoting social justice. Timberland's partnership with City Year earned them a reputation of a progressive business. Similarly, City Year benefitted by receiving Timberland apparel for their staff as well as financial resources. Like the previous cases, this collaboration faced the challenges of a shared vision and lack of strategic plan for sustainability (Sharma & Missey, 1998). Economic downturns resulted in a shaky future for the collaboration.
Evidently, challenges and opportunities are inevitable for collaborations. However by keeping in mind these simple ideas, your organization may be on its way to a better, more successful collaboration: (1) participating groups have a shared vision of the collaboration, (2) participating groups have a stake in the success of the collaboration, (3) encourage shared-decision making among all members, and (4) be open to the ideas and diversity of the members (United Way, 2008).
References
Elias, J. 1996. Timberland and Community Involvement. Supervisor James Austin. Harvard Business School Publishing. Boston, MA.
Fortier, S. 1996. Funding Seattle’s Art Museum and Low-Income Housing: The Politics of Interest Groups and Tax Levies (A). Supervisor Jon Brock. Cascade Center for Public Service: Public Service Curriculum Exchange.
Sharma, Janet and Amanda Missey. 1998. “How I learned to Stop Griping . . . And Love Collaboration.” From a presentation at the National Community Service Conference. June 30, 1998. New Orleans, LA.
United Way. 2008. “Best Practices Summary: Collaboration, Coalition-Building, and Merger.”
Varley, P. 1996. Partners in Child Protection Services: The Department of Social Services and La Alianza Hispana (A). Abridged. Kennedy School of Government. Boston, MA
Yankey, J. A. & Willen, C. K. (2005). Strategic Alliances. In R. D. Herman (Ed.), The Jossey-Bass handbook of nonprofit leadership and management (pp. 254-273). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Thursday, March 12, 2015
A Successful Plan Is A Useful Plan
Organizational decision-makers are continuously bombarded by issues that could potentially affect current and/or future performances. Because of their powerful missions, nonprofit organizations are exhausted from the demands of getting things done with fewer and fewer resources. In today's nonprofit sector, the need to "recharge" organizations has never been greater. A common way to "recharge" your organization to get your staff energized and excited about who they are and where they are going is the strategic planning process.
So, what does strategic planning look like and what are the benefits?
A strategic plan not only help revitalizes your organization, but serves as a tool for organizations to address change. Strategic planning is a structured process that help key decision makers identify and resolve the most important issues their organization face. With this tool, decision makers are force to think outside of their organization and link decision making to what is happening in the world. In all, strategic planning encourages discussion and congregation of diverse people, who may otherwise never get to talk about what is important, in the same room to propel their organization forward.
The following are elements that make a successful strategic plan a useful plan:
Identifying key stakeholders. To construct an effective plan, knowing who should be at the table is very important. Stakeholders help decide major strategic goals and objectives that will lead to organizational transparency which means the organization has established complete buy-in and commitment. These key decision makers then lay the foundation for a successful strategic planning process and organization for years to come.
Clear mission (and vision). Sometimes your mission statement is so self-evident that it literally writes itself. But more often, your organization's existing mission may be nebulous, ambiguous or even outdated. Your organization may even be devoid of "big picture" thinking with conflicted missions in mind. With the guidance of this process, new and existing nonprofits should be able to answer the questions "Why do we exist?" to the most basic "What do we do?" resulting in an explicit, straight-forward and concise mission statement that reminds stakeholders of your purpose (Renz). The same thinking process can be apply towards your vision.
Assess your environment. To understand where your organization is, consider the organization's strengths (S), weaknesses (W), opportunities (O), and threats (T), called a SWOT analysis (or environmental scan). For the internal environment, you can assess strengths and weaknesses of the human, financial, structural, and technological capacities of your organization. (Note: 90% of the time, internal factors are what keeps organizations from achieving their goals) For the external environment, you can assess opportunities and threats that may derived from policy and regulations as well as changes in the economy and lifestyles of the people you are serving. A complete environmental scan of internal and external factors will help your organization identify future challenges and gain insight of new opportunities.
Define strategic issue(s). From your SWOTs, you are able to identify and prioritize urgent issues that are more likely to impact your organization. Strategic issue is defined as "an internal or external development which could impact the organization's performance, to which the organization must respond in an orderly fashion, and over which the organization may reasonably exert some influence (United Way, p.3). After your planning committee has come to a consensus of these issues, (1) operationally defined the issue, (2) assess opportunities and threats the issue will pose, (3) determine the driving factors that made this an issue in the first place, (4) examine the issue on the different scenarios and impact on your organization, and (5) formulate a response to address the issue. As you can see, this is the bulk of strategic planning.
Develop a strategy and implement. Now that your organization is clear on the mission and overall goals, it is time to construct a path on how to get there. Make sure everyone agrees on who is responsible for which action, when specific actions should be completed and how people will be held accountable. Put your plan into action!
Evaluate your plan. Even though strategic planning is presented in a linear fashion, it is more cyclic and iterative as decision-makers should continuously evaluate the strategic plan throughout the process (Renz). This re-check system ensures that organizational goals are truly being met and not just drafted and collecting dust somewhere.
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References:
Renz, David O, ed. 2010. The Jossey-Bass Handbook of Nonprofit Leadership and Management. Jossey-Bass. San Francisco, CA.
United Way of Dane County. Strategic Planning Process
So, what does strategic planning look like and what are the benefits?
A strategic plan not only help revitalizes your organization, but serves as a tool for organizations to address change. Strategic planning is a structured process that help key decision makers identify and resolve the most important issues their organization face. With this tool, decision makers are force to think outside of their organization and link decision making to what is happening in the world. In all, strategic planning encourages discussion and congregation of diverse people, who may otherwise never get to talk about what is important, in the same room to propel their organization forward.
The following are elements that make a successful strategic plan a useful plan:
Identifying key stakeholders. To construct an effective plan, knowing who should be at the table is very important. Stakeholders help decide major strategic goals and objectives that will lead to organizational transparency which means the organization has established complete buy-in and commitment. These key decision makers then lay the foundation for a successful strategic planning process and organization for years to come.
Clear mission (and vision). Sometimes your mission statement is so self-evident that it literally writes itself. But more often, your organization's existing mission may be nebulous, ambiguous or even outdated. Your organization may even be devoid of "big picture" thinking with conflicted missions in mind. With the guidance of this process, new and existing nonprofits should be able to answer the questions "Why do we exist?" to the most basic "What do we do?" resulting in an explicit, straight-forward and concise mission statement that reminds stakeholders of your purpose (Renz). The same thinking process can be apply towards your vision.
Assess your environment. To understand where your organization is, consider the organization's strengths (S), weaknesses (W), opportunities (O), and threats (T), called a SWOT analysis (or environmental scan). For the internal environment, you can assess strengths and weaknesses of the human, financial, structural, and technological capacities of your organization. (Note: 90% of the time, internal factors are what keeps organizations from achieving their goals) For the external environment, you can assess opportunities and threats that may derived from policy and regulations as well as changes in the economy and lifestyles of the people you are serving. A complete environmental scan of internal and external factors will help your organization identify future challenges and gain insight of new opportunities.
Define strategic issue(s). From your SWOTs, you are able to identify and prioritize urgent issues that are more likely to impact your organization. Strategic issue is defined as "an internal or external development which could impact the organization's performance, to which the organization must respond in an orderly fashion, and over which the organization may reasonably exert some influence (United Way, p.3). After your planning committee has come to a consensus of these issues, (1) operationally defined the issue, (2) assess opportunities and threats the issue will pose, (3) determine the driving factors that made this an issue in the first place, (4) examine the issue on the different scenarios and impact on your organization, and (5) formulate a response to address the issue. As you can see, this is the bulk of strategic planning.
Develop a strategy and implement. Now that your organization is clear on the mission and overall goals, it is time to construct a path on how to get there. Make sure everyone agrees on who is responsible for which action, when specific actions should be completed and how people will be held accountable. Put your plan into action!
Evaluate your plan. Even though strategic planning is presented in a linear fashion, it is more cyclic and iterative as decision-makers should continuously evaluate the strategic plan throughout the process (Renz). This re-check system ensures that organizational goals are truly being met and not just drafted and collecting dust somewhere.
------
References:
Renz, David O, ed. 2010. The Jossey-Bass Handbook of Nonprofit Leadership and Management. Jossey-Bass. San Francisco, CA.
United Way of Dane County. Strategic Planning Process
Wednesday, January 28, 2015
Role of Public, For-profit and Nonprofit Sectors in Doing Good
As social beings, we thrive from love and support from others. Living in a complex world, our needs are not constant, resulting in shortages and limitations in access to services. Three sectors in society became accountable for helping us in striving to meet those needs.
Comparing the Public, For-Profit and Nonprofit Sectors
Public (Government) Sector
By definition, the public sector-federal, state, county and city government agencies-serves the public good by administering programs that meet all of society's needs. Through taxation and policies, the government ensures that public money goes toward individuals and families who are struggling to make ends meet. Public programs include public transportation, public schools, subsidized housing and other public services that we often overlooked.
Given the social welfare needs of a growing and changing society, it is impossible for the government to meet all of society's needs. This is where nonprofits and businesses come into play by providing programs and services that the public sector does not have the capacity or resources to do itself (Berman, 2002).
For-profit (Business) Sector
As the name implies, for-profits operate to make money. Every project and decision in the for-profit world boils down to the same intention: profit (Berman, 2002). Recently, socially responsible business practices has raised awareness of the impact business decisions can have on society and the environment, commonly referred to as the triple bottom line. Nike, for example, has exhibited increased social responsibility by paralleling financial profitability with creating foundations to fund the work of nonprofits, which demonstrates the interplay between for-profit and nonprofit sectors. Similar to the public sector, for-profits cannot combat all social issues alone and must look to nonprofit sectors to fill in the gaps (Berman, 2002).
Nonprofit Sector
So from the previous sectors you will notice a gap exists between services provided by the government and activities from which for-profit businesses make money. This gap is where nonprofits thrive in their direct services: problem solving social issues with a specific group of people or public concern within a community. A nonprofit organization is formed for the purpose of serving the public (like government), but privately operated (like for-profits) without the goal of generating profit for the organization (Renz, 2010). Ultimately, nonprofits pave an avenue for people to assemble and work toward bettering some of society's most critical issues.
Clearly, each sector depends on the other in order to effectively make social changes or do good. The good news is that there are infinite ways to do good as well as many opportunities for public, for-profit and nonprofit sectors to collaborate in serving society's needs.
References:
Comparing the Public, For-Profit and Nonprofit Sectors
Public (Government) Sector
By definition, the public sector-federal, state, county and city government agencies-serves the public good by administering programs that meet all of society's needs. Through taxation and policies, the government ensures that public money goes toward individuals and families who are struggling to make ends meet. Public programs include public transportation, public schools, subsidized housing and other public services that we often overlooked.
Given the social welfare needs of a growing and changing society, it is impossible for the government to meet all of society's needs. This is where nonprofits and businesses come into play by providing programs and services that the public sector does not have the capacity or resources to do itself (Berman, 2002).
For-profit (Business) Sector
As the name implies, for-profits operate to make money. Every project and decision in the for-profit world boils down to the same intention: profit (Berman, 2002). Recently, socially responsible business practices has raised awareness of the impact business decisions can have on society and the environment, commonly referred to as the triple bottom line. Nike, for example, has exhibited increased social responsibility by paralleling financial profitability with creating foundations to fund the work of nonprofits, which demonstrates the interplay between for-profit and nonprofit sectors. Similar to the public sector, for-profits cannot combat all social issues alone and must look to nonprofit sectors to fill in the gaps (Berman, 2002).
Nonprofit Sector
So from the previous sectors you will notice a gap exists between services provided by the government and activities from which for-profit businesses make money. This gap is where nonprofits thrive in their direct services: problem solving social issues with a specific group of people or public concern within a community. A nonprofit organization is formed for the purpose of serving the public (like government), but privately operated (like for-profits) without the goal of generating profit for the organization (Renz, 2010). Ultimately, nonprofits pave an avenue for people to assemble and work toward bettering some of society's most critical issues.
Clearly, each sector depends on the other in order to effectively make social changes or do good. The good news is that there are infinite ways to do good as well as many opportunities for public, for-profit and nonprofit sectors to collaborate in serving society's needs.
References:
Berman, Howard J. 2002. Doing "Good" vs. Doing "Well": The Role of Nonprofits in Society. Inquiry 39: 5-11.
Renz, David O, ed. 2010. The Jossey-Bass Handbook of Nonprofit Leadership and Management. Jossey-Bass. San Francisco, CA.
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