No more excuses: The pressing need for meaningful police reform

Collaboration: A Modern Reality of Problem-Solving

“Collaboration is not just another organizational skill. It is the hallmark—the distinguishing characteristic—of the future focused nonprofit.” —United Way Worldwide, 2008

In the nonprofit world, it is rare to find an issue with a simple fix. Rather, problems that nonprofits seek to address are increasingly complex. Take, for example, the issue of child maltreatment in our country—an issue that hundreds of nonprofit organizations across the country work to address. Obviously, there is no “quick fix” solution to child maltreatment; we can’t simply tell caregivers “don’t abuse your kids” and expect the problem to go away. Instead, decreasing child maltreatment incidence rates requires a broad spectrum of interventions (primary, secondary, and tertiary) at all levels of society (individual, community, and systems levels) and involving a plethora of services (parenting education, assurance of quality child care, public awareness campaigns, health services, child welfare interventions… the list goes on and on). Clearly, no single organization can meet all of these needs alone—almost definitely not at a community-level, and certainly not at more macro-levels. Instead, nonprofits who want to make large scale impacts (on this, or any other issue) must consider collaboration (Sharma & Missey, 2008; Varley, 1996).

Collaboration happens when groups make a commitment to work together toward a common objective (United Way Worldwide, 2008; Yankey & Willen, 2005). These collaborations can happen both within or across the three sectors of society (i.e., nonprofits, government, and for-profits), and, when done correctly, help to conserve resources, address issues in a more comprehensive way, identify service gaps, reduce service duplications, and “reduce conflicts by squarely addressing issues of competition and ‘turf’” (United Way Worldwide, 2008). Whatever the nature of the collaboration, success depends on developing and promoting a shared vision, a sound process, open communication, an atmosphere of trust, effective leadership, and, of course, hard work at both the procedural and systems levels (Sharma & Missey, 2008; Yankey & Willen, 2005).

Of course, collaboration comes with its own set of challenges. Yankey and Willen (2005) identify the following challenges to strategic alliance formation and implementation:

• Incompatible mission, vision, values, and/or culture. This issue is perhaps most apparent in collaborations across sectors, where each sector’s role is, by definition, unique and separate from that of the others. Take, for example, the collaboration between City Year (a nonprofit) and Timberland (a for-profit). From the get-go, there were issues of buy-in from both organizations due to perceived mission mismatch (Elias, 1996).
• Egos and turf issues. In our competitive society, many individuals and organizations believe that organizational survival should be pursued at any cost, and that, to be viable, an organization must remain totally independent. Failure to place a “shared mission and the good of the community above loyalty to one’s own agency” can derail potentially beneficial alliances (Yankey & Willen, 2005, p. 267)
• Cost. Both time costs (e.g., operationalizing the collaboration, establishing roles) and funding costs (e.g., costs of facilitation, systems integration), can be a major barrier to collaboration. Additionally, there may be differences of opinions around prioritizing funding (see, for example, the case of Seattle’s Art Museum and First Things First where there were differences of opinion over prioritizing funding needs) (Public Service Curriculum Exchange, 1996).

Despite these barriers, strategic alliances remain “the modern reality of collaborative problem-solving” (Salamon, 1999, p. 179) in response to society’s needs, and nonprofits should strive to be increasingly capable of working collaboratively with the business sector, the government, and each other.

References

United Way Worldwide. (2008). Best practices summary: Collaboration, coalition-building and merger.

Sharma, J. & Missey, A. (2008). How I learned to stop griping… And love collaboration. National Community Service Organization.

Varley, P. (1996). Partners in Child Protection Services: Department of Social Services and La Alianza Hispana. Kennedy School of Government Case Program.

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.

Elias, J. (1996). Timberland and community involvement. Harvard Business School.

Public Service Curriculum Exchange (1996). Funding Seattle’s Art Museum and low-income housing: The politics of interest groups and tax levies.

Salamon, L. M. (1999). America’s nonprofit sector: A primer. (2nd ed.) New York, NY: Foundation Center.

How to Implement a Strategic Plan

“Planning is bringing the future into the present so that you can do something about it now.” 

-Alan Lakein

I’ll be honest: when I was first introduced to the term “strategic planning,” I thought it was just another trendy business buzzword without any real, concrete applications… A term on the same level of meaninglessness as other buzzword bingo hits like “synergistic flow” and “hyperconnectivity.” However, I must admit that my first impressions were completely incorrect. This semester, I have had the good fortune of learning that strategic planning is much more than just another hyped up trend in business jargon. Instead, it is a thorough and comprehensive process that allows organizations to identify and respond to critical issues through action-oriented planning.

While the basic ideas behind the strategic planning process are relatively well established across the board, different organizations do employ slightly varied conceptualizations of the specific planning steps. For example, Forbes utilizes a five-step strategic planning process, whereas the Jossey-Bass Handbook proposes a more detailed, ten-step version. I personally prefer a sort of hybrid strategic planning model, based on both Brody’s (2005) work and the United Way of Dane County’s process. This approach breaks the strategic planning process down into eight concrete steps, as described below:

1. Come to a consensus around the need to implement a strategic planning process. This step entails organizing around a shared conviction that a strategic plan is necessary for your organization. Strategic planning is an intensive process, so it’s important to ensure that all relevant stakeholders agree that the benefits of a strategic plan outweigh the time cost. Without organizational buy-in, a strategic plan will not be optimally effective.
2. Form a strategic planning group. Strategic planning groups should be as inclusive as possible, preferably with representatives from all levels of the organization, as well as board members, funders, and other important stakeholders.
3. Clarify organizational missions and vision statements. In order to avoid mission drift, it is important for the strategic planning group to come to a strong consensus around organizational mission identification and vision statements.
4. Assess the external and internal environments to identify strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (a.k.a., SWOTs). In assessing the external environment, it’s important to consider social, economic, political, and technological influences that could impact the organization. Internal assessments should look at organizational capacities related to staff, finances, technology, structure, and information access. Finally, a SWOT analysis includes assessments of both internal conditions and external trends that have the potential to shape the organization’s future.
5. Identify the strategic issues facing the organizations. Strategic issues are high stake developments (internal or external) that the organization can exert influence over. Through collaborative discussions, the planning group can identify strategic issues and prioritize them through a probability and impact analysis.
6. Prepare action plans containing goals, implementation activities, and names of those accountable for follow-through. An action plan must be created to address each critical issue. Action plan goals should be measurable, attainable, and mapped to a timeline. In order to promote accountability, individual roles and responsibilities should be explicitly agreed upon, as well.
7. Implement the plan. The beauty of strategic plans is that they are designed to be flexible; organizations can modify strategic plans as needed based on circumstantial changes.
8. Evaluate the plan, reassessing strategies on a regular basis. Based on feedback measures, evaluate whether or not the plan is helping the organization reach its fullest potential. If it is not, the planning team must modify the plan to address any shortcomings.

References:

Brody, R. (2005). Strategic planning (Ch. 2), in Effectively Managing Human Service Organizations, Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications, 20-38.

Bryson, J. M. (2010). Strategic planning and the strategy change cycle (Ch. 9), in The Jossey-Bass Handbook of Nonprofit Leadership and Management, San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 204-230.

Strategic Planning Process: United Way of Dane County (n.d.)

Meeting New Needs Through Organizational Change

In a world where demands on the nonprofit sector shift rapidly, it seems counterintuitive that many organizational structures remain so resistant to change. As Donna Butts, Executive Director of Generations United, notes, the distinct goal of nonprofits is to serve a dynamic client population, and yet many nonprofits lack the mechanisms to adapt to changing needs (Gowdy, Hildebrand, La Piana, & Mendes Campos, 2009). Why is it, then, that necessary organizational changes are so difficult to implement? Several major reasons include:

• Staff burnout. When employees are already overwhelmed with responsibilities, overworked, or frustrated by previous organizational failures, it can be incredibly difficult to introduce new, additional responsibilities needed to implement change.
• Organizational politics. In deciding on the next best step for an organization, egos can collide, leading to a lack of consensus.
• Lack of effective planning. As Gallup Manager Leong Chee Tung reports, “Poorly defined objectives, milestones that seem impossible, and metrics that are unclear or not objective can further complicate a change process.”
• Unnecessary bureaucratic impediments. Effective change cannot be fully realized unless leadership is able to “speed decision cycles, move information through the organization, provide quick and effective feedback, and evaluate and reward managers on qualities such as openness, candor, and self-confidence” (Tichy & Charan, 1989, p. 114).

Despite these obstacles, it is clear that change is needed. As this ever-transforming nonprofit landscape continues to evolve, organizations must ensure that they have mechanisms in place to respond to contextual change and, subsequently, adapt to meet the challenges of emerging needs and demands. All of this, of course, begs the question: what exactly can leaders do to successfully drive organizational change? Fortunately, there are multiple successful strategies available for implementation, as outlined below:

1. Implement a strategic planning process. The strategic planning process defines detailed steps for developing a results-based accountability system (Bryson, 2010). Through a collaborative process, organizations are able to: a) define their organizational mission and vision, b) assess the planning environment, c) define strategic issues, d) complete probability and impact analyses, and, e) implement, monitor, and evaluate new action steps, agendas, and policies (2010). This process helps to minimize political differences, increase staff buy-in, and move beyond prior frustrations.

2. Promote diversity. Research clearly demonstrates that diverse groups and organizations had advantages over homogenous ones (Cox, Lobel, & McLeod, 1991; Mandell & Kohler-Gray, 1990). One particular advantage of a diverse organization is that diversity promotes creativity, driving dynamic, innovative strategies for new approaches to implementing change (Cox, 1994). Promoting diversity within organizations ensures that a variety of perspectives are brought to the table, thereby decreasing the likelihood that potential solutions to organizational stagnation will be overlooked.

3. Cultivate transformational leadership. Using Cameron’s (1991) Model of Transformational Leadership, individuals within organizations can create a readiness for change by implementing specific steps, such as comparing performance with standards, instituting symbolic events, and creating a common language.

4. Develop approaches based on strategic intent. Through the utilization of Hamel and Prahalad’s (1989) Model of Strategic Intent, leaders can establish criterion for: charting organizational progress, focusing the organization’s attention on succeeding, motivating employees, encouraging individual/team contributions, sustaining enthusiasm, and becoming increasingly intentional in resource allocation.

5. Invest in streamlining communication and feedback mechanisms. All too often, organizational change is fettered by a lack of efficiency in inter-organizational communication and feedback. It is crucial that leaders develop and implement communication and feedback loops to eliminate unnecessary bureaucratic lag (Tichy & Charan, 1989).

When each of these steps is implemented with fidelity, leaders will become better equipped to meet the rapidly changing challenges and demands of the nonprofit sector.

References:

Bryson, J. M. (2010). Strategic Planning and the Strategic Change Cycle. In D. O. Renz (Ed.), The Jossey-Bass Handbook of Nonprofit Leadership and Management (230-261).  San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Cameron, K. (1991). Transformational leadership. In Developing Management Skills. New York: Harper-Collins.

Cox, T. H. (1994). Diversity in organizations: Theory, research, and practice. San Francisco, CA: Berrett Koehler Publishers.

Cox, T. H., Lobel, S. A., & McLeod, P. L. (1991). Effects of ethnic group cultural differences on cooperative and competitive behavior on a group task. The Academy of Management Journal, 34(4), 827-847.

Gowdy, H., Hildebrand, A., La Piana, D., & Mendes Campos, M. (2009). Convergence: How five trends will reshape the social sector. In James Irvine Foundation: NonprofitNext.

Hamel, G. & Prahalad, C. K. (1989). Strategic intent. Harvard Business Review.

Mandell, B. & Kohler-Gray, S. (1990). Management development that values diversity. Personnel, 67(3).

Tichy, N. & Charan, R. (1989). Speed, simplicity, self-confidence. Harvard Business Review.

Filling the Void: The Unique Role of Nonprofits in Today's Society

As with most things political, President Obama’s latest State of the Union address was met with mixed reviews by members of the nonprofit world. While the folks at Nonprofit Quarterly were irate that Obama never overtly mentioned the role of nonprofit organizations in larger society, others perked up at the President’s allusion to the implementation of a higher estate tax—a move that is predicted to “spur more charitable giving in the form of bequests and charitable trusts.” But perhaps the most notable “nonprofit moment” of Obama’s speech was his explicit shout-out to a Minneapolis-based nonprofit, the Institute for Local Self Reliance.

  

Founded in 1974, the Institute for Local Self Reliance, or ILSR, has championed “the need for humanly scaled institutions and economies and the widest possible distribution of ownership.” In pursuit of this mission, ILSR must both collaborate and compete with government, for-profit business, and other nonprofits, on a variety of issues, including:

• Energy: ILSR lobbies government representatives to promote renewable energy and adopt a decentralized power grid that more equitably distributes the economic benefits of energy generation.

• Local Business: ILSR works with local businesses to revitalize commercial districts and combat market domination by corporate conglomerates. Additionally, businesses (and their employees) provide charitable donations to fund ILSR’s work.

• Waste Reduction: ILSR competes against other non-profit providers for federal grant funding to research a variety of waste reduction methods such as composting and recycling.

Although this is just one case example of a nonprofit’s functions, it is certainly representative of the larger scale relationship between government, nonprofits, and for-profit businesses across the country. Each of these three economic sectors is both interconnected and interdependent with respect to the others. We cannot fully understand the unique role of the nonprofit sector in today’s society without comparing and contrasting its role to that of the government and business sectors.

Nonprofits and government: Throughout our nation’s history, government has served to regulate society. However, the form and focus of government regulation fluctuates over time, contracting or expanding in response to public opinion around the appropriate limit of government intervention. However, as Berman (2002) explains, “as government’s role contracts, or remains constant, society’s needs do not contract automatically” (p. 6), requiring the nonprofit sector to consistently fill the gap between the regulations/services provided by government and the unmet social, economic, and educational needs presented by individuals and communities.

Nonprofits and business: Boards are the driving forces behind both nonprofits and businesses (Berman, 2002). These groups of members, through collective action, work toward a shared mission (2002). However, the missions of businesses and nonprofits differ with respect to motive. For-profit businesses exist to make money within the context of a market economy; nonprofits exist to serve the needs of society that cannot be met through economic competition alone (2002). While businesses can adopt a stance of corporate social responsibility, they are still inextricably tied to the goal of making a profit (2002). While nonprofits must also generate enough revenue to be sustainable, their goals, by definition, extend beyond that of making a profit, and instead function to realize society’s unmet social welfare, economic, and educational needs (2002).

Clearly, each of these three sectors plays an important role in our society. However, nonprofits are unique in their function of providing and equitably distributing collective goods and services demanded by citizens but not supplied by business or government. In this way, nonprofits essentially function to afford access to necessary resources not consistently provided by the other sectors.

Reference: Berman, H. J. (2002). Doing "Good" vs. Doing "Well:" The Role of Nonprofits in Society. Inquiry, 39, 5-11.