What are "these" people so mad about? The answers aren't so complicated.

I want to tell you a personal story.

I went to a private K-8 school. Each year, I had a summer reading list, curated by my teacher. We built ships around our desks in fifth grade to study colonial times, and ended the year with a trip to Jamestown and Williamsburg. We put on musical plays, created dossiers in French class, and learned African drumming in "Movement." And then, my parents--who have always been committed to their community-- happily sent my siblings and me to public high school. They believed in all forms of education, and they knew I would be a more well-rounded person if I had a breath of experience. 

What To Know About 'How to Not Have' A Successful Collaboration

Organizational collaboration is expected these days. There's just simply not enough money to go around. And as we know more as a society, we require more. Unfortunately, research shows that resources are not keeping pace with these growing expectations. Thus, my generation of leaders must recognize that to manage, is to collaborate. For as we increase the number of problems we want to tackle, groups must join together to accomplish the mounting levels of work. Atul Gawande said it beautifully in his book, The Checklist Manifesto, "the complexity of the world has exceeded our capabilities as human beings."

Terms describing collaboration deem it: "best practice," "the way to eliminate waste" and "how to be greater together." Collaborations unite diverse missions and foster interorganizational relationships. Successful collaborations also reduce service duplication, plug service gaps and provide a comprehensive approach, which ultimately secures better outcomes (Sharma, 1998).

But what about those collaborations that turn out like an episode from survivor? Some organizations find themselves in a partnership that has more drama than they can handle. Frequently, this happens to groups that move forward without careful planning.

Let's consider a list of things that can go wrong without proper planning:

• chasing dollars over mission alignment
• underestimating overhead costs since programs always cost more than the money allotted
• overreach or, negligence
• founders syndrome
• vague objectives
• unhappy stakeholders

Case studies provide excellent examples of issues in the list above.
1. When the Timberland boot company connected with the nonprofit City Year, (Elias, 1996) the partnership suffered from poor planning. The CEO of the company moved forward quickly, and issues of founders syndrome, a misalignment of mission and vague objectives for the partnership left both parties in financial trouble.

2. In another case, the Department of Social Services in Boston asked a nonprofit called La Alianza to support the services they wanted to provide in the Latin@ community (Varley, 1996). Again without enough planning, trust eroded between the two organizations and the lines between both overreach and negligence were overstepped.

3. Lastly, in a case study from Seattle where the Seattle Art Museum and First Things First, a low income housing project, came together to raise awareness for two tax levy bills, missions became intertwined while in the pursuit of dollars (Fortier, 1996). Internal conflict at First Things First grew. Stakeholders became unhappy. Members worried about carrying the burden of work and these sentiments overwhelmed the benefits of the partnership.

Examples like these show that collaborations are not without their challenges. Certainly, these challenges are costly and exhausting for all parties involved. Poor planning and poor communication are serious issues. In turn, it goes without saying that my generation of leaders is tasked with learning how plan and manage for collaboration.

Elias, Jaan. (1996). “Timberland and Community Involvement.” Supervisor, James Austin. Harvard Business School Publishing. Boston, MA.
Fortier, Suzanne. (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, J. & Missey, A. (2008). How I learned to stop griping… And love collaboration. National Community Service Organization.

Varley, P. (1996). "Partners in Child Protective Services: The Department of Social Services and La Alianza Hispana." John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University.

Strategic Planning: The Process

Strategic planning is incredibly important for nonprofit organizations. It is good, proactive work that establishes a framework for organizational continuity. Strategic plans link decision making with the environment and in doing so, they make an organization more effective. They also allow for: coordination, communication, progress and evaluation in ways that cannot compare to doing so without a strategic plan. 

1. When an organization starts the strategic planning process, it is important that they focus first on their mission. What is the reason for it's existence? Since a mission defines what makes an organization unique, time should be spent finding the right words and phrasing. The right mission will serve as a constant reference point for the organization (Renz, 2010), thus, it should be prioritized.

• A few good methods for exploring mission include, brainstorming, nominal group technique and the implication wheel. All of these tools allow an organization to work through establishing the mission while including a variety of voices and opinions.

2. The next step is to perform internal and external analyses. Internal analyses examine staff capacity, the volunteer base, financial capital and organizational structure. External analyses evaluate the social and political environments and other outside factors that influence the organization. A focus on ideas and decisions that include what's going on in the external environment and not just within internal communications (Renz, 2010) will elevate the organization and link members to making an impact. Both of these must be explored in depth during the strategic planning process. 

3. Articulating a vision is also an important step in the process and since superior strategic planning prioritizes including all stakeholders, identifying a long-term vision with a larger audience can be a powerful experience. Diverse stakeholders not only bring more talent, more interest and more value to the organization, but they also provide cohesion and commitment (Kotter, 2006) in the long term. A nonprofit might start with one dedicated person, but with the right dialogue and engagement of stakeholders in the long-term planning process, that one will become 15 or 50--who together, are able to make a big impact. 

4. After the base of the plan has been examined, and the mission, external and internal assessments and vision have been defined, a nonprofit should focus on its strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOTs). Exploring SWOTs as a group will give problems the appropriate weight and context. SWOTs also allow an organization to recognize conflicting values and overlapping trends. Many nonprofits find that identifying SWOTs allows them to pinpoint weaknesses they thought they had shelved: problems articulated within a different paradigm or ignored all together. 

5. Good strategic planning processes also include--believe it or not--good strategy. Good strategy and well-thought out plans are essential for future success. When the team focuses on questions that are strategic, like: "what unique position are we in" or, "what will our cumulative effect be over time," they will move forward faster and further than if they planned with questions about steps or how-to's. Strategy allows nonprofits to take problems at the right time and in the right sequence. Then, plans conceptualize a way out. Plans provide a timeline with detailed benchmarks for implementation.

6. Lastly, if you start a plan with a clear vision of the expected outcome, you are more likely to succeed (United Way, n.d.). This is because backwards planning has direction, and in turn, takes a more efficient path. Planning evaluation measures from the start is no different. And evaluation is the last important step in the strategic planning process. Setting evaluations measures up front will keep expectations high. Some nonprofits tend to evaluate programs based on the context instead of on the vision, but articulating what the outcome should be in the first place will keep programs honest. Doing so will also make easy work of: forming benchmarks, rooting out misconceptions, and breaking down the abstract into manageable pieces. 

In sum, interacting with the strategic process moves organizations forward. It also shines light thru the darkest of holes. There’s no doubt that time spent upfront with planning is gained back in spades, and gained back for all stakeholders involved. Plus what's so cool about strategic planning is that it achieves the mundane in the process, like; helping individuals understand their colleagues' needs, working styles and personalities; improving methods and modes of communicating deadlines and; clarifying roles, which supports working norms, commitments and assignments for the staff, board and the community. For all of these reasons and many others, strategic planning is an absolute must for any nonprofit organization. 

• Kotter, J. (2006). Leading Change: Why Transformation Efforts Fail. Harvard Business Review. 
• Renz, David O. and Associates (2010).  Jossey-Bass Handbook of Nonprofit Leadership and Management. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
• “Strategic Planning Process.”  United Way of Dane County.  n.d. Retrieved from https://uwmad.courses.wisconsin.edu/d2l/le/content/2758471/fullscreen/16624199/View

Why We Avoid Change and What To Do About It

Dire realities for nonprofit organizations make change difficult-- and in some cases, nearly impossible. Let's not sugar coat anything here. Nonprofits are afraid to lose support or money. They are afraid to embrace the Herculean effort needed for change because planning, organizing, executing and evaluating is exhausting. They are afraid to shake things up because the majority of them operate without excess. Change isn't easy, but it can be unworkable when money controls all actions and the budget is tight. It's also not easy to shift away from the status quo at an organization because habits and leadership styles can become so ingrained that no one knows the root of the problem. Heard this story before? So, what's the magic bullet? How can an organization make change less difficult?Perhaps it lies in establishing a set of cultural norms up front.

For example, here's a list of five preventative cultural norms that an organization can adopt to be more amenable to change--more flexible, more prepared and happier with a constant state of flux:

1. Establish a culture of confidence
In a 1989 interview for The Harvard Business Review, Jack Welch, chairman and CEO of General Electric shared what he felt made him successful. Statements like: "Insecure managers create complexity, real leaders don't need clutter," (p. 112) and "don't get paralyzed about the 'fragility' of the organization... the best way to play your hand is to face reality--see the world the way it is and act accordingly" (pp. 113-114) are examples of the style of thinking that Welch and his team used in their working environments. Welch talked about candor, processes that focus on change and a commitment to a stimulating, free and adaptive atmosphere. All of these characteristics must be cultivated up front and they must be priorities for an organization to capitalize on the tide that change can bring.

2. Cultivate a culture of strategic intent 
A strategy similar to Welch's, outlined in the Harvard Buisness Review by authors Gary Hamel and C.K. Prahalad focuses on intent, strategic intent precisely. Strategic intent "is stable over time," it "sets a target that deserves personal effort and commitment," and it "captures the essence of winning" (p. 64). Challenges always stretch an organization, but if the working environment encourages competitive focus, an ongoing sense of urgency and appetite for quick adjustment, staff will find themselves more nimble and capable of quick adjustment.

3. Practice a culture of optimism

In the article Transformational Leadership, author Kim Cameron notes a number of optimistic mindsets that can be practiced and expected--on a daily basis at any organization. "Create preferences rather than respond to existing preferences," "focus on things-gone-right," "continuous improvement" and "offensively pursuing high-quality" (pp. 4-5). An organizational culture based on these tenets is to sure to be more comfortable weathering change.

4. Support a culture of variation
Kim Cameron's article also made a number of succinct references to how an organization creates readiness for change. Training and retraining staff members, changing up personnel, discussing opportunities and threats and using a new language to define old problems are all ways that an organization can enhance their change preparedness (pp.7-8). Doing so will provide staff members with the skills and tools to adjust to instability with less friction than doing so without practice.

5. Insist upon a culture that plans
David Renz et. al note in The Jossey-Bass Handbook of Nonprofit Leadership and Management that organizations with a strategic plan soar above those without one. The strategic planning process in itself brings staff, board and the community together in a way that anticipates change--and prepares for it. Strategic planning is a specific way that any organization can increase their preparedness for the future, which might just make the unknown a little less scary.


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

Charan, Ram and Noel Tichy. 1989. “Speed, Simplicity, Self-Confidence: An Interview with Jack Welch.” Harvard Business Review. No. 89513:110-120.

Hamel, Gary and C.K. Prahalad. 1989. “Strategic Intent.” Harvard Business Review No. 89308: 63-76.


Renz, David O, ed. 2010. The Jossey-Bass Handbook of Nonprofit Leadership and Management. Jossey-Bass. San Francisco, CA.