by Susan Detwiler | Feb 2, 2020 | collaboration, nonprofit
Anchor institution? Small and scrappy arts organization? Can working together vitalize both?
“Anchor institutions†are the major, long-standing nonprofit organizations. Hospitals, universities, United Way, community foundations. They work hard to be engines of growth for their communities, often buying from local and/or minority and/or women-owned businesses, re-purposing old buildings, employing more local individuals. Economic drivers.
But what about the arts?
This article from Non-Profit Quarterly shows that anchor institutions frequently ignore cultural-, social-, and community-based methods of building up the community. Meanwhile, arts and cultural institutions such as museums, artist groups and specialty theater groups, have been using non-economic methods for years.
Cultural institutions – especially smaller, younger ones — also struggle to revitalize their communities while avoiding gentrification.
In the words of the author, “with an explicit equity focus, this result can be avoided.â€Â Anchor institutions and cultural institutions can learn from each other.
Regardless of which kind of nonprofit you are – a large, anchor institution or a cultural institution – if one of your strategic goals is to build a stronger, vital community, this article has food for thought.
If a you want to have a board session to assess your role in revitalization – or any other aspect of planning — please let me know. I’m happy to talk.
Watch for more posts about important articles. If you see an article you think everyone should read, please send it on. Or if you want to talk about facilitation, governance or planning for your organization, I’d love to have that conversation.
More eyes – more articles – more wisdom!
-Susan Detwiler
by Susan Detwiler | Sep 11, 2018 | collaboration, leadership, nonprofit
Everyone talks about collaboration, but when collaboration fails, do we really analyze what happened? Or do we pretend we’re analyzing what happened, but are actually assigning blame?
I love this article. In this 2014 Harvard Business Review article by Nick Tasler, he points out two simple explanations for how things go wrong. Simple, of course, once you hear them.
First – do you all agree on what you’re trying to do?Â
You may think you all know what you’re collaborating for, but have you really stated it explicitly? I’ll take it further. Have you defined what success looks like? You may be saying, “we need to fix the student problem,†and everyone will nod and get to work. But what does a ‘fixed student problem’ look like? Unless you all agree on what it looks like, then you won’t be able to make decisions between multiple alternatives.
Second – how are you going to make a final decision?
Tasler’s article puts it in terms of who will make the decision, but the more universal way of looking at is how will you make a decision. With multiple collaborators, you need to decide that up front, before you get into the weeds.
To answer these two basic questions, your group may need an external person to guide the conversation – someone from another department, another organization, or a professional facilitator. You want to make sure everyone is heard and there’s a final agreement.
Nick Tasler wrote from the perspective of multiple teams in the same corporation. But what he says is valid within nonprofits, as well. And all the more so when you’re talking about collaborating with other organizations.
- Be explicit about what you’re collaborating about.
- Agree on how final decisions will be made.
Until you have both of those, expect a lot of time spent spinning wheels.
Interested in hearing how a facilitator can help smooth the way? Send me a note and we can have a conversation.
by Susan Detwiler | May 30, 2017 | collaboration, inclusion, leadership
How well did you know the other people on your board before they (or you) joined?
Were you good friends? Did you live near each other? Did you work together? If you’ve read this blog for a while, you’ll probably expect me to tell you – again – that boards need diversity.  It helps with innovation, it avoids tokenism, it promotes sustainability.
I’m not the only one writing about it. Many studies, like here and here, show that diversity increases the success of a group or an organization. Whether we say we need diverse viewpoints, diverse backgrounds, diverse experiences, or diverse voices, it all translates into this: groups perform better in the long run if they are not homogeneous.
Network analysis gives us an insight into why this might be especially true when it comes to finding knowledge and resources.
Mark Granovetter posited that information flows through weak ties more than through strong ties. If you travel in the same circles and have the same friends, you are said to have strong ties with each other. If you happen to know someone whose circle is different, but don’t interact frequently with them, you are said to have weak ties.
These acquaintances are exposed to different ideas and different information than you are. So when you interact with these acquaintances, you are then exposed to new information that your strong ties do not have. In the words of Skye Bender-deMoll,
“although your close friend may work harder to help you get a new job, it is likely to be an acquaintance that actually gets you a useful lead.â€
Let’s extrapolate that to your organization. If most of the board travels in the same circles, their knowledge of resources is more likely to be similar than when members of the board come from diverse communities.
But if different members of the board have different networks, they bring those networks with them when they come to the board table. Along with their different experiences, they bring different knowledge and different entrees to resources.
As boards emerge from the founding stage, they tend to seek people with ‘deep pockets,’ implying that money is the only resource that matters. However, dollars are only one kind of resource; they are often a proxy for the resources that are really needed. They seek dollars because dollars can buy the resources that are needed to fulfill the mission: staff, rent, supplies. But resources come in many forms: community good will, contacts with particular skills, potential clients, individuals with elbow grease, advocates in different communities.
In many cases, the tangible resources themselves are available, without having to expend dollars – if you have the contacts that can bring them in.
By diversifying the composition of your board, you increase the number of weak ties for your organization. Weak ties multiply the opportunities for finding and developing resources that make it possible to fulfill your mission.
Why is diversity on your board important? More voices, more viewpoints, AND MORE KNOWLEDGE AND RESOURCES.
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by Susan Detwiler | Oct 24, 2016 | collaboration
“That’s the way things are always done.†“It’s too big to move.†“It’s too hard to change.â€
We hear these statements all the time. The group comes up with a lofty goal, and the naysayers start their work.
- We don’t have enough staff to do that.
- The ship is already moving in one direction; we can’t change now.
Are you sure?
Last month, I toured the Kalmar Nyckel, a replica of the 141 foot long 17th century Dutch Pinnace that carried Peter Minuit and the founders of Ft. Christina – now New Castle, Delaware – in a 2-1/2 month journey across the Atlantic from Sweden.  Carrying about 50 people in a ship whose deck was only 93 feet long, the ship made at least 4 round trips across the Atlantic, and was then outfitted for naval duty.
Each anchor on the Kalmar Nyckel weighs 900 pounds, far too heavy for individuals to even join together to hoist. But a simple machine, the windlass, magnifies their strength 10X.
Working together, the sailors inserted levers into the horizontal windlass, pushed down, and repositioned the levers, continuing the process to hoist and lower the anchor, or hoist topmasts and yards too unwieldy to manage alone.
In the 17th century, and for millennia well before that, humanity already had the tools to magnify our strength. Together.
In the 21st century, our machines may be different, but they are still tools that can magnify our strengths. Especially when we work together.
One of the greatest assets an organization has is the people who can see beyond their own strengths, to the possibilities of engaging others with complementary strengths. Using technology, we are now able to meet people who share our vision, even if they don’t live in walking distance. They may not be on the same ship as we are, but we can still work together to do big things.
Board members need to be able to see that path. We constantly talk about our organization’s finite resources, without recognizing that in our daily lives we already magnify our resources by working together. As individuals, we ask for help when needed; we plan trips and parties with others.
The next step is to apply that same thinking to the whole organization. When faced with a lofty goal, the response is not, “We can’t do that.†The response is “Who else can we bring into this to make it possible?â€
What big things can we do if we engage with others, using our 21st century tools? Instead of letting the naysayers affirm the status quo, board members can ask – how can we make it possible?
What leverage can YOU apply to make big things happen?
by Susan Detwiler | Dec 6, 2014 | collaboration, Communication, governance, leadership, Strategic Planning
Congratulations! You’ve built a board with members of every decade of adult life. You have 20-somethings, 50-somethings, 70-somethings, and every decade in between.
Now, how do you strategically take advantage of the fresh ideas while integrating them into existing relationships?
Losing institutional knowledge has dramatic consequences. Leonard, Swap and Barton researched the consequences in corporations, with great lessons for nonprofits. Losing the knowledge of a resident board expert can mean losing key relationships with donors, losing key background on why the community is wary of the agency, not knowing whom to call in important government offices, missing important foundation meet and greets. These relationships were built up over time and the proverbial Rolodex – or CRM – can’t help.
By having a spread of ages on the board, you’ve made these consequences a lot less likely. Since you didn’t wait until all the incumbents retired, you now have a fertile field for collaboration between old and new. Make mentoring a new board member part of the portfolio of existing members and you take a step in the right direction. Ask board members to take new members with them when they meet with donors, foundations and community representatives.
Don’t be afraid that this implies to the world that the older board member is on the way out. Not at all – quite the opposite. It conveys to the community that you have succession planning built into the ethos of the agency. It builds trust. It builds confidence in the longevity of the organization. When the older member leaves the board, the new member already has a budding relationship with the foundation.
Internally, pairing new and returning board members builds trust between them. It’s hard to view an older member as a dinosaur when you’ve spent time with her one-on-one and learned her philosophy of building relationships. It’s hard to view a new member as an upstart when you’ve spent time hearing his new ideas and exchanged thoughts on how to execute them.
The relationships continue when the older board members leave. The trust they’ve built allows newer board members to continue calling on retired members, keeping them engaged. It’s a win-win-win for the organization, the board, and the individuals involved.
Putting different generations on a board together is a great first step. Building a team out of them requires strategic thought, but the benefits are manifold.
For more about nonprofit succession planning, board education and facilitation, go to www.detwiler.com, or get in touch with me directly at sdetwiler@detwiler.com. If you have an experience to share, let me know!
by Susan Detwiler | Nov 22, 2014 | collaboration, Communication, leadership, nonprofit, Strategic Planning
Where there is no gratitude, there is no meaningful movement; human affairs become rocky, painful, coldly indifferent, unpleasant, and finally break off altogether. The social ‘machinery’ grinds along and soon seizes up.
Margaret Visser
Thanksgiving is an obvious time to write about being thankful, and it’s nice to have a time to stop and consider all that we have to be grateful for. We think about our friends, our family, our health.
It’s also not such a bad time to stop and contemplate how awesome your board is, and how much they’ve contributed to the well being of your organization.
When was the last time you thanked your board members? They’re each making your agency a priority in their lives, giving time, talent and treasure. They could be giving it somewhere else. They could also NOT be giving. But there they are, week after week, month after month, making difficult decisions, acting as cheerleaders, supporting your work, being ambassadors for your agency.
Each board member is the equivalent of a major donor. Whether or not the dollars are substantial, she has the capacity to make your life easier, introduce you to supporters, provoke new ideas, stabilize a situation. She should be told how much she means to you.
Here’s a simple exercise. If you’re the Executive Director, the next time you write a thank you note to a donor, also write one to a board member. Do that until you’ve written one to every member of your board. If you’re the board president, sit down and hand write a thank you note to each board member. If you can, name a specific action for which you are grateful.
Do you want to cultivate an attitude of gratitude within the board? At each meeting, assign one or two board members to offer a very brief statement of gratitude around the organization. It might be why they are grateful the organization exists. It might be what they appreciate about a staff member. It might be what committee they are particularly grateful to.
In many faith traditions, there is the concept “do not withhold the wages of the laborer.†It’s obvious how that applies to staff, but the wages of a volunteer are less obvious.
The wages of a volunteer – the wages of your board members – are the thanks he receives for his work.
Happy Thanksgiving!
The psychology of gratitude and its benefits are being researched throughout the fields of education, and migrating to the business world. Some readings on gratitude can be found at gratefulness.org.
Visionary strategic planning is easier when board members are comfortable with each other. Exercises in gratitude are one way to facilitate this trust. For more about strategic planning and facilitating retreats, please contact me at sdetwiler@detwiler.com or www.detwiler.com.
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