The Friday Four: Links to End the Week

Thanks to all of the Perspectives readers for following this week's discussion of African American nonprofit leadership. Today's Friday Four will end the week with a nice little throwback of earlier posts I wrote on this topic, way before so many folks were reading the blog. Enjoy and have a great weekend!

Leadership Spotlight: Meet Van Jones, Ella Baker Center for Human Rights

Four Things the NAACP Needs to Do Now

Blogging From Black Philanthropy: We Have to Fund the Revolution

Leadership Spotlight: Meet Harlem Children's Zone's Geoffrey Canada


Photo by Leo Reynolds

Why Should Young African Americans Be Afraid to Lead? This Ain't Little Rock.

I keep reflecting on Cornel West's words, "Our people and our country need more statesmen (and stateswomen), as statesmanship is qualitatively different than the garden-variety leadership that we’re experiencing." There is a critical need for the kind of courageous leadership that we saw during the Civil Rights movement. We know that back in the Civil Rights days, Black folks had to fight to be heard, and the integrity and courage to speak out was held as a prerequisite for leading the movement. So what happened?

Is it still hard to lead today? Sure, but it's much easier when you don't have White people spitting on you and burning crosses on your lawn. (Yeah, I said it. Let's keep it real with our past, even as we move forward.) Racism still exists in this country, but times are much better for young people who want to make a difference in the world. I was struck today by a Newsweek article about the 50th anniversary of school integration in Little Rock, Arkansas. The nine Black schoolchildren endured horrific conditions just for trying to get an education in 1957. These days, signing up for somebody's school is as easy as the click of a mouse button, but for some reason we are not seeing the same kind of transformational leadership result from contemporary education that we saw during the Civil Rights movement. What's up with that? Statistics show that about 40% of Black high school graduates are enrolling in college each year, presumably leaving universities as well-prepared civic contributors to society. So where are all of these young African Americans within the social sector? Are young people really aspiring to create the kind of widespread change that the generations before us fought for?

By now, everyone in America has heard of the Jena Six and the disheartening state of race relations unfolding in Jena, Louisiana. Black folks everywhere are mad as hell. But are we mad enough to lead? Look, I admire Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson and the other celebrities at the helm of the protests, but they should not be the only African American leaders in this country speaking out for these issues. In every city, there are unsung heroes doing critical work to keep our communities flourishing, however most leaders today seem to be of the "garden variety" that Cornel West warns us about.

I think young nonprofit leaders in this country have an opportunity to take a stand and speak out with courage and passion on the issues that matter to us, as many of our current leaders are not taking up that torch. I heard Pablo Eisenberg and Eddy Morales from the Center for Community Change speak recently at Georgetown, and they taked about passing the torch of leadership to the younger generation. Pablo reminded us that leadership and challenge go hand in hand, that real leadership is passionate, courageous, and zealous. Looking through this lens, Pablo talked about how ironic it is that so many of our current leaders:

• don't speak out on controversial issues
  
• don't go on the record with press or the media
• don't criticize their colleagues or other sectors for unethical behavior

Eddy Morales also talked about issues concerning young leaders involved in social change. He asserted that young people need to act when we see something that's injust or unfair in our communities. Our work in life should be deeper than a paycheck; it should revolve around a passion to change something. I keep wondering what it is it that's holding us back? This ain't 1957, and this ain't Little Rock. There's no reason for us to sit back and let injustice plague our communities.

This week, I also met a sister named Tambra Stevenson, a young Black woman leading the Next Wave Action Summit in DC April 4-6, 2008. The motto of the summit is "lead, ride, or be left behind". I heard that! Please check her out and join the movement. We all should be striving to be the next wave.

Notes From "Who's Got Next"

Over 100 people in the nonprofit sector and philanthropy gathered yesterday afternoon for the first summit of it’s kind called Who's Got Next? Addressing the Leadership Crisis Among African-American Nonprofit Organizations. The panelists included:

• Alandra Washington, Kellogg Foundation
• Michael Watson, Girl Scouts USA
• Dr. William Pollard, former President of University of DC
• Wanda Jackson, National Urban League
• Yolanda Hunter, HR consultant
• Phyllis Wallace, American Humanics
• Patrick Corvington, Annie E. Casey Foundation
• …and myself

We discussed the need for more diversity in the sector, recruiting and retaining the next generation of leaders, the war on talent, succession planning, and leadership development strategies for students and other nonprofit professionals.

The best thing about the summit is that so many of the right people were in attendance that can help turn this issue around. Nonprofit practitioners and funders alike are beginning to understand the importance of recruiting and retaining top talent in nonprofits that serve communities of color. Here are some highlights from the conversation:

• Many of the issues facing African American leadership gaps are the same across the board for the nonprofit sector in general
• In order to recruit future leaders of color, we need to offer fair salaries and benefits, professional development and leadership opportunities, and opportunities for advancement, even in small organizations
• Diversity needs to be a top priority of the Board and CEO
• We need to screen our search firms and temp agencies to make sure that they will go the extra mile in seeking out qualified candidates of color
• It is a huge challenge to recruit people of color for fundraising and communications/marketing positions
• Nonprofits and foundations need to move beyond the “usual networks” to find people of color to fill positions, “intent” is not good enough
• There’s a “war for talent” and we need to promote the nonprofit sector as a viable career choice
• It’s hard for philanthropy to address this issue through grantmaking, as capacity building dollars are drying up
• We need to leverage the largely untapped the leadership networks of churches and fraternities/sororities
• We will have to address the issue of student debt if we want to attract college graduates to our organizations
• Over 60% of nonprofits don’t have a succession plan. We need to build a culture of leadership development and succession planning within our organizations.
• Nonprofit leaders who are ready to retire will need solutions to their empty or nonexistent retirement accounts so they can actually afford to leave
• More general operating support of nonprofits is needed so nonprofits can spend more “overhead” on leadership development for staff to begin building the pipeline

Another great thing is that the organizers plan to revisit this issue next year, focused on action to address these important issues.

Meet Rebecca Anderson: Representing the Future of African American Nonprofit Leadership

Talk to Rebecca Anderson about the need for more people of color in the nonprofit sector, and her eyes light up with excitement and passion. It's not hard to tell that she is excited to be part of the solution to ensure that we create more diversity within community leadership in the Washington, DC area from the boardroom to the nonprofit front lines. Rebecca is the Program Manager for the African American Nonprofit Network, whose mission is to increase the effectiveness of nonprofit organizations by (i) increasing the talent flow, development, and retention of African American leaders in nonprofit organizations, particularly those serving children and families in the National Capital Region and (ii) building a pool of potential board members, investors, advisors, mentors and others that would provide a more robust network of leadership support.

Rebecca holds an MBA and has worked previously in the for-profit world at Wachovia Bank. She recently came to the nonprofit sector to work at AANN. She is driven and effective in her Program Manager role and her office is also conveniently located in the suite near mine! So I had the opportunity to have lunch with Rebecca recently as she shared her journey from for-profit to nonprofit as well as her vision for herself and the sector in the future.

Rosetta Thurman: How did you make your way into the nonprofit sector?

Rebecca Anderson: After working in the for-profit sector for three years, I was starting to feel like my work did not have a purpose. I was spending very long hours assisting with banking mergers and software application deployment but that was not enough to fulfill me, I wanted to work at an organization that gave back to more than themselves. The best way I knew to do that was enter into the nonprofit sector, that's how I discovered and was hired to AANN.

RT: What is your current position and day-to-day work?

RA: My daily work as Program Manager currently includes running all of AANN’s organizational programs, assisting both internal and external customers, technology support and upgrades and supporting the organization’s Executive Director Wanda Pierce.

RT: What is your educational background and area of expertise?

RA: I received a B.S. in computer engineering from Johnson C. Smith University and my MBA from Strayer University. My areas of expertise include project & program management.

RT: What kinds of leadership roles do you aspire to in the future?

RA: Wow... big question :-) Professionally, to continue to work in the nonprofit sector. Presently, to see AANN progress into a national organization, with regional offices throughout the country. I plan to be involved in a senior leadership position within the organization. Personally, I aspire to become a DC City Council Member.

RT: Do you think young people of color are involved enough in the nonprofit sector, or are we around, but just "working in the background'? How could we get more involved?

RA: Because I myself am so new to this sector, I am speaking from a very immature view. That said, from what I have seen so far I would have to say young people are not involved enough in the nonprofit sector. I think a part has to do with the stigma about being in the nonprofit sector, that the money is scarce and the opportunities are limited. This is true in all sectors of work, not just nonprofits. As a young person I struggled with the decision to make less money but be fulfilled and compensated in other areas, or to make the salary I desired and dread waking up in the morning. I took the first choice.

Although there are young people in the forefront making a face in nonprofits, it’s not enough. I see more of us sitting back and letting the generations before us make the decisions that are affecting the age groups we are closer to.

Young people will first have to face the fact that we too have a responsibility; it’s not just the older generation’s problem to make a difference. I do think that there will need to be some mentor/mentee partnership to get this going but it can be done.

RT: What would you like to see changed in our communities of color? How could nonprofits or foundations contribute to that change?

RA: I can go on and on :-) but I won't. The main thing I would like to see changed is ACCOUNTABILITY. Yes African Americans have had to fight and we are continuing to fight for equality and opportunity, but somewhere it seems we have lost accountability for what we must do to ensure that our communities continue to progress, and not fall behind. We have to start to re-invest our dollars into our communities, make sure that our children's education is not slighted regardless of government decisions. We have to be accountable of teaching the younger generation how to be leaders in the community, starting by supporting our current leaders. Lastly, getting involved in leadership roles whether for compensation or volunteerism (i.e. board membership), it is vital that our community sees us giving back.

Glass Ceiling for Nonprofit Leaders of Color? I Think Not.

Last month, a reporter from the Chronicle of Philanthropy called to interview me for an article he was doing about the glass ceiling blocking advancement for people of color working in nonprofits. Apparently, the Chronicle is working on an October issue about diversity in the nonprofit sector. Yet I was very surprised by this particular angle, however, as I have not experienced this "glass ceiling" issue at all in terms of being a person of color, nor have I heard gripings about it from my peers. But perhaps I'm just not at the level yet where a racialized glass ceiling is an issue for me. It seems to me that if you're the right age and have the right skills, most nonprofits are chomping at the bit to hire you for an open leadership position. It would be interesting to hear what other people think about the issue, but in my opinion, the reporter had it all wrong.

Debunking the Myth

I don't think Black nonprofit leaders are being turned down for top positions in favor of Whites. What I do think is that we are not throwing our hats in the ring for these positions enough (because of low salaries or misconceptions about the nonprofit sector), and therefore are not being placed in them. I also think that top positions in nonprofits serving communities of color are hard to come by because the current leaders stay in those positions for a long time. This is compounded by ill-informed Boards who rely on search firms to find Presidents and Executive Directors (who usually end up being White) instead of promoting leaders of color from within.

No Promotion for You

Yes, there is certainly a lack of color within the top ranks of leadership at most nonprofits across the country, perhaps not unlike the dearth of diversity in for-profit companies. And we definitely need to deal with that. But the key issue, here, however, and I think it is unique to nonprofits, is that somebody lied when they coined the phrase, "There's nowhere to go but up." For most nonprofit workers, there's just nowhere to go, period. How can there be a glass ceiling for promotion when opportunities for promotion rarely exist? My point is, that before we can focus on racial barriers to mobility, we need to first talk about the barriers to mobility in itself. It's disheartening to work in a nonprofit for years, and never get the chance to move up to a leadership position because the only opportunity to advance lies in the retirement of your President, who will likely work until she is 80. In other words, we need to realize that the glass ceiling is quickly being replaced with a gray ceiling that keeps younger workers from being promoted at their jobs.

Many folks have accurately pointed out that baby boomers and older managers are not leaving their positions like they used to. People are retiring later and so those top management jobs are being held hostage by our predecessors. Michele Martin even advises the next generation of leaders not to hold our breath waiting for baby boomers to hand over their jobs. Look, I'd love to get promoted in my organization, but guess what? The only advancement opportunity is to Executive Director, and you better believe my boss is not going anywhere anytime soon.

Let's Ask the Real Question: Why?

Anyway, what the reporter should have been asking instead was why there is such a lack of diverse nonprofit leadership in organizations all around the country, considering that many of these same nonprofits serve communities of color, instead of assuming it is because there is this "glass ceiling". Why, even here in Washington, DC - colloquially referred to as "Chocolate City" for its high number of Black residents (over 60%) - many executive directors and CEOs of nonprofit organizations that serve predominantly Black or Latino communities are predominantly White. Allow me to illustrate:

Susie Kay, Founder of Hoop Dreams

Chip Patterson, Executive Director of DC Creative Writing Workshop

Darin McKeever, Executive Director of Heads Up

J.B. Schramm, Founder and Executive Director of College Summit

What's Going On?

Hey, I'm not knocking anybody for having a passion and starting a nonprofit no matter what their ethnicity, but clearly the nonprofit sector needs to get serious about diversity instead of using it as a buzzword. In many cases, there are some very important, historical reasons why boardrooms are full of Whites, even when we are primarily serving people of color. One issue is that many forms of leadership by people of color are not respected in contrast to those of Whites. For instance, church leadership and in-the-trenches learning experiences are often not valued as much as advanced degrees or monied backgrounds. And since people of color are often still seen as takers of charity instead of empowered citizens, having White leaders only reinforces this notion. There are other reasons to promote diversity within nonprofit leadership, but the point is that we need to start openly talking about these reasons more so we can begin to really and truly open up our boardrooms and executive positions to different kinds of leaders. Education and cultural competency for Boards and executive search firms will be key if we want to engage in any meaningful way.

A Few Suggestions...

• Stop using these over-priced executive search folks as a substitute for boards to avoid their duty of finding great pools of diverse leaders for their organizations
• Begin looking inside our organizations for emerging leaders with immense potential and passion for the cause
• Change the name of the game from courting White corporate sector leaders to investing in the leaders of color already within our organizations

My hope is that folks in the sector, including funders, will continue to press this issue of electing leaders that represent the diversity and experiences of the communities we serve. What do you think? Was the reporter right about the "glass ceiling"?

Image credit: Flickr user echotek77

Addressing the African American Leadership Crisis

We are facing a crisis in the quality of leadership in our country. Our people and our country need more statesmen (and stateswomen), as statesmanship is qualitatively different than the garden-variety leadership that we’re experiencing.

- Cornel West

This week in DC, American Humanics and Nonprofit HR Solutions are hosting a panel discussion called Who's Got Next? Addressing the Leadership Crisis Among African-American Nonprofit Organizations. If you're in town, I highly recommend you attend this important conversation about the leadership issues facing nonprofits serving communities of color. It will be interesting to hear the views of representatives from the NAACP, Urban League, Kellogg Foundation, Girl Scouts, and Annie E. Casey Foundation. My role on the panel is to provide the perspective of an emerging leader, and I hope to be able to shed some light on our views on this subject. In light of my preparation for this discussion, this week Perspectives From the Pipeline will focus solely on African American nonprofit leadership. You will hear commentary about the current state of affairs, responses to assumptions on this topic, and get introduced to some awesome established and emerging leaders of color doing great work in the sector.

Some of the questions to be taken up at this week's panel include:

The nonprofit sector is lagging behind in attracting and retaining a diverse workforce. What has worked in your organizations, what hasn’t worked, and why?

What can we do to attract more African-Americans to the nonprofit sector and what can we do to keep them once they’ve made that decision?

What are your organizations doing to cultivate African-American leadership within your ranks? If any member of Senior Management were to leave your organization today – either voluntarily or involuntarily – what mechanisms are in place to ensure that you have diverse pool of candidates, including African Americans, to fill these positions?

Share what your organization is doing to positively impact the issue of African-American leadership within your organizations (Board, Sr. Management, Mid-Management.)

Stay tuned! I hope you will join the conversation - what are your thoughts on these issues?

Who Wants to Be a Martyr?

As part of the preparation for the Take Back Your 9-5! Women's Career Empowerment Retreat, a fellow nonprofit colleague emailed me this nugget of wisdom:

Most of us tend to overlook taking care of ourselves as we get caught up in taking care of our organizations/colleagues/clients/etc. Developing a community of professional women in the nonprofit world who validate and encourage each other in the area of self care would be a great start toward dismantling the martyr culture in the nonprofit sector.

Some of you may be scratching your heads right now. Martyr culture? Yep, right here in our very nonprofit sector of helping others and empowering the homeless and poverty-stricken, in our missions of assisting the elderly and pushing our youth to succeed, most of us behave like we are the victims within our own organizations. How many times have you heard people say, "If I didn't kill myself working 70 hours a week, there's no way everything would get done around here." Or, "I'm so bummed I had to come in to the office last weekend to write 30 grant proposals and missed seeing my favorite band perform in concert." Or my favorite, "My nonprofit takes up so much of my time, I really don't have much of a personal life." This is all the behavior consistent with the definition of a martyr: one who suffers for the sake of principle or for a particular cause.

But how can this be? Most of us came to the nonprofit sector because we want to help our communities, not put ourselves in misery for a job that requires long hours and low pay. But that's exactly what many of us do, myself included. We often don't realize that, as my best friend likes to say: it's really not that serious. The work that has to be done can, and will get completed if you live your life like a normal person. Your nonprofit will not fall apart if you take a vacation or ask for a raise. I know you may not have realized that you exhibit the behavior of a martyr, but if you think that by working in nonprofit, you deserve sympathy or admiration for sacrificing your own happiness, comfort, etc., honey you fit the bill. My advice? Nonprofit workers need to get over ourselves and stop playing the victim of small budgets, short staff, and weak leadership. It's not your fault, and you don't have to overcompensate for the sins of the nonprofit sector.

Still in denial? Then let's play a little "you might be a martyr if..." shall we?

You might be a martyr in your nonprofit if:

• You stay later than everyone else as a commitment to "the work" or "the mission"


• You sneer at any staff who leave the office by 5pm


• You think you are indispensable


• You can't remember the last time you took a real vacation (i.e. at least a week away from the office doing something utterly relaxing and totally unrelated to work)
  
• You come in to work even when you're sick as a dog


• You never ask for salary increases because you want to preserve as much money in the budget for the programs as possible


• You look 10 years older than you really are

So, please for goodnesss sakes, don't be a martyr. It's OK to have a life. There's no reason you need to suffer for the sake of your nonprofit's cause. It ain't cute and it damn sure ain't helping the communities you serve.

Ready to stop being a martyr? Come join us in DC at the Take Back Your 9-5! Women's Career Empowerment Retreat! Also, if you're a woman who wants to grow and get empowered with a great community of ambitious and supportive professionials, come check us out at Beyond the Glass Ceiling. There's no better way to get ahead than to support ourselves.

How to Kickstart Your Nonprofit Career in 7 Days

Professional development is so important it should be done on a weekly basis. Each week, you should be doing something to further your career. However, if you're just getting started, the possibilities can be daunting. The good news is that you can do a lot in just a week's time!

Day 1: Polish Your Public Speaking Skills
Join your local Toastmasters. These groups can help you perfect your speaking skills as well as form a peer learning network. Or you could even sign-up to recite poetry at an open mic poetry reading in your community. The point is that you get comfortable with speaking to groups, because you will be expected to do this as a nonprofit leader and people will respect you for it.

Day 2: Join a Board of Directors
Board membership and leadership can bring credibility to your reputation as a leader as well as give you valuable skills you are not getting right now at your current nonprofit job. So - what causes are you passionate about besides the nonprofit you work for? Take a few moments to list a few skills you would bring to a nonprofit board, perhaps one smaller than yours. Could you help lead a fundraising committee or serve as a Treasurer? Sign up for accounts at boardnetUSA and Idealist.org to find volunteer board opportunities. A few quick emails and resume attachments later and you’re done.

Day 3: Become an Expert
Knowing is half the battle. No matter what your age, people respect a know-it-all. But with today’s technology, you don’t have to read the whole library of books on youth development or homeless populations or free clinics. You can pick and choose bits of information to take in to help build your expertise on your field. Set up Google Alerts for the topics you want to learn about and get quick doses of information on a daily or weekly basis from the web or from blogs.

Day 4: Ask for Feedback
If you don’t know how you’re doing, it’s next to impossible to improve your performance, let alone your skills. And who wants to wait 6 months to a year to know if they need to brush up on their organizational skills or interpersonal communications? Set a meeting with your boss and let him or her know you’re looking for some constructive feedback to help you do your job better in between reviews. Your boss will be impressed with your initiative and you’ll reap the benefit of knowing exactly what you need to do right now to get ahead.

Day 5: Learn Someone Else's Job
Good leaders need to be well-rounded to be prepared for any problem that needs to be solved. It pays to pursue learning opportunities outside of your job description. If you’re a development director, sign up to take a class in finance and budgeting or evaluation. If you’re a volunteer manager, try your hand at marketing or strategic planning. Visit your state nonprofit association to get a listing of current learning opportunities. Pick one and sign up.

Day 6: Expand Your Network
Get LinkedIn. This online social network can easily hook you up with that potential mentor you met at the annual conference. We meet folks all the time and forget to use their business cards, but LinkedIn makes it easy to keep in touch with folks you may want to work with in the future. And speaking of conferences, they are the ultimate network builder. You can meet a lot of people quickly in your desired field. Visit the nonprofit management wiki for links to conferences and other similar professional development opportunities. Sign up early to get cheaper rates and apply for scholarships if they are available.

Day 7: Join a Professional Association
There’s a nonprofit association for everything now. Visit this page to get started. The membership fees may seem a little steep for some associations, but you can’t beat the instant network it provides, as well as ongoing learning opportunities and conferences. And professional affiliations speak volumes on a resume.

Of course it always helps to have cheerleaders on your side. Join me, Michele Martin, and the other participants of the Take Back Your 9-5! Women's Career Empowerment Retreat over at our online Ning community. We're all trying to go beyond the glass ceiling. Are you?

Preparing to Go Beyond Your Current Nonprofit Role

If you work in a nonprofit and are under 30, chances are you're not in a particularly influential leadership position. Chances are, you're either in a heavily administrative position, like an 'assistant' or an 'associate', or if you've done well to promote yourself, you're somewhere in middle management as a 'program manager'. Either way, you're likely not a rainmaker and your ideas aren't necessarily heard and acted upon. This is probably the case despite your idealism coming out of college or a Peace Corps program. This is probably the case despite the fact that young nonprofit professionals are the leaders the nonprofit sector has been waiting for.

But just because that's how it is, doesn't mean that's how it has to be. In a recent online discussion NYU Professor Paul Light and his brother Mark Light talk about the nonprofit leadership deficit, destroying some myths that cripple young workers' sense of leadership potential. The Light brothers assert that nearly three out of ten small organizations’ executive directors are younger than 40. This is the case despite this crazy notion that the "prime leadership age is 34 to 54". In fact, Mark Light thinks that nonprofits need to be prepared to embrace young leaders out of necessity:

The coming leadership deficit will force us to hire more and more young people at a time when we need more experience dealing with greater competition and uncertainty. Although every generation fears for the future and thinks that younger leaders won’t be able to take the stress or understand the complexity, somehow they always do.

What does this mean for young nonprofit professionals? No matter what your role happens to be now, we need to be preparing ourselves for leadership positions opening up to us in the coming years. The reality is that the executive director vacancies are here now, and young leaders need to be throwing their hats in the ring. Aspire to go from administrative assistant to executive director. Why not? You work hard and have good ideas that can change your community. All you need to do now is make yourself heard and prepare yourself to go beyond your current nonprofit role. Here are some ways to do that.

First and Foremost, Do Your Job and Do it Well
Leaders have to have the skills to get the job done, so the first thing you need to do is hone your strengths. If you’re good at organizing others around an agenda or issue, get even better at it. Great at research and writing? Make sure you keep those talents up to date. Equally important in this vein is to also address significant weaknesses. If you have issues with showing up late to work or speaking up for yourself, now is the time to give those flaws the boot.

Work for a Small Organization
Small nonprofits usually require all employees to work outside of their job descriptions. Office managers may get opportunities to write grant proposals and learn all about fundraising. Receptionists could be called upon to organize a group of volunteers for a rally on Capitol Hill. Joining the staff of a small organization can be hard work doing several jobs in addition to the one you were hired for, but you quickly become a generalist in many different areas of skill and knowledge. I didn’t know anything about nonprofit insurance for boards of directors until someone handed me the task of setting it up for a small nonprofit I worked for. Paul Light also points out that younger leaders get a priceless opportunity to learn in smaller settings, and often obtain the skills to move up to larger organizations, where the vacancies are growing and the salaries are higher. But don’t work yourself to death too long; this should be your training ground, not a career in grunt work.

Find Your Own Mentors
Look, don't ask your boss to find you a mentor. This is one thing you need to do by yourself. I’m sure you already have a role model in mind that you look up to in the nonprofit sector. Maybe you even think that if you just knew how so-and-so did it, then maybe you could do it, too. And you can. Make a list of all the folks you admire and contact them. Nonprofit folks can be helpful, but so damn busy, you will not likely get the one-on-one consistent relationship you want. So find 3-5 mentors you can touch base with periodically to pick their brain about their career journeys or to get advice about your own climb up the ladder. I’d suggest you not restrict yourself to mentors within your own organization, and in fact encourage you to actively look outside of your organization and even outside of your field to get exposed to diverse experiences and perspectives. You can also be sure that mentors outside your boss’ network will keep your concerns in confidence.

Decide Where You Want to Be and Tell Everyone You Meet
If you want to be an executive director, but no one knows about it, no one can help you. Your dream job may not even be related to the leadership position you want in the future. Maybe you’re a program manager for an environmental nonprofit right now, but at night you dream about leading a scholarship program for kids in India. When you meet folks in your desired field, tell them about your aspirations. My grandmother says you never know who you’re going to meet, and I would take that a step further to tell you that you never know who can help you. Once you decide on your career goal, get vocal about it.

Get a Master's Degree
An advanced degree can often give you more credibility and validity than years of experience. I remember a 52 year old woman who was in a fundraising class with me in my Master’s program. She had been successfully fundraising for private schools for 30 years, and yet was taking a course with many beginners in the field. When I asked her why she was wasting her time and money, she said she wanted the degree to be able to move up as a Head of School. Get your validation early on, and it will be that much easier to move up when you get the chance.

So how about it? Are you ready to take back your 9-5? What are some ways you have prepared yourself for leadership while in your current role?

Free Nonprofit Communications Help

Here's a quick hit of resources available to nonprofits looking for some practical help with communications issues:

• Community Media Workshop offers a free press release generator. Just fill in the blanks and you've got yourself a bonafide press release!
  
  
• Benchmarking much? Keep your writing jargon-free with this list of taboo words from the Communications Network.
  
  
• Find a communications consultant anywhere in the country, courtesy of Spin Project.

Visit NonprofitPR.com to sign-up for an awesome newsletter with more weekly resources like these by the Shoestring Creative Group.

Also swing by MarketingProfs and check out their newsletters for a quick dose of marketing advice that's always relevant to nonprofits. Definitely news you can use.

Updated: Don't sleep on the nonprofit communications blog resources either: Nancy Schwartz offers a creative brief template (download link at the bottom of the page), and other communications articles at the Getting Attention blog.

Also check out the consistently useful content at Katya's Nonprofit Marketing Blog and Kivi Miller's Nonprofit Communications Blog. Bookmark them all!

Take Back Your 9 to 5 with Rosetta Thurman & Michele Martin

Michele Martin (of Bamboo Project Blog) and I share a strong passion for professional development. We both see the importance of developing your strengths, skills and knowledge to achieve personal satisfaction and professional excellence. We’re also both interested in the career needs of young nonprofit professional women and how to support them in the career development process so they can maximize their leadership potential. A lot of women in the nonprofit sector don’t take the time to invest in themselves and we want to do something about it! So here’s our idea:

We'd like to run a pilot one-day retreat for about 15 women on a Saturday (9am-5pm) in the Washington, DC area. Michele Martin is certified by the National Career Development Association as a Career Development Facilitator Instructor and has over 10 years of experience in helping people figure out what they want to do with their lives. I've written extensively about professional development, and I think this retreat would take those ideas one step further toward career empowerment. We both have a lot of great materials and exercises that we would use during the retreat that would be awesome in helping young nonprofit professionals take back their 9 to 5. We would facilitate the retreat and provide all materials for free and the only cost to participants would be for food and, potentially, meeting space, but we’re working on trying to find something free or very low-cost. (Ideas welcome!)

At the retreat, you would work with me, Michele, and the other participants to go through some self-assessment and goal-mapping exercises to develop a mission statement for your career. We would then help you to develop a practical action plan to implement your career goals. At the end of the day, you would go away with a clear picture of where you want to go next in your career and with some concrete ideas of next steps you could take to achieve that. This process would be especially empowering for women who have never done a career plan before.

The retreat would also, we hope, be the beginning of forging some ongoing connections between the women in the group that could be continued and reinforced through online work together, as well as future face-to-face meetings. To support this idea, we are also considering setting up an online social community where you could “meet” your fellow participants prior to the retreat and continue to connect and work with each other following the retreat.

What we’re trying to do now is see if there’s any interest in the idea, as well as get any suggestions for potential dates, logistical thoughts, etc. We’d also be interested in hearing from you about what elements you would want to have in a retreat to make it the most meaningful and useful to you. If you’re at all interested in the idea, please drop me an email. Right now we’re just trying to gauge interest. If enough people want to do it, then we’ll start working on really planning for it so we could be more specific about dates, costs, etc.

Thanks!

My Journey: Reaping the Benefits of a Nonprofit Management Degree

Most people my age are still trying to figure out where they fit in this business of making a living. Fortunately for me, I figured out where I wanted to be early on - the nonprofit sector. Unfortunately, also early on I realized that nonprofit work can pretty much suck if you have to be a receptionist or an administrative assistant for the first 5 years of your career, and I was determined not to do that. I am 24 years old. When my colleagues and peers find this out, they usually look at me in disbelief: "How can you be in charge of anything when you're soooo young? My god, you're a baaaaby!" Yeah, okay. This 'baby' can run your nonprofit with more skill and professionalism than some folks twice my age, and too bad for the sector we still haven't realized that when it comes to skills and abilities, age ain't nothin' but a number. This is my story.

I came to the sector six years ago as a volunteer reading tutor for at-risk first-graders and knew immediately that social change was what I would be doing for the rest of my life. When I stepped off the stage as a new college graduate three years ago, I also knew that the next step for me would be graduate school. I quickly chose a graduate degree program in the city I wanted to work in (DC) and began my first real nonprofit job at the same time. I ended up selecting Trinity University's Master's program for the most part because the program could be completed in an accelerated time frame (half the time of a traditional Master's) and I am both impatient and an overachiever. The coursework wasn't shabby either:

ADMN 601 Excellence in Managing Contemporary Organizations
ADMN 603 Theories of Leadership and Organizational Change
ADMN 605 Group Dynamics and Team Building
ADMN 607 Financial Management for Non-Financial Managers
ADMN 609 Introduction to Research
ADMN 677 Effective Human Resource Strategies
ADMN 631 Trends and Issues in Nonprofit Management
ADMN 633 Nonprofit Marketing and Public Relations

ADMN 635 Government Relations and Grant Writing for Nonprofits

ADMN 637 Nonprofit Resource Development and Fundraising

ADMN 638 Nonprofit Financial Management and Budgeting

ADMN 639 Nonprofit Strategic Planning and Board Development

Most nonprofit workers will tell you that you do not need an advanced degree to succeed in a nonprofit career, and I would agree with them in a general sense. For the kinds of entry-level positions in which college graduates are usually placed, a rapid typing speed, a can-do attitude, and a strong sense of patience are all you need to do data entry, answer phones, make endless copies, or stuff envelopes. But if you want to move up in this business more quickly and actually make a living wage from doing social change kinds of work, you will need to obtain a Master's degree. Perhaps this is becoming more and more true for all professions, but I can only speak to mine.

I started my full-time nonprofit career as an Administrative Assistant, then graduated to a Program Assistant, and then a Director of Development, all within different organizations and subsectors and all within three years, doubling my salary in the same timeframe. I learned a lot in all of my positions, being that I'm a quick learner and was eager to stay late and work weekends to learn my job as well as everyone else's. And I was clearly competent before I went to graduate school, but try telling that to the folks I interviewed with as I kept trying to apply my skills to more advanced positions. All they could see was that I hadn't "put in my time" long enough to know anything. That's how I know for a fact that I would not have the position I have today if not for my Master's degree in Nonprofit Management. Trinity University taught me well and gave me a strong foundation with which to make sense out of my experience, but it also gave me something my few years of experience could not: validity. The first thing my boss said as he introduced me to the Board Chair in my first week of work was, "Meet Rosetta Thurman, she has a Master's degree." Smiles all around.

My experience is just one of many stories I have heard from young nonprofit professionals trying to break into upper management. Sometimes, to get past the barriers facing promotion, we need to take matters into our own hands. It was well worth it to me to spend the money to obtain my Master's in order to double my annual salary. Don't think you have to "put in your time" just because that's how everyone else has done it. It's a waste of your good talent sitting at a desk answering phones and you know it. Identify what will get you to your goals faster and then do it.

This is my journey, now you decide yours. What's your story?

Updated: Here's a comprehensive list of nonprofit management programs across the country.

Connected Learning: The Antidote to Founder's Syndrome?

Jeff Cobb at Mission to Learn tips us off to another awesome presentation from Stephen Downes, which introduced me to an idea I've become very fascinated with: connected learning vs. immersive learning. Most nonprofit folks are stuck on immersive learning, or learning by doing, gaining experience on-the-job by responding as best we can to the opportunities, challenges, and organizational fires that break out from time to time. In other words, we are flying by the seat of our foundation-funded pants. Connected learning, i.e. online learning, on the other hand, keeps us in touch with the best practices to do the work, even as we do the work: Stephen says that through connected learning:

• the computer connects the student to the rest of the world
  


• learning occurs through connections with other learners
  
  
• learning is based on conversation and interaction

Through this kind of learning, you are forced to interact with others and take in the most updated information right when you need it so that it becomes difficult to do things the way they've always been done. And isn't this the fundamental problem with Founder's Syndrome? Most nonprofits suffering from Founder's Syndrome do not have succession plans or lack adequate infrastructure in place to allow other staff to run the organization when the big boss is not around. A quick loop around the blogosphere, however, would quickly inform a founding executive director of the prevailing best practices of today that suggest a plan for succession is essential for nonprofit sustainability, also providing a plethora of links to get them started in creating a process. This is only one of the ways that connected or online learning helps make nonprofit work proactive, rather than reactive. There are better ways to run an organization than putting out fires on a daily basis. Other leaders are doing it very well, and are increasingly sharing their experiences online. But Stephen poses an interesting question that I think is very relevant to the state of nonprofits suffering from Founder's Syndrome, and "doing it the way we've always done it". (I attempted to answer this question in my recent slideshow on this topic, but it only touched the surface of the larger issue I wonder about. )

How can we develop and apply connected/online learning systems to immersive learning so that it's immediately relevant to what you are doing at work right now?

If you are an executive director who is part of the Founder's Syndrome problem, it's unlikely that you are looking for solutions to your own antics. But what about the good 'ol sneak attack? If you read a bunch of blogs, there's bound to be some useful nuggets on issues facing your organization, and it's hard to hear about a solution to your problem over and over and not do something about it, especially when the tools for implementation are right there as well. My thinking is that the more nonprofit leaders can get exposed to different methods of connected learning, change will sneak up on them, and Founder's Syndrome will take a nice subtle beating in the process.

Younger generations of nonprofit employees are more computer savvy than our older counterparts and are more likely to be already emerged in online learning in some form. Therefore we often lament our organizations' relucutance or inability to implement better ways of doing things with increased and effective uses of technology or computer-based systems. Founder's Syndrome is killing us. We're tired of doing things the same old way that hasn't been working for years. It is definitely broke, now let us help you fix it.

But don't take MY word for it....

The Friday Four: Links to End the Week

Today's Friday Four is chock full of resources to bring you up to date with the discussions surrounding the issue of leadership deficits in the nonprofit sector and the next generation of nonprofit leadership. These resources come straight from the recently updated NP2020 Wiki, which has an awesome cache of relevant research and white papers related to the leadership deficit, generational issues, and emerging leaders. Check it out!

• The Nonprofit Sector's Leadership Deficit White Paper
  


• Daring to Lead 2006
  


• Generational Leadership Listening Sessions
  


• Up Next: Generational Change and the Leadership of Nonprofit Organizations

Photo by Claudecf

Terri Lee Freeman Talks About Scale

Susan Herr at Philanthromedia tips us off to a bite-sized video clip of Terri Lee Freeman, President of the Community Foundation for the National Capital Region and one of my nonprofit idols. Terri says scale is not always good:

"Donors have to be careful of creating monsters that can't be sustained, effective monsters even, that can't be sustained."

She encourages funders who want to provide seed money for nonprofit efforts to look at others who can partner with them to chip in adequate funding to sustain their programs. Everything doesn't have to be expanded - effective programs don't always need to go from one neighborhood to 'citywide', and often that's not even what the community wants. I also think underlying Terri's remarks is the knowledge that often funders base their measures of success by how much growth nonprofits have had, and that is not by any means an accurate measure.

I have seen all too well a few national funders come to Washington for site visits to see good programs licking their chops thinking about the words 'replication' and 'scale'. But, like Terri says, we have to realize that just because a program has worked in one community, doesn't mean it will work in another.

Johns Hopkins Says, "There is No Nonprofit Workforce Crisis"

In contrast to all the discussion of an impending leadership deficit, a new report from the Center for Civil Society Studies at the Johns Hopkins Institute for Policy Studies paints a rosy picture of the state of the nonprofit workforce. The Johns Hopkins Nonprofit Listening Post Project surveyed 277 nonprofits nationally and found that despite challenges to recruiting nonprofit staff, there has been a significant boom in nonprofit employment. John Hopkins might have us believe we should stop worrying and be happy we're still attracting people to the nonprofit sector. It's important to note, however, that the study did not focus on the recruitment of senior managers, who are presumably emerging leaders, but on front-line service workers including administrative staff. Though the report's opening statements poo-poo the idea of a workforce crisis, it does wonder whether nonprofit managers are just being more aggressive and creative in their recruitment techniques to fill open positions.

There's some really great information here to inform the nonprofit sector. However, while the report presents a promising view of the future of the nonprofit workforce, the report does lack a bit in terms of subsectors. The study only highlighted 5 subsectors: child and family services, theaters, museums, elderly housing and services and community and economic development. More variety could have been represented here to fully address a more well-rounded view of the nonprofit sector. Here are some nuggets I found interesting.

What Were the Difficulties in Recruiting Nonprofit Staff?

• Lack of competitive salaries
• Few opportunities for advancement
• Lack of competitive benefits

Over half of respondents reported having an extremely hard time recruiting candidates of color. Interestingly, one of the more surprising findings in view of the sizable proportions of organizations that identified serious challenges attracting people of color to their organizations, only about a third of the organizations implemented strategies specifically designed to attract such candidates.

How Did Managers Successfully Find Candidates?

• Word of mouth
• Current employee referrals
• Local newspapers
• Posting on others’ websites
• Recruit from recent interns
• Posting on organization’s website
• Advertise in field specific periodicals
• Recruit from recent volunteers
• Campus recruitment
• Nonprofit periodicals
• Increased starting salaries or benefits
• New media outlets (e.g., Web postings)
• Professional placement firms
• Offered referral or signing bonus
• Advertised in national markets
• Added or expanded internship/volunteer programs
• Partnered with other nonprofits