Must-Read Article on the Generational Divide in Black Leadership

Judy Ford, an African American philanthropic leader of color wrote an excellent op-ed yesterday on Black and Brown News. (Thanks Melissa for the link!) Here's the money quote:

"New generation black leaders often find themselves in a constant struggle to both recognize, honor and respect those who came before while exercising our own authentic leadership relevant to the 21st century and beyond. We struggle to find the space to lead and to do so in our own way, with our own style, vision and methods; and we long to do so with the respect and support of older leaders whom we typically came into our work admiring, respecting and wanting to emulate. Mine is among a growing number of painful experiences new generation black leaders too often have with our older leaders - something very few of us talk openly about."

Read the entire article: Divided We Will Fail: The Generational Divide Within Black Leadership.

This piece brings up many issues young nonprofit professionals are facing: how do we respect and honor the contributions of current leaders, while at the same time advancing our own leadership and ideas for change? Managing this conflict is going to be really important for all generations to be able to work together to ensure a better future for this country.

I'm looking for ideas, here - how have you or others expressed your respect for older leaders in the nonprofit sector?

Quote of the Day

"Many have challenged the fitness of our generation to take the reins. This is our chance to prove we're up to the task."
- Joe Green, born 1983, CEO of Causes on Facebook

Other Blogs I'm Diggin' Right Now

Along with my mom's blog, I just started reading these blogs because they share useful info for young nonprofit professionals, talk about social media in a really cool way, or are written by someone who is just plain fabulous. (Some of them touch on all three!) Are there any new & interesting blogs you've come across lately?

• In the Garden of Earthly Delight
  
• Yoda and the Weed Whacker
  
• Pulse and Signal
  
• Loryn Wilson at Pushback and Black Girl Blogging

My Mom is a Blogger

Photo from Rosetta's digital camera

I haven't talked about my mom on this blog very often, but she is definitely THE woman behind this woman. My mother had me when she was 15 years old, and put off college for 20 years while she raised my sister and I. She eventually got her BA and MBA, but was never interested in using her skills to make the corporate bigwigs rich. She's been a longtime receptionist, worked in retail, served in the Army, competed as a bodybuilder, worked as a fitness trainer, and did a stint in management consulting at Corporate Executive Board. But over the years, where she really found her passion is in using her entrepreneurial spirit to launch several successful businesses to provide for our family. She's owned a housecleaning service, a financial management practice, and now a fitness training and consulting business.

Her business is called Fitness for Life Consulting, and she has an awesome blog called Living the Fit Life.

I've always found inspiration in my mom because she never took the path that anyone laid out for her. She's a strong woman of color who has made her own way despite being a single parent from a poor neighborhood. She's also a woman of service to her community, participating in community health events and mentoring Latino boys in northern Virginia. She taught my sister and I that education was the one thing that would get us ahead in life and guided us through college. I have been successful in all of my educational goals, and my younger sister is currently a junior nursing student at Howard University in DC. We're trying to get her on the blog scene, too!

So now y'all know. I get it from my mama.

Quote of the Day

"Whatever it is, if it doesn't make you happy, walk away, give it away to someone else who wants it. Let it be their next dream; let it flee from you. Then you have room to grow, to allow magnificent things to fill the vacuum of those seemingly empty places. When you hold onto yesterday, when you hold onto dead and dying adventures, you have no room in your box for greatness."

- Unknown

As an Adjunct Professor, You Learn More Than You Teach

Photo by drp

This is the last week of the summer course I've been teaching at Trinity University, Nonprofit Marketing & Public Relations. We've spent the last 10 weeks learning about marketing plans and how marketing plays a key role in fundraising. We've done exercises on messaging, using social media, and turning your messages into an elevator speech. We used DC Vote as a case study, and invited Kevin Kiger, their communications director as a guest speaker. I also taught the students how to research funders and write a grant proposal from scratch. This week, for their final assignment, they being graded on their final presentations where they have to make a pitch to a pretend program officer. Some of the resources I've used to teach the course:

• The Spin Project
• The Foundation Center
• Robin Hood Marketing by Katya Andresen
  

It's really been a crash course in teaching academically. I've been facilitating community-based workshops for years, but this kind of instruction is very different. But part of the reason I'm on the faculty is so I can bring a more practitioner-focused perspective to the classroom. One of the criticisms of higher education is that many Master's level programs teach too much theory and not enough application. Some of the techniques I tried to bring into the classroom were facilitated discussion, role play, and guest speakers from the field.

One thing I noticed as an adjunct faculty is that we have an enormous amount of control over our curriculum and teaching methods. You can be as creative as you want, as long as you meet the course objectives. And it's a great way to pursue my own professional development: teaching has helped me a lot with public speaking as well as understanding and assessing the needs of young nonprofit professionals.

I confirmed to myself as I continue to explore my career path is that I LOVE teaching and helping people to understand nonprofit management. It led me to the decision to go back to school to get a Ph.D. so that I can pursue a full-time teaching position at a university one day. But more on that later...I'm already excited about the fall semester, where I'll be teaching two courses: Women & Leadership and Government Relations & Grantwriting. If you're enrolled at a DC Consortium college, I believe you can register for classes at Trinity, but check the website if you're interested.

This fall I will also be teaching a 2-part interactive learning series called "From Entry Level to Leadership" at the Social Action & Leadership School for Activists in September. I taught the course for the first time last week, and the students got so much out of it, they are bringing it back for a longer class over two weeks! Check the SALSA website for the full schedule and registration info.

Young Nonprofit Professionals Need to Keep it Real

Photo by Thomas Baltes

We are born followers. In school, we are taught to memorize blindly our alphabet, multiplication tables, names of presidents and their wives, dates of wars and treaties. As children, we play a constant game of Simon Says to get the best grade in the class. And all throughout life, we try to find role models that we can emulate - our teachers, supervisors, politicians, movie stars, etc. When I talk to my nonprofit peers, everyone always says how much they want a mentor to help them learn how to be. Unfortunately, many of them are not finding a viable role model in their executive director, and don't want to be the pressure-driven, workaholic they often see in their bosses. So what do we, as born followers, do when the images we see are not useful?

Try keeping it real.

It's a simple concept, but one that young people especially have a hard time wrapping our minds around. When you don't have 20 years of experience under your belt, there is this need to justify who you are, what you do, and why you do it. What incentive do we have to be ourselves? I'm waiting anxiously for the day when I get up on stage or behind a podium and half the people in the audience aren't looking at me, half amused, wondering just who the hell do I think I am.

For many young professionals that seek to lead in the nonprofit sector, we are always wondering if what we're doing is "right" or "acceptable" in the eyes of our Baby Boomer bosses and boards. Sometimes we think that if we learn to act and sound just like our bosses, one day we will indeed get to be the boss. Or if we flow with the status quo, surely we'll move up the ladder to senior management. If we don't rock the boat or bang our sippy cups on the table too loudly, well then...somebody might just let us lead. Recently I gave an entire media interview trying to come up with the same kind of phrases and language my boss would use, and I felt so fake afterwards. For those five minutes or whatever it was, I had literally forgotten how to be myself. I realized then that it's really hard to be authentic when you're trying so hard to be someone else. And as young professionals, we need to speak our own words in our own way. That is the only way we will find our voice.

Baltimore neo-soul band Fertile Ground plays one of my favorite songs called "Star People." It's a fabulous musical expression about how we have lost our authenticity over time.

Do you remember the time when we were one with the sun?
And all the joy that we had, 'cause in our hearts we were one.

We've been missing the point of who we are and why we came.
And as this reality deceives us, we get caught and lose our aim.
We get in the way of ourselves, and we make it so hard.

Star people come down, we are preparing to be with you again.

It's kind of funny. We learn how to be critical thinkers and activists in college, then leave all the fire behind when we enter the workforce. Yet, the nonprofit sector is the one place where one should expect to find truth. It's the one place where we should be able to bring all of our hopes and dreams for a better world. And it is, believe it or not. Young nonprofit professionals have an opportunity to be very intentional and tell the truth in our own words. And if we would all seek to become better followers, we might find our own leadership in that moment.

Quote of the Day

From John Chappelear's weekly newsletter:

This week I will take action on the goals and desires I have set for myself. I will not hide behind my intellect or my need to “get my ducks in a row” before I step out onto the path ahead. The path is there and moving ahead with or without me. I will use Action to redefine and recommit myself to: life balance, reducing stress and enjoying life. I will stop waiting for my life to get perfect to start living the life of my dreams. The life of my dreams is right here and right now!

- John Chappelear (The Daily Six)

Teaching Nonprofit Leadership Class July 22 in DC

Check out an upcoming class I'm teaching at the Social Action & Leadership School in DC – From Entry Level to Leadership. It's geared toward entry-level nonprofit professionals who are looking to enhance their leadership skills. I hope to see some of you! Sign up at the SALSA website.

From Entry Level to Leadership
Tue, July 22, 2008 -- 6:45-8:45pm
Both landing a job you can feel passionate about, then advancing in your position once you find it takes a combination of skills. This interactive session will use discussion and role play to show participants: how to assess your current skills to determine readiness for a leadership position; how to find "stretch assignments" and conduct a strategic job search for finding the right opportunity; and how to effectively present your entry-level experience in a resume and interview.

Led by Rosetta Thurman: Rosetta is an Adjunct Professor teaching nonprofit management in the School of Professional Studies at Trinity University in DC. Rosetta holds a Master's degree in Nonprofit Management and is the Principal Consultant at Thurman Consulting with experience in fundraising, human resources, financial management, communications, and training. Rosetta is an active member of the Association of Fundraising Professionals and currently serves on the boards of Young Nonprofit Professionals Network DC, DC Central Kitchen and the DC Creative Writing Workshop. She is also a blogger at Perspectives From the Pipeline and a monthly HR columnist for WorkforNonprofits.org. Rosetta is a prolific writer, speaker, trainer, and consultant and has been quoted in articles about the nonprofit sector in the Washington Post, Nonprofit Quarterly, the Chronicle of Philanthropy, and WAMU 88.5FM.

Quote of the Day

“The journey is the destination.” - Dan Eldon

Keeping the (Nonprofit) Fire Alive: Maintaining Purpose Under all the Paperwork

Photo by shoothead

Last night I left my office exhausted. At 8:00pm, I climbed the stairs to my doorstep. But before I turned the key, I caught a glimpse of a half-moon emerging from the clouds and a plane flying across the sky. A white line of possibility against the coming night. I smiled and thought of how blessed I've been to have met a great number of amazing women over the past month who have challenged me to think differently about my ability to do something wonderful in this world. Many of you know that I continue to struggle with work/life balance (like many of us in the nonprofit field) and recently forced myself to break away from my usual networks and meet new do-gooders with fresh ideas to inspire my work. Sometimes when you're around the same kinds of people in the same industry as you, it can limit your ability to push out of the box. So I started a new Meetup group for women in the DC area that want to change the world. Come join us if you're in town! It's been a wonderful way for me to start new conversations with other women just as passionate as I am. It's renewed me and gotten me a little more fired up.

Speaking of fire, readers left quite a few comments on my recent post, Are We Still Involved in the Pursuit of Truth? If Not, Why Not? In particular, Romancitizen really gave me pause with his/her comment:

I read Gordon Mackenzie's Orbiting the Giant Hairball on Bob Sutton's (www.bobsutton.typepad.com) recommendation. Based on the book, it sounds to me like you've gotten caught in the "hairball." The book is deceptively easy to read, but, I think, might help to give you a different perspective on your post. I wish I had the book in front of me, but all of that day to day "nonsense" can kill creativity and does stifle truth, but it can also serve as a protective playground of sorts for would be activists to practice their skills.I read in several of your other posts that standing up to our bosses, managers, leaders and boards isn't, in your opinion, done frequently or vigorously enough. I don't disagree, but I don't know how much I agree with 1) how the question is asked; 2) the lack of real specificity; and 3) the limiting range of solutions (although on this last one, I'm perfectly willing to admit I don't have enough information and could well be wrong.)

First, the question is aggressive, in your face, offensive (in the sense that it creates a defensive position on the other side,) and implies that if we answer, "no, we do not stand up to power. No, we are not involved in the pursuit of Truth" that something is wrong with us. Some people are comfortable that they either will not find truth, or believe that they have found Truth. And they are not necessarily bad people for it.

Second, terms like "stand up to power" are not nearly specific enough. I love my boss' vision and leadership but I hate a lot of her management. The thing is that some of what I consider to be her abuses of power are a large part of what got her to start the program in the first place. The bad management is a result of the amazing leadership--if you need a good example of great leadership and horrible management read anything about Steve Jobs. We routinely work with some of the most powerful people in the business world and have them interact positively with some of the formerly most powerful people in the prison system. I strongly disagree with the political positions of many of the businessmen we work with, but because they work face-to-face with our guys, "get their hands dirty" in prison, we are able to impact social policy (we routinely meet with political leaders;) we have been able to change corporate policy (we enable corporations to be part of the solution by hiring our guys;) we impact our guy's families (mothers who had lost hope, wives who now have support raising their children, children who now have fathers who can provide incredible proof of what can go wrong and real inspiration that nothing is impossible.) I bring this point up because mass movements are important social and political events, but the day-to-day slogging, working with those in power with whom we disagree, and finding a deeper, hotter, slower-burning fire inside of us might be better than blazing passion that's good for a quick fix.

Third, the question limits many available alternatives. If you had to arrange buses to go to rallies every day for your living would it be as exciting? Even if you believed in the cause? Maybe what I'm most dissatisfied with about this post isn't anything you said, but what you didn't say. I can't figure out the causes--I don't see what's driving the discontent.

What I love about the blogging experience is being able to talk through what I'm feeling as I go through my nonprofit journey and figure it all out together. And I gotta be honest...sometimes I just lose the fire to be in this work of trying to create social change. I thought about Romancitizen's comment all week as I talked to other women that are doing awesome work to improve their communities. And what I came to is that I wrote that post on a day that captured my feeling of dissatisfaction about my contributions within my current role within the nonprofit community. I recently met Cheryl Dorsey, president of Echoing Green, and she shared a concept that really resonated with me. She said that all social entrepreneurs have a "moment of obligation," a time in your life when you became accountable for a cause, for a particular problem or issue. A moment when you made a decision to take ownership of some aspect of social change. All of us had that moment when we decided to change the game for single mothers or low-income families, or at-risk youth. We took that idealism and brought it to the nonprofit sector. And after being here for a while, some of us either lost it within all the bullshit, or it wanes a little bit more everyday. Those days when I feel dissatisfied with my impact in the nonprofit sector is when I feel I've lost focus on my moment of obligation. I came to this work out of my experiences growing up in the projects with a teenage mother. And I wanted to do something to help all of us that also grew up colored in the wrong zip code. Sometimes I have to wonder whether my work is really helping young people, or people of color or people in poverty? And if it's not...what, then, is the smartest thing I can do?

I think that through my blog and other writings, I've started to engage dialogue around some things that really need changing, but still in a very "safe" way compared to how I went out on a limb in my younger days. That's not to say that I think that by working in nonprofits we are not pursuing truth...but that we need to ask ourselves that question EVERY DAY, and if it's painful, what do we do about that? If we know what's wrong, but say nothing, do nothing, how can we expect anything to ever change?

So now, I'm in questioning mode - asking myself what is the smartest thing I can do for the nonprofit sector, and thinking that maybe it's not even in working in any single organization. Eric Giles' comment leaves me wondering if real change can ever be rightly attributed to an organization...or if instead credit must be given to the actors who are fired up and playing a big role in carrying out the organization's work and leveraging the community in their efforts. Eric says:

Before I came to DC and became employed in the nonprofit sector I was full of fire and an active volunteer in many great causes. I felt passionate and about the moral superiority of the nonprofit sector.

I don't think I've lost the fire, but I would readily agree that a veil has shrouded my experience of it. The veil seems to be made up of all the administrative and political mechanisms that are necessary for a nonprofit to operate and carry out its mission.

I find it so much easier to be a volunteer for a cause or participant in an event. Your ability to express your passion has fewer constraints.

But many of us came to the nonprofit sector to avoid conformist corporate environments or the bureaucracy of government, but sometimes we find the same issues in working for social change. So how do we keep our fire alive for the cause and stay true to our moment of obligation? Are there ways to stay idealistic sitting in our cubicles? I've gotten excited all over again through the Women Rule DC! Meetup. And maybe by building up a passionate community of change agents, we can all just keep feeding off of each other's fire...

What do YOU think?

Obama Knows Nonprofits

That's what HE said:

"The non-profit sector employs 1 in 12 Americans and 115 nonprofits are launched every day. Yet while the federal government invests $7 billion in research and development for the private sector, there is no similar effort to support non-profit innovation. Meanwhile, there are ideas across America - in our inner cities and small towns; from college graduates, to seniors getting ready to retire - that could benefit millions of Americans if they're given the chance to grow."

Though I'm not sure what he's suggesting in this snippet, hopefully not for everybody to go out and start their OWN nonprofit...but to be innovative in our missions to improve our communities.

Quote of the Day

“You don't lead by pointing a finger and telling people some place to go. You lead by going to that place and making a case.” - Ken Kesey

Are We Still Involved in the Pursuit of Truth? If Not, Why Not?

Sam Davidson shares a great quote he saw at the National Civil Rights Museum:

Truth comes from being involved, and not from observation and speculation.

Amen to that. The pursuit of truth is really why many of us came into the nonprofit sector. Most of us were looking for something real, something meaningful happening in this big bullshit world. But the question is, do most of us find it when we get here, or do we just find more spin, just as much posturing as we see coming from our politicians? As Jeanne Bell will tell you, we pay a price for the stories we tell about ourselves. Because the problem with many nonprofits today is that we are supposed to be in the business of making social change...the kind that can be funded, measured, replicated, and tied up in a pretty red bow. The kind of change that can only happen in air-conditioned offices with receptionists screening our calls, that doesn't need to speak out against anything because the good work speaks for itself. We think we know what the community needs even though we've never set foot over on the east side of town. We have our protocol and our fears about getting too political, and we think we're doing some good if we get a little mentoring program up and running without addressing the piss-poor state of the school system.

Really?

I've been thinking a lot about the inauthenticity of keeping quiet. I moved to DC in 2004 after participating in the March for Women's Lives, a huge march on Washington & a real protest to secure reproductive rights for women in the face of the Bush administration's actions. I helped organize one of our bus groups of women's studies students from Richmond to DC and it really felt like I was doing something for once in my life. My grandmother thought I was insane to be involved with such an event, and was convinced I would forever be on the "government's list". And the college feminist radical in me really wished I was indeed on some watch list. I was proud to be identified as a dissenter. I wanted it to be on the record that I did not agree with the political decisions that were being made on my behalf as a woman. I got involved because NOW (National Organization for Women) along with the Black Women's Health Imperative had provided me with some real knowledge I wouldn't find in the history books or on primetime TV. And they showed me what it meant to take action, armed with that truth, to drive change. Yet somewhere along the way I traded in my protest signs for business casual and board meetings. I'm not really sure how I feel about it now, I've just been wondering if this is the same sector I discovered in 2004. I mean, we can't be all about protest and dissent 24/7 right? Someone's gotta pick up the pieces. But maybe this sector dichotomy is just a representation of the way we're being trained to toe the line. As Elisa comments:

It doesn't help that our educational system and the organizations we work in don't encourage us to do this kind of try and fail experimentation. I don't know about anyone else, but where I went to school, toeing the line was going to get you farther all the time. Then you transition to a work place that is the same way and it becomes in your best interest (at least in terms of staying 'comfortable') to again toe the line.

And I have to be honest here, a lot of my idealism from four years ago has since waned because I've seen how nonprofits 'really' work. But I've been thinking about what my responsibility is to the Rosetta of four years ago that found out what was really going on and told everybody about it. What is my contribution if I forgo seeking truth in order to avoid getting in some kind of trouble? Where are we going as a nonprofit sector if we lose our drive for the pursuit of truth at all costs? And what good are we as independent organizations if, when we find it, we are too afraid to speak truth to power?

Am I the only one that's lost a little of my college idealism? What's been your experience?