Get into Turnaround Mode

I’ve added another blog to my list after discovering it for the first time earlier this week. Balancing the Mission Checkbook is written by Kate Barr, the Executive Director of the Nonprofit Assistance Fund in Minneapolis, and she covers a broad range of leadership topics, but particularly focuses on financial management issues.

Here’s an excerpt from one of Kate’s October 2008 posts where she suggests that nonprofits ought to address this period of economic uncertainty in much the same manner as they would address an organizational turnaround – that is, boldly, with a plan and with determination to follow it.

Brandeis University Press has just published The Art of the Turnaround: Creating and Maintaining Healthy Arts Organizations by Michael Kaiser, president of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington DC.

A short excerpt from the book is available from The Chronicle of Philanthropy. Kaiser offers ten basic rules for every turnaround:

1. Someone must lead

2. The leader must have a plan

3. You cannot save your way to health

4. Focus on today and tomorrow, not yesterday

5. Extend your programming planning calendar

6. Marketing is more than brochures and advertisements

7. There must be only one spokesperson, and the message must be positive

8. Fundraising must focus on the larger donor, but don’t aim too high

9. The board must allow itself to be restructured

10. The organization must have the discipline to follow each of these rules

Photo: San Francisco Freeze at Powell & Market by navid j

Comments

Unknown said…

Thanks for sharing our blog post, I'm pleased you found it useful.

During this challenging time, we're doing our best to provide practical and strategic guidance to nonprofits, particularly on financial management. To read Balancing the Mission Checkbook, visit www.nonprofitsassistancefund.org/blog

November 13, 2008 at 11:43 AM

What Would Make You Turn Down an Invitation to Join a Board?

THERE'S SO MUCH WRITTEN ABOUT RECRUITING BOARD TALENT, I thought I'd spend a little time thinking about it from the prospect's point of view. Clearly, there are boards where the line is long to get on them. But what would make you turn down an invitation? Here's a short list to get the conversation started: 1. You've had no prior exposure to the organization. Your immediate reaction is "did you pull my name out of a hat?" (Is that lady in the picture the head of the Nominating Committee?) Seems as though there must be a hidden agenda at work (like you're rich and once you become a board member you'll pour all your resources into the organization) or the organization is simply looking for any warm body to fill a seat. 2. The organization doesn't have a good reputation. There's something to be said for street cred. An organization that's floundering may be strengthened by your participation or you may find yourself sucked into...

Three Most Important Nonprofit Executive Director Soft Skills

If you were asked to narrow down the list of executive director qualifications to the three most important, which ones would you identify? Would the list consist of soft skills, hard skills, or some combination? Would your list be based on the great ED you are or one you've worked for, or would it be your wish list for the ED you haven't been fortunate yet to work for? This was an assignment in my recent online class in leadership and administration for the American Association for State and Local History . I asked the class to review three-five advertisements for museum directors and analyze what these listings intimated about the organization’s past experience, current focus and goals, and future aspirations. Then, I asked the class to identify what they consider to be the three most important qualifications they would look for in a director. (Okay, so there's more than three if you dissect my three big groups.) Soft skills outnumbered hard skills, although ...

What to Do With Dead Wood on Your Board?

MY POLL ASKED WHAT ONE BOARD DYNAMIC YOU would change this year and the top response was "remove dead wood". For my first post on this topic I'd like to start with two obvious facts: 1) most boards have some non-performing or under-performing board members AND 2) most boards already have mechanisms in place for removing dead wood...or at least the non-attending dead wood. Those mechanisms are found in the Bylaws and perhaps in a board job description. Few boards, it seems, invoke these mechanisms, mostly out of fear of offending the offender. We end up side-stepping the dead wood, dancing around it, ignoring it, wishing mightily it would go away. Oh, and complaining about it. So, even though the dead wood isn't doing much, it's sapping the energy and focus of many others. (There must be a Law of Physics about this!) Where to start and how to implement? While removing dead wood is not the most pleasant of responsibilities, it does not need to be -- and s...

Leading by Design

Search This Blog