Leading by Design

Periodically, social media is ablaze with comments from nonprofit leaders bemoaning the fact that their organizations are too small to keep up with a seemingly overwhelming amount of professional and regulatory standards. While one may hear less outright complaining from big nonprofits when they turn a blind eye to the importance of standards, ethics, and the public trust, chances are we'll be reading about their transgressions in the headlines. Whether nonprofits flaunt the public trust due to ignorance or by design, the performance expectation for all nonprofits -- no matter their size, discipline, or resources -- is grounded in the fact they have been incorporated to perform a public service. They have entered into a relationship with the public that fulfills a need for which they receive benefits in return. Chief among these benefits is tax exemption for mission-related activities and the opportunity for donors to make tax-deductible contributions. When a nonprofit honors ...

WHEN AN EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR DECIDES TO LEAVE she walks a particularly tricky tightrope from the time she announces her intentions until she flicks off the lights in her office for the last time.  The length of the tightrope is one issue:  some believe that once you announce you need to be on your way as quickly as you can engineer it; others feel it must take several months in order to tie up loose ends or participate in an overlapping transition period.  Then there are a handful of others who announce a year or so ahead of their intended departure for reasons that may have everything to do with finishing milestone capital projects or completing major gift solicitations (and these folks more often than not it seems are announcing their retirements, not moves to new organizations).  So far this year,  colleagues of mine have used (are using) all three scenarios.    Regardless of the length of the tightrope, the tricky part involves the emotions that come...

I'm sure we all know people who serve on more than one board at the same time. You may be one of them. Makes sense. Most of us have multiple interests and, if we're committed to involvement in our communities, some of us will volunteer in ways that wed our interests to our desires to make better the places where we live and play. And, it stands to reason that, over time, we could be recognized by more than one organization for our strengths, our talents, or our connections. Don't you marvel, though, at the number of talented people you know who would never consider serving on a board? Or they don't quite seem to make it on any organization's radar screen to be asked? When you think about it, it's no wonder so many organizations seem to be begging for board members. Well, there are two (at least) sides to that issue and today I want to explore the side that deals with the person who does make it onto the radar screens and into multiple board rooms. Here...

I have had the good fortune to think about ethical questions from different standpoints and in a variety of contexts, as well as to grapple with actual situations that have arisen from time to time.  I certainly don't have all the answers, but what I do know is that standards of ethics sometimes differ among types of cultural institutions and are almost always evolutionary -- in other words, it's rare for a new institution to start out at square one with a full-blown understanding of its ethical responsibilities and a written policy to underscore them. My career has allowed me to develop an awareness of ethical issues as I have developed as a museum professional.  I suppose that may sound obvious, but I do think that the longer you remain in a field, the more opportunities you'll have to discuss and ponder ethical issues - perhaps even act on one or two of them -- and they will all add to your body of knowledge and your understanding. I think the topic of museum ethics is, ...