A Breath of Fresh Air: Voices Informing the Future of Nonprofits

Article Review: Next Shift: Beyond the Nonprofit Leadership Crisis

Reference: Kunreuther, F. and Corvington, P.A.. Baltimore, MD: Annie E. Casey Foundation 2007)

Context: Yes, a breath of fresh air is what this reading offers. Of course, I recognize that this gratitude all depends on the quality of air you are breathing. In my 20+ year career as a nonprofit professional, I have grown increasingly disappointed with conversations about how the sector could and is developing. My criticism stems from my interpretation that these conversations (passed on at conferences sessions, foundation monographs, scholarly journals, and main stream publicist) often lack holistic and long-term thinking. In addition, the discourse is insular. There is little cross sector material and well, let's not even get into the topic of inclusion. This is why I am so thrilled with this monograph because it addresses all of these issues and more. Furthermore, being familiar with the work of at least one of the authors and the networks with which she interacts, I am confident that these issues are coming to the forefront in a healthy way. What gives me hope is my fortune to have a network of colleagues who not only lift up these issues but are directly addressing them in their own work and organizations…in that sense I know there is a growing subculture in the nonprofit sector who is already reframing the work and leadership can be transformed (see http://22ndcenturyleadershipvoices.blogspot.com/).

Summary: The ideas presented in this monograph offers both seasoned and nascent social change workers a perspective that is finally gaining ground among progressive nonprofit leaders and philanthropic stakeholders. This monograph, one of a two edition series, offers findings from The Building Movement Project. This project “advocates for US nonprofit organizations to build strong social justice ethos into their vision and activities and to strengthen the role of nonprofit groups as sites of democratic practice." In other words, to be places where "the talk is walked" in all aspects of the work.

Kunreuther and Corvington clearly articulate how the frame of "crisis" limits how people think about and thus shape the future of nonprofits. The "crisis" to which they refer is the shift in nonprofit leadership. Engaging nonprofit workers in their 20'3, 30's, and early 40's, the authors uncover that nonprofit workers in this cohort advocate addressing "structural rather than organizational responses" (p. 6); more specifically "organizational structure, the executive position, and leadership recognition" (p. 6). In presenting the feedback from participants the author’s aptly present issues rarely spoken about across generations of nonprofit workers, such as, the rejection of younger leaders rejecting the idea of moving into nonprofit leadership positions (p.7). They fittingly describe how emergent leaders recognize the limitations of executive director positions due to demand on need for funding, the growing pressure to employ business ethics and practices within social change work, and increasing competition (p. 7). These examples are just two from the article.

As all good monographs do, we are treated to recommendations for action that are framed in a powerful and reality-check way:

Change is coming. We can call it leadership crisis or deficit. Alternatively, we can seek it as an opportunity to rethink our assumptions about leadership and structure in nonprofit organizations. The recommendations address both the broader issues and some specific ways to get started. (p.10)

Why This Article is Important: This article lifts up the possibility that in a time when there is increasing anxiety, seasoned and emergent nonprofit leaders can engage conversations that are intergenerational, inclusive, keep future generations in mind, and that welcome innovative approaches that may not have worked at other times in history or are not found to be “realistic” because they have never been tried. There are nonprofit workers at all ages that are ready and willing to step into messy conversations and practices that can restructure our sector’s organizations, broaden and deepen our impact, and welcome transformative approaches to leadership. We all know change is not easy. To transform our society we have to be willing to transform ourselves and our organizations in ways that reflect the inclusive and just society we spend our lives trying to create.

Reading Day: Four Futures of Nonprofits

I have committed myself to spend one day a week to reading articles, research, and other manuscripts that offer insight about the culture of nonprofit literature. Below is a summary and comments about one such piece.

Four Futures
by Paul Light

Summary:
This article, posted on the Nonprofit Quarterly website, offers four possible scenarios of the future of nonprofits. At the heart of this article is a topic that is rarely talked about openly among the rank and file of nonprofit workers. Who determines the fate of the nonprofit sector's approaches to social change, use of resources, and sector culture about how to approach the work. The author states:

During these troubled times, what lies in store for the nonprofit sector, and what do we need to do about it? Along with every family in America, the nonprofit sector is wondering about its future. Will we miraculously survive as we largely do today? Will we starve our organizations to the core or emerge from the current economic calamity mostly intact? Will we fight the prevailing downturn on behalf of our individual institutions and leave others to defend themselves, or instead will we join forces to shore up the sector as a whole? In the aftermath of this financial crisis, will we have real options and choices?

The answers are not yet clear, but it appears that an intensifying struggle for ownership of the sector and how it is structured, governed, and deployed is under way. When boiled down to its fundamentals, the question is whether nonprofits are “owned” by their institutional funders (governmental and philanthropic) or whether a broader community of stakeholders should make the choice about the future nonprofits pursue. The search for an answer may yet produce a struggle for the identity and soul of the sector. Traditionally the sector belongs to this country’s citizens who have exercised their right to associate through civil society, but there is, of course, pressure from those who have the resources on which the sector depends.

The author offers the four possible future scenarios as a way to answer questions he poses above. Each future scenario outlines probability, who in the nonprofit sector would benefit and who would not. The last scenario "Transformation" offers suggestions about steps that can be take to authentically transform, not just change (Bridges, 1980; Gardner, 1981, Wheatley, 2005) how the sector serves the community and the role it holds in the country. The author understands that this is a long-term process that must be inclusive, innovative, and wider in scope than just survival of a nonprofit organization.

I really appreciate the author's inclusion of how smaller nonprofits could be affected in each scenario. The realities of smaller nonprofits, though they make up the majority of the nonprofit sector, are often left out of theoretical frameworks/discussions offering solutions to how nonprofits can be more effective as agents of social change.

What This Means to Me:
As a nonprofit community we have a tremendous opportunity to transform the future of our sector; I just want to make sure that from the get go the conversation (and subsequent actions taken) include the voices of smaller nonprofits who often tend to a very specific need or part of the larger community. The inclusion of the rank and file (read as people out in the field, not just the formal leadership of an organization) in the conversation about what the transformation looks like and how it is accomplished is critical. I, for one, am reflecting how I can be an active part of the transformation scenario and how old ways of being may be prohibiting me from being part of us as a sector moving forward.

Questions:
In my own work, how am I manifesting the transformation scenario? How am I stopping it?

How can I support smaller nonprofits to be part of the larger NP sector conversation that will impact their ability to do social change work inclusively, effectively, and with integrity?

Who is having the conversation about why and how nonprofit workers need to be actively
taking care of their mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual self in order to engage in the work
in a way that demonstrates/reflects/is the social change we are working to create?