2010 EPIP National Conference

YNPN + EPIP: Blog Roundup and Recommendations for Next Year

April 30, 2010 by rosettathurman · 2 Comments

Did you miss all the awesome blog posts from Denver during the two must-attend conferences for young nonprofit leaders? No worries, I’ve got the goods for you right here:

Check out stories from the conference from YNPN Chapter Leaders on YNPN’s new blog at ynpn.wordpress.com
Get the full recap of the EPIP conference sessions on the Epiphanies blog here: http://epip.blogspot.com

This year marked the first time EVER that the Young Nonprofit Professionals Network (YNPN) held their Annual Leaders Conference in partnership with the Emerging Practitioners in Philanthropy (EPIP). 200 young leaders in nonprofits and philanthropy gathered in Denver, Colorado prior to the Council on Foundations Annual Conference. During all of the pre-conference activity during the weekend, it was clear that these two groups have become the premier support organizations for young people in the sector. Yet, what struck me most about both conferences was how similar they were. I found myself scratching my head at many points during the weekend, wondering, how come we haven’t see this type of “convergence” before? After reading the blog posts from both the YNPN and EPIP conferences, it’s clear that this kind of collaboration needs to continue, not only for the sheer practicality of it but for the long-term strength of our sector. Here’s some ideas for how we can do that, should YNPN and EPIP accept this charge…

Host a Joint Conference Every Year

In 2011, the Council on Foundations Annual Conference will be in Philadelphia…therefore the EPIP National Conference will be in Philly. This would be a great opportunity for EPIP and YNPN National to begin conversations with Philly EPIP and Philadelphia’s Young Nonprofit Leaders to start planning an amazing joint conference for next year. The nonprofit sector and the philanthropic sector are one and the same in my view. So why keep having separate conversations?

Invite All Now Generation Leaders to the Party

I continue to wonder when YNPN will take on the opportunity of hosting a national conference for ALL young nonprofit leaders to attend, not just YNPN chapter leaders. EPIP already includes all young grantmakers in its programming, so it would be natural next step for a joint national conference to do that. If the conference is open to all young people in nonprofits and philanthropy, the opportunity becomes even richer for three reasons:

Any young nonprofit leader will be able to engage in the movement and can then take the learning back to their own communities
The amount of attendees will likely increase, thereby also increasing the revenue for both organizations
The energy of having hundreds of young people working for social change in one place at one time will prove to our older colleagues that we are here in the sector in full force and we are here to stay

What did you think of the conferences? How can they get even better next year?

Filed Under: 2010 EPIP National Conference · Tagged With: 2010 EPIP National Conference, Emerging Practitioners in Philanthropy, EPIP, YNPN, YNPN Leaders Conference, YNPN National Conference, Young Nonprofit Professionals Network

Race to the Top or Running in Place? The Pathway to Becoming a Foundation CEO

April 25, 2010 by rosettathurman · Leave a Comment

What is the pathway to becoming a foundation CEO? Last year, the Council on Foundations addressed that very question by releasing an enlightening report titled, Career Pathways to Philanthropic Leadership 2009 Baseline Report, which examined the professional and individual characteristics of 440 foundation and grantmaking executives who were appointed during a five-year period (2004-2008). Today, at EPIP’s National Conference, we hear from Renee Branch from the Council as well as Donna Bransford from DNB Strategic Consulting.

The baseline report revealed an eye-opening view of what the pathway to philanthropic leadership really looks like. One thing is clear: most foundation CEOs are not program officers who have advanced to the top position.

Foundation CEOs are White People Over the Age of 41

Not surprisingly, 81 percent of foundation CEOs hired from 2004-2008 were white. As far as gender, the hires were pretty split 50/50 amongst males and females. Again, not surprisingly, 88 percent of foundation CEOs were over 41. Fewer than 5 percent were under the age of 31.

When the Council looked at current foundation CEOs, they found that the age was even higher. Over 70% of current foundation leaders are over 50. And given the economy and the desire for older leaders to continue in this work, we really don’t know when or even if they will retire. To compound this uncertainty, 79 percent of the foundations don’t even have succession plans in place.

Most Foundations Hire From the Outside

Out of over 400 foundation CEOs hired from 2004-2008, only 20 percent of them were hired from within. Which means that 80 percent were hired from outside the foundation. Where did they come from, you ask? Well, most foundation CEOs had already been a CEO in another industry. Over 70 percent of them came from completely outside of the foundation field – primarily from business or from nonprofits.

Advanced Education and Professional Development are Key

The foundation CEOs surveyed shared the types of professional development that helped them move forward in their careers. 46 percent listed board service as an asset to their leadership. 76 percent had participated in professional development, with women more likely to have participated in trainings and workshops.

In addition, advanced education proved a key success factor for foundation CEO hires. In particular, education seemed to be even more important when it came to leaders of color. 92 percent of black foundation CEOs have a Master’s degree, while 100% of Hispanics and Asians possess a Master’s. On the flipside, only 78 percent of white foundation CEOs have a Master’s degree.

Executive Search Firms are a Gift and a Curse

The Council’s report found that 45 percent of foundation CEO hires were managed by a search firm. On the one hand, the search firms were credited with bringing forth a more racially diverse pool of candidates. But on the other hand, the search firm approach tends to look for a “rockstar” from outside the foundation world to present to trustees as part of the recruitment process. So you have to wonder, is this why foundations aren’t hiring from within?

Overall, the Council’s research makes the “race to the top” look more like running in place for current foundation staff who want to advance to the top job as CEO. It may be a harsh reality, but the numbers say: it ain’t happening. No way, no how.

Filed Under: 2010 EPIP National Conference, Leadership, Philanthropy, Professional Development · Tagged With: 2010 EPIP National Conference, Career Pathways to Philanthropic Leadership, Council on Foundations, Emerging Practitioners in Philanthropy, EPIP

Dismantling the Executive Director Role, Moving Toward Collective Leadership

April 24, 2010 by rosettathurman · 8 Comments

When the Chinook Fund and the Colorado Anti-Violence Program (CAVP) found that they were both moving away from having a traditional leadership structure, they decided to put their heads together and help each other develop a collective leadership model. At a time when both organizations had an empty executive director position, they saw how they were being so focused on how to change the outside and not taking time to reflect on how they were treating each other inside their organizations.

In Chinook’s case, they had hired a woman of color to lead the foundation, however it didn’t work out. The position wasn’t resourced correctly, bad power dynamic between ED and staff as well as ED and board. And no one wanted to step into those shoes. The traditional role of an ED certainly didn’t resonate with Neha Mahajana at Chinook – her culture values stepping back and humility, and those values are beautiful. She didn’t want to sacrifice them.

CAVP wanted to switch from having an executive director to having a shared leadership structure. They had tried before, but found that hadn’t worked out because they just jumped right in and not taken a lot of time to think about it through a real process.

Both organizations ended up with a shared directorship held by three co-executive directors.

Shared Leadership Roles

Both organizations didn’t want it to be about one person moving them into the heartland, but about all the staff moving the organization in the same direction. With three co-directors, 50 percent of their time is divided among their particular program/leadership area (for instance, fundraising, finance, advocacy) and the rest of time is divided up so that everyone is equally responsible for administrative activities. They seek to take advantage of everyone’s individual strengths and their models are fluid enough that they can switch leadership priorities based on where the organization is in its life cycle.

They make their roles clear to everyone on the board and staff with a very detailed organizational chart describing who has what power. As co-directors, they take on the responsibility of consensus-based decisionmaking, even when it comes to board issues. For instance, CAVP staff are not board members, but everyone has a vote at the board meetings. Even part-time staff attend both board and staff meetings to ensure that those decisions work for everyone. Both organizations are also working to transform their boards because they understand that real collective leadership can’t stop at the staff level.

Shared Supervision

Both Chinook and CAVP’s staff are responsible for supervising each other. They utilize peer supervision to help each other become better leaders. They recognize that kust as there are certain qualities needed to be a good executive director, there are certain skills that people need to be a good co-director. Chinook employs a “team coach” - a former board member who facilitates the peer supervision and helps them give each other tough feedback that comes from a place of respect and love. They do this on a monthly basis depending on capacity. The board is ultimately responsible for supervising all three co-directors.

Challenges

They had to figure out how they were going to manage conflict among the three co-executive directors
Having three leaders requires extensive communication
Had to explain to the other staff how the organization was changing and get buy-in
They had to cultivate an incredible amount of trust amongst themselves as co-executive directors
The organizations had to become more transparent about finances with a shared leadership model

Opportunities

They got to build shared ownership of leadership responsibility so that no one gets to “check out” of leadership
This model doesn’t set up one leader for an isolating/unsupported position or unchecked power/control
It challenges the old 1950s business model of running a nonprofit

Two burning questions from the audience were on my mind as well.

Both organizations had opportunities where there was an open ED position, which presented an opportunity to talk about changing the leadership structure. How can we bring up these conversations even without being in that situation?
Both Chinook and CAVP are very small organizations (under 10 staff). Can this model or a similar model work in larger organizations?

Filed Under: 2010 EPIP National Conference, Nonprofit Management · Tagged With: 2010 EPIP National Conference, collective leadership, Emerging Practitioners in Philanthropy, EPIP

We Need to Do Better: How the Now Generation of Leaders Can Change Philanthropy

April 24, 2010 by rosettathurman · 2 Comments

Council on Foundations President Steve Gunderson opened the morning plenary for the second day of the 2010 EPIP National Conference with this strong statement that I agree with wholeheartedly:

EPIP needs to change their tagline from the “next generation” of grantmakers to the NOW generation of grantmakers. The future is now.

With 50 years of experience in philanthropy, Bill Somerville, author of Grassroots Philanthropy and President of the Philanthropic Ventures Foundation brought a wealth of inspiration and insight as the keynote speaker. “You are the future of philanthropy. We need reform in philanthropy, we need you to critique philanthropy, one thing I don’t want to see is young people come in and accept things as they are.”

Take the top 1,200 foundations, where 45 percent of grantmaking is made up of grants of $10,000 or less. 85 percent of community foundation grants are made up of $10,000 or less. So we can say that most grants in America are of $15,000 or less, which means we’re spending an awful lot of time on small grants. Is this effective and is the system working as it should?

Nonprofits say it takes up to 30 hours to apply for a grant. Bill gave an example of a grantmaker that required 112 questions and 19 enclosures as part of a pre-application process. His view is that this is absurd, patronizing. And because of the time spent, a $20,000 grant is really only worth $11, 800. Bill predicts that more young people will come into the field, yet he doesn’t see that young people are bringing in a correction to the field. “Some of you are just as bureacratic as your older colleagues.”

We need you. We need reform. We need to do better.

Bill doesn’t think that you can do philanthropy from behind a computer, yet that’s what seems to be happening. We’re quite reactionary, we work on the problem rather than the idea. We need to get people to think creatively and originally. Unless you have some failures, you’re not doing your job right. You’re not taking risks. And if you take risks, you’re bound to have some failures.

Less Power

In philathropy, money is a tool. Money is power. But it’s not your money. It’s not your power. We should be full equals when we’re working with people. As an example, Bill told a story of how he went down to the welfare office near his house to wait in line for an hour and a half to see what people were experiencing in this economy. You have to get out of your comfort zone and meet people you wouldn’t mormally meet.

More Trust

Why wait? Try paperless giving. It’s not reckless, you just have to trust yourselves. Bill says his foundation does their giving in 48 hours. All of you have ability to do this – it’s called discretionary giving. Grants of up to 50,000 can be done before a board meeting. Make grants when they are needed, not on a schedule. Make more impact with small grants rather than making nonprofits wait six months. Just think, how much more could be done if all $10,000 grants were made within 48 hours. What is all this paper about? I’m not sure that we trust the people we work with – we think the more paper we have people fill out, we’ve done our due diligence. But if we trust people, then let’s trust them and make the system much more modern than it is. At the Ford Foundation, the board makes no funding decisions. The staff makes the grants, the board is there for oversight.

Be Wary of “Academic Philanthropy”

You have a real responsibility to use this money in magical ways. But the field is moving toward academic philanthropy – performance metrics, outputs, outcomes, strategic philanthropy – and there’s a book on each of them. Those who are talking about it aren’t doing it. those who are doing it aren’t talking about it. Ask your grantees how THEY neasure success. Get out of the office to visit your granteers. stay in touch. If there is a true partnership, you need to trust the people you give the money to.

Create a “Risk Pot”

If you can’t build risk into your daily grantmaking, you can create a “risk pot” to institutionalize funding failures. Do we treat failures openly? No – we’re ashamed of them. There’s a world of difference betwen gambling and risk-taking. W’ere not “giving” money away, that way of thinking is patronizing. We’re investing in people who are worthy of that investment. You all are investment managers.

“The power is in the doing, not in the asking.” – Bill Somerville

Be sure to watch the live video stream of this weekend’s EPIP conference sessions here:http://epip.org and my fellow bloggers Allison Jones and Trista Harris. You can also follow the conference happenings on Twitter!

Filed Under: 2010 EPIP National Conference, Philanthropy · Tagged With: 2010 EPIP National Conference, Emerging Practitioners in Philanthropy, EPIP

Philanthropy Leaders Discuss Trends in Generational Change: It’s About Leading Together

April 23, 2010 by rosettathurman · 3 Comments

It’s raining and snowing and cold in Denver, Colorado today, but the mood at the Emerging Practitioners in Philanthropy (EPIP) is anything but gloomy. This afternoon marks the opening plenary for their 2010 National Conference this weekend through April 25, prior to the Council on Foundations 61^stAnnual Conference. The theme for this year’s conference is “Building a Movement, Making an Impact” and the plenary speaker, Robby Rodriguez, was the epitome of someone who is doing just that. Robby is the Executive Director of the Southwest Organizing Project (SWOP) and co-author of the awesome book Working Across Generations: Defining the Future of Nonprofit Leadership.

Robby became an Executive Director at 28 years old after the founder had passed away. He took over at a time when the organization’s partners were wondering what was going to happen to the work, so there was lots of pressure to Robby to succeed as a new executive director. Half of SWOP’s staff was under 30, yet the board was over 50. People had different motivations on why they worked for the organization based on their generation. Yet through new and shared experiences, SWOP learned to pull through and continue to support the organization and its work.

Robby talked about the conversation about the nonprofit leadership “crisis” and how it’s changed in the past few years. In 2007, the worry was: “The boomers are leaving!” A 2001 Daring to Lead study said that 75 percent of executive directors planned to leave their jobs within five years. Yet, five years later, when a second Daring to Lead study was published in 2006, that percentage was the same. And the boomers still hadn’t left their jobs yet. So in 2010, the crisis is: “the boomers are staying!” And indeed, the boomers are staying. The youngest baby boomers are in their mid-40s, so they have at least 20 more years left in the nonprofit workforce.

The generation differences include several challenging dynamics, and Robby was very vocal about the changes we face regarding race and leadership. Robby reminded us that the 2008 Ready to Lead study showed that there is more interest from people of color in becoming a nonprofit executive director, yet that desire doesn’t get reflected in the actual leadership of the sector. Daring to Lead 2001 showed that 17 percent of executive directors were of color, then five years later, that number was still the same.

Robby said that there were five frames within which to think about leadership change that will affect the solutions we come up with as a sector.

Frame 1: The Crisis
If we think we’re in a crisis , organizations will prioritize succession planning and ”pipeline” planning for new leaders. Yet, the search for those “new leaders” may simply generate more of the same: baby boomer white men.

Frame 2: There’s No Room at the Top
If we think the problem is that there’s no room at the top, organizations will seek to share power and make it possible for current leaders to leave or change positions.

Frame 3: It’s the Position
If we recognize that the problem is with leadership positions, then organizations will focus on providing support for new leaders. We will begin to rethink the executive director role, and realize that it’s not a model we should be taking into the 21st century.

Frame 4: We Have a Problem Recognizing Leaders
If we look at how we currently recognize our leadership, then younger leaders may not look like current leaders. Challenge assumptions about who assume everyone has leadership potential and be “leaderfull” organizations.

Frame 5: Another Organizational Form is Possible
We have to realize that organizations in the future might operate differently. We’re a sector in transition and we have to recognize that change is hard and we need to “fail faster” like in scientific inquiry.

Robby also outlined three points for young leaders in nonprofits and philanthropy to consider in our work:

1. The world is seriously jacked up and we have to do all we can to fix it. The tea party and right-wingers have done for racism what Justin Timberlake did for sexy. It’s back.

2. Philanthropy in the 21st century has to be a question of social justice. Where social justice lives is at the nexus of power and money and love. We have to put social justice front and center in our philanthropy.

3. The future will look different. That is a fact. So we have to as well.

Then, someone asked Robby the important question of when. When should our generation start taking the reins without having them given to us? Robby echoed my thoughts exactly: “I think it’s now. Right now. It’s not about passing the torch or taking the reigns, but about leading together.”

Be sure to watch the live video stream of this weekend’s EPIP conference sessions here: http://epip.org and my fellow bloggers Allison Jones and Trista Harris. You can also follow the conference happenings on Twitter!