social media
How Founder’s Syndrome Hurt the Komen Foundation
Last week’s stunning PR nightmare at the Susan G. Komen Foundation is a textbook example of how not to run a nonprofit. Komen decided early last week to pull all funding from Planned Parenthood and then went radio silent in response to an increasingly angered social media network. Finally they flipped their original decision while firing the anti-Planned Parenthood vice president for public policy, Karen Handel.
Komen’s PR response was woefully inadequate, their social media efforts were non-existent compared to Planned Parenthood’s, and their board decision-making process was flawed. And all of this follows their brand-busting decision last year to partner with KFC.
Obviously, the organization is not making good decisions.
But few people are placing the blame for these missteps where it should probably go, at the top. Karen Handel herself argued that she wasn’t the only decision maker, “I clearly acknowledge [my role] in the process, but to suggest I had sole authority is just absurd. The policy was vetted at all appropriate levels.”
I wonder if Komen isn’t suffering from classic founder’s syndrome. Founder’s syndrome is when the original founder of a nonprofit (or a leader who has been there for a very long time) creates a culture where:
- Power and influence all reside within the single founder
- The brand of the organization is inextricably linked to the personality of the founder
- Staff are powerless to speak up and be heard when they disagree with certain decisions
- The board of directors merely rubber stamps founder decisions and have no real authority over and provide no strategic direction to the organization
- Decisions are rarely tested or debated
Komen was founded by Nancy Brinker when her sister, Susan G. Komen, died of breast cancer in 1982. For such a massive organization (a 2010 budget of $400+ million), the Komen Foundation only has 9 board members, most of whom are friends or family of the founder . The organization’s structure and behavior have all the signs of classic founder’s syndrome.
In a healthy nonprofit environment, staff are allowed (even encouraged) to push back, ask hard questions, have their dissenting opinions heard. And the board of directors has the ultimate strategic and fiscal authority for the organization. As a group, they debate and grapple with big strategic decisions. And, as a group, board and staff together are charged with achieving the mission.
When founder’s syndrome is present it can spell trouble for a nonprofit. Far beyond the PR nightmare we have witnessed the past week with Komen, founder’s syndrome can fundamentally weaken an organization. It can make the organization’s funding and brand name overly reliant on one person. It can cause a lack of critical and innovative thinking. Ultimately, it can mean that the organization becomes less about social impact and more about the personality of the founder.
What has played out with the Komen Foundation over the past few months should be a cautionary tale for other nonprofits. To be strong, effective, innovative and sustainable, a nonprofit must encourage a culture of group ownership. It remains to be seen if Komen learns from their mistakes, but at the very least perhaps other nonprofits can.
Photo Credit: Jeffrey
10 Great Social Innovation Reads: January 2012
I can’t believe that January is already over, it was a complete blur. Nonetheless there was lots to read and ponder in the past month in the world of social innovation. Below are my ten picks of the best reads, but as always, please add what I missed in the comments. And if you want to see other things that caught my eye, follow me on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn or Pinterest (I’m starting to really love this new one!).
- Socialbrite has created a mega calendar of 2012 nonprofit & social good conferences. Perfect for planning your year ahead.
- In their Fast Company article, It’s Time To Start Judging Nonprofits Like For-Profits, Alexa Clay and Jon Camfield tell donors “Do not be turned off by high overheads. They’re healthy. They mean the organization has a longer-term view on its role in making change.” Amen to that!
- Crowd-sourcing meets behavioral economics meets iPhone apps. A new approach to getting people to eat better. Love it.
- FastCompany profiles the business pioneers who really understand and embrace the new chaos in which we all now operate. This should be required reading for any leader (for-profit or nonprofit).
- I love it when we can use history to understand current trends. Phil Buchanan, CEO of the Center for Effective Philanthropy, reviews historian Oliver Zunz’s new book, Philanthropy in America. In so doing, Buchanan describes 7 “new” philanthropic concepts that really aren’t so new.
- Jason Cohen from A Smart Bear always has a way of finding hope in the entrepreneurial process. Although this post is focused on “traditional” entrepreneurs, I think it holds for social entrepreneurs as well: Entrepreneurship is a torturous chaos, until it isn’t.
- I have always said that in order to be a truly effective social change leader, you must be able to fully wield the financial sword. Kate Barr from the Nonprofit Assistance Fund in Minnesota breaks it down in the Executive Director’s Guide to Financial Leadership
- January saw a pretty impressive mobilization of people via social media to protest against SOPA (the Stop Online Piracy Act) and PIPA (Protect Intellectual Property Act). Dowser helps us understand what it means for online protest more broadly.
- In an increasingly competitive and resource-strapped environment it is even more critical that nonprofits be able to demonstrate the impact of their work. Here is a great example of how a Michigan arts collaboration demonstrates the economic impact of the arts in their community.
- Hull House, one of the oldest and most impressive American nonprofit organizations closed its doors in January. The Bridgespan Group explains the implications.
Photo Credit: ilovememphis
The Next Generation of Philanthropy: An Interview with Jessamyn Lau
In this month’s Social Velocity blog interview, we’re talking with Jessamyn Lau. As Program Leader of the innovative Peery Foundation, Jessamyn helps shape the foundation’s strategy, develops programs, strengthens the foundation’s portfolio, and supports existing grantees. Jessamyn’s MBA from Brigham Young University and time spent with Ashoka U have given her the perspective and skill-set to help the foundation develop new methods to support and build the field of social entrepreneurship. Jessamyn is currently working with BYU’s Ballard Center to create the Peery Social Entrepreneurship Program (PSEP), a cross campus initiative providing opportunities for students and faculty to engage with social entrepreneurship through curriculum, experiential learning, and research.
You can read past interviews in our Social Innovation Interview Series here.
Nell: At the Peery Foundation you have done some really interesting experiments with social media, even adding an element of crowd-sourcing via Twitter to your strategic planning process. But recently you have gone back and forth about whether you want to continue your PFWhiteboard blog. What has your thinking been about how social media fits into the overall work of the Peery Foundation?
Jessamyn: One thing we know about social media is that it’s a good tool for is spreading the word about our partners and their work. 90% of what we post/tweet is about our portfolio partners. Every now and then we try to figure out how else to deliberately use social media. We’ve tried stuff that hasn’t worked (so we stopped doing it), and we’ve tried stuff that did seem to yield value for us and others. In general it’s still throwing spaghetti at a wall and seeing what sticks. Intuitively we think social media is a good thing for our creativity, learning, and listening, however, we don’t feel tied to it as a core part of our strategy or practice. When it makes sense we use it, when it doesn’t we don’t.
Nell: What do you think holds foundations back from using social media and embracing greater transparency? What do you think will make that change?
Jessamyn: The tricky thing with social media is it’s really hard to link it to outcomes. Even when tangible examples of outcomes are illustrated it’s often a first-mover advantage and not something that will produce the same results if everyone did the same thing. If foundations could see how social media directly led to more impact it would be an easier sell. It’s a similar story with transparency. Being transparent requires change, time, dedication and a certain amount of risk. Without a clear and strong argument for how that leads to more impact it’s easier not to take the risk and stay quiet.
Another issue is strategic planning, which, at times, can become more of a bane than a boon to foundations. When it comes to social media many foundations think they need a strategy and a full blown plan before they will start using it. As with many things it’s hard to know exactly how Twitter or Facebook will be useful until you give it a go and play around a
little.
For the most part I think the change will only come with an increase of millennial philanthropists, foundation ED’s and program officers who come with a share-as-default mentality and bias towards creative experimentation in public.
Nell: You recently did a fascinating blog post about how the social entrepreneurship movement is encouraging young people to think they can solve the world’s problems, without much real world experience. How do we balance Generation Y’s zeal to find solutions with their youth and lack of experience?
Jessamyn: I don’t think I know the full answer to that, yet. My opinions on this point are still developing as the Peery Foundation works closely with BYU to build a cross-campus social entrepreneurship program. I’m not sure the overall problem is too much zeal or youth, or even too little experience -all of these things provide incredible value in the right context. I think what’s lacking are clearer expectations and support for students to build self-awareness and deliberate preparation in their development as social innovators. As I said, I’m still figuring it out -watch the PF Whiteboard over the coming months for more on this.
Nell: The Peery Foundation is one of few foundations that do mission-related investments. How did you decide to move into that realm and what do you think holds other foundation back from MRIs?
Jessamyn: Our primary function is to support and serve the social entrepreneurs we work with. We try to keep our funding as flexible as possible. Peery Foundation funding is generally unrestricted and the structure of a grant is often co-crafted with the entrepreneur. We have come to realize that entrepreneurs with differing business models, or at differing life-cycle stages, need different types of capital. Once we believe in a SE and their model for addressing poverty we want to always be open to providing the type of capital that they need at the time they need it.
We’re still at an early stage in developing our capacity to provide debt and other funding outside of philanthropy. In our philanthropic funding we’re not paper heavy and our agreements are very trust-based. It was definitely daunting to explore this new realm of traditional investment due diligence and contractual agreements. So far we’ve found the kind of support we need to help us make the leap fairly painlessly through the Toniic Network, and from sources such as Silicon Valley Community Foundation and University Impact Fund, and still feel like we’re able to retain our low-paper, trust based partnership approach to the extent that makes sense.
Nell: In some ways philanthropy has been a bit left behind by the impact investing movement. Why do you think that is and do you think philanthropic giving and impact investing will become more integrated?
Jessamyn: The potential of impact investing is huge, though I’m not sure I agree with the statement that impact investing (ii) has left behind philanthropy (charitable giving from individuals, corporations and foundations totaled over $290B in the US alone for 2010, impact investing is estimated at $50-100B in 2011). Though there is a lot of attention and discussion surrounding impact investing, there are still relatively few organizations actively channeling dollars to ii. Even in the future (when I think ii will absolutely eclipse philanthropy by the numbers), I see ii and philanthropy as very complimentary. In many cases philanthropic capital prepares the way for ii dollars, or continues to fund pieces of a model (overhead or continuing innovation) that ii capital can not.
Indeed, there are many incredibly efficient and effective models of social entrepreneurship with models not conducive to impact investment capital – they will probably always rely on philanthropic dollars. There will always be an important role for philanthropy to play. Philanthropy is the ultimate risk-taking capital. We should not lose sight of this or think that ii is here to replace philanthropy.
5 Nonprofit Trends to Watch in 2012
My annual predictions for the coming year are probably a bit more wishful thinking than actual prediction. It’s hard to say if my predictions for 2011 became a reality for the sector as a whole. But I am ever an optimist and continue to think that the nonprofit sector is getting smarter, more effective, and better able to create real, lasting change in our communities. I truly believe that our challenging economy offers nonprofits a real opportunity to reinvent themselves.
So here are my predictions (hopes) for what the nonprofit sector will move towards in 2012:
- More Open, Engaging Organizations
Smart nonprofits are getting better at engaging armies of supporters. In order to do that, they have to cede some control. Nonprofits that can allow volunteers, donors and advocates to engage their friends in their own way will unleash a growing army of support for their organizations. Those nonprofits that continue to control the message and the method, that only engage their donors when they need money, and ignore the increasingly networked world will wither on the vine. - Smarter Boards
I am an endless optimist when it comes to nonprofit boards of directors. Boards are, for the most part, dysfunctional, but I believe that they are getting smarter and more effective. I think boards will start asking more and better questions, increasingly put themselves to their highest and best use, focus more on strategic issues as opposed to day-to-day tasks, empower their staff leadership to take the organization in more innovative directions, and start putting their money (and their networks) where their mouth is. Because this new harsher environment absolutely necessitates a smart, strategic, innovative board. - More Honest Communication Between Nonprofits and Their Donors
Oh yes, I do, I do believe it. The nonprofit sector’s proclivity to endlessly beat around the bush, tell donors what they want to hear, and sugar-coat the truth will start to wane in the new year. Because the reality is that a severely under-resourced nonprofit sector is the new normal. That truth is harder and harder to hide. Nonprofits need more money for infrastructure, more and better staff, technology. And they need their donors to step up to the plate and fund it. Those nonprofits that continue to fear their donors will continue to struggle. Those that take the leap and tell donors how it is, how it REALLY is, will propel themselves out of the starvation cycle. - More Strategic Approaches to Solving Social Problems
It’s increasingly meaningless for nonprofits to talk about the “good work” they do. In order to attract donors, nonprofits must be able to articulate what they do and how it results in change. This necessitates an overall strategic approach to their work. From creating a theory of change, to developing on a comprehensive strategy, to raising the money required to execute on that strategy, to aligning money and mission, to evaluating their efforts, to translating their evaluation into a compelling story, nonprofits have to get more strategic. Those organizations that take a step back and create, and fully integrate their organization into, a long-term plan will be much more successful and sustainable. - More Financed Nonprofits
As part of this more strategic approach, nonprofits will (must) move towards a broader, more strategic approach to funding their work. They will realize that the hamster wheel of chasing receding dollars in a scattered approach just isn’t going to cut it anymore. As the fundamental economic restructuring that we are currently experiencing continues, nonprofits must create a financial model for their work. The financial status quo just will no longer work in the nonprofit sector.
I’m not a fortune teller, but I am an optimist. I have tremendous hope for our great nonprofit sector. We may be in the depths of an on-going, structurally transformative recession, but it in no way is the death knell for the nonprofit sector. It is simply an opportunity for nonprofits to get smarter, more honest, more open, more strategic, and more sustainable. And that’s exciting.
Photo Credit: riptheskull
Financing Not Fundraising Webinar Series
Because of the popularity of the past two Financing Not Fundraising overview webinars in October and November, I’ve decided to launch a webinar series that breaks the Financing Not Fundraising concept into its various parts and expands on how to approach each element.
I will kick off this new webinar series in January with a new webinar each month. Some of the webinar topics will be:
- Creating a Financing Plan
- Finding Individual Donors
- Developing a Message of Social Impact
- Raising Capacity Capital
- Evaluating Earned Income
- Calculating the Cost of Fundraising
- Moving from Push to Pull
- Getting Your Board to Raise Money
If you want to find out when those webinars get scheduled in the new year, sign up for our the Social Velocity e-newsletter.
But in the meantime, if you want to get up to speed on the overall concept of Financing Not Fundraising, I’m doing one more overview Financing Not Fundraising webinar on December 6th.
This webinar, based on our popular Financing Not Fundraising ongoing blog series will show nonprofits what a broader approach to securing the overall financing necessary to create social change looks like, including:
- How to align your nonprofit’s mission with the money needed to deliver on it
- Why a message of impact results in more money
- Understanding the critical difference between revenue and capital
- Why overhead isn’t a dirty word anymore
- How and why to calculate the net revenue of money raising activities
- When to explore new revenue streams
If you’ve been following the Social Velocity Financing Not Fundraising blog series and you want to learn more, or if the series has brought up some burning questions that you’d like to have answered, join us for this interactive webinar.
If your staff, your board, and your donors are worn out, rest assured, there is a better way. Join this webinar to find out how. I hope to see you there!
Financing Not Fundraising: Rethinking How Nonprofits Bring Money in the Door
Tuesday, December 6, 2011
12:00 PM – 1:00 PM (Eastern Time)
$40.00
Register Now
10 Great Social Innovation Reads: October
I think it gets harder and harder every month to narrow down to a list of only 10 great reads in social innovation. October was no exception. Here are my top 10 of the last month (but actually more like 13 if you’re counting). As always, please add what I missed to the comments. And if you want to see the expanded list of what catches my eye, follow me on Twitter @nedgington.
You can also read the lists of Great Reads from previous months here.
- Marketing is a brave new world these days, and so is fundraising. Replace “customer” with “donor” and “We’re All Marketers Now” from McKinsey Quarterly applies to nonprofits as well.
- A new Chronicle of Philanthropy blog launched recently that focuses on innovation in the nonprofit world. One of the first posts is about how the U.S. Army’s practice of using a “devil’s advocate” in their decision-making processes is something that some philanthropists are copying in order to come up with better solutions.
- Occupy Wall Street and the other protests in cities around the country was a big topic this month. Some of the most interesting were Who are the 99 percent? from Ezra Klein in The Washington Post and The Demographics of Occupy Wall Street from Fast Company.
- From the Harvard Business Review blog comes an argument that I completely agree with. Nonprofits that are struggling lack a “strategy for connecting their mission with their ability to deliver.”
- I know infographics are becoming overused, but this one is pretty cool: How the Top 50 Nonprofits Do Social Media.
- And speaking of the top nonprofits, the Chronicle of Philanthropy’s Philanthropy 400 is out, all about what the 400 wealthiest nonprofits are up to.
- The Alliance for Children and Families, a membership group for human-service charities, released a new report identifying the emerging trends social service organizations must embrace in order to succeed.
- If you missed the live-streaming from the White House last week on social impact bonds, Pay for Success: Investing in What Works, you can still watch archived recordings, or check out the Nonprofit Finance Fund’s great resources on the topic here.
- As usual, Lucy Bernholz tells it like it is, in her argument that the current debate in American politics about shifting more of the burden of funding for core public services to private philanthropy is undemocratic.
- Jennifer Landres from the Center for High Impact Philanthropy finds some lessons for philanthropy in the movie “Moneyball.”
Photo Credit: JeffersonDavis
Financing Not Fundraising E-Book
I’m delighted to announce that, by popular demand, we are releasing today the Financing Not Fundraising, 2011 e-book. This 27-page e-book is a compilation and expansion on the 11 blog posts from 2011 in the Social Velocity Financing Not Fundraising blog series.
In the midst of an incredibly challenging economic situation that is not getting better any time soon, the Financing Not Fundraising, 2011 e-book outlines a new vision for how the nonprofit sector gets funded. Fundraising in its current form just doesn’t work anymore. Indeed, traditional fundraising is holding the sector back by keeping nonprofits in the starvation cycle of trying to do more and more with less and less.
What the sector needs is a financing strategy not a fundraising strategy. Nonprofits have to break out of the narrow view that traditional FUNDRAISING (individual donor appeals, events, foundation grants) will completely fund all of their activities. Instead, nonprofits must work to create a broader approach to securing the overall FINANCING necessary to create social change.
This 27-page e-book is a compilation and expansion of the Social Velocity blog series Financing Not Fundraising from 2011. The blog series is ongoing, with new posts added throughout each year. We’ll begin adding new posts to the series in the new year, but in the meantime, this e-book captures and expands on the posts from 2011 in one place.
The 12 chapters of the Financing Not Fundraising, 2011 e-book are:
- What is Financing Not Fundraising?
- Create A Financial Strategy
- Align Money and Mission
- Find Individual Donors
- Develop a Message of Impact
- Raise Money for Building Capacity
- Explore New Types of Money
- Evaluate Earned Income
- Calculate Net Revenue
- Move From Push to Pull
- Stop Lying to Donors
- Getting Started
You can download the Financing Not Fundraising, 2011 e-book here.
If you want to learn more about how to apply the concepts of Financing Not Fundraising to your nonprofit, check out our Financing Not Fundraising Webinar Series
A Monster List of Social Innovation Books, Blogs, Conferences, Funders
Since today is Halloween, I thought I’d offer a monster list of resources for nonprofit leaders, social entrepreneurs, philanthropists, board members and others involved in creating social change.
The following list comes from the Resources page of the Social Velocity web site. The page includes social innovation conferences, organizations, funders, blogs, books and other things that anyone involved in the social change space should be aware of. It could be a starting point or an ongoing exploration of what’s going on in the space.
We are constantly adding to the Resources page, so if we are missing something, let us know in the comments.
Organizations Moving Social Innovation Forward
Funders
- 130 Ways to Fund Your Social Venture
- Center for Effective Philanthropy
- Dell Social Innovation Competition
- Echoing Green
- New Profit
- Nonprofit Finance Fund
- Public-Philanthropic Partnerships at the Council on Foundations
- Robert Wood Johnson’s Pioneer Portfolio
- Sea Change Capital
- Unreasonable Institute
- Venture Philanthropy Partners
Conferences
- Accelerating Social Entrepreneurship in the Age of Austerity
- Bottom Billions Bottom Line
- Clinton Global Initiative Annual Meeting
- Conference on Scaling Impact (by Social Impact Exchange)
- FSG and SSIR Collective Impact Conference
- Grantmakers for Effective Organizations Conference
- Harvard Social Enterprise Conference
- Net Change Week
- Net Impact 2011 Conference
- NextGen: Charity
- The Nonprofit Management Institute (by Stanford Social Innovation Review)
- Opportunity Collaboration
- ReVisioning Value
- Skoll World Forum on Social Entrepreneurship
- Social Capital Markets Conference
- Social Enterprise Summit
- Social Enterprise World Forum
- Social Good Summit
- Social Venture Capital / Social Enterprise (Miami)
- Social Venture Network Conference
- Social Venture Partners International Annual Conference
- Sustainatopia
- The Feast
- UST Symposium on Social Entrepreneurship
Philanthropic Thought Leaders
Things to Read
Blogs
- A Smart Bear: Startups & Marketing for Geeks
- About.com Nonprofit Charitable Orgs
- Against the Grain
- Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits are Using Social Media to Power Change
- Dan Pallotta: Harvard Business Review
- Deep Social Impact
- Dowser
- Full Contact Philanthropy
- GuideStar: Bob Ottenhoff Blog
- Money and Mission
- New Philanthropy Capital's Blog
- NFF's Social Currency Blog
- Philanthropy 2173
- PhilanTopic
- SocialEarth
- SSIR Opinion Blog: Nonprofit Management
- SSIR Opinion Blog: Social Entrepreneurship
- Tactical Philanthropy
- UnSectored
Financing Impact
- Beyond Fundraising
- Nonprofit Growth Capital, Building is not Buying
- The Nonprofit Starvation Cycle
- Social Finance
- Social Impact Bonds
- The Task Force on Social Finance
- Understanding Nonprofit Financial Statements
Using Social Media
Being Strategic
- Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies
- Creating Public Value
- Forces for Good: The Six Practices of High-Impact Nonprofits
- Good to Great
- Good to Great and the Social Sector
- Leap of Reason: Managing to Outcomes in an Era of Scarcity
- Strategic Management of Charter Schools
Finding Inspiration
- Getting to Maybe: How the World is Changed
- How to Change the World
- One Day, All Children…: The Unlikely Triumph Of Teach For America And What I Learned Along The Way
- Social Innovation Generation
- The Power of Unreasonable People: How Social Entrepreneurs Create Markets That Change the World
- The Social Innovation Dynamic
- Work on Purpose
Growing Solutions
- Franchise Organizations
- Scaling Social Impact: Strategies for Spreading Social Innovations. Stanford Social Innovation Review
- The Five Meanings of Scale
- The Nonprofit Outcomes Toolbox
Leading Well
Photo Credit: annabellaphoto
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My Favorite Blogs
- A Smart Bear: Startups & Marketing for Geeks
- About.com Nonprofit Charitable Orgs
- Against the Grain
- Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits are Using Social Media to Power Change
- Dan Pallotta: Harvard Business Review
- Deep Social Impact
- Dowser
- Full Contact Philanthropy
- GuideStar: Bob Ottenhoff Blog
- Money and Mission
- New Philanthropy Capital's Blog
- NFF's Social Currency Blog
- Philanthropy 2173
- PhilanTopic
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