The Perils of Nice

I have a new post up on the Change.org Social Entrepreneurship blog called “The Perils of Nice.” Here is an excerpt:

The nonprofit sector often suffers from a propensity toward niceness. Indeed, according to a recent study by researchers at Stanford and two other business schools, nonprofits are perceived as “warm, generous and caring organizations, but lacking the competence to produce high-quality goods or services and run financially sound businesses.” In other words, we think they are nice — but not competent. But this perception stems from a reality that is often imposed on the sector. Nonprofits are encouraged to collaborate instead of compete, hold onto under-performing staff, accept martyr-like salaries, smile and nod when funders push them in tangential directions and keep quiet when government programs want the same services at a lower price…But in order to innovate and work toward real solutions, in order to get out from under consensus-based mediocrity, nonprofits need to break free from the niceness trap. They need to get meaner, uglier, messier…

Tags: Change.org Social Entrepreneurship blog, Stanford

The Change.org Social Entrepreneurship Blog

I am delighted to announce that I’ve been asked by the Change.org Social Entrepreneurship blog to become a regular contributor.  It’s a real honor to be part of this phenomenal blog, so I hope that you will check it out and join the conversation.

I will still write for the Social Velocity blog as often as I have been, but if you’re interested in my additional posts, check them out there.  My first post “The Danger of Abandoning the Nonprofit Sector” is up today, and here’s an excerpt:

With all the excitement and energy around social entrepreneurship, there’s a tendency to dismiss the sector that was working on social impact long before it was cool: the nonprofit world.  These days, nonprofits get far less airtime in the social innovation movement than their for-profit, social entrepreneur counterparts…Again and again, I’ve heard that innovation will never become part of the nonprofit system — that nonprofits are too set in their ways. Or that the sector is too broken to emerge anew. That attitude, though, is unacceptable. There’s great danger in dismissing the sector. Sure, it’s inefficient, dysfunctional and broken. Yet it has tremendous potential for innovation. Indeed, without innovation in the nonprofit sector, the broader movement to solve social problems is doomed…

Tags: Change.org Social Entrepreneurship blog, nonprofit, Social Entrepreneurship