Collectively, We Can Make a Difference

I recently saw a headline in the Montreal Gazette asking, “What can YOU do about the road mess?”

For those not familiar with the road situation in Montreal, it’s pretty frightening.  We live on an island, so our bridges and tunnels are essential to travel here.  

But we can’t always trust them.  A bridge in one of the suburbs fell 5 years ago, killing people who were driving under and over it.  At the beginning of the summer, another bridge was abruptly closed after the public had been assured it was safe, and a report was leaked that the most traveled bridge is like a “patient” with “terminal cancer” and wouldn’t withstand an earthquake.  Those are rare here, but more frequent than those in Washington, DC.  

And if that weren’t enough, the overhang on a tunnel fell.  Fortunately, it did so on a lazy Sunday morning and no one was hurt.  

Although concerned about the politics of the situation, the provincial government responsible for the roadways has been short of forthcoming on information.  

While these emergency repairs go on, most of the major roadways are in various stages of reconstruction, with little or no seeming regard for the disruption the combined construction efforts are taking on Montreal. 

So when Annabel Soutar asked,  “What can YOU do about the road mess,” my instinctive response was, Nothing.  Soutar got interested in the situation when the bridge fell 5 years ago.  She noticed that a culture existed in which no one had to take responsibility for the problem.  Each actor could absolve him or herself of blame—and no  one realized that the collective innocence led to real deaths of real people that really could have been avoided.

So she wrote a play to call attention and raise anger.

And she advises people to, at the least, be informed and, at the most, actively hold elected officials and civil servants for our safety.  

This is truly one of those situations in which only collective efforts will bring openness and accountability to this system.  Although that has hardly been accomplished, recent actions by transportation officials suggest that the concerns are on their radar, even if they’re far from solved.  

Read Soutar’s eloquent call to action at http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/What+about+road+mess/5208440/story.html. 

Management Training for Nonprofit Executives

Philanthropists are giving Human Resources a good name.

According to reporter Stephanie Strom, some major philanthropists are requiring that the leaders of organizations they fund participate in management training as a condition of the funding. 

Although many nonprofit executives rightfully resist such intrusion of donors on everyday operations, many of those interviewed by Strom appreciated this type of advice. The donors recognized that, although the organizations they fund are passionate about their goals, some minimize the role of management practices and principles in achieving those goals.  As Strom writes:

“People in this sector, just like scientists and doctors, get promoted because of their issue expertise and then no one really ever teaches them how to manage,” said Jerry Hauser, the center’s chief executive and a former consultant at McKinsey & Company. “Then it becomes a vicious cycle, where the next generation coming up in an organization comes up under someone who doesn’t know how to manage.”

Following training, the nonprofit executives gained new insights into their operations and devised new ways to more effectively achieve goals and prepare for the future.  

To read the entire article--and learn about some specialized sources of management training for nonprofit executives--visit 

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/30/business/philanthropists-start-requiring-management-courses-to-keep-nonprofits-productive.html?ref=business&pagewanted=all. 

A Reality Check on Giving

On the one hand, nonprofits succeed because kind volunteers donate time and kind patrons donate money.  But two recent news reports show how some organizations take advantage of the good intentions of kind people.

In “Frazzled Moms Push Back Against Volunteering” (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/02/garden/02parents.html?ref=general&src=me&pagewanted=all), New York Times reporter Hilary Stout reports the stories of several mothers who burned themselves out as volunteers for their childrens’ schools.  One even continued volunteering at the school after her children transferred to another school.  Two common threads in these stories: mothers felt a heightened sense of responsibility for their volunteer jobs and schools often took advantage of their willingness to volunteer. 

In “When Donations Go Astray” (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/21/opinion/21kristof.html?ref=opinion), New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof warns that not all charities use kind donations for the purposes that donors intended, including some well-known charities like Feed the Children, which is embroiled in a number of lawsuits and investigations over inappropriate use of funds. 

As both Stout and Kristof advise, most organizations treat their volunteers well and use donations for the purposes for which they’re intended.  But even the best organizations can go off-course so volunteers and donors should always make sure their gifts are being used appropriately.  

Big Donations and Big Weddings

This fourth posting of recent news to catch my eye.

On the subject of nonprofits, Toronto Star columnist Carol Goar explores the problems underlying the mega-donations that are increasingly popular these days, wondering if their rise is causing smaller donors--who are the backbones of most organizations--to cut back, feeling that their donations matter less.  Check out her thoughts at http://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorialopinion/article/846321--goar-mega-donations-pose-deep-questions

And for a different perspective...
Andrew Brown of the Guardian weighs in on the wedding controversy--no, not the gay-straight one, but the big religious versus small civil one.

The great point about completely impersonal ceremonies, whose form is the same for everyone, whether these are religious or entirely civil, is that they remind us that the problems and difficulties of marriage are universal. They come from being human. They can’t be dodged just by being our wonderful selves, even all dusted with unicorn sparkle. His comments were an Idea of the Day ( http://ideas.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/08/06/the-trouble-with-weddings/).

When Being Leader Is More Important than Leading the Organization

The article “A Heated Campaign for a Ceremonial Post” in Saturday’s New York Times talks about the high-stakes sweepstakes for the top position in a community organization.

• As a total outsider, the situation seems to suggest a few lessons for other organizations:
• When the combined expenditures of campaigning to be president of the organization nearly exceed the annual budget of the organization, something is way out of whack.
• When the organization spends that much energy choosing a leader, it has few resources left to do anything meaningful.
• When being leader matters more than the organization, the organization ultimately turns off the constituency it was designed to address.

See the entire article at http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/28/nyregion/28koreans.html?hp

Museums, Missions, and Qualified Board Members

The cash-strapped National Academy sold two paintings to cover its operating expenses. That’s a no-no in the museum world. If they sold a painting every time they ran into difficulty, they’d have no collection left.

More significantly, it’s completely antithetical to their missions. Museums are established to collect paintings (and other valuable objects), document them, store them, conduct research on them, and preserve them for the public and for future generations.

To call attention to this breach of trust, the Association of Art Museums censured the National Academy and the New York legislature is further responding with proposed legislation to make such acts illegal.

But how did the National Academy get into this place? Bad governance—and a focus on issues other than the greater good of the organization. This emphasizes, once again, the crucial role of the board in governing an organization—not only by thinking of the greater good over ideology or personal need, but by taking an active and informed role in the running of the organization.
More seriously, as one former treasurer of the organization reports here, Boards also need to recruit qualified members.
View a New York Times article describing the challenges at http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/14/arts/design/14acad.html?_r=1&ref=design&pagewanted=all

An Explanation for Out-of-Touch, Protectionist Boards

In his OpEd piece, “We’re Not the Boss of A.I.G.,” Carl Icahn describes the surprisingly limited rights that share holders of public organizations, and corporate laws in most states generally favor the sitting board and its management team.

More significantly, he finds that “With some exceptions, our public corporations are increasingly unable to compete globally, they pay excessive compensation to top brass and they are generally unaccountable to shareholders.”

Although he exclusively focuses the discussion on for-profit organizations, it suggests that laws facilitate the insularity and lack of transparency among boards, which is a known problem for nonprofit boards.

View the entire column at http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/29/opinion/29Icahn.html?_r=1&ref=opinion&pagewanted=all