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Consider this scenario, submitted by Bobbie Donahue, consultant residing in Indiana.  Your leader has been to a conference, read a book or been to a meeting and has heard this “great idea.”  He* comes to you very excited and full of enthusiasm, believing this idea fits his grand vision. You appreciate this excitement when he is talking with donors about the mission or challenging the board to participate in fundraising. It is not so helpful when your plate is full, expectations are many, but all you get from the leader is impressive verbiage and no “shoulder to the wheel” action.

So what do you do?

Bobbie suggests, encourage him to work with you to sketch out the new idea.  Ask him to explain to you how he wishes to be involved.  If he says, “This idea fits in your department, or your job description, therefore you do it,” explain that you want to be sure to have action match vision, and need him to remain involved.

Remind him of the board’s expectations and how you have a plan to meet these, while of course acknowledging that plans are flexible.  Offer to write a short report to the board on his vision and specific idea with accompanying suggestions on how this vision can be implemented, then ensure he approves of the steps which will necessarily detail his involvement.   He may have one of two possible reactions.  First, he will see that his vision requires his involvement as well as yours, and the board will expect outcomes, so he may experience a touch of reality that causes him to either modify or even abandon that particular vision. On the other hand, he may embrace his own vision even more fully and in order to enjoy the realization of his vision (or to not be embarrassed by non-action), will offer to be part of the execution of the vision.

Steve Reed, president of Marketing Partners, Inc., says, “If the CEO is truly visionary, use that to engage the CEO in specific ways. Don’t expect the CEO to drive execution. Chances are that’s not his or her long suit. Your strategy should be to gain the CEO’s confidence and then enlist his or her participation when needed. This means you have to be the tactical planner and orchestrate the program.”

Two authors of note in the leadership field, Kouzes and Posner, wrote that those who accept the leadership challenge must also challenge the process, because leadership is an active, not a passive process.  Leaders are people who are willing to step into the unknown, to take risks, to innovate, to experiment, to find new and better ways of doing things, to recognize good ideas, to share a vision.  It’s interesting to note that these two respected experts combine vision and action as they describe the leadership challenge.

In short, consider these steps in dealing with a leader who has great vision but little follow-through:

• Listen respectfully and carefully to your leader’s vision.
• Ask clarification questions that help your leader more clearly identify particulars of the vision but also help you understand what might be expected of you.
• Offer implementation steps, request feedback, and ensure these steps include appropriate involvement by the leader.
• Connect the vision to the existing plan, and involve your development committee at the minimum, and ultimately the board if the vision involves some grand scheme or idea.
• Identify progress points at which time you will evaluate the movement toward the vision and describe how you will report progress to your leader.
• Above all, avoid seeing your leader’s vision as a threat but view it as an exciting opportunity that you have the chance to help craft and bring to fruition.

Comments, suggestions, even arguments are most welcome.  Our colleagues in nonprofit management and fundraising can always use fresh approaches, new answers to old questions, and thought-provoking ideas.  Dr. Lilya Wagner, CFRE, is an experienced fundraiser, consultant, editor and author, teacher and trainer. She can be reached at coplilya@cs.com.

*For ease of reading, this column will use one gender pronoun per article, instead of the cumbersome he/she.  In this column, the masculine gender was used consistently.

References:

teven A. Reed

Marketing Partners, Inc.

2919 Division Street, St. Joseph, MI 49085

Suite 123 Park North, 860 N. Orange Ave., Orlando, FL 32801

sareed@mpicompanies.com

Roberta “Bobbie” L. Donahue, CFRE

Consultant, faculty member of The Fund Raising School

527 N. Drexel Ave.

Indianapolis, IN 46201-2966

Donahue.bobbie@gmail.com

James M. Kouzes And Barry Z. Posner.  The Leadership Challenge: How to Get Extraordinary Things Done in Organizations. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers

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This is a population that, in their home lives, is actively posting their status messages, information, and their passion for causes via social networks on a daily basis. When they go to work, the sharing is often more limited, but we are starting to see good examples of large companies using social media tools as part of their corporate social responsibility (CSR) efforts.

Howard Greenstein and Tom Watson have authored a new white paper, sponsored by the JK Group and published in cooperation with the Heyman Center for Philanthropy and Fundraising at NYU. In this white paper – Wired Workforce, Networked CSR -  we studied several large American corporations who are using social media and who have found ways to involve employees, customers and stakeholders as they seek to achieve their CSR goals.

We found that:

1. Companies are more comfortable using social media tools internally, but they’re waiting for external adoption by marketing before moving ahead to use them in CSR type efforts.
2. Employees seek choice and appreciate democratic participation.
3. Leadership is required to ensure continued participation in corporate giving campaigns, since employee participation is decreasing.
4. Both social media and traditional communications methods are used in employee giving campaigns and external outreach to communities.
5. Formal feedback loops for social media are the exception rather than the rule.

We also noted that there are different levels of commitment companies can make to using social media. As an example, some are taking advantage of intranet tools to allow employees to share and attract others to their causes on one end, while others actively encourage employees to alert their online connections of campaigns and request participation. Companies that are in what are traditionally regulated industries such as healthcare and finance are actively using social media as part of their CSR outreach, carefully finding the line between compliance and campaign. And some are stretching the boundaries – finding ways that their CSR efforts are part of their marketing, branding and core business efforts.

We invite you to read and comment on this paper. We know we are just scratching the surface of the efforts of companies across the world, and we consider this paper the beginning of a conversation around this topic, and not the definitive final word on the subject.

This paper was released on Friday April 29th, 2011 (Link to Press Release) at the JK Forum on Philanthropy in Princeton, NJ.

Download – Wired Workforce, Networked CSR

Read it here:
Wired Workforce Networked CSR Final

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But as Affleck told the assembled philanthropy leaders, life in the eastern Congo can humble any Hollywood attitude. In a region where one in five children die before their fifth birthday, where three million have died  in ongoing civil war and genocide, and where the sickening use of rape as a weapon of war in rampant, Affleck said he chose to use his fame to focus on the DRC simply “because it was the worst of the worst.”

Affleck founded the Eastern Congo Initiative as “the first U.S. based advocacy and grant-making initiative wholly focused on working with and for the people of eastern Congo.” The organization helps plan and support community-based initiatives to changes lives on the ground in the region, and it uses Affleck’s position as top film star to lobby for more attention from the international community and the American government.

The organization’s partners include the Howard G. Buffett Foundation, Humanity United, the Bridgeway Foundation, Cindy McCain, Google, and GlobalGiving. Laurene Powell Jobs of the Emerson Collective is also a partner and interviewed Affleck at the Forum about how he put ECI together. “I’m not an expert in any of this,” said Affleck, “so I decided to surround myself with season philanthropists.” Last month, Affleck and McCain teamed up to testify before the House Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health and Human Rights, arguing against cuts in aid. “The federal budget may be the zero sum game, but our morality, our decency, our compassion for our fellow human beings is not,” Affleck testified.

He repeated the call at the Global Philanthropy Forum, arguing that the region needs more attention from U.S. government – in the form of a cohesive strategy, and making development there a  real priority – “we need to say this is in our national interest,” he said. But Affleck also talked about how he was affected by his first trip to the Congo and witnessing the resilience of the people there. “They know they can change this,” he said. “And you just see all those little kids with big eyes – five, six, seven year old kids – and it just breaks your heart.”

Education, said Affleck, is crucial to the broken society’s future. “Kids are dying to learn. They are dying to learn.” Of the typical former child soldier – who has killed and watching killing through adolescence – Affleck said: “yeah, he’s got a Kalashnikov but what else?”

Affleck was passionate and informed, prompting Philanthrocapitalism co-author (and noted skeptic) Matthew Bishop to tweet:

Fairly effective pitch by Affleck, who seems to know what he is talking about and to have studied best practice in “celenthropy”

Perhaps so, and Affleck was indeed effective. And with needs as great as what’s left of civil society in the battered eastern Congo, an effective spokesman and advocate seems good medicine indeed.

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Housed in Vital Voices Global Partnership, the Coalition now has 110 members after its founding by international NGO and private sector leaders at Villa La Pietra, the Italian campus of New York University. Last year, the Coalition partnered with the Economist Intelligence Unit to develop the first Women’s Economic Opportunity Index that rates 113 countries on their provision of economic opportunity to women. The issues highlighted by the Index as most crucial to achieving the goal of lifting women’s economic opportunities were labor policy and practice, access to finance, education and training, and legal and social status. The Coalition now has working groups focusing on strategies to pursue change in each – and the target is now the deliberations of the G20.

The Coalition’s new senior director is Sandra Taylor, a veteran corporate social responsibility leader who has worked with companies like Starbucks and Eastman Kodak. I asked Sandra to discuss the Coalition’s evolution and its sharpened mission and goals.

Sandra, as you step into the leadership role of the La Pietra Coalition (which I’m proud to be a member of) can you tell our readers what its role in the world is – how the Coalition aims to be a catalyst for change?

I think it is important to acknowledge that of course there is a moral case to be made for women’s human rights and equality with men. The Coalition does not for a moment discount these issues as matters of justice, but those arguments have been made well and often. They are not enough. The pragmatic case – an economic one- is just as strong and has not been made enough in the right circles. This has been missing from the debate and this is the role that a diverse set of people, who make up the Coalition, representing diverse stakeholders, can play. Enough people in the general society and also among the decision makers have got to see that it is in their best interests, or self-interest, that women have equality and can participate in, and contribute to, their society to the fullest extent of their capacity. This is human nature. And happily we are at a time when there is now enough data based evidence that indeed this is not just a wishful thought but a matter of fact that there is a link between investing in women, or advancing the status of women, and economic growth and stability for an entire society.

What is your sense of advancing the goals and ideas set forth in Hillary Clinton’s 1995 Beijing speech about women’s rights and human rights – have we made major progress in a decade and a half?

On the one hand yes on the other no. Beijing, although it had its predecessors, in a way solidified and activated a global international women’s movement that is carrying the goals forward on all fronts. Some of the most active proponents of women’s human rights came into existence AFTER Beijing and to a large extent because of Beijing–especially in the developing world but also in, for example, the United States.  In fact Vital Voices, the original convening body of La Pietra Coalition, is one of them. And Women for Women International, whose founder serves as co-chair of the Coalition, while founded two years before Beijing, certainly can attribute its success in establishing such a profound impact and strong local partners in war-torn societies, because of the climate that Beijing created among women around the world. There are still problems around the world, and new, often deadly ones keep arising, but something has changed since Beijing. Around the world women have cast off the victim status and are actively playing a role in solving those problems.

How can the Coalition influence the discussions and decisions of a group like the G20?

In order to fully realize the G20 goal of financial inclusion and to implement the G20 commitment to greater use of statistics and data in policy making announced at the Seoul Summit in November 2010, La Pietra Coalition asks G20 leaders to call for all banks and financial institutions to develop systems and methods to gather and disaggregate data on loans to women owned SMEs, as well as checking and savings accounts owned by women.  Collection, compilation and disaggregation of such data will lead to better policy outcomes by governments, central banks and private banking institutions  and ultimately to economic growth for both the lenders and their female customers.

Further we want to see policy recommendations that will help move women from micro-enterprise to small and to medium sized enterprises; provide incentives and specific goals for increased procurement by governments of goods and services from women-owned enterprises; and lead to a reduction in drop-out rates of girls from secondary schools and greater skills development by girls.

In many of the protest, conflicts, and now civil wars around the Arab world this year, the role of women has been crucial – they’ve been key organizers, leading voices, and leaders, particularly among young people and through the use of social media. And yet we see in Egypt how women leaders can be left on the sidelines when a new constitution is discussed. How can we address this?

Left on the sidelines, or even worse. It is a very real danger and has happened before. (Algeria in the late 1960s being a nearby case in point). This is where people have to keep up the pressure on their leaders and representatives in their countries to exert their influence on their counterparts in these newly emerging governments or politicians. The spotlight is good in these situations. However, it is important to remember there are always two conversations going on–one in public and one behind the scenes.  We need to keep the pressure on our leaders to carry these issues into the meetings, and deal making, that go on behind closed doors.

How important is the role of the private sector in advancing women’s rights on a global basis – some of the LPC’s leading members are prominent corporate leaders, for example, how can we align business interests with human rights?

Our corporate members would be the first to point out that economically empowered women will not only suit the employees’ moral interests, but also the company’s bottom line. Women in developing countries have great purchasing power and multinationals recognize this.

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However, while the scope and severity of the damage and loss of life were still emerging, it was not immediately clear how much philanthropic aid would be needed, as the world’s third largest economy sought to restore its own citizens’ well-being and its once robust infrastructure. Further, the depth of the disaster are still emerging – the Japanese economy is seriously frayed and the nuclear threat appears to be far from ended. So how does an enlightened, responsible, informed philanthropist respond?Early on, news outlets, including The New York Times, published lists of credible agencies where relief donations could be directed, yet reported concern and questions about whether such donations would actually be needed, as the Japanese government had not yet requested assistance. As the nuclear disaster unfolding at the Fukushima Daiichi plant worsened, however, the Japanese government not only reached out to the United States for help, but acknowledged that it had been overwhelmed by the terrible toll unleashed by the earthquake and its aftermath.

Experienced organizations like Global Giving channeled donors’ efforts to organizations working inside Japan and has already raised more than $2.1 million. And Global Giving continued to provide updates on where its donors’ money was helping, in partnership with seven NGOs in Japan.

In contrast to the response to the Haiti earthquake, there has been some hesitation to give on the part of donors as well as agencies such as Doctors Without Borders, to mount a fundraising campaign specifically for Japan. The devastation in Haiti, however, was so vast, in an impoverished country clearly unable to recover and rebuild unaided, that a swift, strong response was unquestionably needed.

With buildings in Japan designed to withstand even as powerful an earthquake as that of March 11, and the nation’s reputation for preparedness, it seemed possible at first that a more limited international response would be needed. Nevertheless, well-known relief agencies such as the American Red Cross and Americares were among the first to announce that they were receiving donations for the Japan relief effort. In a post on its site yesterday, UNICEF reported that it had held off on appeals for contributions at first, in view of Japan’s historic role as a donor nation rather than recipient, but that conversations with Japanese colleagues had led to a decision to accept donations targeted at getting aid to the many children affected by the crisis. Save the Children, likewise, is dedicating its efforts to the thousands of children impacted by the disasters.

Other critics went farther. At his Reuters blog, Felix Salmon started a testy discussion in the philanthropy world when he urged: Don’t donate money to Japan:

Japan is a wealthy country which is responding to the disaster, among other things, by printing hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of new money. Money is not the bottleneck here: if money is needed, Japan can raise it. On top of that, it’s still extremely unclear how or where organizations like globalgiving intend on spending the money that they’re currently raising for Japan — so far we’re just told that the money “will help survivors and victims get necessary services,” which is basically code for “we have no idea what we’re going to do with the money, but we’ll probably think of something.”

The post inspired both outrage – understandable with 8,000 dead, thousands missing, and an ongoing nuclear disaster in a nation with close ties to the United States and Europe – and some discussion. Of course, many donated in the aftermath of 9/11, even though the attacks happened a stone’s throw from Wall Street in the largest economy on earth. And millions donate to, for example, U.S. social services agencies, who help the non-rich in that largest economy on earth. (Salmon revised his post with a new one, with links to some thoughtful pieces elsewhere).

Yet people are giving: the Chronicle of Philanthropy reports that total charitable giving has surpassed $160 million. And the Japanese clearly welcome some assistance. In a report posted by National Public Radio, an official of the Japan-America Society expressed hope that American aid groups could partner with relief agencies in Japan. He conceded that a major cultural hurdle would have to be overcome as Japan faced the enormity of the crisis:

“America and Japan have been great friends and allies for 65 years,” Malott says. “If there is any cultural hesitation in accepting aid, it’s that Japan, with one of the largest foreign aid budgets in the world, sees itself as a donor rather than a recipient.”

“But this is overwhelming.”

The likelihood that international humanitarian aid is not needed diminishes with every passing day and each new revelation about the destruction and displacement of thousands, even if the nuclear disaster can be curtailed.

Donors who feel they would like to learn more or to reach out to the victims in Japan can do so clicking on one of the following links:

Global Giving

American Red Cross

Save the Children

World Vision

Americares

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But the big job is ahead.  And it is one word.  Jobs.

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

What can philanthropy do?  What can foundations do?  Work with private enterprise to create jobs.  Work with Egyptian companies to create jobs.  Work with international companies to create jobs.  Work with entrepreneurs to create jobs.  Work with small business, tamaya stands, falafel stands, anyone, anywhere, anything.  Jobs, jobs, jobs.  Unleash the productivity of these young people.  Help them create enterprises.  Open up markets.  Get them capital.  Don’t make grants.  Create and invest capital in their ideas in their energies.  Get them capital to create enterprises and jobs.

And be sure that the process ALSO brings forward leadership from within Egypt.  Bring social investing and impact investing and venture philanthropy to and for Egypt’s own philanthropists, its own wealth, its own private leaders.  These young people do not want to be treated as recipients of largess.  They want to lead; encourage leaders from within Egypt’s own wealth, business, and philanthropy to move with energy and purpose onto the Egyptian venture philanthropy stage.

This outpouring was across Egyptian society.  Make sure that the capital flows across Egyptian society.  Rural and urban, especially the young adults.  Bring in social capital, impact investing, venture philanthropy.  Forget the gifts and donations.  They do not want gifts.  They EARNED the opportunity to invest in themselves and their dreams and their prosperity.  Get the capital side of prosperity moving.

And then turn around and replicate the effort throughout the region, throughout Africa and throughout Asia where the very same generation of young people, the very same energy and yearning to be free, resides in every young heart.

Susan U. Raymond, Ph.D. is Executive Vice President of Changing Our World, Inc., an international philanthropic consulting firm. Dr. Raymond was a project officer at the World Bank and a senior consultant to the U.S. Agency for International Development and to various private organizations including the Carnegie Corporation, specializing in healthcare and international economic research. She has worked on philanthropy and economic development projects throughout Africa, the Middle East, and Eastern Europe, as well as in Russia and Asia.

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Cue the nonprofit community. Care2 has a petition up asking users to “tell Apple to be a good corporate citizen and let their customers give on the iPhone.” More than 5,000 people have signed it. Beth Kanter swung into action (as only she can), pointing to an editorial by Jake Shapiro, the CEO of PRX, (the company behind the popular This American Life iPhone and Public Radio Player apps), sating Apple’s foot-dragging pointed to the company’s being “a failure of being a good corporate citizen.”

In case Apple missed the message, Beth declared up front: “I’m Gonna Ditch My iPhone for Android.” And here’s what she told The New York Times:

“When you’re popped out of an app, you then have to go through a whole bunch of clicks to make a donation,” said Beth Kanter, co-author of “The Networked Nonprofit” and chief executive of Zoetica, a consulting firm. “It’s cumbersome and it doesn’t have to be.”

With the iPhone as popular as it is (though Android has gained), shouldn’t the notoriously restrictive “walled garden” of Apple’s software store open up for charitable applications – as long as they work, that is? Of course, developers can always just link outside the app to the mobile web, connecting iPhone users to any charitable website. But there’s a lot to be said for encouraging platform-native giving – especially on the slick and innovative mobile platform that jet-started the whole app craze in the first place.

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Besides divine blessings, we merit many business realizations from giving to charity. In former President Bill Clinton’s book, “Giving,” he speaks of an African tribe he encountered as a result of his Clinton Foundation that had a unique way of greeting each other. When someone says, “Hello,” the other person responds with, “I see you.” It’s a powerful message in a world where differences are usually quite visible. Clinton testifies to his amazement with the amount of individuals and business alike that share so many causes and are actively contributing to organizations, NGOs, and charities.

To “win” at corporate responsibility it requires tremendous dedication. Celebrities who walk around hospitals once, attend fundraising events for NGOs or make a public donation without sincerity can often be seen, with good reason, as insincere. I don’t rule out the possibility that some turn donations and giving into a strategic business approach, but it shouldn’t undermine the rest of the individuals, businesses and even corporations who are devoted to a goal larger than their own sales and profits.

I was raised in a home where giving wasn’t an option; it was a requirement. Whether it was money, time, attention, or thoughts it was an expectation in my mother’s household.  For me, those acts are a part of a holy, higher value and all people should give, regardless of how much or how little they have. The almighty rests his blessing on those who give.

Charitable donations raise a company (and individual’s) image and improve self-awareness. Helping and giving makes you feel good. It allows organizations (and people) to be balanced and focused, and lessens jealousy, allowing you to feel accomplished and focused on earning even more.

Yet another business benefit to donations is the amazing people you meet at non-profit organizations that you care about – you meet people who care about the same issues that you do and, as you develop a bond over time, you will naturally make life-long friends and beneficial business relationships. Some of these people are hardly accessible in the ‘real world,’ but very available when reached through a good cause.

Such people as you meet at these events can even evolve into your biggest clients, as they did for me. I am certainly not saying to join, or get involved in CSR, for business relationships: join if you believe in and want to help the cause. Expanding your business contacts is just a small perk from your contributions.

Here are some initiatives to consider:

Social Responsibility acts: Whether an individual or major corporation engages in corporate good. Your employees may identify with a list of causes and issues  which you can expand upon. Match donations or offer time to pursue such causes. You can even allow corporations to be rallied as a team around a cause, which becomes useful for corporate morale.

NGOs and Dinners: Aside from the important goals you meet when attending a dinner and the objectives fulfilled by your contribution, you also get to meet very interesting people who share the notion that our common humanity is vital. That dinner is an opportunity to mingle, bond and make new connections. The cause is the basis for self-reflection, and the event is further encouragement to continue supporting the benefit that you attended.

Programs: This is where unique resources and their benefits can come to fruition.  Participate in programs where you can make a difference. PR firms, of course, can assist in media work, restaurants, shelters, and the like.  Promote the cause  in the same way that you would help a loved one.

There are many ways and means to give. The initial act is the most important and ultimate fulfillment that you will gain, and remember that it is never too late to start – just do it. Give the money away; the blessings of every kind will be returned to you in many multiples.  That’s a personal and Public Relations guarantee.

Ronn Torossian is president and CEO of 5WPR, one of the 20 largest independent PR agencies in the U.S. Named to the “40 under 40” list of PR Week & Advertising Age, Torossian was a semi-finalist for the Ernst & Young 2010 Entrepreneur of the Year Award, and may be reached at Rtorossian@5wpr.com and followed on twitter @rtorossian5wpr

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In brief, I believe there are two overarching actions that the nonprofit community must take to lift the sights and change the norms in our sector. First, we must demonstrate the desirability of outcomes-based management to increase demand and acceptance. We can do this by showing what´s possible; illustrating how managing to outcomes helps nonprofits do what they do better; and rewarding and highlighting successful adoption of outcomes-based management that leads to increased benefit for those served.

Second, we must enhance the feasibility of outcomes-based management. We can do this by providing financial incentives, strategic assistance to encourage leadership to engage, and the tactical help to make it easier for motivated nonprofits to invest the tremendous time and effort in shifting their culture to one that can rigorously manage to outcomes.

Looking for a Catalyst

To demonstrate desirability and enhance feasibility, we must first find leaders with the motivation and capacity to play the role of catalyst. Although this issue is at the very core of VPP´s investment-selection and investment-management processes, VPP and I can play but a limited role. Ideally, we need one or more catalysts with clout and financial resources that far exceed ours to take up the charge.

Fortunately, there are a number of different entities that could play this catalytic role. The obvious place to look is the largest private foundations, which have proven that they can be good at convening players across different sectors and experience bases. By no means should funders drive the agenda; if they do, nonprofits will get top-down mandates that might produce compliance but will not spark true culture change. But funders can get the right people in the room to define an initiative focused on bringing the innovative outcomes-focused management practices on the periphery of our sector into the core.

Another place to look is the White House Office of Social Innovation and Civic Participation. The White House might well see outcomes-based management as I have characterized it in this series of articles as a critical driver of social innovation and worthy of the White House´s time and bully pulpit. The White House has been looking for ways to broaden the president´s social innovation agenda beyond the two major funds it has created: the Social Innovation Fund (administered by the Corporation for National and Community Service) and the I3 Fund (administered by the Department of Education). It has tremendous potential to convene leaders from all three sectors of the economy (although, like most large foundations, it does not have deep relationships with conservative thought leaders).

Finally, I could see a mash-up of high-profile, cross-sector management experts and exemplary practitioners coming together to make a clarion call in support of nonprofits adopting and the sector supporting outcomes-based management. Imagine the impact that leaders such as former McKinsey Managing Director Rajat Gupta, Bridgespan Founder Tom Tierney, former Edna McConnell Clark Foundation President Michael Bailin, author/business consultant Jim Collins, and former Mayor of Indianapolis and current Deputy Mayor of New York City Steve Goldsmith could have. I admire all of these leaders (and hope they don´t mind me putting them on the spot!). Together, they would make a true Dream Team.

The Missionary Sell

Back when I was in the high-tech industry, we used the term “missionary sell” to describe the introduction of a new product or service that would require a change in process or culture, always extremely challenging. In these cases, we focused our initial efforts on finding those organizations and catalytic leaders that were already “believers” or strongly predisposed to the new concept—especially those who were ahead of us and from whom we could learn. We didn´t allow time and effort to be diluted by the “non-believers” or those needing to be won over in these early stages. Instead, we concentrated our resources on helping these pioneers be successful in their implementation. Then, as Geoffrey Moore conveyed so well in his 1991 book Crossing the Chasm, we used this beachhead of demonstrated value to reach out to the more traditional institutions to spread the word to larger markets for much broader acceptance.

Over the past century, the nonprofit world has produced some very good examples of managing to outcomes—from the Rockefeller Sanitary Commission´s role in the eradication of hookworm in the American South to ClimateWorks´s systematic efforts today to catalyze measurable reductions in carbon emissions. Unfortunately, such examples are outliers. I believe that outcomes-based management and performance-management systems for nonprofits are still at the “missionary” stage.

Going broad-based would, in my view, be a mistake. Instead, I urge a relentless focus on ferreting out, supporting, and sharing the results of those early adopters who are demonstrating the feasibility and desirability of outcomes-based management. This cadre of successful nonprofits and their catalytic leadership can then provide an invaluable asset from which to build a broader movement of nonprofits that want to do good better.

Doing Good Better

If leaders like those above were to step forward, we could design an initiative—let´s call it Doing Good Better, to borrow an evocative (if overused) phrase—to put in place the building blocks for making outcomes-based management the norm in our sector. Our motivation should not be the “elegance” of outcome metrics and management systems. We would do this for one reason and one reason only: to create meaningful, measurable, sustainable benefit for those served! To kick off the brainstorm, here are some thoughts about potential elements of a plan.

1. Convene a good cross-section of top leaders. The first step for the catalyst(s) should be bringing together a great group of nonprofit, foundation, and private sector leaders, especially those at the leading/bleeding edge of what´s possible, to explore the possibilities. The group would need to be composed of those who “have been there, done that” or are clearly engaged and working actively to adopt outcomes-based management. This core group could be augmented by the leaders of smart infrastructure organizations focused on nonprofit effectiveness (e.g., Center for Effective Philanthropy), management consultants who have been working in this area (e.g., McKinsey & Company, Bridgespan, The Monitor Group, BCG, and others), as well as corporate executives who have successfully implemented performance-management systems with relevance for nonprofits. Everyone involved should be the real doers and contributors rather than those who are merely interested.
2. Gain clarity on goals. Once the group has the “right people on the bus,” it would then have to define what the Doing Good Better Initiative is trying to accomplish and to what end. They should be just as clear and up-front as to what this is not about. In my view, it is not about funder effectiveness. It is not about summative or formative evaluation. It is about giving leaders the information they need to do their jobs and meet the needs of those they serve.
3. Identify the audience. Given that advancing the Doing Good Better Initiative would involve heavy doses of advocacy, it must be rigorous about specifying whom it wants to influence. It should begin by segmenting the nonprofit sector to identify characteristics of early-adopter, “believer” organizations most likely to be ripe and ready for the discipline of managing to outcomes. It would then want to identify the best channels to reach these target nonprofits, their boards, and funders. We need to seed the change agents, those catalytic personalities who can go out and infuse this thinking into their organizations and other organizations. We need to reach and engage executives and boards—and only then do we get into the mechanics and systems. Most efforts never address leadership and culture, and they materially limit what´s possible by not doing so.
4. Change the understanding of what´s possible. As I stated in my last column, once nonprofits and their key stakeholders get a glimpse at how the innovators at the periphery are using information to create greater impact for those they serve, they will have a hard time going back. There are many different ways to show nonprofits and funders what´s possible. The group could commission a high-quality video with viral potential (e.g., the finalists in Tactical Philanthropy´s Fantastic Video Contest) to show what´s possible when nonprofits gain the power of information and what this means for the people they serve. It could use this video as the centerpiece of a “road show” at conferences attended by many nonprofits in the target audience. It could help generate media attention for “positive outliers” in publications that reach the target audience (e.g., Harvard Business Review, Stanford Social Innovation Review, Fast Company, McKinsey Quarterly). It could create an annual award, perhaps with a relevant publication or university, modeled perhaps on the successful public-private National Information Infrastructure Awards of the 1990s.
5. Build knowledge. In tandem with efforts to highlight successes, the initiative should build and make accessible the knowledge base on managing to outcomes. McKinsey´s Social Sector Office has already gotten the ball rolling with an impressive repository it calls Learning for Social Impact. The site includes tools, best practices, lessons learned, profiles, interviews, landscape analyses, and historical perspectives on outcomes assessment. (Unfortunately, it does not include materials authored by folks outside of McKinsey.) The Doing Good Better initiative could build on this by offering open-source tools for unleashing the wisdom of crowds to build the knowledge base on managing to outcomes. It could also analyze the critical knowledge gaps, fund research to fill these gaps, and provide incentives to nonprofits to document their experiences implementing new approaches to outcomes-based management.
6. Develop common outcomes frameworks. The initiative should provide direct support for efforts to develop common frameworks in fields that best lend themselves to measurement and have enough “believers” that they could make real progress, such as early childhood development and community health. Foundations could easily create incentives that would bring forth early adopters in a particular field and then convene these early adopters to develop a common framework for their domain.
7. Provide education and insight. To change practices and norms among nonprofit leaders, education and training must be a key component of any plan. Doing Good Better would need to address the types of education that are relevant for the nonprofit executives it would seek to reach—including graduate education, executive education, and web-based distance learning. For example, the group might want to engage key academic centers in the US and abroad in building a curriculum for teaching managing to outcomes. It might want to help develop a multi-week symposium on managing to outcomes for sitting nonprofit leaders, with stipends and recognition for those who graduate. It could also leverage the above to build free online modules featuring top educators and practitioners for anyone who wants to learn on his or her own time.
8. Provide strategic and tactical help. The number one barrier to managing to outcomes is the dramatic cultural change it requires. But there is no reason an organization should have to take on this challenge alone. Over time, the sector will need to develop more consultants and foundation staff members with specialty knowledge who can help guide these major change efforts. In the meantime, it should not be difficult for the Doing Good Better Initiative to identify qualified consultants, increase transparency around their costs, enable clients to provide Amazon-like ratings of the value they add, and allow nonprofits to comparison shop more effectively than they do today. The initiative should foster peer “professional learning communities” for nonprofit leaders who are trying to influence their organizational cultures and establish systems for managing to outcomes. It could also consider creating outcomes-assistance centers, such as centers built around the remarkable Child Trends research on the outcomes that matter for children and youth.
9. Offer financial and other incentives. Few funders today provide the kind of general operating support that nonprofits need to advance the needed cultural change and develop the technology systems and human processes for managing to outcomes. That will have to change. There is no escaping the fact that funders will need to subsidize the hard work and outside expertise that´s required to move to managing to outcomes.

In its first portfolio of investments, VPP had direct investments of nearly $3 million and provided substantial strategic assistance to directly support the cultural change and development of outcome-management systems. VPP expects to invest even more with its second portfolio of nonprofit investment partners.

With support tailored to each organization´s needs and operational stage, VPP helps its nonprofit partners engage consultants with deep expertise in outcomes management; recruit experienced staff; work through their “theory of change;” develop an outcomes framework and the measures/indicators to assess progress; and build outcome-management systems and integrate them effectively into an organization. We stay focused on encouraging, nudging, and supporting leadership to embrace and act on this management-to-outcomes approach. And thanks to these leaders and the work of their boards and staffs, they have made great progress that is translating to better results for those they serve.

We have learned that it can take several years for organizations, even with the kind of intensive support VPP provides, to make the quantum jump from a place of little or anecdotal measurement to a place of rigorous outcomes-based management. Funders and others must be patient during these periods of culture and staff change and development. They should not expect instant answers or improvements.

Data Voracious

VPP will increase its efforts to support the leadership of the nonprofits in the VPP portfolios to build on the excellent progress they have made to date. In addition, we will devote time over the coming months to turn my musings on managing to outcomes into a monograph. The monograph will be enhanced significantly through contributions from practitioners and experts, including leaders of several VPP investment partners. These contributors will offer concrete, ground-level insights on what it really takes for a nonprofit to create a culture that supports managing to outcomes—the success factors, the pitfalls to avoid, the ways of building buy-in, and the tangible benefits. I hope the monograph will help nonprofit executives and boards explore how they can do more to ensure they´re doing the most good for those they serve.

And I will continue to plant a bug in the ear of potential Doing Good Better catalysts. Because if this initiative were to come to life, then “outcomes” could go from being the nonprofit world´s most anxiety-provoking topic to one of its most powerful forces.

“The minute our staff got a taste of data and saw how it could make jobs easier, they were voracious—more so than my former colleagues at GE,” says Year Up National Capital Region´s Executive Director Tynesia Boyea Robinson. “They saw that data allowed them to make sure they were serving young people better.”

A committed catalyst could help make Year Up´s experience the norm for nonprofit organizations and their staffs. That enormous cultural shift would mean the world to the millions of families for whom “outcomes” are not an abstraction but rather a living-wage job, quality childcare, a safe home, or a good school.

Mario Morino is co-founder and chairman of Venture Philanthropy Partners and chairman of the Morino Institute.

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Instead of coming up with a major substantial program, it has produced a “mouse,” the Social Innovation Fund, financed by an insignificant $50 million a year for several years. The Fund, alas, is the Administration’s pilot ship in strengthening the nonprofit sector. Why such a puny effort, and one that doesn’t target the significant problems facing the sector?

The Fund plans initially to award seven to ten grants of $1-10 million to intermediary organizations which, in turn, will redistribute the money to nonprofit groups that are making innovative efforts to improve the conditions of needy people in neighborhoods and communities throughout the country. Both the intermediary and local recipient groups will have to match the federal grants.

The intermediary organizations are expected to be private and community foundations. The reason given for selecting philanthropic institutions for this task is that they supposedly know best what is going on in local communities.

Many of the ideas about nonprofits adopted by the White House staff, Michelle Obama’s aides and Presidential advisers have been supplied by a very small group of social entrepreneurs who run nonprofits that stress innovative practices largely based on business models. New Profit, Inc, Echoing Green and City Year are among their most prominent practitioners.

Groups like theirs represent no more than a tiny sliver of the large nonprofit world. Yet, for some reason, they have captured the ear of the Administration. They do not reflect the needs of major or local social service organizations, homeless shelters, housing providers, local health centers, community organizing groups, national, regional and local advocacy entities and watchdog institutions that hold government and private sector groups accountable.

It is not surprising, therefore, that the Obama Administration, when it talks about nonprofits, never mentions activism, advocacy and organizing as fundamental approaches to problem-solving. Nor does the Social Innovation Fund. When Mrs. Obama speak about the “hidden gems” among nonprofits, she is talking about large, popular nonprofits that are entrepreneurial innovators with large and stable budgets, organizations that lend themselves to good publicity. The Social Innovation Fund is not likely to support activist or grassroots groups that can make a real difference at the local and regional levels and are so crucial to community well-being. In its search for non-risk taking and fairly safe organizations, it may well ignore those groups that have a real innovative capacity.

The President hopes that the Fund will prove to be a substantial stimulus for additional funding from the foundation community beyond the required matching funds of $50 million for the program. Indeed, five large foundations have recently pledged $45 million to the Fund for purposes that to date remain obscure. There was some indication in the press release announcing the pledges that the money would be used for matching purposes, but the Fund has already stated that the Fund’s initial $50 million would be matched by the intermediary foundations receiving the Fund’s grants. One of the five donors confided to a reputable source that he was really giving $10 million in order to get closer to the White House.

Involving a few foundations in the Social Innovation Fund is not an effective way of stimulating the foundation community to give more. A more compelling strategy would be for the Administration to push the Congress to increase the minimal payout that foundations are required to distribute annually from 5% to 6% of their assets, all in grants. Under current law, foundations can include all their management costs as part of the minimum payout of 5%. Such a change would provide at least an additional $10 billion a year to the budgets of nonprofits throughout the country.

Thousands of small nonprofits in rural areas and in regions currently underfunded by philanthropy are in desperate need of financial support. To meet this need, the Administration could use the Presidential bully pulpit to urge the foundation community to create new, large rural and regional foundations with the capacity to reach out to these overlooked nonprofit organizations and their communities.

But this is not what the President’s advisers seem to have in mind. The Social Innovation Fund is a diversion from the real needs of our nonprofit sector, an attempt to fund a few solid nonprofits, as well as gain some good public relations on the cheap. Ironically enough, the initiative is unlikely to produce the Fund’s goal…innovation.

Pablo Eisenberg is Senior Fellow at the Georgetown Public Policy Institute’s Center for Public & Nonprofit Leadership. Eisenberg served for 23 years as Executive Director of the Center for Community Change, a national technical assistance and advocacy organization working with low-income constituencies nationwide. He has actively contributed to national discourse on government accountability and reform, the role of philanthropy, and the achievements and problems of the nonprofit sector. Eisenberg has published numerous articles and chapters of books and has a regular monthly column in The Chronicle of Philanthropy. He has held senior positions with the U.S. Information Agency in Africa, Operation Crossroads Africa, Office for Economic Opportunity, and the National Urban Coalition. He is a founder and Vice-Chair of the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy and President of Friends of VISTA.

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