Learnings and Insights from Non-Profit Leaders

Over the past 6 months, I have asked friends?to help me connect with non-profit leaders they respect.? My conversations have been across a wide range of missions, models and organizations.??I have spoken to founders like Ming-Ming Tung-Edelman, who traded in her 25 year career as a pharmacist to create a non-profit to support immigrant women through creativity and craft (Refugee Artisan Initiative) as well as seasoned leaders of large organizations like Steven C. Preston, CEO of Goodwill Industries International, which is the largest adult professional training organization in the country and operates over 150 independent but mission aligned self-sustaining businesses in support of that mission.??Here are just a few of the amazing things I learned from these leaders:

?1.) The seeds for these leaders’ passion for mission was planted early and is not surprisingly where their commitment comes from.?In every case, the leader shared a powerful and seminal moment that was the touchstone for their impactful work.?

2.) The importance of building a strategic plan and revisiting the existing strategic plan on recurring basis to ensure the non-profit is delivering on its mission and maximizing its impact.??Margaret Spellings, CEO of the Bipartisan Policy Center Action Policy Center, said it best… and I am paraphrasing a bit:?'You can’t have an organization that is “all branches and no tree.”

3.) The organization structure needs to fit the mission, reflect those it serves and the environment in which it operates.??Steve talked about Goodwill Industries’ corporate team as empowering it’s regional affiliates to be great.?To support them in that endeavor, one of his early acts was to create a program office to build and enable best-in-class programs for the teams delivering in cities across the country.

4.) The passion for mission is not enough.?Important for sure, but these leaders hire the people with the skills and experience the need for their organizations.?As, one leader said, “we need NFL players not college players across the leadership team.”?Additionally, Tim Motts, CEO of Boys and Girls Club of Bellevue?shared that passion for mission creates great loyalty and gets people to work every day.?However, it is important to continue to?bring in fresh thinking, new ideas and different ways of doing things both at the organizational and board level.?

5.) There is an opportunity to study for-profit organizations for operating models to evolve and expand the impact of the non-profit organization.?Quentin Orem, Executive Director of FERRY FAMILY CHARITABLE FOUNDATION, applies Amazon’s mechanism of creating a Press Release and Frequently Asked Questions (PRFAQ) when considering new initiatives to support and fund.?He also applies models similar to technology incubators to support future non-profit founders and their social impact ideas with funding, partnership opportunities and expertise.

6.) The importance of operating infrastructure to support the scaling of services was something that Amelia Fox, Chief Strategy Officer at Lutheran Services Florida, highlighted as she talked about putting in the HR, financial and IT policies and processes in place to support the 4x growth of the organization as they expanded programs and services.??There is no doubt that high impact non-profits require strong operators to support their team members that are on the front lines with the people that non-profit serves.

7.) The importance and transformative power of “a place” came through when talking to Kenny Holdsman, CEO of Philadelphia Youth Basketball, about their amazing new facility?which is anchored in basketball but becomes a catalyst for work force development and community engagement.

Finally, the importance of partnerships was mentioned by every leader as a critical to maximizing the non-profits impact.??For Playworks, led by CEO, Elizabeth Cushing, they are partnering with principals and school districts to bring their power of play programs to students in +3,000 schools.??For Goodwill Industries, they recently featured their partnership with Google for the Goodwill Digital Career Accelerator.?For RTI International, an independent, nonprofit research institute dedicated to improving the human condition, partnerships with universities, government agencies and organizations with complimentary capabilities that enable it to better serve its customers, communities and issues they study.??Through partnerships, these organizations are able to better serve their communities and impact their growth.

I am so grateful for all of the leaders in these non-profit organizations who were generous with their time and shared their experiences, lessons learned, and best practices.?THANK YOU.?I am also grateful to all my friends who were kind enough to connect me with these leaders and others whose wisdom is not captured here.?THANK YOU.?I look forward to future conversations with more leaders who are guiding the impact, evolution and growth of their organizations as they address needs, both big and small, across our communities and country. If you have a non-profit leaders that I should connect with, please just let me know.

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