Archive for the ‘sustainability’ Category

Board Engagement

Tuesday, March 9th, 2010

Everybody wants an engaged board. The engaged boards are the high performance boards. How do you create an engaged board?

Before we tackle that question perhaps, it would be good to define what an engaged board looks like. Every board member

Is an active participant in at least one committee

Attends more than 70% of the board meetings

Has at least one comment at every board meeting he or she attends

Is a donor beyond the token level

Is a referral source for new students

Is an active volunteer beyond board and committee meetings

Is an advocate or ambassador for the school

If that is a grade card for your board members, how are they doing?

Some Christian schools we work with think the lack of engagement is the fault of the board member. There are certainly times when we have the wrong individual on the board. Most of the time, they are the right people in the right place but the system lets them down.

The common thread among the seven criteria is passion. A passionate person makes time in their busy schedule for the board meetings, committee meetings, coming to the board meetings prepared, telling others, volunteering, and giving.

People usually join the board because of their passion (sometimes expressed as love of the parochial school, education, or children). So what happens to the passion?

Sometimes their passion fails to engage. The board or committee meetings are dysfunctional or ineffective. They joined to be part of the board. When board membership dampens their passion, they disengage from the rest of the list.

As an example, board meeting about the lunchroom menu should be avoided. If you joined the board because of your passion for the school, education, or children the meeting feels like a waste of your time. It is a waste of everyone’s time.

We hire principals to manage the daily operations. Why is the board doing the principal’s job? If the principal is incapable of doing the job, pay for training or hire a new principal. In short, if the discussion is  appropriate it should be about the principal rather than the lunchroom menu.

Next Step:

Check the board agenda and ensure there are substantive mission, children, planning, policy, God centered (faith-formation, spiritual development, etc.), or educational issues

Eliminate the operational, maintenance, and functional issues, and let the committees and staff deal with those matters

Outside of the board meeting, have a small committee of two or three board members review each board member quarterly against the preceding list of seven criteria

If a board member’s passion is beginning to slip meet with them one on one and determine what is causing their passion to fade

Passion is infectious. The board is the leadership council. Their passion will infect the passion of the entire school (staff, parents, volunteers, students, visitors, donors, and referral sources).

Passion also fosters optimism. Optimism makes problem solving easier and catalyzes innovation. Problem solving and innovation keep organizations in the lead, make them more sustainable, and attract donors, students, and referrals.

You can have an engaged board. The board members want to be part of a group of engaged and passionate individuals. They will help you change the agenda. They are waiting for you to take the lead.

As always, contact us if you want help. We use a special process that offers a guarantee. For more information about our process and guarantee, you can click here.

Mission Enablers

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Effective Board Meetings

Tuesday, March 2nd, 2010

How do you know if the board meetings are effective? The ultimate measure is the success of the parochial school. When the students are growing and changing, enrollment is increasing, donors are more generous, and the year-end report shows a modest surplus, it is easy to conclude that the board is effective. Is there a way to evaluate effectiveness between annual reports?

Review the votes by the board. After voting to approve the minutes, what else did they vote on? Did the other votes help the students grow, enrollment increase, donors become more generous, or advance the mission?

Sometimes boards feel that since “we are all friends” the formality of a vote is unnecessary. There are three important reasons to always vote. First, votes are recorded so it is easy to find and check on the decisions months or years later. In addition, the recording of the vote creates transparency. Second, the students’ lives and development will be affected. Voting helps encourage everyone to thinking carefully about the decision. Third, the success of the school involves a significant amount of other people’s money (donors, parents, and the church’s). Voting records the commitment. The last two reason are important enough to justify being careful, professional, and transparent.

Before the State of the Union Address, there was talk in the press about the gridlock. How do we know whether Congress accomplished anything? We look at the record to see how many times they voted and what they voted on.

How many times did your school board vote at its last meeting?

The four reasons that we have boards are to monitor activity, be self-managing, plan, and create policy. Monitoring activity is reading reports and ensuring that expectations are met. There is nothing to vote on in that process. Self-managing is ensuring board members come to meeting, recruiting new board members, running the board and committee meetings, electing officers, etc. It takes very few votes to do that.

The board leads through planning. Plans demonstrate the board is looking into the future. Plans set direction. They coordinate activity. They set expectations. They define the roles of individuals and groups.

Planning is an ongoing process. In most meetings, there will be a plan to discuss, amend, and approve. Sometimes it is changes to the strategic plan. Most of the time, it is an element of the strategic plan that is changing, a committee plan that needs approval or the staff has a plan for consideration.

The board uses policies to protect the donors, school, students, and  staff. Setting policy is the process of giving permission and establishing boundaries.

There are two times to set policy. One is when a plan changes or is established. The other is when a report about activity (internal or external) suggests that new boundaries would be helpful.

An obvious example is after a crisis. After the global financial meltdown, reviewing, rewriting, and creating policy was fashionable. After creating policy, the government wrote new laws. Did your board review your investments and create new policies to protect the school from the new risks?

Planning is the process of leading. Policy setting is the process of protecting. How well led and protected is your school?

Next Step:

Encourage the board to focus only on planning, monitoring, creating policy, and self-management and let the staff handle the rest of the work

Never read the reports during the board meeting (ask questions if clarification is necessary)

Ensure that there is always at least one plan and one policy being created, reviewed, or revised at each board meeting

Annually evaluate the effectiveness of the board based upon changes in the lives of the students, enrollment, donations, and the surplus

Will that guarantee success? No, nothing will. The unexpected always happens. However, if the board follows that simple formula, there will be fewer surprises and less drama when the unexpected happens.

As the board becomes more effective, the school will become more sustainable. The students will have a better experience. Creating an effective board produces benefits that more than justify the effort. If a consultant is needed the benefits (increased enrollment and donations) will justify the cost.

As always, contact us if you want help. We use a special process that offers a guarantee. For more information about our process and guarantee, you can click here.

Mission Enablers

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Breaking the Cycle

Tuesday, February 23rd, 2010

We believe that the majority of the parochial schools across the country are struggling. By our definition, a school is struggling if enrollment has declined for the past three or more years and fundraising is stagnate or declining. It has had an operating loss for two or more years. In short, the longevity of the school is in doubt.

Unfortunately, most schools do what most schools do. As a result, many schools are in the same condition.

There is only one way out of this cycle. The way out is to do things differently.

In a time of stress, struggle, or crisis one is hesitant to make changes. Rocking the boat in uncharted waters seems risky. It is risky.

What is the alternative? How many Christian schools in your area have closed in the last three years? If nothing significant happens in the next three years, will your school still be open? If it is open, will it be stronger or weaker if nothing changes?

We hear from many schools that when the economy improves, their enrollment and donations will increase. That is unlikely. When business is lost it rarely bounces back to the pre-loss level without the organization making significant changes.

Merger is unlikely to be a solution. Putting together two weak entities rarely, if ever, produces a strong entity. When is the last time you read about two weak companies merging?

Unfortunately, it is impossible to offer a one-size-fits-all solution. You need a unique formula if you want sustainable results.

Finding the unique formula is a challenge. An outside perspective sometimes helps. If you want to do it yourself here are the steps.

Next Step:

Define the quantifiable measures that will make your school strong and sustainable.

Talk to the non-school families and determine what they want beyond good academics and religious education.

What is the best blend of their wants, the needs of the school, and the school’s strengths?

Design programming or curriculum that meets their wants, uses your strengths, and will achieve the measurable goals for sustainability in the next three years.

Develop a funding plan that will ensure the needed resources are available to be successful

If you have been objective and realistic in your analysis, you will achieve results that set your school apart from others. The new programming will draw families. Your satisfied families will tell others and enrollment will increase. In short, your school will be leading rather than struggling and the children will have a superior experience.

As always, contact us if you want help. We use a special process that offers a guarantee. For more information about our process and guarantee, you can click here.

Mission Enablers

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Open or Closed – What should the future be?

Tuesday, February 9th, 2010

It is decision time. Should we keep the parochial school open or close it? It is the start of the recruiting season. It is the start of the budget process. Now is the time to issue teacher contracts. We need a decision.

Is that a decision the board should make or has  God already decided?

There are adverse trends that influence the decision process. Multiple years of declining enrollment is discouraging. When the donor trend matches the enrollment trend, it is discouraging. The economy is down. Inflation, the cost of benefits, and deferred expenses on the facilities all weigh heavily on the budget committee.

When one school closes, it makes it easier for the next to close. It sometimes feels right to close before the problem becomes worse.

Making the decision to close now assumes there is minimal opportunity for a different outcome this year.

Are there any trends or reasons that suggest a school should stay open? That question requires a unique answer for each school. Sometimes as bad as it may seem staying open is just what God wants.

Here is an example that may offer some hope.

Our client had a trend of declining enrollment (a capacity of 450 down to 120 in July 2009). Because of the budget pressures, they neglected to pay their payroll taxes. During the summer of 2009, the IRS became impatient.

The debt to the IRS was about 10% of the annual budget before the penalties and interest. Because of the low enrollment, 2009 – 2010 was projected to be an unprofitable year. How do you give the IRS 10% of your budget when there is already a projected loss?

They decided to negotiate with the IRS. That would at least give them time to think and plan.

Then the following happened:

A donor stepped forward and offered to pay part of the taxes but only if the IRS agreed to a multi-year payment plan.  The hand of God or coincidence? 

The fall fundraising campaign brought in 300 new donors and was approximately equal to last year’s income. Both are excellent signs in a down economy.  The hand of God or coincidence?

The IRS became more impatient, froze the bank accounts, and seized the funds. In response, a group of donors made sufficient gifts to keep the school open.  The hand of God or coincidence?

The IRS has now settled for a payment much lower than the actual amount owed and within the capabilities of the school.  The hand of God or coincidence?

All of the problems, except the IRS, that troubled the school still exist (low enrollment, increasing expenses, poor economy, unpaid bills to vendors, and an out-of-date facility). However, the board is committed to keeping the school open.

Is this insanity or faith? The board’s view is that the four preceding steps are the hand of God at work. They believe that God wants the school to stay open. They believe that God moved many hearts to be generous. They believe there is a way out of the forest. They have the courage to look for the way out because they believe it is what God wants them to do.

God makes it possible to open every parochial school. He must have a plan for its continued operation. How much faith should we have that each school can be growing and financially stable? How hard should we look for the hand of God at work in the life of the school?

Please ignore the bad news for just a minute. Is there enough good news and help from God to justify keeping your favorite school open for another year?

Next Step:

Look back over the past 12 months.

What are the signs that God is doing things to keep your school open?

Share what you find with the board, the staff, and the donors.

If the signs are compelling, believe God has a plan for the school and wants to see His ministry continue and prosper.

Take the time to discern the plan God has for the school and then execute the plan

Yes, there are reasons to close even the best parochial school. There are also reasons to keep open the weakest school. Fighting your way through the tough times will teach the school new skills and make sustainability easier.

With faith, one can move mountains and keep schools open.

As always, contact us if you want help. We use a special process that offers a guarantee. For more information about our process and guarantee, you can click here.

Mission Enablers

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Should Change be Constant?

Wednesday, February 3rd, 2010

When the school is constantly changing, it is maintaining its relevance and increasing sustainability.

Some would suggest that constant change is too disruptive. The loss of efficiency over shadows the value of change. There are certainly times when that argument is valid. However, can you afford the alternative?

When we as individuals or as an organization fail to change, we give up part of our relevance. In addition, sometimes there are penalties for failing to change.

Consider the parochial school established in an ethnic neighborhood (Italian, German, Irish, etc.) 30 years ago. Today the neighborhood is primarily Caribbean. The Caribbean families never send their children to the school. They never worship in the church. They have the same denominational heritage.

There have been years of declining enrollment. The church has increased its subsidy to the school limiting what is available to spend on other ministries. The school is on the verge of closing because of too few students but there are more than enough children within walking distance. Crime is up in the neighborhood.

What is the cost of failure to change? What is the cost in dollars, lives lost to the Kingdom, transportation costs, and goodwill with the neighbors? What will it cost to change the school now? Is there time to make the change? Is there the will to change? What is the emotional cost if the school closes?

Should the school have changed to accommodate the first new family in the neighborhood? No, the first family might have been a fluke. The second family might have been a coincidence. The third family was the start of a pattern. The fifth family confirmed the pattern.

When you have a confirmed pattern, it is time to begin the change process.

When enrollment declines, it indicates that the school has lost its attractiveness. The board must decide if it needs to change the school to encourage those who are lost to return or change to attract a different group.

The administration is responsible for running the school and meeting the needs of the enrolled students. The administration should also do what it can to encourage the interested to enroll. However, the administration lacks the authority to make the changes necessary to attract a different cultural, ethnic, demographic, needs, or other group.

If your school is declining and there are sufficient children within a reasonable distance, it is time to change.

Next Step:

What are the needs of the children of the neighborhood?

Which of those needs align with the strengths of your school and church?

What changes should the school make to accommodate the neighborhood children?

What is your plan for implementing the needed changes?

Enrollment will increase when the school aligns itself with the needs of the neighborhood.

When the school is constantly changing, it is maintaining its relevance and increasing sustainability.

As always, contact us if you want help.

Mission Enablers

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Meaningful Goals

Wednesday, January 6th, 2010

It is the start of a new year. For many nonprofits, it is start of a new fiscal year also. What are your board’s goals?

While working with nonprofits, we often hear about desires this time of year. We frequently hear, “We want more vitality, strength, and sustainability.” Some refer to that as goal setting.

What is the difference between a desire and a goal? Without a plan, more vitality, strength, and sustainability are just desires. Without a plan, how will you convince the staff, donors, referral sources, and others that you are serious, intentional, and know how to do it? Unless you write down your plan how will others follow it? Without milestones how will you know if the plan is working?

There is a temptation to say that step one is raise more money. Of course, that is important but is it the first step?

Think about your favorite product. If the manufacturer wants to sell more what has to happen? They need one or more of the following:

Add new features to attract the people who were uninterested last year

Lower the price to make it more affordable for those unable to buy last year

More distribution outlets so that it is easier for people to find

Broader advertising so that more people know about the product

The list goes on

Your favorite nonprofit is more likely to provide a service than a product but the principles apply. What will you change so that you can reach more donors, so that more donors will respond, or so that existing donors will be more generous? In short, if nothing changes you should expect the same response from the donors this year. Will you be happy with the same response as 2009?

For many nonprofits, nothing changed internally between 2008 and 2009. However, the economy turned down creating an external change. Without a corresponding positive internal change, they raised less money in 2009 than 2008.

Here is a counter example. Realizing the need for internal change to counteract the down economy, one organization focused on creating a better experience for their volunteers. As a result, they had more volunteers and more volunteer hours (2008 – 2,200 volunteer hours, 2009 – more than 5,000 volunteer hours).

Doubling volunteer hours is very beneficial. Of course, it was good for the clients who receive services. It was also good for fundraising.

In fundraising terms, there was a double affect. They raised 8% more in 2009. Exceeding the preceding year in a down economy is good. In addition, the volunteer hours reduced their staff time and expenses over 2008. Lower costs producing more income, who could ask for more? Net income was up more than 8% for the year.

They exceeded their goal. That is a nice in a tough year.

It is important to emphasize that an operational change (volunteer management) created a financial gain. An operational change converted a desire for more money into an achievable goal.

What are the operational changes that will change your desires into goals?

Next Step:

Define your goals

Create a concrete plan for each of your goals

Establish milestones so that you know the plan is working and there is accountability

Monitor the activity to ensure that milestones are met

Adjust the plan to improve the results

As always, if you want help contact us.

Mission Enablers

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Keep Growing

Tuesday, December 29th, 2009

Keep growing. How many times have we heard that?

Numerical growth is only one example of growth. Is it the right one for your favorite nonprofit? It is the most popular measure because it is the most important measure to retail operations and retail is the most visible business activity around us. However, other growth measures can be more important.

Emphasizing the right growth factors creates an environment where everyone wins.

Think about doctors for a moment. Whether in a sole practice or part of a large group patient growth is minimally important. There are only X patients that can be served in a day. Numerical growth is unimportant to the individual doctor after he or she reaches capacity.

Knowledge growth is critical to the patients. They want the best possible care. It is important to the doctor because he or she wants to provide the best possible care. It is also important to the doctor if he or she wants to remain relevant. For a doctor in the rapidly changing field of medicine knowledge growth is the key to having a sustainable, relevant, and vitality filled practice.

What dimension of growth is most important to your nonprofit? Is it donor growth? Volunteer growth? Referral source growth? Client growth? Increasing client success? Knowledge growth? Geographic growth? Program growth? Reputation growth?

When the board and the leadership talk, do they talk about the most advantageous type of growth?

Have you listed all of the types of growth available to your nonprofit? Which one drives growth? Which ones change as a collateral benefit of success in the primary area?

Think about an addiction treatment center. If their client success rate grows from 50% to 60% over the next 5 years, their reputation for success will grow. Client referrals will grow. The proven success will improve their grant competitiveness and funding will grow. For them client success is the critical growth factor. Growth in the other areas is a collateral benefit.

Client success is growth with a purpose. Increasing the number of clients served is just numbers. Client success inspires the staff and volunteers, provides donors with gratification, and meets a critical need in the community.

Emphasizing the right growth factors creates an environment where everyone wins.

What are the relevant growth factors for your favorite nonprofit? Which is the primary? Which are collateral growth factors? What is the plan for driving growth in the critical area?

As always, if you want help contact us.

Mission Enablers

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Vitality

Tuesday, December 22nd, 2009

Leaders are the source of vitality for every organization. There are two parts to this. A vital leader is necessary for a vital organization. The leader makes the decisions that create a vital organization.

Elements of vitality are flexible, being fluid, and vision driven. Being vision driven causes one to constantly be changing and adapting. While the vision is a constant the surrounding world, technology, and society are constantly evolving. Frequent change and adaptation requires a fluid and flexible system.

Most boards would say they have a vital mindset. The challenge comes in the next step. They must do more than allow experimentation, innovation, and risk taking. They must encourage. They must also embrace failure. Most experiments fail. Very few innovations achieve financial success on schedule. The risk is usually greater than predicted. The board must be brave and confident. If the concept fails to meet expectations, the leader worries about damage to his or her career and reputation. The freedom to fail is critical.

Managing risk is the chief concern for many boards. Because of the high failure rate of innovation and experimentation leaders are often reluctant to share ideas with the board. They assume that receiving a fair hearing is impossible.

One way to manage the risk and provide the leader with the freedom to try something new is to set reasonable parameters in advance. As an example, allowing the leader to have a flexible budget target helps. If one leadership success measure is keeping expenses within 1% of the year-end target, the leader can experiment. The potential loss is minor in relative terms. In a year with rapidly rise costs, experimentation maybe impossible.

There are a few other general constrains to consider. If the experiment is limited to less than 1% of the client base, it also creates a manageable risk. It is important to define success before starting the experiment. Keeping the experiment mission centric is another reasonable constraint.

Those constrains allow experimentation. They encourage the leader to be careful and selective. They eliminate the need to ask permission to try something new.

If the experiment succeeds, it will be necessary to produce a plan and discuss the broad implementation with the board. Honoring the guidelines makes it unnecessary to discuss failures.

Without experimentation, learning is inefficient. It is rare and dangerous to have new ideas and techniques implemented without experimentation. Without innovation, the rate of change lags behind society and the competition. The agency experiences decay and loss of relevance. Meaningful change is impossible without risk. The more meaningful the potential change, the larger the risk.

Does your board know how to be fluid, flexible, and risk accepting? If so, it is possible to have a vision driven organization.

As always, if you want help contact us.

Mission Enablers

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Prove it

Wednesday, December 16th, 2009

An emotionally gripping story like the one in this article plus compelling, quantified evidence will increase client participation and commitment, donations, and referrals as well as staff commitment, board engagement, and long-term sustainability.

Do you have the evidence to support your favorite agency’s claims of success?

One parochial school is proud of its discipleship development. When asked they will tell you about a young man who stepped between a gun and a friend who was being threatened. The friend lived because the young man gave his life. It is a great example of being a good disciple and taking our love for others to the highest level.

After applauding that example of discipleship, ask for a second example. Ask how many examples there are from each graduating class. Ask how they measure the increase in discipleship of each student at graduation. Ask what the curriculum is that creates the discipleship.

Without evidence how do we know whether the discipleship was develop by the school, a pastor, a parent, a mentor, a neighbor, being inspired by the Bible, or all of those and more? While we hope the school played a part, it is impossible to know. Remember there are stories of soldiers making the same sacrifice who never attended that school or any Christian or parochial school.

At a practical level without evidence, should anyone believe that success is happening because of the programming? The anecdotal evidence may indicate that success is happening. Is the relationship coincidental? As an example, a youth center might promote abstinence. It might be proud of a young person who gives up a promiscuous life style. If the center used a targeted program to attract at risk youth, had a strong life style curriculum, and tracked pre-marriage pregnancy rate of its alumni it would be easy to compare their statistics with a similar non-alumni population.

With demonstrated success, it is easy to gather passionate donors, volunteers, and referral sources around the mission. It is also easier to engage and motivate clients. Everyone has evidence that participation will produce results.

The follow-on question is, “Do evidence-based programs enjoy a sufficient increase in support to justify the cost of gathering, analyzing, and reporting success?”

Look around your community. Who are the agencies that are strong despite the economic downturn? Ask them for evidence of their programmatic success. How compelling is their evidence? Is it more or less compelling than the evidence from your favorite nonprofit? How does their change in donor support over the past year (expressed as a percentage) compare with your agency’s donor support? If your agency enjoyed a comparable level of support, would it justify the cost of being more evidence-based? In short, prove it to yourself that evidence-based claims receive more support and are more sustainable.

It is possible to measure anything. How do you envision quantifying the success of your favorite program?

An emotionally gripping story like the one at the start of this article plus compelling, quantified evidence will increase client participation and commitment, donations, and referrals as well as staff commitment, board engagement, and long-term sustainability.

As always, if you want help contact us.

Mission Enablers

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Strategic Thinking

Thursday, December 10th, 2009

Leaders must think strategically. However, we seldom train them to do what we demand. Many who serve on a nonprofit board are serving on a board for the first time. Their employment requires operational thinking. As a result, they think about details first, the big picture second, and strategy is a problem solving tool rather than a planning tool.

Compounding this problem is the experience of the executive director. While the he or she might want to and be capable of thinking strategically, if the board is unwilling or unable to support the executive’s thinking, eventually he or she stops trying.

The failure to think strategically has consequences. Eventually, there is a decline, costs escalate, and doubts develop about the viability of the agency. The viability of many agencies across the country is in doubt.

Mission Enablers works with nonprofits of all types. We help them increase their capacity to serve adapt to the changing market, and increase their sustainability. Thinking strategically is the best way to increase sustainability and avoid decline. We restore viability to struggling agencies and help protect strong agencies from decline.

Strategic planning defines a structural break. A structural break creates a long-term, meaningful change in the future. As an example, consider a plan to increase donations. While that may create a long-term change in giving, it fails the meaningful test. Money is necessary but never meaningful. In addition, the changes are part of a peripheral activity (fundraising) rather than a core element of the mission. Examples of core business or mission related items are clients, services, quality, outcomes, the self-sufficiency of the clients, the character development of the clients, etc.

A structural break would be something like adding programming that results in a higher graduation rate. The higher graduation rate creates a change in the core business and it provides a benefit for the community, families, and the students. Another example is identifying at risk youth and providing programming that prevents their loss to society as well as providing them with a superior education.

The first step in the evolution to strategic thinking is to change the topics for discussion. When non-strategic topics dominate the conversation, strategic thinking is suppressed.

What steps can you take to change the discussion?

As always, if you want help contact us.

Mission Enablers

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