If Nonprofits Want Change, Nonprofit Leadership Must Change

I can hardly contain my excitement as Nonprofit 2020: Issues and Answers from the Next Generation begins today in Grand Rapids, Michigan! The conference promises to "convene and provide opportunity for emerging leaders to raise their voice on this issue and to discuss the future of leadership for the nonprofit sector", and I couldn't be more ready. I've been collecting my thoughts on this issue for awhile, trying to distill my opinions on many of the aspects involved in cultivating emerging nonprofit leadership. I keep trying to focus my thinking more on possible solutions and strategies versus challenges, but I think it's important to also recognize the issues and barriers the nonprofit sector is up against as we go about recruiting and developing young nonprofit professionals. We surely set ourselves up for failure by solely focusing on problem-solving the nonprofit leadership issue without acknowledging the challenges as we, the young workers themselves, see them.

Many young nonprofit professionals (myself included) feel that there are currently some pretty fundamental leadership deficits in the nonprofit sector, particularly among existing leaders. That was the recurring theme in a recent DC Young Nonprofit Professionals Network leadership discussion with Kathleen Enright, Executive Director of Grantmakers for Effective Organizations (GEO). Kathleen led the discussion earlier this month with a group of about 25 of us in the context of GEO's 2006 report, Investing in Leadership, a book of ideas and best practices for using leadership development to improve nonprofit effectiveness. The question I posed to Kathleen (and that I have been asking others in similar venues) was along these lines:

It seems to me that current leadership is not valued by how effective you are in your job, but how many kids or meals you can serve in a year. For those of us younger folks that actually went to school for nonprofit management or other public service studies and want to become nonprofit executive directors, how can we develop the kind of leadership that is valued just as much?

Though Kathleen was very well versed and knowledgeable about the leadership issues facing young nonprofit professionals as well as older generations, her response was a bit too optimistic or shall I say utopic for me. Kathleen said:

(Hopefully) the generational shift will drive more professionalism of the sector with more focus on effectiveness and management.

OK, maybe. But to my mind, that generational shift cannot in any way possibly happen if young people don't 1) come into the nonprofit sector in the first place and 2) stay in the nonprofit sector long enough to want and be able to influence change.

As I have said before, the looming leadership deficit is not an issue of there not being enough young people who want to work in nonprofits. I meet folks through my job all the time that ask me (all excitely even) how they can get a job in the nonprofit sector. The problem is, however, that current leaders (aka those oft-referenced, so-called idealistic baby boomers) are not doing enough to cultivate their younger staff to take over their jobs when they retire in the next decade or so. Here are some of the comments made by participants in the YNPNdc group discussion about developing nonprofit leadership (or the lack thereof):

"I wouldn't want a job that didn't offer me professional development. Once you've had it, you can't go back."

"I want to take on more leadership in my work and projects, but current management is blocking that."

"Founder's Syndrome in my organization makes it impossible to change anything! Nothing will change until [my Executive Director] retires."

"Professional development is a need, not a 'nice to have'".

And a great action plan for current nonprofit leaders from Kathleen Enright,

"Nonprofit leaders need to be 'talent scouts'; recognize talent and seek to nurture it."

As I participated in the YNPNdc conversation, I realized that I was sitting in a room full of talented, passionate, dedicated nonprofit professionals who all just happened to be twenty-or thirty-somethings. What the researchers are saying we have a deficit of, I saw in abundance all around me. Yet we were all frustrated of how our talent, passion, and dedication was not being used to the fullest and/or not allowing us to advance in our organizations. And I kept thinking, man, what's up with that? There is a real disconnect here between availability and opportunity, and that is what we need to be concerned with, not a leadership deficit in terms of numbers.

The tech-savvy team at NP2020 has also created a conference wiki and a blog that highlights some fascinating research relevent to the conversation, including a report called Generational Leadership Listening Sessions. This research was of very high interest to me, as it surveyed 122 participants, "mostly leaders of color between the ages of 25 and 40", and highlighted more challenges that explain the disconnect happening between emerging nonprofit leaders and existing leadership. Among the findings:

• New Gen X/Y leaders often have difficulty acquiring organizational space that values their skills and respects their experience.
  
• Young leaders are often disenchanted when there is a gap between an organization’s external values and its internal culture.
  
• Good mentors are hard to come by – and urgently needed – as we look toward the future of movement building.
  
• Balance between work and personal life remains a daunting challenge for young leaders in a culture still steeped in sacrificing all one’s time to the work.

Their recommendations?

• Organize intergenerational discussions between Baby Boomers and Generations X/Y
  
• Develop infrastructure that invests in human capital
  
• Support board training to nurture innovation and sustain organization
  
• Provide mentoring, training and other forms of support, such as executive
  coaching, for the next tier of leaders below the executive director level
  
• Foster mentoring structures to provide support for new leadership, and pass on history and share lessons

All of these observations resonate deeply with my experiences as a young nonprofit leader of color. I know I will have the opportunity to share ideas with others like me during my time in Michigan, and I hope to share some of the discussions with all of the readers of this blog as well. Conferences like NP2020 and convenings like the YNPNdc discussion are definitely the kinds of opportunities that make the difference and fill in the professional development gaps that young nonprofit leaders are experiencing at their current jobs. I hope that as this conversation gets larger and louder, we will be provided more opportunities to shine and make our mark and impact within the nonprofit community.

Photo by china.sixty4