Welcome to The Business of Giving. I’m your host, Denver Frederick.
Today we have the distinct honor of welcoming a guest whose life’s work is dedicated to combating one of the most heinous crimes of our era – modern slavery. Nick Grono, the CEO of the Freedom Fund, is a tireless advocate in the global fight against human trafficking.
In addition to this extraordinary work, Nick recently authored the timely and insightful book, How to Lead Nonprofits: Turning Purpose into Impact to Change the World. Drawing from his two decades of experience leading organizations tackling complex global challenges, Nick offers a fresh and pragmatic approach to nonprofit leadership. He challenges conventional wisdom and provides actionable insights for leaders determined to transform their mission into tangible, measurable impact.
So, without further ado, let’s embark on this journey into the world of nonprofit leadership with Nick Grono.
Denver: Nick Grono, welcome back to The Business of Giving.
Nick Grono, the CEO of the Freedom Fund
Nick: Great to be here, Denver.
Denver: You know, before we dive into the book, Nick, tell listeners about the Freedom Fund and its mission.
Nick: So, the Freedom Fund is a collaborative fund set up to tackle modern slavery and human trafficking. We raise money, and we fund grassroots community-based organizations in countries with a high prevalence of slavery and trafficking.
And by slavery and trafficking, I mean situations where people– men, women, children– are forced, coerced, threatened to work or to provide sex, and there are some 50 million people in the world today that are trapped in a situation of modern slavery. And so our work is focused on shifting funding and power and other resources to the communities that can most make the difference in tackling modern slavery.
Denver: Quite complex! But what a learning lab to write a book on leadership. And in your new book, How to Lead Nonprofits: Turning Purpose into Impact to Change the World, boy, Nick, you tackle some big issues nonprofit leaders face today. What inspired you to write it, and how do you hope it challenges traditional thinking in the sector?
Nick: So, I was inspired to write it because I’ve been in a nonprofit leadership position for the last two decades, and there’s a surprising lack of practical, focused books in the sector that help nonprofit leaders as they struggle with the myriad of problems that they face. There’s one very good book I know; it’s written by someone you know well, Jim Collins– very slim book, but it’s only about 30 pages, and that’s one of the best things out there, but I just struggled to find things that I, as a leader, would find practical and useful, you know, and share kind of challenges and mistakes and all those kinds of things. So, I was fortunate enough to get a sabbatical a couple of years ago, and I thought: Well, this is my opportunity to sit down and see if I can share some of the things I’ve learned and many of the mistakes I’ve made over the last couple of decades.
Denver: Oh, you’ve achieved your objective, for sure.
Nick: And what I was particularly focused on, I think, is there are leadership books out there that… all leadership books are predominantly focused on business leadership, and there’s thousands and thousands of books on business leadership. And some of the lessons from those books are obviously relevant… leadership is leadership… but a lot of them aren’t because there are very different factors at play often with business leadership compared to nonprofit leadership.
And so I thought I could draw out some of the lessons and compare some of the differences and use those to illustrate what helps me for successful nonprofit leadership.
Denver: Yeah. Not enough written about nonprofit leadership. It’s a little bit like software where software’s all written for for-profit organizations, and then they twist it into a pretzel and then say, “We’ll make this work for the nonprofit.” And it just doesn’t work that way. It just isn’t as effective as it should be.
Well, in the book, let’s talk about some of the issues. You stressed the importance of staying focused on the core mission and avoiding mission creep. So, how do leaders balance evolving their mission to meet new challenges– and I think we saw that a lot during Covid–while staying true to their original purpose?
Nick: Yeah, it’s a good question. I think it’s absolutely key for nonprofits to understand what their purpose is. It’s one of the things that differentiates them from business. Purpose is about positive change in the world.
My organization is working to tackle modern slavery and human trafficking, so our purpose is very squarely focused on tackling these issues. And there are many, many ways in which you can approach that work, and in our case, it’s about funding grassroots organizations and clusters coming together.
Nonprofit leaders are often under pressure to kind of stray away from their core work, and that’s where mission creep happens. And I think the challenge– and it is a real challenge, and there are no easy answers– the challenge is to kind of have a constant focus on how you can make the greatest impact, and if you have new opportunities that come up, understand whether or not they are additive and help you. They might be slightly off the kind of path that you are already treading, but if they help you get towards the objective, that’s fine.
If on the other hand a donor comes to you and says, “Well, you know, this work you’re doing is great, but you know, have you thought about doing something quite, quite different? Because I think you’re a great organization.” One, it can be hard because all nonprofits are usually struggling for funding or seeking to recruit, but I think you just have to try and bring a discipline in and try and understand, “Will that take us right off track?” And if so, it’s just not helpful.
If your purpose is to achieve a particular kind of change and this is going to take you off that track, you’re not fulfilling your purpose. But it’s easier said than done, right? I mean, in the book I want to keep on point. It’s easy to put this stuff down, and I share a lot of the kind of challenges, including my own challenge.
I was at an organization, the International Crisis Group… amazing organization… that worked on conflicts around the world, and we used to do these detailed analytical reports on conflict in Afghanistan and Sudan and Syria and all the rest of it, and then we would advocate to policymakers, and so it was fairly high-level advocacy, and they knew the topic and they wanted to bring nuance and sophistication to the debate and kind of recommend the way forward.
And then we got an offer of significant funding from an amazing organization that just started up, the Human Rights Foundation, that was much more interested in grassroots advocacy, mobilizing people, particularly around Sudan, on the genocide that was happening there, and they need really punchy analysis and they needed really strident calls, and that’s really, really important.
We took the money on. We thought, “Great!.” And then soon, we found we’re being kind of dragged in two directions. One was the kind of sophisticated analysis to policymakers, and the other was these kind of very stark calls for things like a no-fly zone. And suddenly, what happened was: neither of our audiences were happy.
Denver: Yeah.
Nick: The policymakers were saying, “Where’s the nuance? Where’s the sophistication?” And the grassroots advocates, they don’t want nuance, they want clear, clarion calls for action.
So, what we ended up doing is saying, “Actually, we can’t do both so we will forego the funding that you’ve offered us, the very generous funding, for the grassroots advocacy.” And it was hard; we lost some staff, and there was a bit of ill will, understandably, but it meant we could stay very, very focused on what we did best.
“I don’t want to be a kind of an idealist when it comes to impact. It really is hard, and you don’t want to spend all your time trying to measure impact and not actually do the work. But I think all of us can benefit from having a deeper understanding of, ‘Is our work contributing to the change that we want it to?’ Because that way, we can improve it.”
Denver: Yeah. Yeah. You know, from my experience, I’ve always learned that you need to listen to your body and not your head because your body doesn’t lie to you. And when somebody offers money like that, or a contribution, you kind of know in your gut. But if you go to your head, it can rationalize anything as to why you should accept that money, and it can lead you down that road that you don’t want to go.
Well, let’s talk a little bit more about impact. I mean, you have it in your subtitle, Turning Your Purpose into Impact to Change the World, and you talk, Nick, about focusing on outcomes rather than inputs. And you know, this is one of the biggest challenges I come across with every leader that I talk to, and that is: it is so difficult to measure direct impact, and sometimes even to assure that the proxies that you’re using to really capture the real value of what you’re doing is still a big-time challenge. What do you advise to leaders in organizations in a case like that?
Nick: Yeah, it’s one of the biggest challenges, but it’s also one of the most important challenges because nonprofits exist to make change. We exist to fulfill our purpose. And you measure the impact of businesses by their financial returns and all the rest of it. You measure the impact of nonprofits by the change that they contribute to.
Denver: That’s called R-O-I, yeah.
Nick: Exactly. But if you can’t measure it, well then it’s problematic in a whole lot of ways. One, you don’t know if you’re having any real impact. If you’re not measuring the change that you are contributing to, how do you know if you’re spending your money wisely or not wisely? Or if you have multiple programs and you can’t measure the impact of any of them effectively, is your money better spent on program A or better spent on program B?
There are some nonprofits for which measurement is much easier than other nonprofits. So, if you are providing education services or health services, it can often be made easier to measure. Whereas if you are a think tank doing advocacy, that can be really hard to measure.
Denver: Sure thing.
Nick: And think tanks I think illustrate the problem best between inputs and kind of outputs and outcomes because often with think tanks, when they’re talking about their impact, they’ll say, “Well, we published 20 reports this year, and we hosted 25 convenings, and we met with 30 policymakers.” Well, that doesn’t tell me if they’ve achieved any change at all.
Tells me that there’s product coming out, but you could produce two reports that are hugely impactful that have more impact than 30 or 40 reports.
So, what International Crisis Group where I worked was, and that’s hard, a think tank that was trying to persuade policymakers to change, what you have to try and do is understand, “Are those outputs that you are contributing having the kind of impact that you want?” Because in the end, if you’re a think tank, you want policymakers to change their mind or act in a particular way.
Sadly, they won’t tell you that they’ve acted that way because of your report, or very rarely. I mean, that’s the gold standard. If someone says, “I read this report and as a result of this, we changed our policy, and we had this impact,” well, that’s wonderful.
Denver: You’re never going to hear that.
Nick: But it doesn’t happen. But what you can do, and I keep on saying, this is hard.
You can look at, you know, you can interview policymakers to see whether or not they read your materials. I’m surprised that the number of outputs that actually don’t kind of reach out to their audience and say, “Do you find our outputs really helpful?” You can look at the kind of placement you get when you are writing opinion pieces. You can look at your peers, your competitors, and see how your reports and your products are being received compared to others.
You can always find ways of looking at what you are doing and seeing, “Is there a better way of tracking it?” And the idea there is not that there is some perfect measurement. The idea there is always to be thinking, “How do I know if this is having the impact I hope?” or “How can I have a better understanding?”
And the last point I’ll make on this is, I don’t want to be a kind of an idealist when it comes to impact. It really is hard, and you don’t want to spend all your time trying to measure impact and not actually do the work. But I think all of us can benefit from having a deeper understanding of, “Is our work contributing to the change that we want it to?” Because that way, we can improve it.
“It’s one of the things when I speak to other nonprofit leaders, especially young nonprofit leaders, that I’m kind of pretty insistent on. You have to find a way to step back. You have to find a way to look after yourself. Get a balance because if you don’t, you don’t serve the cause.”
Denver: Absolutely. Well, as you say, it’s really a mindset, and probably it’s one of the questions you really should ask at the outset of doing something: How is the impact going to be? You can’t do it after it’s done. Do it at the very beginning. And as long as it’s in your head, you’ll be thinking about it, and that might change the way you go about it.
You know, I’ve had a lot of leaders on the show who were leaders in the corporate sector and who are now leading nonprofit organizations, and invariably, they’ll say the latter is far more difficult, and part of it is the measuring of impact and not having profits. But the other is just all the things that need to be juggled: vision setting, managing teams, fundraising, et cetera. How do good leaders balance these demands? And what steps do they need to take to prioritize self-care and avoid isolation while doing it?
Nick: Great question. And look, I worked for over a decade in the private sector before I started working in the nonprofit sector. I worked at Goldman Sachs, I was a commercial lawyer. So, I have some insights into both. And I think leadership is hard, full stop, and there are different challenges with business and nonprofits, but I think one of the things that is particularly challenging with nonprofits is that you have many more influential stakeholders that you have to deal with.
At a business, your primary stakeholder is your shareholder because you are primarily focused on financial returns, but it doesn’t mean that there aren’t other stakeholders. But at a nonprofit, my primary stakeholder is the community that we serve, those that are vulnerable to slavery, at risk of slavery, are in slavery, but I have my funders who have a huge power and influence. I have staff who are all activists; they’re all committed to the cause, and they’re all vocal so they’re a powerful stakeholder. I have a peer organization, my board. And so one of the real challenges is managing all of those stakeholders.
I think another big challenge, and I’ll be interested to hear your thoughts on this, one of the more frustrating things in a nonprofit sector is if I have a really powerful business plan and a strategy and we implement really well… if I was a business, if we were executing really well and we were driving down costs and increasing sales, people would be flooding in to invest in us. It’s just like, “Wow, you guys are doing really well. I’m going to get a really good return on my investment.” Whereas with a nonprofit, often you find when you’re really successful, your funders will say, “You are doing so well, we don’t need to fund you anymore. We can go and fund other initiatives because, you know, you are obviously up and standing on your two feet, and off you go.” And so because we don’t earn our income, we rely on people to give us funding.
And I think that’s a real challenge for nonprofits because there’s a relentlessness around the fundraising. I’ve been leading the Freedom Fund for a decade, and at least half my time is spent on outreach and fundraising.
Denver: Right.
Nick: And it’s just tough. And I think when it comes to leaders looking after themselves, I think it’s really hard. I think there’s a particular challenge because you always feel that there’s more you can do.
The organization I lead, we are working with some of the most vulnerable people in the world, people who have been trafficked into sex trafficking and to other forms of forced labor… and kids. And so you’re always thinking, “There’s more I can do, there’s more I can do,” and it’s very hard to then kind of step back and say, “Well, actually, if I burn out, if I don’t look after myself, I’m not serving the organization, I’m not serving the cause.”
And so I just think there needs to be a discipline. It’s one of the things when I speak to other nonprofit leaders, especially young nonprofit leaders, that I’m kind of pretty insistent on: You have to find a way to step back. You have to find a way to look after yourself. Get a balance because if you don’t, you don’t serve the cause. So, leaving aside your own feelings of guilt or need to do more, you can be very selfish about it for the purposes of the cause.
Denver: Yeah.
Nick: You don’t serve anyone if you burn out or if you become very, very tired. You become a bad leader or a less effective leader.
Denver: Right. That’s sometimes the only way you can convince yourself.
Well, giving you my thoughts that you asked about in terms of the business model, it truly is broken, and it just seems to be sort of a Goldilocks level of success that you want. You want to raise enough money to have enough money and not be in crisis mode, but God help you if you raise too much money and don’t need it.
But I would say, it’s also broken in this sense: if I start a business, Nick, and I go out there and I get a couple customers and I market it, and more people hear about it, and then I get more customers and I make more money. In many nonprofits, if you have a theory of change and you implement that theory of change, and you help people and people hear about it, and more and more people come flooding your way, it actually costs you more money.
So, I mean, on a couple different levels, it is counterintuitive, and it really doesn’t make sense. So really the whole model needs to be rethought in terms of being successful.
Let’s move on to culture. You know, I had the great pleasure of speaking to your team, I guess maybe a couple years ago… and you have created just a fabulous culture at the Freedom Fund, and I congratulate you for that. Talk a little bit about it and how leaders can, let’s say, create a culture of psychological safety which encourages innovation and risk-taking, but also do it in a way where they’re not too nice… where people feel safe, in that they can’t let people go because of not meeting expectations or not aligning with the values of the organization. How do you go about that?
Nick: Well, I think culture is key, and that’s at any organization. I think it’s one of the areas where nonprofits have a significant advantage over the for-profit sector in that our work is all focused on changing the world to make it a better place… that’s very motivating.
Denver: Yeah.
Nick: And there’s quite a bit of research that says that intrinsic motivation is more powerful than extrinsic motivation. So intrinsic, the feeling that you are contributing something– that you are doing good– can be more powerful than just pay and rewards and financial benefits. I mean, obviously you like both, but having a cause and a sense that you are driving positive change, I think is very, very powerful.
So, I think any nonprofit leader has this huge advantage to start with, and you should lean into this: our cause is important, the work we are doing is important, what you are doing is contributing to this positive change. And it can be running a food pantry, or it can be tackling modern slavery, it can be ending world hunger. It’s all powerfully motivating.
I think psychological safety is key, and as I talk about it in a book, a fascinating study done by Google looking at what creates really powerful teams, they had all the data and they looked: Was it homogenous teams, or was it diverse teams or was it people who socialized at work and after work, or just kind of came in and did their stuff? And in fact, none of that explained what made for the most successful teams. It was this kind of characteristic of psychological safety where people felt free to speak up. And once you understand this, it’s obvious and it’s liberating.
Denver: Yeah.
Nick: If I, as a leader, I think this is one of the toughest things, particularly for young leaders, is this fear that you have to be all perfect, and you have to know everything, and you have to be in charge, which means that you are making all the decisions.
Whereas if I can draw on a wisdom of the 80 people in my organization, and particularly the group in my senior leadership team, I have a huge advantage because I get much better information, better options, and can make better decisions because people have been willing to say, “Well, Nick, you know, not sure this is the best way. Have we thought about this? You know, have you done this?” It just is a real superpower. But creating that, it’s easy to say that, and it’s another thing to do it.
Denver: Sure.
Nick: And so you have to model the behavior you want to see. It means I have to go up and say, “I make mistakes. Here’s a mistake I made. Here are things I’ve done wrong,” so that people think, “Oh, he’s actually willing to listen and to be challenged.” And it’s not personal attacks. It’s like, “Well, have you thought about doing it differently?” Because a lot of people are inhibited just because of status and hierarchy from offering up ideas, and so there’s a constant effort.
I mean, in my organization, every three months, I do an all-staff call, so we’ve got 80 staff, just over 80 staff in about 12 countries, and a different member of staff volunteers for each call, and they can solicit questions anonymously from across the organization.
So, anyone can ask a question of me… I don’t know who’s put in the question. And so they can be really tough questions about pay and benefits. Or what is our position on Gaza and the conflict there? And you know these… and it means I am hearing across the organization what people are thinking and want to know. It also means that people see me in a position where I am being asked confronting questions and challenges, and I think it helps create an environment where people feel more comfortable.
It takes more than that, but I’m just trying to give you one example.
“So, my advice to new nonprofit leaders is: Be willing to admit you don’t know everything. People won’t think less of you. In fact, people are very perceptive. So if you are the all-knowing new nonprofit CEO, people will see straight through that. But if you are the person who says, “Well, I know about this, but I really don’t know about this, and I want to learn about this, and I want all of you to help me,” I think it contributes massively to a stronger and more effective culture.
Denver: No, that’s a great example. I mean, do you find, Nick, from the leaders that you’ve spoken to that they often have a hard time letting go and sharing power, either out of fear of being challenged, or often I have found they’re afraid they don’t know what to do, like, “If I’m not there making the decisions, what role do I play? What do I do?” What would you say to folks like that?
Nick: Yeah, I think I do find that. And I particularly find it with new nonprofit leaders, and I found it with myself. And in fact, one of my great learnings is the things that got me into a senior leadership position are not the things that necessarily make me a good senior leader.
None: Yeah.
Nick: Because I love making decisions, I can make decisions very quickly; I love accepting responsibility and so, that helped me as I was kind of moving up the ladder.
But when I get to the top, if I am too quick to make decisions, it means others won’t offer their input. And it’ll be like, “We don’t need to decide this because Nick’s going to decide it. So, why do we do the hard work and offer up different thoughts and views if he’s just going to not listen and decide himself?”
So, I think there’s a real challenge in often new leaders not being willing to listen, and I think it comes not necessarily from an arrogance, but from a fear.
Denver: Yeah.
Nick: I mean exactly that, I might be discovered. I have a large number of people in my organization that know far more about tackling modern slavery and human trafficking than I do and are far better at doing the programmatic work than I am.
Now, what I bring to the table is: I’m reasonably good at fundraising and outreach. I do a lot of thinking about strategy and culture, and so I see those as the important things, and I don’t feel challenged by the fact that there’s a lot of people that are more expert in my organization than I am.
And what I’ve learned over time is if you can get confident, I think you create a virtuous circle because I don’t need to be the expert on modern slavery; I’m hired to lead the organization. And so, if you are willing to show a little bit of.. call it vulnerability, call it openness to being challenged, it creates a positive and virtuous circle.
So, my advice to new nonprofit leaders is: Be willing to admit you don’t know everything. People won’t think less of you. In fact, people are very perceptive. So if you are the all-knowing new nonprofit CEO, people will see straight through that. But if you are the person who says, “Well, I know about this, but I really don’t know about this, and I want to learn about this, and I want all of you to help me,” I think it contributes massively to a stronger and more effective culture.
Denver: Well, it certainly energizes people when you stand up and say, “This is where I want to go, and this is how we’re going to get there,” I’ve witnessed this myself: people are just sitting in the back of their seats saying, “Oh, okay, well that’s great.” But when you say, “This is where we want to go, and I don’t have any idea how to get there. I need your help,” they’re leaning forward, “Oh, I got some ideas for you.” So, you just get a much more robust and energized organization.
Let me touch on a couple of other points in the book: DEI integration and accountability– and you maintain that it needs to be woven into every part of the organization. And it’s in every organization right now, but in too many organizations, it’s over in a corner office someplace and it’s trotted out now and again. What have you found that can help make it central to the culture?
Nick: So, diversity, equity, inclusion, it was probably the hardest chapter I wrote in my book because it’s an issue, particularly in the US… there’s lots of views and controversy, not so much in a nonprofit sector, but it’s also an issue that, badly handled, can tear organizations apart as you are changing from an organization that perhaps is not diverse enough and inclusive to one that is more so, and going on that journey can be a challenge.
Now, the basic principle is that I think organizations benefit from being broadly representative of the communities they’re serving. It doesn’t mean they have to kind of mirror the population you’re serving, or mirror the community you’re in, but if you’re an all-white organization working in a community that is diverse, on and for a community that’s diverse, you are among other things, you don’t have access to a huge amount of knowledge and expertise that would benefit your cause.
We are an anti-slavery organization working in low-income countries that have a high prevalence of slavery. We benefit from having staff that have a deep understanding of those cultures and those communities and can bring that expertise.
And so, I think that’s the basic issue. I think people get confused about what it is. It’s just organizations that are representative, inclusive and are welcoming will perform better over time.
The challenge can be getting from there… if that’s not where you are, and that’s where the Freedom Fund wasn’t sufficiently diverse and representative in the first few years, in particular, and we’re still working on it.
So, I think the trick is not to make it some ideological discussion. It’s just thinking about: How can we make sure this organization is best placed to be the most effective?
I try and stay away from the ideological conceptions of it, it’s just to make sense to me.
Denver: It’s going to get the job done. That’s right. This is what you want. This is not…
Nick: With experts. With people who really understand.
Denver: Yeah, absolutely.
Nick: Some organizations really struggle to understand this because what you can sometimes find is staff who have felt excluded or haven’t felt representative, and suddenly, these organizations are talking about DEI, they become very vocal and say, “Well, you aren’t doing it well, you’ve not done it well.” And if you don’t have a space to have a thoughtful discussion about that, it can become quite antagonistic.
If you have a strong culture, it helps. None of this is… there’s no set template to making this happen. What it requires is bringing the same values that you talk about when you talk about having a positive culture to listening to people’s psychological safety, but it also means people don’t have free reign to say whatever they like and to throw grenades and bombs.
Denver: Yeah.
Nick: I mean, responsibility works both ways.
Denver: That’s right, exactly right, yeah.
Nick: And I think that’s one of the challenges too. Sometimes, leaders become a little scared. It’s like, “Oh, this is a really complex issue and I can’t really hold people accountable for bad behavior if there is bad behavior because it’s all a bit sensitive.” And I think, “Well, no, you actually have to hold people accountable.”
You create space, but you have a rich and a thoughtful discussion, not an antagonistic one. And hopefully, that will put the organization in a much better place to achieve its purpose and mission.
Denver: Well said. You know, I don’t find leaders scared about this, but I do find them sometimes to be concerned, and that is Gen Z entering into the workforce and what to do. They talk to me about it all the time on the program. Have you adjusted your leadership style to meet their expectations, Nick?
Nick: My leadership style I think is continually evolving, and so I try, and I’m very much on a journey as it was from someone who was way too decisive and kind of jumping to conclusions, to someone who still probably is a little bit too far on that end of the spectrum, but is trying and is aware that my organization will benefit from a more coaching, thoughtful approach to leadership.
With Gen Z, with our young staff, I think it just requires more thought and engagement. They come with tremendous passion and commitment, particularly in our cause.
I’m trying to think of a good example. I think they’re often deeply, deeply engaged not only in issues you’re working in, but in other social justice issues.
Denver: Yeah.
Nick: And I think one of the challenges you can face is that they think, “Okay, if I can’t make a difference on this issue on my own, but if I can get my organization to adopt a position or an approach, then we’re kind of mobilizing more people.” And the challenge is sometimes to say, “Well, hold it. This is not core to what we do.”
I’m always a little wary about putting this on, but in the spirit of being open, we had some of these discussions around having a position on the Gaza conflict.
Denver: Yeah.
Nick: And some of our staff and some of our younger staff saying, “Well, we should be putting out a statement on Gaza.” And so we had an open discussion about it.
At least my questions were, “Well, hold it. We don’t work there. So, we work in defined geographies, we’re not working there. And at the moment, sadly, because people are trapped in an enclave, there’s not trafficking issues at scale, so it’s not a trafficking issue, and so what value would we add?”
And the response was, “Well, everyone else is doing it,” and there was a legitimate desire to show support for these really awful issues.
And my view was, “Well, I don’t think that advances our mission, and we don’t put out statements on other conflicts that are also horrible. I’m watching with absolute horror at the slow motion genocide that’s unfolding in Sudan once again, which does have massive trafficking implications, but we’re not working there and I don’t think that us putting out statements per se, and it doesn’t mean, you know… Others have different views, and I fully support them.”
So, in the end, we decided not to put out a statement. I also said to staff, “You’re entirely at liberty to do things in your personal capacity as I am doing, in terms of funding and donating, but the work is focused on advancing our purpose, our mission, and this does not advance that.”
And it was difficult, and who knows? And it’s probably an ongoing discussion, but I’m just trying to give you an example of where particularly younger and very active staff have strong views that need to be heard and need to be responded to.
Denver: Sure. And they persevere, they want to get them out. And as you pointed out, I think so well, too, aside from taking a point of view on that particular issue, then the question becomes, when do we make a statement and when don’t we? So, you’re always going to have people who are going to be unhappy, “You said this about this, but why aren’t we speaking about this?” And it can go on and on and on and never end. I know Harvard has done that now. They’re just going to make statements about education and things in their bailiwick and not about everything that comes down the pike.
Let me ask you a little bit about boards, the relationship between the board chair and the CEO, as well as the full board… and the separation and the roles and responsibilities. Give our listeners some tips and advice on how to think about that.
Nick: So, whenever I speak to a group of nonprofit leaders and I talk about challenges and I mention boards, I see almost every nonprofit leader kind of smile.
Boards can be really challenging, and I think I kind of talk about it in a book: they’re the worst form of governance for nonprofit except for all the others.
Denver: That’s exactly right, yep.
Nick: I don’t think there is another form of governance that works, but it’s really challenging because for most nonprofits, your board members, they’re volunteers, they’re not paid. So, unlike business, where you pay board members and they’re often members of the organization, these are volunteers who don’t work for the organization.
So, they come together maybe four times a year. They have a fraction of the knowledge of the issues you’re working on, and I don’t mean that in a derogatory sense, I just mean that’s not their day job.
Denver: Yeah.
Nick: My day job is to think about slavery day in, day out. So, you may have board members that work on these issues, but more often than not, they don’t work on a specific issue you’re working on. And then they come together, and they have huge power and responsibility.
Now, I know that the governance structure is really important because one of the real challenges with nonprofits is accountability, particularly when it’s so difficult to measure impact, it’s really hard. So, it’s important to have a mechanism where the CEO in particular is being challenged. How are you performing? Are you achieving your objectives and all the rest of it? And when boards work well, they’re great.
I have an amazing board at the moment, but I say that advisedly because we had some real challenges on our board over a year or two ago, where there were different views on the board, and the board wasn’t as cohesive as I liked. And now to their credit, they worked through that.
Denver: Good.
Nick: And have come to a really good position.
But one of the most nerve-wracking times in the last decade that I’ve been leading the Freedom Fund was when my board wasn’t completely cohesive because boards can utterly derail an organization if they don’t work effectively.
One of their powers is to hire and fire the CEO. But even if you don’t take… you’re not looking at that drastic step, they can take a huge amount of time and energy because of course, you have to be responsive to the board as the kind of governing mechanism. So, if they’re not aligned and not kind of clear about what they want from you, there can be a lot of distraction.
So, I say to CEOs, I’m stunned at the number of CEOs I speak to who don’t actively engage their board members and kind of only deal with them… maybe with the board chair… and only with the other board members at the board meetings. And then they’re surprised when something comes out of left field, and they’re not kind of in touch with what board members are thinking.
So, I try and engage with all of my board members on a regular basis outside of board meetings and make sure there’s no surprises. I don’t want them being surprised about anything. I don’t want them to wait if there’s a real issue in the organization, I don’t want them to wait two months ‘til a board meeting. I’ll let them know so that they have trust that they’re going to be informed of these issues. So, yeah, it would be my key piece of advice to CEOs is: engage with your board members.
Denver: Yeah, that was a good piece of advice. I think there’s too many leaders who basically look at their board and the board meeting, and when it’s over, they do: Phew! You know, “We got through that one. Well, now we can get back to work,” and that’s not the way to be.
And I think when you’re not in constant touch with them, there’s a little bit more anxiety when you do have a board meeting because you haven’t spoken to them in three months. The thing that I always find frustrating is that too many boards don’t act as a team, and the only boards that are really successful are those that are teams. And generally, what they do is they parachute in as an individual, and they have their little thing they do for the organization, and then they parachute out, and that’s never going to get you to where you need to go.
Nick: Yeah, no, I fully agree. I mean, one of the things we do is we invite the board as a whole once a year to come out to a program, and it’s the most powerful thing we can do because you’re in Nepal, or you’re in Ethiopia together, and you’re seeing the work firsthand, but you’re also spending time together, and when you’re close to the work, it’s transformative.
Denver: Yeah, sure.
Nick: Because it’s not theoretical, it’s very, very real, and it encourages them to be utterly focused on the work the organization is doing. So, it’s a very powerful way of building that cohesion with boards.
Denver: Yeah, yeah. And concentrating on each other on the board in a completely sort of unstructured way or at least uncustomary way.
Finally, Nick, if you could add one more chapter to your book, what would it cover, and what key insights would you share with aspiring leaders from your ongoing journey and research?
Nick: I think the chapter that’s missing from my book, and it reflects my lack of experience is with volunteers. And this is not necessarily quite the answer that you were looking for. But, at my organization, we don’t have volunteers. We have paid staff, and we work and we pay organizations. And so, one of the things I was thinking about when I was writing a book is, because my whole experience is working with what in the space would be very large organizations because there’s an estimated 1.5 million nonprofits in the US, and the vast bulk of them would have income of less than half a million dollars… I’m sure I don’t know what the exact figures would be… well over 90%, 95% are smaller than that… and rely on volunteers and armies of volunteers.
So, that’s the piece of the equation that I haven’t really grappled with. I don’t know if I’d do it in another book just because it’s not my area of expertise. But, Denver, that’s not a great answer.
Denver: That’s a great answer. I think it is. I think it’s a big-time answer in that, you know, if you take a look in the US, I think less than 50% of people are contributing to charity. And I think if you have young people who don’t have the wherewithal to buy a house, and you have old people who are basically living on somewhat of a fixed income and don’t have a lot of excess, you have to figure out how you can leverage that population other than writing a check; and volunteers are the way to do it, and it’s hard.
But I remember somebody said to me once that “You’ve never really managed until you’ve managed volunteers,” and that is one of the truest things that have ever been said. So, I think you’re really onto something. That’s something that nonprofits should be thinking about.
Well, if you’re passionate about maximizing your nonprofit’s impact, How to Lead Nonprofits: Turning Purpose into Impact to Change the World is the essential source. So, pick it up!
Thanks for joining me today, Nick. It was just a pleasure to have you on the show.
Nick: Thanks, Denver. It’s always wonderful having a discussion with you. Thanks for having me on.
Denver Frederick, Host of The Business of Giving serves as a Trusted Advisor and Executive Coach to Nonprofit Leaders. His Book, The Business of Giving: New Best Practices for Nonprofit and Philanthropic Leaders in an Uncertain World, is available now on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.