Get thee behind me, Chugger!

While I'm on a tear about the ubiquity of fundraising pitches, and the execrable notion that fundraising is the signature activity of nonprofit organizations, I'd like to take this opportunity to inveigh against chuggers. Well, not against the chuggers themselves, but against those who send them to out shake down pedestrians on street corners, in the name of otherwise worthy causes.

"Chugger" is, of course, a portmanteau word that combines "charity" and "mugger."

The way you recruit them is usually to put up signs on college campuses that say "Get Paid to Work for the Environment." (Or some other cause.) Then you hire idealistic young people, give them minimal training, and pay them outrageously low sums. You send them to towns that actually have pedestrians, and there they station themselves, greeting strangers and trying to shame them into making donations. Occasionally this activity is varied with attempts to get the pedestrians to sign petitions.

It would probably be pointless to blame these young students, or the other idealists who gravitate toward these jobs. Most of them need the money pretty badly, and many of them probably think that they are getting valuable experience in activism or community organizing. What they are getting is exploited. What the rest of us are getting is annoyed.

Because they are exploited, I try hard not to growl at or bite these hapless bottom feeders of the fundraising industry when I encounter them. It's also unfair to pick on them because they have to be polite while they're representing their organizations, when I (as a private person walking down the street) am under fewer constraints.

I'm not particularly proud of how I sometimes react when one of them accosts me on the street, but I'd like to make a point here by summarizing one sort of conversation that I've experienced:

Party of the First Part: Got a minute for the environment?(1)

Party of the Second Part: (sigh)

Party of the First Part: We're doing incredibly effective work on an incredibly urgent mission and we'd like you to make a donation and/or sign a petition.

Party of the Second Part: Sorry. I don't donate money or sign petitions on the street, but if you give me some information, I'll think it over.

Party of the First Part: Oh, we don't have any material we can give away.

Party of the Second Part: Wait, what? You're engaging members of the public on the street, and you don't have any informational hand-outs? That can't be right.

Party of the First Part: But it's really easy to donate. Look, I can take your credit card, if you don't have cash.

Party of the Second Part: Sorry, no - I already told you that I don't make donations on the street. But, please! I work in the nonprofit sector, and I know how constituent engagement works. You don't start by pestering people for money. You need to build relationships with them, listen to their concerns, and give them something that will enable them to follow up later.

Party of the First Part: Well, all I have are the materials in this notebook that they gave me. I can't give it away. But if you have a piece of paper, I can write down our web address, and you can make a donation online.

Party of the Second Part: Look, I work for (Name of Organization Withheld)(2). We're doing incredibly effective work on an incredibly important mission.(3) Will you give me some cash right now to support our efforts?

Party of the First Part: No, no, I can't. I'm out here working for the environment(4). I'm supposed to be collecting donations and getting signatures for this petition. I shouldn't be giving money away to other organizations.

Party of the Second Part: Never mind. Have a nice day. Good-bye.

Of course, my efforts here are completely futile. I might be able to get a couple of chuggers off-script, and I might be able to encourage them to think about what advocacy and constituent engagement really entail, but I doubt that I'm succeeding even at that. Moreover, the people whose hearts and minds really need to be changed are the more senior staff members of these nonprofits, the ones who came up with this strategy. I don't need to be picking on impoverished college students who are set loose with a perfunctory briefing, a tin can, a petition, and a mediocre script.

To me, it seems obvious that engaging members of the public at the street level is both a privilege and an opportunity for a nonprofit organization. Firstly, there are so few communities that can even boast of a lively pedestrian culture or some sort of public square where ideas are exchanged. Secondly, if your organization is lucky enough to be get the attention of random strangers in a public place, you ought to think in terms of long term strategy. Hitting people up for money the moment they stop to talk with you may yield some short term donations, but as I've already pointed out, it's not how to build a real relationship. You would do far better to have something to hand out (even it's only a business card), to be asking for input about what passers-by consider to be their deepest concerns, and to have public policy experts on hand to engage in discussions or answer questions.

I don't think that the organizations that send out chuggers are likely to change their ways any time soon. Straining for some kind of consolation, I can only take comfort in the thought that these organizations are not merely employing today's chuggers - they are also manufacturing tomorrow's skeptics and nonprofit curmudgeons. My hypothesis is that a certain percentage of chuggers, if they are intelligent and alert, will independently pick up on the exactly the same points that I am trying to make here. If any of them choose to remain in the nonprofit sector, I hope that they will be just bitter and cynical enough to enjoy my blog, but not so bitter and cynical that they will accept and perpetuate chugging as a necessary evil.






1) Or for human rights, or to elect a political candidate, or for the arts, or to help the word's most photogenic orphans, etc.

2) This being the nonprofit that has the dubious distinction of employing me.

3) Details were provided to the Party of the First Part, but are omitted here to spare the organization the embarrassment of being linked back to me.

4) Or for human rights, etc.

Some of my best friends in the nonprofit sector are consultants.

Perhaps it comes as a surprise to this blog's readers that I have any friends at all(1), let alone friends in the nonprofit sector. But I do. I even have heroes.

When I think of the people I like, admire, and trust the most in the sector these days, I realize that many of them are no longer on the payroll as employees of nonprofit organizations. They're still around, doing excellent work for nonprofits, but they're consultants and contractors. Instead of bosses, they have clients.

What does this mean? One interpretation is that market forces have made it more efficient for nonprofits to hire consultants.(2) However, if we apply Ockham's razor, we know that the most simple and probable explanation lies in how nonprofits are managed.

Consider the following scenarios:

• You are a really brilliant fundraiser. Like all the best people in your field, you're a prodigy at marketing, communications, event management, data mining, and all-around creativity. Is it any wonder that such a smart person might want to move on periodically to new challenges, even with the best fundraising job at the best nonprofit organization in the world? However, you do not have the ideal job; you are working with a board and an executive director that squelch your best ideas. Wouldn't it be better to be a fundraising consultant, and be able to pick and choose projects, without having to make an all-or-nothing professional commitment to one organization?

• You are stellar technology professional who would like nothing better than to be the CTO of a medium-sized nonprofit, where you would have responsibility for systems administration, database development, and online services. No nonprofit will hire you, partly because the management teams of these organizations don't want to create any more staff positions with benefits, and partly because they don't see information and communication technology as part of their core mission. They'd rather outsource these services, even though this means more downtime and less continuity. If you really want to work with nonprofits, wouldn't it be better to develop a client base in the sector than to take a full-time job working for a business whose mission means nothing to you?
  
  
• You have lots of experience, plus an M.B.A. in nonprofit management and a Ph.D. in organizational behavior. An established nonprofit hires you with great fanfare to be its director of human resources and organizational development, because, as they say, they are looking for a "change agent" that will help transform their most valuable asset, the staff, into a team with high morale and unsurpassed effectiveness. Two years pass, and aside from shuffling the usual HR paperwork and holding one training in which you explain Myers-Briggs personality types as a way to help colleagues understand the diversity of work styles, nothing has happened. Every other initiative that you have proposed has been shot down by the combined machinations of the chief operating officer and the director of programs. All that rhetoric about change and effectiveness was just some noise made to impress funders who were reluctant to give money to an organization that seemed to be coasting on the reputation it built in the 19th century. Wouldn't it be better to set up as a consultant, so that you can quickly terminate any clients who seem inclined to use you as window dressing?
  
  
• You are a relatively recent graduate from social work school who shows unusual promise. Your ability to advocate for your clients is remarkable, and you always meet or exceed the programmatic goals set by the senior management team of the nonprofit that employs you. However, you are troubled by the way senior management treats the social work team, and by the way that your program seems to be a focus of intra-organizational politics in a struggle that you don't even begin to understand. There's a general atmosphere of muffled hostility, with lots of secret meetings being called and decisions being made, but you only find out about them after the fact when you receive memos about unexplained changes in protocol. Wouldn't it be better to quit, and to find work on a fee-for-service basis, so that you can just concentrate on doing a superlative job as a social worker, without getting entangled in organizational upheavals that you have no power to affect?

My answer to each of these "wouldn't it be better?" questions is usually yes - that becoming a consultant can be a good, short-term, individual solution for highly competent people who would rather not live or die by the idiocy of a one badly managed nonprofit organization. But that answer is a serious indictment of the people with the power in these organizations.

Every senior manager in a nonprofit organization who has any pretensions to strategic thinking should be able to see where this is going. If all the innovative, intelligent, high-achieving staff members run shrieking in horror from full-time, long-term employment with nonprofit organizations, then life is going to become pretty damn unpleasant for those who are left behind. Eventually, the senior management will have to chose between hiring superlative free agents as contractors, or hiring nightmarishly ineffectual employees, or hiring no one at all.

Of course, it might not be the worst scenario in the world for all of the nonprofits in the sector to reorganize themselves as highly effective adhocracies, but I'm not very sanguine about this possibility. Unless it's done very carefully, nonprofit organizations that rely entirely on outsourcing all of their most crucial services are going to lose a lot of the long term strategic momentum if all of the organizational memory resides in the brains of contractors. And I'm not at all confident that such a transition would be done very carefully, or very successfully, by most of the nonprofits that attempted it.

The scenario with nightmarishly ineffectual employees seems more likely, and I'd be willing to bet that you can think of a couple of real-life examples without much effort.

However, what really frightens me is the "no one at all" scenario. I know that we're living in times when it's hard to find a job, because I hear it on the news and from nonprofit colleagues who have been laid off. At the same time, I also receive a terrifying number of telephone calls and emails from hiring managers at nonprofit organizations, and the message there is that they've advertised widely but can't find a single feasible candidate for a key position.(3) The résumés pour in, presumably sent by losers, and the jobs remain vacant for obscenely long stretches of time - until the organization has to hire contractors, or rearrange work responsibilities, or find some other way to cope with the realization that they can't attract the right kind of job-seeker.

Senior managers, I'm looking at you.

Are you going to drive every smart, competent, sane, self-respecting person out of the dysfunctional hell that you've made of your organization?

Are you going to wait until the entire nonprofit sector disbands by attrition, before you clean up your act?

If you have any trouble answering these questions, perhaps I can talk you into hiring me as a consultant. If you pay me by the hour, I'd be happy to deliver my assessment of your problem and a few explicit suggestions about what you can do.(4)





1) Considering that I am foul-tempered, judgmental, and passive-aggressive.

2) Not that I understand what this means. When I find someone in the nonprofit sector that does, I try to be nice and respectful. It's an effort, because being nice doesn't come naturally to me, but understanding finance and market forces without assistance is even more unnatural.

3) The reason that they're calling or emailing is that they want me to recommend some candidates. This puts me in a bind. Should I recommend good people for positions in abysmal organizations, in the hope that the competence of the former will help pull the latter out of the abyss, even if it destroys the former's peace of mind? Or should I recommend perfectly awful people for abysmal organizations, in the hope that they all deserve each other, and that it will more efficient to consolidate the misery and incompetence, even if that means increasing the agony for the constituencies that the organization intends to serve? I leave it as an exercise for the student to figure out the correct answer.

4) I guarantee that colorful language will be involved.

"Executive Director" is a really bad entry level position in the nonprofit sector.

In a rational society, I would not be allowed unsupervised contact with young people. However, perhaps as a sign of the times, my advice is often implored on behalf of students hoping to work in the nonprofit sector, or very junior nonprofit professionals in need of guidance.

I suppose that I am the living embodiment of the principle that a glib tongue and a willingness to point out where other people have gone wrong will garner anyone a reputation as a mentor, even in the absence of more essential traits, such as a wisdom, patience, and kindliness.

But where was I? Oh, yes. Sorry about that digression.

A large number of these young people are imbued with a desire to change the world for the better, or at least fight a rearguard action on behalf of decency. I applaud that. However, I have a hard time containing myself when they confide that they are planning to found a new nonprofit in the near future in order to realize their visions.

My advice? Don't do it!

Why not?

1) You're not qualified. I've already explained why a pure heart and a just cause are not in themselves sufficient; you need more on your resume.

2) You may see starting up a new organization as an opportunity to live out your vision of a better world, but it probably won't be. For almost every founder of a nonprofit, the early years are all about

• Finding money to operate.
  
  
• Checking Craiglist to see if anyone is giving away office chairs.
  
  
• Submitting forms to various governmental agencies.
  
  
• Bookkeeping.
  
  
• Filing.
  
  
• Flattering idiots whose help you need.
  
  
• Doing without the services of crucial staff members because your can't afford them.
  
  
• Supervising volunteers who are a bad match for the task but are available, often because they are justifiably unemployed.
  

• Being snubbed by executive directors from organizations that are already engaged in the serving the needs that you hope to serve.
  
  
• Doing janitorial work. (I know of one executive director of a now defunct start up whose first task each morning was the scrub the doorway of the human waste left there in the night by homeless people. She was remarkably plucky about doing it, which is a good thing, because there wasn't anyone else that she could ask to take charge of it. "Cleaning excrement off the steps" literally had to take precedence over "transforming the community" on her to-do list every day.)

3) While the world and the nonprofit sector are both fraught with problems, there are plenty of ways to make the case that starting a new organization is not the answer.

Do you know who I blame for the persistent delusion that founding a nonprofit is a good option for an idealistic young person? Of course, I'm always looking for a chance to excoriate someone, even though in this case, it's a dubious undertaking, since this delusion is more of an expense of spirit (though perhaps not a waste of shame) than an evil. Still, I'm inclined to blame established nonprofit executives for failing to create career ladders for talented young visionaries who want to work in our sector. Think about it. If these young people were having a good experiences in searching for jobs - or in working for nonprofits that offered them encouragement, professional development, and real opportunities to make a difference - would they be asking me for advice?

A blog by any other name.

It recently occurred to me that "Deal With It" would make an even better name for my blog than "Nonprofit Curmudgeon," since the former is turning out to be the underlying theme here.

Most of us have trouble with some area of nonprofit operations. For example, just about anything related to finance or accounting evokes in me a complicated mix of anxiety, irritation, terror, and boredom. I try to compensate for this by being especially nice and respectful to colleagues who are experts in this area. If I calm down and show an interest, they might teach me something I need to know, or even bail me out of trouble.

However, I've run into more than my share of executive directors who do not cope well. They do not just deal with it. Fortunately, I happen to be living in a culture where commodification of concepts is the norm, and it is now possible to purchase a range of products emblazoned with the slogan, "put on your big girl panties and deal with it." Oddly enough, I haven't been able to find this printed on a pair of real underpants, but there are at least a dozen other products, such as tote bags, t-shirts, and key chains available.

I can think of a number of nonprofit professionals who need to put on their big girl panties, and many of them are boys. Perhaps this will turn out to be the season's trendy anonymous gift?

But first, I'd like to edit the slogan a little. Since so many of my frustrations stem from the technophobia of nonprofit executive directors, I'd like it to be, "put on your big girl panties and deal with I.T."

What century is this, anyway?

This one comes through the grapevine.

A colleague reports a rant from the executive director of a small nonprofit organization. Something along the lines of...

I should not have to think about databases. This is the 21st century. My staff doesn't need to go to any database trainings. Donors should give us the money to hire an in-house technical person, and that person will handle it all for us.

Wrong. Right. Wrong. Right. Wrong.

1. Sorry, but every executive director needs to make strategic decisions about databases. In order to do this in a non-random fashion, you need to use your #@$&*% brains.


2. Score one for you - you know what time it is.
   


3. This is not unlike saying that your staff doesn't need to know how to use a telephone.
   


4. Yes, you should have have the money to hire an in-house technical person. And can you guess who your organization's chief fundraising officer is?
   


5. See #3. Do you have one person in your nonprofit who picks up the phone and dials every time a staff member needs to make a call?

Yes, this is the 21st century. And there's a reason they call it the information age. When you've finished having your tantrum about what the world owes you and what you shouldn't have to think about, there will still be a gaping hole in your organization. Deal with it.

"You can't buy loyalty, but you can reward it."

I overheard this recently, and it makes a lot of sense.

And it's good news for nonprofit agencies, since most of them don't have the money to buy loyalty.

Some nonprofit managers seem to live by this principle of rewarding loyalty, and but I can think of far too many who don't have a clue. Or perhaps the latter think that serving a noble cause, working too many hours, reporting to arbitrary supervisors, receiving less than a living wage, being kept in the dark about the agency's future, and having little control over working conditions are all sufficiently rewarding.

Are nonprofit agencies the customers from hell?

There's actually something worse than a nonprofit agency that makes crisis-driven decisions: the agency that strings vendors along for months or years.

It's humiliating to tell the patient and long-suffering vendor who has put so much time into drawing up a needs assessment, a proposal, and a price quote that you can't get a "yes" or "no" answer from the manager who needs to sign off on it. I'm sure I'm not the only person who has gleefully gone to a vendor with the go-ahead, after a mere 18 month delay, only to find that he has withdrawn the quote or even changed jobs. Can you really blame him for moving on with his life while the nonprofit agency dithered?

This sort of behavior on the part of nonprofit agencies only encourages people to regard us as the customers from hell. Any warm feelings they may get from offering their products or services to an organization with a worthy mission are off-set by the wear and tear that we inflict on their cardio-vascular systems.

Letterhead stationery, tech support, and other necessities of life.

I don't know if this is true everywhere, but our town is full of young idealists.

They have great tech skills, and they're dying to get jobs in the nonprofit sector, so that they can "make a difference."

But they can't find those jobs, so they go work for corporations.

Why can't they get hired? It's not like nonprofit agencies don't need tech support.

It's that the nonprofit managers can't find the money in the budget to pay them.

I realize that tech support might cost you as much or more than letterhead stationery, the executive director's secretary, manilla folders, the electricity bill, and publishing the annual report - but you manage to find the money for all of those things, don't you? After all, you just can't do business without letterhead stationery, could you?

Well, you just can't do business without adequate tech support. Deal with it.

Otherwise, all the young idealists will be absorbed by the corporate sector, and when you get around to realizing that you desperately need tech support, your only option will be to hire people who are older, more cynical, and more expensive.

Technology costs money. (Round 2)

Heads up, nonprofit executive directors!

This is the 21st century, and you need to buy your staff technology that was developed in this millenium, not the previous one.

What's that I hear you whining? Is it that you don't have the money in your budget for technology?

Here are two urgent messages from Reality:

1) If you don't have the money for technology, you don't have what it takes to operate, and it's time to decide whether to close down or find the money.

2) These days the executive director of a nonprofit agency has to be its Chief Fundraising Officer, so get moving.

If you don't tell employees what's happening, they'll make stuff up.

It's probably natural for decision makers at nonprofit agencies to hold off from announcing things until everything is definite. Just the same, you should bear in mind that the staff is human.

If they don't know what is going to happen next, they'll speculate about it. They'll discuss their speculations endlessly, and some of their guesses will make the rounds in the form of alleged facts.

Not only will the rumor mill operate overtime in the absence of information, but the staff will also make the highly justifiable assumption that they aren't trusted with information and aren't considered worthy of being consulted.

This really sucks.

Lack of information tends to lead to feelings of powerlessness in relation to management. Feelings of powerlessness do not tend to increase a sense of loyalty, trust, or job satisfaction. And in a nonprofit agency, you're dead in the water if your employees don't have those three.

Technology costs money. (Round 1)

A question for executive directors: how much do you make a year?

I bet it's a lot less than you'd make in a for-profit business. But you get paid a salary, right? And you deserve every penny of it, right?

Right.

So now it's time to choke down the realization that if you're going to run a nonprofit agency, you need a certain amount of computing power. This costs money. You need to create line items in your annual budget for technology products and services.

When I say services, that includes people. You need to pay real money to real people.

You need to pay people what they're worth. You get paid a salary, and you deserve every penny of it, remember? Well, please keep that in mind when you go looking for technical support.