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A Nobel Nudge

October 9, 2017 by Douglas Meyer

Profession Richard H Thaler Kudos to the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences for their selection of Richard Thaler for the 2017 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences.

In making the selection, the chairman of the prize committee cited Thaler’s broad “contributions and discoveries” in behavioral economics, and how he helped take the field from “being sort of a fringe and somewhat controversial part of economics to being a mainstream area of contemporary economic research.”

While that is undeniably important, we would, however, point to the more actionable aspects of his work. Many of our clients have come to us with a hope of informing and improving public policy, for example, and on that topic Thaler’s work has been a revelation. In his book, Nudge, Thaler brings to life the way in which people make decisions, and the role of policy in shaping those decisions.

Click here to view a “Big Think” interview with Dr. Thaler explaining nudges, or visit nudges.org for more examples.

So congratulations Dr. Thaler, and thank you for your insights and advice.

Starting in the Middle: Step One in Strategic Planning

October 3, 2017 by Thomas Brendler

In the nonprofit world, few props can induce more panic than blank flipcharts, especially when the task ahead is mapping out the future. While a crisp new pad and scented markers might seem like green fields and blue skies to some, this setup belies the messy reality that organizations are in perpetual flux, layered with histories, personalities, worries about the future—not to mention all the “real” work waiting for you back at your desk. Retreats and other engineered spaces for reflecting and regrouping have material value, but they can overlook the fact that, as the poet John Ashbery wrote, “all stories begin in the middle.”

In our work, we’ve found that gathering information and insights ahead of a strategy session—from staff, stakeholders, peers, and the board—sets the planning process up for success in several ways. It provides something to put on the flipcharts, making the intangible tangible and providing everyone in the room with a common frame of reference in the form of qualitative and quantitative data. At the same time, the process of collecting information helps involve people at all levels of the organization in the planning process as it gets underway—and can even serve as an informal professional development opportunity for junior staff. And asking fans and critics alike for their candid perspectives not only signals that the organization is striving to do its best, but can also spark or revive relationships that are critical to mission—or funding—success.

Once gathered, the weight of these insights can create opportunities to address urgent but delicate issues. The research can help galvanize languishing change or growth by connecting the dots in a way that cannot happen through episodic staff satisfaction surveys, management-team meetings, or board visioning sessions alone.

Most importantly, building a planning process around information is the closest an organization can come to appraising itself objectively. Painting a picture of how an organization looks from the outside—warts and all—and a clear-eyed sense of its place in the world, is critical to charting a safe and true course.

When Mission Matters

August 22, 2017 by Thomas Brendler

Over the past week several charities called off fundraising events at the President’s Florida estate over concerns about his response to the recent violence in Charlottesville. Some expressed concern that the locale would create distraction and controversy. There is a real logic in this rationale, as in the lives of nonprofits few pursuits are more delicate than asking people for money.

Others took a bolder stance, claiming that holding an event at Mar-a-Lago would be at odds with their mission. In explaining its decision, the American Red Cross proclaimed, “we must be clear and unequivocal in defense of [our principles].” Nancy G. Brinker, founder of Susan G. Komen, was even more direct, saying “There are no excuses, parsing or moral relativism when it comes to racism, bigotry and violence.”

There are risks to any public-facing decision, especially for large and visible nonprofits like the Red Cross, Komen, and the American Cancer Society, which took a similar tack. Backlash can be swift and vicious: there is already a campaign to boycott companies that withdrew from the President’s business advisory councils last week on similar grounds. Behind even the clearest and boldest statement lies plenty of deliberation, however vast the swell of public support.

There are times when an organization’s mission—especially its commitment to it—is publicly tested. Relief groups during natural disasters are one obvious example. At these moments, organizations we ordinarily may not think of every day are thrust into the glare of public attention and scrutiny.

Reverberations from Charlottesville provide a particularly interesting public test because the organizations speaking up are interpreting their missions in broad, humanistic terms—in the spirit of their programmatic work, but reaching well beyond it. Charlottesville had nothing directly to do with breast cancer or disaster relief, but the leaders of those organizations saw a deeper, urgent relevance, rooted in ethics and morality. No doubt they also had their donors in mind.

Mission and vision statements, however aspirational and enshrined, are no more than strings of words assembled by people. They are crafted with care and precision, with the intent to focus and inspire an organization. But to be effective, the people of the organization must put the mission and vision to work every day. And continuously interpret them with candor and vigilance, with an appreciation of an organization’s broader role and responsibility in the world.

“Why are we doing strategic planning?”

March 13, 2017 by Betsy Garside

Bernuth & Williamson strategic planning for nonprofits We kicked off a strategic planning effort with a new client recently. A staff member, curious about why he was in the room and on the strategic planning team, asked a familiar question: “Why are we doing strategic planning?” Behind the question was the tension of an overcommitted worker wondering what this big new chunk of extra work would actually do for his organization.

Nonprofit organizations undertake strategic plans for many reasons, positive and negative. We see new leaders come through our door eager to change their organizations for the better…and leaders who have lost funding and need to retrench strategically. Calls come from board chairs who want faster results, or top staff who feel their effort is becoming less relevant in the changing world around them. The genesis for every strategic planning effort has some level of both pain and opportunity wrapped into it.

No matter what the genesis for the process, there is a universal answer to that “why?”: If you don’t drive, someone or something else will do so. If you don’t set a course — imperfect though it may be — you will not get to where you want to be. As all-consuming as an organization’s day-to-day activities may be, leadership must make the effort to periodically look over the horizon. I won’t get too sailorly, but that look over the horizon helps an organization see what change is happening in their operating environment (the good and the bad), where they are in reaching their organizational goals, and how they might want to adjust course to get there more efficiently or effectively.

As to the “how” of approaching strategic planning? At the end of that meeting, the same person pointed out an excellent approach to any strategic planning process: “We should have courage, you know, courage to say yes and to say no. And we should take some risks.”

Point taken.

Nobody is Joining: The Membership-Model Challenge

July 21, 2016 by Betsy Garside

empty seats We are working with several organizations that have some sort of membership model. One is a private school, another an association with several tiers of membership, a third is an advocacy group reliant on a subscription model. For all of these organizations, a challenge looms: Paid annual “memberships” are dropping steadily. Part of this is generational: Millennials are not habitually joiners. The spirit of annual membership in a nonprofit is stronger in Boomers and GenXers. Whatever the bundle of causes, the mindset of those willing to “join” to cover high fixed costs of institutions like private schools, museums or theaters is a waning phenomenon. And those willing to “join” to support advocacy efforts or public goods like NPR? No better.

In 1831, Alexis de Tocqueville traveled from France to study American prisons. In reality, he absorbed the American socio-political ethos, turning what he experienced into two volumes entitled “Democracy in America.” His view of Americans? A nation of joiners:

“Americans of all ages, all conditions, all minds constantly unite. Not only do they have commercial and industrial associations in which all take part, but they also have a thousand other kinds: religious, moral, grave, futile, very general and very particular, immense and very small; Americans use associations to give fêtes, to found seminaries, to build inns, to raise churches, to distribute books, to send missionaries to the antipodes; in this manner they create hospitals, prisons, schools. Finally, if it is a question of bringing to light a truth or developing a sentiment with the support of a great example, they associate. Everywhere that, at the head of a new undertaking, you see the government in France and a great lord in England, count on it that you will perceive an association in the United States.”

It is clear that this joiner mentality is undergoing some fundamental shifts. We could quote de Tocqueville at our clients and they would not thank us for it. Instead, we’ve been working with clients to develop clearer understandings of what value those former joiners — be they members, private-school parents, museum goers, annual seat-buyers or subscriber advocates — are seeking from their association with a given organization. Once we have that clear picture of what supporters or stakeholders want and value, we help clients restructure their offerings — or their entire business model — to favor where the marketplace is headed.

The distinguishing factor we’ve found is between nonprofit organizations that are preparing for this slow steady change and organizations that are not. The former — the preparers — are willing to shift their model, brand, structures and efforts to recognize a fundamentally new marketplace for affiliation. The latter are sticking to their current models, willing to go down with the membership graph line.

What we see is simple: If you rely on a membership or joining model, you better be able to deliver a very clear and distinct value to your members, not information that they believe should be available on the internet for free, but something tangible and differentiating. Membership organizations with that kind of value proposition will be able to keep their heads above water even when other joiner groups are in steep decline.

A Nobel Nudge

Starting in the Middle: Step One in Strategic Planning

When Mission Matters

“Why are we doing strategic planning?”

Nobody is Joining: The Membership-Model Challenge

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Princeton

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