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Here's what the Leading Edge team is learning about culture, executives, and boards this month.
Report: The Nonprofit Workforce Shortage Crisis
In April 2023, the networks of the National Council of Nonprofits conducted a nationwide survey to secure the latest, comprehensive information about the nonprofit workforce. When nonprofits cannot hire enough employees to provide vital services, the public suffers. Data from this survey and others show that along with increased demands for services, there are longer waiting lists, reduced services, and sometimes elimination of services. When any of those happen, the ripple effects cannot be ignored: communities lose access to food, shelter, mental health care, and other vital services on which people depend.
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CULTURE
Harvard’s Arthur C. Brooks on the Secrets to Happiness at Work
To the strivers and workaholics out there, bestselling author and Harvard professor Arthur C. Brooks has a message for you: change your behavior before it’s too late. Brooks was one of you: a pace-setting boss who expected others to work 80-hour weeks just like him, leaving little time for friends and family. Today he classifies behavior like his as a pathology that can lead to misery. And he has concrete, actionable advice for increasing your life’s happiness.
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We need to restore romance in nonprofit and philanthropy! (No, not that kind of romance)
The definition of "romantic" is "marked by the imaginative or emotional appeal of what is heroic, adventurous, remote, mysterious, or idealized.” By this definition, the entirety of our work in nonprofit and philanthropy is a profound exercise in romance. To do this work, we have to be romantic. We are fighting the very real forces of racism, injustice, white supremacy, patriarchy, capitalism, etc. These are difficult battles that require more vision, more courage, and more optimism, not less.
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EXECUTIVES
Incorporating DEI into Decision-Making
Most people believe in promoting DEI in the workplace. But implicit and unconscious biases — not to mention the constant juggling of priorities required at work — can lead to inequitable decision-making. Drawing on recent research, the authors of this article suggest that this problem can be addressed by making DEI more immediately obvious, or salient, to managers immediately before they need to make consequential decisions about such matters as hiring, promotions, and performance evaluation.
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The labor market may be shifting. Here are 5 mistakes leaders should avoid
Many believe the winds are changing and the pendulum of power may be swinging back (in some sectors) from a labor market in which employees had greater power to one in which power appears to be returning to employers. While it may feel like you’ve got all the cards right now, top talent — the people you desperately want and need — will always have the upper hand. Here are five common and catastrophic mistakes that leaders should avoid as power in the labor market shifts.
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BOARDS
Podcast: How can communications help you recruit and engage board members?
As a nonprofit CEO, how can you tell the cadence of communication in a way that board members can receive it? Is getting involved in communications a must for a board member, and if so, how should we ask them to engage and generate their involvement based on their personality styles? From recruitment to ongoing cultivation, experts discuss the power of storytelling to attract potential board members and align their skills with the organization's mission in The Smart Communications Podcast.
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How to Navigate Being a New Nonprofit Board Member
Navigating the relationship between nonprofit boards and staff can be extraordinarily challenging. More than we realize, there are nonprofit staffers who feel powerless and frustrated because of the behavior of their board members. But if you’re looking at an organization as a ship, then the board of directors must be both steering (providing subject-matter expertise) and rowing (doing the work) in order to help the causes succeed. Here are four practical tips in being a high-performing and effective board member from day No. 1.
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MORE:
- NonprofitAF.com: Why funders need to rethink the concept of nonprofit resilience
- The Chronicle of Philanthropy: The Donor Pyramid May Be Bad for Giving. Can We Do Better?
- SSIR: 8 Steps Nonprofits Can Take to Adopt AI Responsibly
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