In keeping with my promise to write more, I’m taking a break from my first visit with my family since they moved to Arizona to post some thoughts about an issue that’s been on my mind.
I attended StartingBloc last week and so many of the conversations I had with fellows linked social change and $ and an MBA. Whether it was about driving social change and making a good chunk of change (“doing good while doing well”) or launching a nonprofit venture that drove social change while earning a profit (“social enterprises” or self-sufficient nonprofits). There was an extreme under appreciation, or perhaps misunderstanding, of the role management skills and business principles play in the bigger picture of nonprofit management. This drives me nuts.
On doing well and doing good…great, make some money and do some good, but recognize every social problem cannot be solved by opportunities that lend themselves do doing well and doing good simultaneously (I would hope to be proven wrong on this one, but I doubt it). Certain problems cannot be solved with double bottom line businesses because a market simply does not exist, no matter how hard you try to create one. Certain problems tackled by nonprofits don’t lend themselves to higher compensation opportunities, even though the leaders in that organization see the need for cross-sector competitive compensation, because the funding might not flow to that cause, let alone the people fighting for that cause. Are there opportunities to do well and do good? Absolutely. There are many examples of social problems being tackled by extremely profitable double bottom line ventures and there are also many examples of nonprofit organizations who pay their employees extremely competitive salaries and performance-based compensation, but don’t automatically think that if you evoke a little creativity solving the problem you care about, you will be able to find an opportunity to do well and do good. (Note that none of this is a discussion of CSR, which isn’t what any of the folks I spoke with were interested in)
As for business skills, nonprofits, and profit…As I work in an organization undergoing a significant amount of restructuring in light of the economic environment, I am reaffirmed in my decision to study business and bring it to the social sector – but it has nothing to do with helping to improve the economic situation of the organization through employing strict profit-making tactics. Simple management principles that might otherwise be overlooked or ill-understood in organizations that don’t have managers and leaders with business skills, like change management, will have a profound role in shaping the outcome of the transition of this organization. Risk and scenario analysis, two more real management skills, had a profound role in defining how this organization would set the course for restructuring. Management-oriented communication tactics had, and will continue to have, a profound role in ensuring buy-in for this transition. Think about the role of business skills and discipline in a nonprofit more holistically than just helping the organization drive a profitable bottom-line.
End rant.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tagged: bottom-line, MBA, nonprofit management, social enterprise
