Nonprofit Management

Who taught us to be secretive?

In business, we keep secrets from employees and customers. We keep secrets from donors and volunteers. Why?

Transparency is good. Honesty and truth build trust. Candor and communications nurture understanding and ownership.

Sure, you have to be conscientious and wise with transparency. You don’t violate the privacy of clients or employees. You probably don’t discuss litigation. You make judgments. But the default is, too often, “keep it private,” “don’t talk about it,” “there’s no need for them to know.”

Lack of transparency does a lot of damage, unnecessary damage when it’s so easy to be transparent.

Why not share your budget and financial report and financial situation with your donors, volunteers, and employees. Explain what’s happening and why. Explain what you are doing about the situation.

More transparency reduces the anxiety of not knowing. More transparency builds understanding and support. More transparency may generate useful insights and ideas – and more transparency with donors can certainly generate more gifts.

Maybe what I perceive as a lack of transparency could be lack of awareness and poor business practice on the part of nonprofits. Just the other day, I was trying to find the board members of a charity. But no list on the agency’s website. How silly. According to a recent study by GuideStar (“The State of Nonprofit Transparency, 2008: Voluntary Disclosure Practices”), only 73% of the studied charities post a board list online.

Another example: Your audited financial statement is a public document and should be readily available for anyone. Why make people ask? Just make it available, like on your website. But the GuideStar study said that only 13% of the studied charities post the audit online. And only 3% noted that the audit is available off line.

Transparency is good. Basic transparency about the fundamentals is essential; not to do so is just plain stupid. And more transparency is really really good and really builds trust, understanding, and ownership. And trust, understanding, and ownership bring many good things.

How many times have you and I sat around complaining about our board members? Grousing about our fundraising volunteers?

Be honest! We’ve all done it.

Well, I finally figured out what to do. First, look in the mirror – because chances are, their performance is directly related to you, the person in the mirror.

Too many executive directors don’t know how to enable their board members to do good governance. Too many development officers don’t know how to enable their fundraising volunteers to do the right stuff well.

I call it “enabling.” Effective leaders know how to enable their volunteers and staff to do perform effectively.

What’s enabling? It’s giving others the information, tools, permission, power to carry on. Enabling has very specific functions: I’ve identified 17 specific things you and I have to do. And enabling depends upon the right behaviors and skills.

Enabling should be a performance expectation of executive directors and development officers. And poor enablers should be expected to improve – darn fast.

See my handout on enabling. Read more detail in my book Strategic Fund Development: Building Profitable Relationships That Last.

If I hear one more person say “we’ve created a stronger brand” – and then he shows me the new logo, I’ll scream.

Oh…I already scream. And rant and rave.

A logo is NOT your brand.

A positioning statement is NOT your brand.

A plan to introduce your new website and new logo and wonderful positioning statement is NOT a branding plan.

You don’t brand yourselves. The audience brands you.

“Your brand is the promise you keep, not the one you make.” That’s from Kristin Zhivago in her book Rivers of Revenue: What to Do When the Money Stops Flowing.

Your brand is this: how a target audience feels about you.

“A brand,” says Marty Neumeier in The Brand Gap, his definitive book on the subject, “is a person’s gut feeling about a product, service, or company.”

Marty says a brand is a “gut feeling.” Your brand is how people feel about you. And that depends on their experiences with you. For example: How is your service? How satisfied am I with the quality of your product?

Hmmm… I feel giddy when I go into the Apple Store. Yes, just plain giddy. The energy in the store. The good service. The marvelous design. The Mac is so easy to use. So obvious. So transparent. And there are all those helpful people there who can solve my problems at no charge. I only buy Apple. I cannot imagine ever changing.

And I’m part of a group of Apple fanatics devoted to the company. Part of a group…

Neumeier goes on to say about that gut feeling: “We’re all emotional, intuitive beings, despite our best efforts to be rational. [And] in the end the brand is defined by individuals, not by [the company itself]…Each person creates his or her own version of [your brand]…When enough individuals arrive at the same gut feeling, a company can be said to have a brand.”

What’s your brand? It’s not what you’re promoting through your marketing plan or your print image or your newest ad. Your brand is not what you say it is. Your brand is what I say it is. Your brand is what your donors and clients and volunteers say about you.

You want a “good brand?” Then create a donor-centered and customer-centered organization. Develop a plan for that.

See the section on branding in Keep Your Donors. Read Neumeier’s book The Brand Gap.

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