Nonprofit Accountability: Taking the Responsibility to Deliver the Goods
Updated: Oct 10
In the for-profit world, the principle of accountability is fundamental and widespread. The business mantra is to grow sales, trim expenses, and improve efficiencies, all to increase earnings and profitability. Employees and board members understand if they don’t do an effective job running their businesses and managing the bottom line, competitors are standing close by happily willing to take their market share.
In contrast, accountability is largely a murky word in the nonprofit world. The term conjures up images of stoic corporate cultures where employees punch clocks, work for autocratic bosses, and step on each other to meet quotas and climb corporate ladders.
Nonprofit cultures may be grounded in selfless service and compassionate management, but they are corporations and function like their for-profit equivalents in more ways than you might imagine. Nonprofits have boards and staff, own assets, raise money, and offer programs, products, and services. They pay taxes, report to the IRS, and follow local, state, and government regulations.
Of course, there are differences. The biggest is how a nonprofit uses its assets, including the money it raises. Government regulations state a nonprofit must use its assets to advance the cause or provide the service (the mission) for which the nonprofit business was created as determined by its board of directors. In a for-profit business, money raised, revenue generated, or profits earned go to the owners of the corporation.
The public “invests” money in nonprofits expecting “social returns” on their investments, so why shouldn’t nonprofits be held accountable to deliver on their promises like for-profit corporations?
Why shouldn’t the public expect nonprofits to have measurements of success to track outcomes and measure effectiveness? Why shouldn’t staff and board members of nonprofits have performance objectives? Why shouldn’t donors receive statements showing the types of returns they’re getting on their social investments?
I’ve read a lot of nonprofit literature over the years and I’ve never read anything suggesting leaders of nonprofits have the right to run their organizations without structure, accountability, or responsibility because they are doing noble work. I’ve also never read anything stating that board members and staff should receive passes for work performance and accountability as long as they’re passionate about changing the world.
Yet, many nonprofits are afraid to adopt policies and structures to hold their board, staff, and organization accountable for goals, objectives, and missions they set out to achieve, and work they promise to deliver.
The truth is many nonprofits live in a world of double standards. They want their flextime, eco-friendly offices, and casual dress policies. They also want equal opportunity and equal access as their for-profit equivalents when it comes to funding, political clout, wages, benefits, perks, and publicity.
These nonprofits cry for equality, but they are often unwilling to be held accountable to show they deserve equality. It’s as if they feel entitled to equality simply because they are selfless “charities” doing good work to save the world. Meaning, since they believe they have the hearts and passion of a Mother Theresa, why would anyone question their integrity or intentions?
Nonprofits with this mindset are in for a big surprise. Donors and foundations are more sophisticated than ever. Compassion and mission are still central to their motivation for giving, but donors are less and less willing to write checks simply for “good intentions.” More and more, donors and foundations view their gifts as social investments and the nonprofits that provide the greatest returns will win the lion’s share of their generosity.
Why is accountability important?
Accountability is a First Things First principle because every nonprofit, by law and moral obligation, is accountable to the public to deliver the social benefits and obligations they’ve promised to deliver.
When accountability becomes a cultural norm, a nonprofit begins to think in terms of quality, performance, outcomes, and impact. Concepts such as job performance, financial sustainability, ethical standards, operational efficiency, and program effectiveness are no longer ethereal goals. They become primary objectives and directives of a nonprofit and people’s feet are put to the fire to ensure they get accomplished.
To be a gold standard nonprofit, make the principle of accountability a core value and cultural priority as early in your lifecycle as possible. First things first! If you do, you will spring past your competition to win the hearts, minds, and pocketbooks of supporters. Most importantly, you will build a community of trust and credibility, and feel confident you are fulfilling your mission with integrity in the most efficient and effective manner possible.
Case Study: Entitlement leads to complacency
When I left Sun Valley Adaptive Sports in the fall of 2010, we had 20 smart and passionate staff working to fulfill our mission. Everyone knew what to do, how to do it, and what was expected. Managers empowered their teams to do their jobs and manage themselves with little oversight. Our business rhythm was smooth, our programs were effective, and staff was happy.
Five years earlier, our business rhythm resembled a gyrating spool of constant change and chaos. We had three staff doing the work of six. Everyone wore multiple hats and worked around the clock to rebuild programs, raise money, acquire volunteers, and develop partnerships. The work was motivating and inspiring, but it was also exhausting and stressful.
Much of our effort at that time went to cleaning up the mess the former administration and board left behind. To get us back on track quickly, I set high expectations for our young staff and myself. As we started passing major milestones, I wanted to acknowledge and reward staff for their hard work and dedication, so I granted juicy perks and benefits.
I started by establishing a flextime policy so staff could set their own work schedules as long as they worked 40 hours a week. Next, I extended the number of paid holidays off from 8 to 14 and granted a paid day off for anyone who worked more than 50 hours a week. I also modified our maternity policy so staff with newborns could work from home.
By 2007, we had a staff of 10 doing the work of 15. Everyone was having fun, but working as hard as ever. The hard work paid off. Our wounded veteran program, Higher Ground, had become a national brand, capturing the attention of Pentagon officials, industry leaders, legislators, and national media.
To reward this incredible progress and success, I granted every staff an additional week of paid vacation and gave everyone a bonus equal to 10 percent of their salary. Also, any staff that was willing to work weekends to help run our wounded veteran therapeutic camps earned three days of paid time off per camp.
By the start of 2010, SVAS had a staff of 20. We worked hard and fell into a business rhythm that kept everyone busy, but not overworked. Staff was happy and job satisfaction was at an all-time high.
Then an unexpected opportunity changed everything. I was out to dinner one evening when a local real estate agent told me a small luxury hotel had just been listed for sale in Sun Valley. This was very exciting news because SVAS had been mulling over the idea of building a hotel-like retreat center to rehabilitate wounded veterans with traumatic brain injuries and post-traumatic stress.
The hotel was perfect. It was centrally located and had the tranquil and homey ambience of a classic Austrian chalet. It wasn’t too big or too small. It had 29 rooms, three dining areas, a pool, Jacuzzi, sauna, weight room, conference center, and large, wheelchair accessible bedrooms.
The price was right, too. The owners were asking $7.2 million, almost half the price it was worth before the economy tanked. We figured the land alone was worth $7.2 million, but now we’d be getting the land, plus a beautiful, 30,000-square-foot boutique hotel with breathtaking mountain views.
The catch? The owners established a financing contingency requiring us to raise the funds in 90 days. The second catch? We needed to raise an additional $2.8 million for improvements and operating costs. The third catch? The board elected to absolve itself of any fundraising responsibilities related to the hotel and appointed me to raise all the funds and conduct a feasibility study. Lucky me!
It was a Titanic goal. The economy was in the throes of the worst recession since the 1930s and donors were closing their checkbooks as tight as clams in ice water. Actually, there was some good in all this. I had almost six months, not three, to raise the money because it took an additional 90 days to negotiate the purchase agreement that included price, building contingencies, and terms of acquisition.
To raise $10 million in such extraordinary circumstances required me to commit all my time and energy to raising money. This meant I had to disconnect myself from many other responsibilities, including oversight of staff and operations; not that I felt staff needed much oversight. I was running a culture steeped in entrepreneurialism and felt confident that the staff understood their responsibilities and was empowered with the tools and opportunities they needed to accomplish the work at hand.
About five months into the six-month fundraising window, a series of strange and startling events came to my attention. A parent called with a complaint about a volunteer neglecting her child at our kids’ camp. A camp counselor called to express her concern about the lack of oversight and management at one of our adult programs, and one of our wounded veteran participants called and said he missed his flight because one of our staff forgot to take him to the airport.
These events were alarming enough, but other uncharacteristic events came to my attention. A foundation called to say one of the staff had missed a grant submission deadline. A major donor asked to volunteer, but no one returned his call. An intern came into my office to express her discontent with her internship experience. The bank called to say one of the staff, who was not supposed to be making bank deposits, was making deposits, and some of the staff had been taking unlogged time off.
All nonprofits make their share of mistakes, but when I noticed a spike in the number and severity of problems and complaints, I immediately took a couple of days off from my fundraising efforts to conduct an investigation.
Much to my chagrin, I discovered the staff I’d put in charge had simply checked out. For nearly two months, there had been little oversight of staff, programming, and operations. Accountability had morphed into irresponsibility and the old adage rang louder than ever, “When the cat’s away, the mice will play.”
The whole ordeal was embarrassing to say the least. I prided myself on hiring and training skilled and trustworthy staff, and the thought of something like this happening never entered my mind. But it did happen and I learned even the best staff can drift toward a culture of complacency when strong leadership and a culture of accountability are absent.
Fortunately, we ceased fundraising efforts for the hotel 20 days before the fundraising contingency deadline. Although I had pledges for nearly half the funds, the results of the feasibility study clearly showed the hotel was a bad investment, so we voted to terminate our efforts to buy the hotel.
It was a sad moment, but we put the hotel behind us and the staff and board turned its attention back to programming and operations, keeping the hope alive that one day we might be able to open a rehabilitation center for wounded veterans.
I quickly dialed back into my role as chief executive. My first order of business was discovering why things had gone awry during my time away and why some of the staff strayed so far from the standards of excellence they once esteemed.
I held one-on-one meetings with managers and three all-staff meetings. After a lot of candid discussion and some emotional moments, staff said it was their freedom that sent them wayward.
Without strong management to hold them accountable, it appeared some of the staff felt a sense of entitlement. As a result, they elected to swim in their perks and benefits while leaving their work, responsibilities, and commitment to the mission on the beach.
After everyone shared their feelings, thoughts, and apologies, I asked staff what they thought should be done to get us back on the gold standard track we had been following. They unanimously agreed on two things: managers should be held accountable to hold staff accountable for their work, and staff must achieve specific goals and objectives to earn luxury perks such as flextime and bonus days off.
Needless to say, our great team sprang into action. Everyone, including me, focused on the work at hand and the strategic objectives we set out to achieve. After a few months, we glided back into a smooth rhythm doing innovative programming that was capturing the attention of the nation. Once again, I was proud and happy, and the staff quickly earned back the perks they enjoyed so much.
The lesson of this experience is clear: if people are not held to standards of accountability, they may slip into a mode of entitlement and complacency and the quality of their work and the level of their commitment may diminish. It’s an unfortunate truth, but people, by nature, tend to do what’s convenient and feels good, not what’s right and takes effort.
If you want to be a high-performance nonprofit, it’s important to realize and establish structures of accountability in all areas of your business. This will keep you on track and true to your mission, and prevent complacency from taking a foothold.
Tactics and Tips
Create a culture of accountability
If you’re in the startup phase, one of the first things you’ll want to do is establish a culture of accountability. The best way to do this is for your founding board members to commit to the principle of accountability and make it a core value and a central governing component to all that is said and done to fulfill your mission. They should add the principle as a facet of your overall culture and then create policies and operational structures to manage and enforce accountability.
The earlier in your lifecycle your board can initiate this process the better. It can start by stating your organization’s commitment to accountability and mindfulness in your bylaws and other governing policies. The board will also want to make sure it hires a chief executive and elects board members who believe in the principle of accountability, have track records exemplifying it, and are willing to enforce it.
Once adopted, the chief executive and managers will want to hire people with track records of accountability. They will also want to regularly remind staff and volunteers that your nonprofit believes in the principle of accountability and takes seriously the responsibilities it has to donors, beneficiaries, and constituents to deliver on the promises it makes.
If your nonprofit is two, three or 10 years old and the principle of accountability is not central to your culture, prepare for an uphill battle. Personal dynamics, organizational structures, and general resistance to change can cripple the process of adopting the principle of accountability, even if people believe the principle would improve effectiveness, funding, and image.
If you find yourself in this position, there is hope. Ask one or two influential and well-liked board members and the chief executive to help champion an accountability initiative. If they embrace the initiative, you’ll be in good shape.
If they oppose it, start looking for a mediator with good rates, because you’ll need one to manage the dogfight that will ensue as the demands for accountability by funders, board members, and quality staff mount.
Define the structure of accountability
Once you integrate accountability into your culture, you need to define how accountability will manifest itself in day-to-day operations. Start by sectioning major areas of accountability: board, staff, volunteers, programming, operations, and fundraising. Determine what responsibilities, tasks, and outcomes are important. Decide who (or what team or committee) should be held responsible for what.
You’ll also want to define performance measures or measurements of success for each area of accountability you decide to track. Finally, you’ll need to determine what consequences to enforce when people neglect their work, ignore their responsibilities, or fail to live up to an established set of behaviors or ethics.
Everything is fair game. For example, when addressing legal accountability, you’ll want to consider a conflict of interest policy. When addressing bookkeeping accountability, you’ll want to consider a check handling policy. When addressing fundraising accountability, you’ll want to consider how much money board members will be responsible for raising.
Other areas of accountability include risk management, board member involvement, insurance protection, operational effectiveness, program growth, staff performance, and marketing efficiency.
If all this sounds like too many details and too much work, start with more general topics. Ask broad accountability questions such as, “Are we spending money wisely?” “Do we have safe operating procedures?” “Can we substantiate our claims about program effectiveness?”
What’s most important when defining the structure of accountability is getting everyone thinking and acting in a framework of accountability. Once your nonprofit adopts a framework of accountability and applies it to people, procedures, policies, obligations, responsibilities, tasks, and outcomes, there is no limit to the success your nonprofit can achieve because you’ll have a structure and a mindset in place to ensure that people deliver the goods they promised to deliver.
Board accountability
Board members are known for their eagerness to adopt the principle of accountability, but then failing terribly in their efforts to apply and enforce it. For example, most board members acknowledge they have a legal responsibility for the financial sustainability of their nonprofit, but few boards have accountability measures in place to ensure board members raise money, make financial contributions, and support the general fundraising efforts of their nonprofit.
A board may be able to neglect its fundraising responsibilities, but in other areas of business, neglect may result in an incident of “gross negligence” and lead to damaging publicity or a lawsuit. Boards have many serious obligations they are accountable to uphold, and it’s the responsibility of the board to uphold them.
Do you have a conflict of interest policy? Has the board read it? Do they understand it? Do you have Directors and Officers insurance? Does the board understand what it covers and doesn’t cover? Do you require each board member to read your IRS 990 each year? Do you have accounting measures in place to minimize the risk of embezzlement and misuse of funds?
Board accountability starts with the board chair. The board chair needs to actively and publicly fill his roles and responsibilities. He needs to walk the walk and deliver the goods. He should be a role model of accountability and encourage all board members to exemplify a culture of accountability in all the board says and does.
You should apply the same level of scrutiny when nominating board members as you would when electing a board chair or hiring a chief executive. As I said earlier, potential board members may be wealthy, connected, brilliant, and charismatic, but if they are unwilling to be held accountable for the responsibilities they take on, you’re going to wind up with a sunken ship full of rusty treasure.
Be wise. Think of the long-term consequences of electing a set of board members unwilling to adopt a culture of accountability. Do you really want to face a multi-year, uphill battle resulting in personal confrontations, lost productivity, and missed opportunities?
Your board members are called nonprofit “trustees” for a reason; they hold “in trust” the trust of the public—those who support your nonprofit and those your nonprofit serves. Neglecting or dismissing fundamental board responsibilities, like accountability, puts your nonprofit at risk and does a moral disservice to the public.
However, if your board members—all of them—willingly adopt a culture of accountability and mindfulness early on and everyone remains enthusiastic and committed to fulfilling their roles and responsibilities, then you are in store for productivity and opportunity beyond anyone’s expectations.
Board accountability questionnaire
Board members, as chief ambassadors of your nonprofit, should be accountable for fulfilling their responsibilities and knowing what your organization does. If you want to gain some insight into how much your board understands your nonprofit, pass out a short questionnaire like this one at your next board meeting:
1. How many board meetings did we hold last year? How many did you attend?
2. List each of our programs. How many did you observe in person last year?
3. Write a few sentences describing each of our programs and their purpose.
4. What is our mission statement? What is our vision? List as many of our core values as you can.
5. How many people did our programs serve last year?
6. How many volunteers do we have?
7. What is our budget for this year?
8. List our top 10 donors. List our top five business partners.
9. When was the last time you read our bylaws? Our 990?
10. When was the last time you read our conflict of interest policy?
11. How many public speaking engagements did you do last year?
12. Briefly summarize the history of the organization.
13. Briefly make a case for support why someone should donate to us, and why someone should volunteer to help.
14. List three responsibilities each board member must uphold. Did you fulfill these last year?
15. Apart from board meetings, how many hours did you volunteer for the organization last year?
The intention of this exercise is not to embarrass board members, though it will in some cases. It’s designed to help board members realize how little they understand the nonprofit they “care so much about.” Do not ask board members to hand in their answers or share them out loud. Rather, extend some grace and provide each board member with a set of answers.
Accountability starts at the top. Be smart and cautious! Take as much time as needed to elect board members willing to work hard, understand the organization, and be accountable for the responsibilities and tasks they committed to deliver. Have zero tolerance for lip service slackers.
Chief executive accountability
Accountability at the top also applies to the chief executive. It’s a business imperative that your chief executive lives and breathes accountability and has a history of personal and professional accountability.
It starts with the hiring process. The objective is clear: hire a seasoned chief executive who understands the roles and responsibilities of a chief executive and knows how to build and run an organization grounded in standards of accountability.
If you’ve already hired a chief executive but she doesn’t believe in the principle of accountability, or lacks the experience to implement a culture of accountability, you need to work with her to establish a culture of accountability. If she is unwilling to make the necessary changes, you may need to let her go.
Once you have the right chief executive in place, it’s the board’s responsibility to work with the chief executive to set specific objectives for which the chief executive will be held accountable. The board should derive these objectives from the strategic plan, the executive’s job description, work tasks, and defined roles and responsibilities.
The board should also hold the chief executive accountable by asking pertinent questions about pressing concerns. Experienced executives will not balk at tough questions or requests for detailed information because they know transparency and accountability go with the job.
However, boards typically underestimate the amount of work a chief executive has on her plate, so it’s important that boards refrain from making random, last minute requests for detailed reports that take hours to produce, especially if the requests coincide with a special event, grant deadline, or travel plans.
In some cases, chief executives are willing to be accountable to the board, but unwilling to be accountable to the staff. This typically occurs when a chief executive has a big ego with a controlling, top-down style of management.
She may believe staff works for her (beneath her), so why should she be accountable to staff for things such as leadership, training, support, guidance, respect, and validation? Boards need to be on the lookout for rogue chief executives like this and be willing to take swift action to address this type of behavior, or take action to change executives.
Your chief executive is probably the most public and powerful person at your nonprofit. She can single-handedly make or break your success. Your board must give her adequate support and freedom to do her job and keep her happy, but she must also be held accountable to execute the responsibilities, plans, strategies, and tasks set forth by your board.
This will all be well understood by a star chief executive who has a track record of establishing and managing cultures of accountability. How does your chief executive rate?
Staff accountability
Consider your nonprofit blessed if both your board and chief executive believe in the concept of accountability and remain committed to establishing and managing a culture of accountability. However, all their efforts will be in vain if you have a group of nonchalant staff with little regard for accountability.
Staff is the engine of a nonprofit. They provide the key moving parts that keep a nonprofit operating smoothly. They run programs, execute strategic plans, and manage operations. They talk with business partners, intervene with parents, and care for beneficiaries. They are front and center in the public’s eye and are often the biggest champions of a nonprofit’s mission. If they do their jobs well, everyone wins. If they do their jobs poorly, everyone notices.
As obvious as it sounds, the ability of your nonprofit to efficiently and effectively fulfill its mission and achieve success is directly correlated to your staff’s ability to do their jobs well. The best way to ensure this happens is to hire quality staff and hold them accountable to fulfill their responsibilities and achieve objectives.
Finding quality staff can be difficult and tiresome, but as any seasoned manager will tell you, it’s better not to hire someone than to hire the wrong person. To hire a team of star performers, start by writing clearly defined job descriptions and expectations. Screen candidates for track records of exceptional performance and accountability.
If they’re young, ask questions about their involvement in sports, social groups, church, and odd jobs. Request they work for your nonprofit for a few days (paid), so you can observe their work habits, personality, and character traits. Take your time to get the right people in the right seats on your bus. Remember, it’s much more difficult to fire someone than to hire someone.
Once you have your winning team in place, it’s the responsibility of management to hold staff accountable for the work they are expected to perform. The chief executive and managers must establish work expectations through detailed job descriptions and measurable objectives established in a strategic plan, operational plan, fundraising plan, or programming plan.
Management should include staff in the development process of these plans. The chief executive should ask key staff to participate in the strategic planning process. Those involved in programming should help develop the programming plan. Those involved in operations should help develop the operations plan, and so on.
Management should also include staff in the process of setting staff work goals and objectives. I held one-on-one meetings with each of my key staff to review their goals, objectives, and performance for the current quarter and then established new goals, objectives, and performance measures for the upcoming quarter.
Before our meeting, I’d send an email asking key staff to prepare six or seven goals or objectives they would like to achieve. Sometimes I’d send prompting questions such as, “What three things can you do in the next three months to improve the work you’re doing?” “What two things would you like to learn that will help you do your job better?” “What’s one thing you can create in the next month to improve the quality of service we provide our participants?”
I’d often toss in a couple of personal questions as well, “What’s one thing you’d like to accomplish that will improve your quality of life outside of work?” “What’s one thing you could do to lower your stress?” “What’s one thing you could do to improve a friendship you cherish?”
We’d discuss the answers, make modifications if needed, and agree on a final set of goals and objectives. Each staff would then be responsible to manage their goals and objectives with occasional encouragement and guidance from me or a manager.
By involving staff in the process of setting their own performance goals, they felt a greater sense of ownership and empowerment. They also felt more motivated to achieve their goals and, most importantly, felt more accountable to achieve them.
Staff accountability begins with getting the right people on board from the start. Don’t settle for mediocrity! Be selective. Take your time and you will eventually find talented staff with exceptional track records of personal and professional accountability. The result will be a winning team driven by excellence to build a winning nonprofit.
Volunteer accountability
Many nonprofits would not exist if it weren’t for the dedication and effort of committed volunteers freely offering their time, skills, and expertise. As vital as volunteers are to the success of a nonprofit, selecting them is tricky. Volunteers come in all shapes and sizes, and every volunteer feels he or she has something of value to contribute to their chosen nonprofit.
The problem here is the term “value”; it’s a subjective term and the value of volunteers sometimes turns out to be more of a hazard than a benefit. For example, one of your volunteers might say he is an “expert” handyman, but it turns out he doesn’t even know how to use a power drill. Volunteers can also be lazy, apathetic, rude, and irresponsible, and it’s not uncommon for volunteers to show up late to important events, or not at all.
Nonprofits can solve many of their volunteer issues simply by establishing structures of accountability, but many nonprofits are unwilling to do this because they feel structures of accountability, such as written job descriptions, should not be placed on people who graciously donate their time and effort.
Actually, the opposite is true. Volunteers appreciate structure because they want to know what’s expected of them. The job of a volunteer coordinator is to ensure these expectations are met by matching a volunteer’s time availability and talents with the needs of the nonprofit, and by establishing tasks and responsibilities for which the volunteer will be held accountable to perform and fulfill.
The way to do this is through detailed job descriptions, thorough orientation, and ongoing training. Once these are in place, it’s easier to manage the process of volunteer accountability as it relates to job performance, participation, and impact.
It’s important for a volunteer coordinator to screen volunteers as thoroughly as managers screen staff. The coordinator should learn the details about a volunteer’s work habits and character traits. Do they have a track record of completing tasks, showing up to work on time, and taking initiative? Will they be a good “fit” with staff, volunteers, participants, and the work you’re asking them to perform?
Whether your volunteers help out daily, or once a year, they need to know volunteering for your nonprofit is a serious responsibility. Volunteers must understand you’ve set standards of performance and have a system in place to hold them accountable for the jobs and contributions they signed up to deliver.
This is a delicate thing to balance. On the one hand, it’s important to get volunteers excited and motivated about the benefits they will receive by contributing their time, money, and expertise to further your cause, and on the other hand, you need to ensure their contributions actually provide a quality benefit to your nonprofit.
It’s your job to manage the placement of the accountability fulcrum by selecting and training a team of volunteers that genuinely believes in your mission and is willing to be held accountable to help you fulfill it.
Imposing consequences
Okay, let’s come out of the clouds for a minute. It’s unrealistic to think every board member you elect, every staff member you hire, and every volunteer who signs up will fulfill every responsibility and complete every task in a manner expected of them.
So, how do you approach a board member who is your top fundraiser, but fails to attend board meetings month after month? What actions do you take against a chief executive who constantly passes her work off to staff? What do you say to a program manager who is loved by participants, but can’t complete her paperwork on time to save her life? And what do you do with a volunteer who helps 20 hours a week, but walks around with a chip on his shoulder and criticizes the efforts of others?
These are difficult situations to manage. We all know it’s much easier to establish guidelines of accountability than to enforce them. Even the most seasoned managers know it’s difficult to confront someone who fails to do his job or fulfill a responsibility because any type of confrontation has the potential to get “personal.” No one likes to hear she is doing a poor job or should improve her behavior, and certainly no one likes to get fired or be asked to stop volunteering.
I think it’s true to say, many nonprofit executives and managers avoid inflicting consequences on others because they have soft hearts and are too nice—and often too afraid—to engage in any type of confrontation. No one wants to be branded as a “mean manager,” do they? This alone deters many softhearted managers from enforcing accountability and engaging in a confrontation because they fear getting hurt in the process.
There are many other reasons why leaders at nonprofits are unwilling to hold others accountable. A board chair might be unwilling to confront a fellow board member about raising money because the board chair may be a longtime business associate of the board member and is afraid of jeopardizing the relationship if the confrontation goes sour.
Volunteer coordinators find themselves in similar positions. They are often personal friends of volunteers. It can be very difficult to tell a friend that his behavior at the last children’s event was so inappropriate that he must resign. The moment will be uncomfortable, but even more so when they see each other at a neighborhood picnic the following week.
It’s disappointing and frustrating when staff and volunteers constantly fail to do their work or fulfill their responsibilities. What’s worse is when leaders and managers tolerate poor behavior and work habits, and fail to impose consequences to address such issues. If enough leaders manage with this type of complacency, it will result in sloppy work, indifference, and insubordination that eventually erodes a nonprofit’s culture and mission and all it hoped to achieve.
It’s important you develop a caring and compassionate culture. It’s also important that your leaders be sensitive and understanding when addressing those who fail to fulfill responsibilities and provide opportunities for improvement when mistakes are made. But just because they are caring and sensitive doesn’t mean they have to be meek and tolerant. Your leaders must be held accountable to hold others accountable and to impose consequences when people come up short.
Takeaways
Establishing a culture of accountability does not have to feel like you’re doling out jail sentences or turning into a bureaucratic for-profit organization run by autocratic thugs. If implemented delicately and managed well, accountability can be an inspiring principle to keep people engaged, productive, and honest. It can also motivate people toward a higher standard of excellence, nudging your nonprofit closer to fulfilling its mission by establishing a measurable sense of purpose.
Most importantly, a culture of accountability can preserve public trust. It provides a framework for a nonprofit to deliver on its promises in good faith with defensible management and governance practices.
Make a commitment to adopt and apply the principle of accountability. Start by electing board members, hiring staff, and bringing on volunteers who have personal and professional track records of accountability and believe in its merits.
Next, establish structures of accountability throughout your nonprofit. If you expect people and the organization to be held accountable, you need to establish well-defined job descriptions, responsibilities, objectives, goals, tasks, plans, and outcomes—for just about everything.
The last directive, and perhaps the most vexing, is establishing structures that hold leaders and managers accountable to manage accountability with compassionate hearts, yet be willing to impose consequences when staff, board members, and volunteers fail to live up to the work tasks, job responsibilities, and performance measures they’ve agreed to uphold.
Some in the nonprofit world believe, “We’re doing this work because we’re passionate about a cause, so stay off my back and let me have some fun.” Nonprofits do serve a “social” purpose, and board members, staff, and volunteers should have fun while serving their chosen nonprofits.
However, this doesn’t excuse people from being held accountable to do the work they committed to do to accomplish the mission they claim to care about so passionately. Adopting and managing the principle of accountability and all its associated structures will be one of the most daunting challenges you’ll face at any time in the life of your nonprofit.
Unfortunately, many nonprofits are unwilling or too afraid to institute a culture of accountability. This gives you the opportunity to separate yourself from the ordinary nonprofits to be a great nonprofit—a gold standard nonprofit. To succeed, you must be willing and courageous enough to do what’s right, not what’s convenient. What path will you choose?
Additional Resources:
Finding the Best Board Retreat Facilitator – 7 Things to Look For
Finding the Best Strategic Planning Facilitator – 7 Things to Look For
Check out Tom's latest books on culture, nonprofit management, and fundraising
Tom Iselin
“Rated one of America’s 10 Best Retreat Facilitators”
Tom Iselin has built four sector-leading nonprofits and four foundations. He’s written six books, sits on six boards, and hosts a video blog and podcast. Each year, Tom speaks to more than 5,000 nonprofit leaders at conferences across the country. He is considered a leading authority on high-performance nonprofits, and his impact on the industry has been featured on CNN, Nightline, and in Newsweek. Tom is the president of First Things First, a business specializing in board retreats, strategic planning, fundraising, and executive coaching. To relax, he loves mountain biking, hiking, skiing, tennis, and baking.
If you’re in the hunt for one of the best board retreat/board development facilitators, or one of the best strategic planning facilitators, it would be a privilege to learn more about your organization and the aspirations you hope to achieve as you work to propel your noble mission. Jot me an email to set up a meet-and-greet call.
To learn more, visit:
858.888.2278
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I’m here to help. Contact me . . .
TomIselin@gmail.com, or 858.888.2278
