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More About This Title Joan Garry's Guide to Nonprofit Leadership: Because Nonprofits Are Messy
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Nonprofit leadership is messy
Nonprofits leaders are optimistic by nature. They believe with time, energy, smarts, strategy and sheer will, they can change the world. But as staff or board leader, you know nonprofits present unique challenges. Too many cooks, not enough money, an abundance of passion. It’s enough to make you feel overwhelmed and alone. The people you help need you to be successful. But there are so many obstacles: a micromanaging board that doesn’t understand its true role; insufficient fundraising and donors who make unreasonable demands; unclear and inconsistent messaging and marketing; a leader who’s a star in her sector but a difficult boss…
And yet, many nonprofits do thrive. Joan Garry’s Guide to Nonprofit Leadership will show you how to do just that. Funny, honest, intensely actionable, and based on her decades of experience, this is the book Joan Garry wishes she had when she led GLAAD out of a financial crisis in 1997. Joan will teach you how to:
- Build a powerhouse board
- Create an impressive and sustainable fundraising program
- Become seen as a ‘workplace of choice’
- Be a compelling public face of your nonprofit
This book will renew your passion for your mission and organization, and help you make a bigger difference in the world.
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JOAN GARRY began her career as part of the management team that launched MTV. After a successful eight-year tenure, she became an executive at Showtime Networks. In 1997, Garry left corporate America and was named the executive director of GLAAD, one of the largest organizations working for LGBT equality.
Since leaving GLAAD, Garry has worked as a consultant for hundreds of nonprofits, teaching them, with wisdom, joy, and humor, the keys to effective nonprofit leadership. She is a regular panelist on NBC's nonprofit reality show Give. Garry is also the founder of The Nonprofit Leadership Lab; an instructor at the Annenberg School for Communications at the University of Pennsylvania, where she teaches nonprofit media strategy; and a sought-after speaker on nonprofit leadership.
She blogs regularly at the popular website www.joangarry.com and hosts one of the top nonprofit podcasts on iTunes, Nonprofits Are Messy.
Garry lives in New Jersey with her wife of 34 years and their three grown children.
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Acknowledgments ix
Introduction xiii
Chapter 1 The Superpowers of Nonprofit Leadership 1
A Quiz 3
You’re Not on Top of Anything 7
Power and Authority 8
What Do I Do with All This? 11
So What Was This Quiz Really About? 16
The Five Key Superpowers 16
The Real Power of Leadership 22
Chapter 2 You’ve Got to Get Me at Hello 25
Tell Me About Your Organization 29
In the Lobby—The Mission Statement 29
In the Elevator—The Pitch 31
Step Off the Elevator and Work the Room 33
Doin’ What Does Not Come Naturally 33
Two More Examples for Emphasis 39
Practice, Kid, Practice 41
Chapter 3 Co-Pilots in a Twin-Engine Plane 43
The Ideal Board Chair Profile 46
Recruiting the Ideal Board Chair 47
The Five-Star Board Chair Checklist 48
The Telltale Signs of Wrong 51
Playing the Hand You Are Dealt 52
Get It Right from the Start 53
The Partnership in Action: The Devil Is in the Details 55
Holding the Board Accountable 64
Here’s What They Signed Up For 65
Put It All Together and What Have You Got? 66
Chapter 4 The Key Is Not in the Answers. It’s in the Questions 69
The Power of Deleting a Word 69
The Power of Inquiry 71
We’re All in This Together 73
Start at the Very Beginning 75
A Mission Sniff Test 77
What Success Looks Like 79
Big Dreams, Big Challenges, and Small (No) Budget 84
Ten Final Words of Advice—Keep Them Handy 86
Chapter 5 You Can Do This 89
I Just Can’t 92
Fundraising Is “Terrifying?” 93
My Friends Will Be Mad at ME 93
Yes You Can 94
Yes, You Will Screw It Up 97
Case Study: Girl Scouts and Those Damned Thin Mints 99
How Can the Board Take the Lead on Fundraising? 106
Building a Culture of Fundraising in Your Organization 109
Saving the Most Important Lesson for Last 111
Chapter 6 Managing the Paid and the Unpaid (Or, I Came to Change the World, Not Conduct Evaluations) 117
Managing in 3-D 119
Having a Voice in Decision Making 121
Ownership of the Work 125
The Missing Piece: Clearly Defined Roles and Goals 128
And What About the Not-Paids? 131
The Clash of the Type A’s 133
Group, Team, or Family 136
Retreats Are Nonnegotiable 140
My Retreat Recipe 141
Keeping the Keepers on the Bus 146
Supervising and Evaluating the Executive Director 147
Two Things Everyone in Your Organization Wants 149
Chapter 7 When It Hits the Fan 151
How Are We Defining Crisis? 155
When the Light at the End of the Tunnel Is an Oncoming Train 156
Building a Crisis Management Plan 158
So Now You Are All Set for When It Hits the Fan, Right? 161
Is a Crisis Preventable? 164
What Crisis Management Should Look Like 166
The Most Common Nonprofit Crisis: Financial Crisis and Layoffs 168
The Main Thing 172
Chapter 8 Hello, I Must Be Going (Or Navigating Leadership Transitions) 177
Scenario Number One 179
Scenario Number Two 180
So Are These Folks Good at Their Jobs? 181
Board Leadership Gone Awry 185
The Autocrat 186
Board Chair on Steroids 188
The Weakest Link 189
Staff Leaders Who Aren’t Leading 191
The Five-Alarm Blaze 193
Toast 196
The Founder (The One Who Sticks Around Too Long) 197
The Five-Star Staff Leader Who Calls It Quits 199
The On-Deck Circle 204
Chapter 9 You Are the Champions 207
Bibliography 213
Index 217
