My favorite part of YNPN conferences is sharing the board experience with others. This year, the chairs of the San Francisco chapter organized a session just for board chairs “Herding Cats”. And it was amazing.

Next month, YNPN Chicago starts nominations for the next Executive Co-Chair. The person we elect will help lead the organization from 2010-2012, a pair of crucial years in our development. It will include decisions around celebrating our 10th anniversary, building a stable revenue stream, and defining what it means to be a YNPN Chicago “member”.

I have served on the board for almost 4 years, and spent 2 of those as Executive Co-Chair. The biggest lesson I have learned about leadership is also the corniest. It’s about love. It really is.

Sentiments aside, a good leader has to love themselves and love other people. To support the other members of the board, I’ve had to get past my own issues. When we’re trying to run an ambitious set of programs or submit our first grant proposal, there isn’t room for my ego or insecurities. I have to feel confident in my skills and be comfortable with admitting my faults.

I want the very best for each of my board members, even when that means that serving on the YNPN Chicago board is no longer in the cards. The people on our team should feel like they can be honest in their conversations and vulnerable in their requests for help.

Of course, there’s always a level of excellence that needs to be set for the entire group. But I never worry about that. The people involved with YNPN, in Chicago and around the country, are some of the smartest, most hard-working, most loyal people I’ve ever met.

It was clear that every board chair in the room shared these qualities of excellence, confidence, and genuine interest in the success of others. They were warm, they were engaged, they were smart.

Our conversation was facilitated into a problem-solving exercise, where we analyzed the specific issues facing one chapter. By working through that specific issue, we were able to address the issues that affect all of us, including managing an all-volunteer board that often needs to operate at the level of staff.

What did we take away from the time we spent together?

• Give board members a chance to give you their feedback on a regular basis. And listen.
• Make a public plan for your work together, and hold each other accountable.
• Document your decision making guidelines so everyone is on the same page.
• Use board meetings to discuss real issues, and find other channels for reporting the mundane business of the board.

Sorry I can’t be too specific. We did agree to confidentiality once we shut the door.

YNPN Chicago members bring up mentoring at every chance they get: in surveys, in focus groups, in chats at events. At our 2008 national conference, YNPN chapters discussed different kinds of mentoring, big-M Mentoring and little-m mentoring. We agreed that formal mentor relationships (big-M Mentoring) are few and far between, but that informal mentor relationships (little-m mentoring) are available to everyone and should be valued and developed.

I have many little-m mentors in my life. They are people whom I admire for specific reasons, usually for their strength in areas where I feel underdeveloped. One is very talented with bringing creative solutions to a discussion, and encouraging others to be creative. One is skilled at handling difficult situations with diplomacy and tact. I seek their opinions from time to time, and our relationship is friendly and informal.

I am now embarking on a formal big-M Mentoring program. My mentor and I were paired according to our backgrounds and interests. After our first meeting, I admire her quite a bit, especially the way she embraces the concept of a full life. Because no matter how hard I work on my career or the nonprofit sector, I also value my family, personal relationships and well-being.

But what do I want from a Mentor?

• A sounding board. I’d appreciate a different perspective on the issues I’m struggling with, especially from someone who has no conflict of interest by being a co-worker, but who still understands the nonprofit sector and might have some  personal experience to bring to the discussion.
• Perspective from another generation. I spend most of my time working with people my own age, between YNPN and my co-workers. The executive level staff in the nonprofit sector is 20 – 30 years older than me, and I sometimes feel illiterate in their language. As much as I love new media projects, they’re often very hard to explain to a senior leader who is quite a bit older than me. I would love to learn more about the generation who entered the nonprofit sector in the 70s and 80s.
• Inspiration. I love working for nonprofits, but I feel myself hitting a wall. How much longer can I struggle to fix the world’s problems? What has helped keep other nonprofit staff involved for so long? Everyone is unique, but in sharing with each other, we can find our own solutions.

• A clear mission that evokes passion from staff, supporters, and participants
• Talented, dedicated staff
• A balanced philosophy to the program/overhead formula
• Investment in staff development
• Transparent and approachable leadership styles
• Strategic decision-making

And for my dream job:

• Meaningful projects
• Autonomy over my schedule and priorities
• Appropriate compensation
• Opportunity for advancement
• Opportunity to learn from my manager or organizational leader

Every nonprofit organization and every nonprofit professional should have everything on the list! No excuses.

A clear mission that evokes passion from staff, supporters, and participants

When you see the Ben & Jerry’s logo, you immediately know what the company does and what the company’s culture is. The same should be true for nonprofits. I walked by a purple awning with nothing but 4 capital letters on it, and I knew it was a nonprofit. A business couldn’t afford to be so ambiguous about its mission and services, and neither should nonprofits!

It’s just good business sense. A strong mission and brand help motivate staff and supporters, helps focus the work to the most important, most vital services. It can help focus a meeting, focus a budget, or focus a fundraising event. And it costs nothing to be clear and specific!

Talented, dedicated staff

Have you ever worked with someone who didn’t like their job? Not fun, right? In addition to being unpleasant, it’s inefficient. Someone who doesn’t like their job isn’t doing their best work, isn’t being efficient, isn’t bringing new ideas to the meeting, isn’t building relationships with those around them.

Nonprofits have the advantage of recruiting staff who believe in the mission, from the moment they walk in the door. That means nonprofits can also afford to find the best qualified and most talented staff from the available pool. I’ve always enjoyed the talent of my nonprofit peers. It inspires me to work harder to match their level of quality.

A balanced philosophy to the program/overhead formula

Do you know how much of the budget Ben & Jerry’s spends on administrative costs? No? But you still buy their product right? Because it’s a superior product!

Nonprofits, on the other hand, spend a lot of effort trying to keep down “administrative” costs to spend more on “program”. I argue this is a plan for disaster. Many of us argue this is a plan for disaster. Artificially suppressing administrative costs makes for a slow, cumbersome organization that is not built to withstand stressful times, and will fail to take advantages of opportunities. It means the nurse or teacher has to spend 45 minutes fixing the copier, instead of healing or teaching. It means the accountant is overburdened and makes significant errors. It means the senior staff is putting out fires rather than building relationships and finding more support for the organization’s programs.

Perhaps I should go to business school. My gut tells me that by investing slightly more in administrative support, productivity of program staff at a nonprofit would be vastly improved. In other words, this would not cost the organization money in the long run.

Investment in staff development

Offering staff opportunities for professional development makes for a happy staff, as well as a happy organization. It’s a wonderful way to retain staff, build internal leadership, and improve the performance of the entire nonprofit organization.

Every city in the United States has a network of universities, associations, institutes, etc. that offer a spectrum of professional development opportunities for nonprofit professionals. Many of these are subsidized or completely underwritten for nonprofit staff! I know at YNPN Chicago our events can run as low as $5 or 10!

Transparent and approachable leadership styles

I think I was about 22 when I realized that just because someone was older than me, it didn’t mean they were a grown up. Have you ever run into that situation? Met someone who was in their 50s but behaved like a capricious teenager?

The pool of people interested in working for a nonprofit organization is wide, diverse, and deep with talent. We can save ourselves money by investing in approachable, transparent leaders to motivate our staff. I know some managers promote a problem staff person rather than confront them, but that practice will definitely hurt the organization and be very expensive in the long run in terms of staff turnover and missed opportunities.

Strategic decision-making

It only took 3 months of my nonprofit career before I saw someone lose their job because the project lost funding. I can’t understand how grant-chasing is healthy for long-term program development. Nor can I understand how grant-chasing is an efficient way to build an organization.

It goes back to a clear mission. What are our values as an organization? What do we want to accomplish? How do we want to accomplish it. And after all those questions are answered, where are we going to find the funds to accomplish our goals?

Meaningful projects

I love understanding how my project fits into the larger objectives of my organization, and how I am contributing to moving our mission forward. Even when I stuffed thousands of envelopes in a day, it helped me understand I was part of a larger fundraising project, and know what kind of work the funds were supporting. Everything we do at nonprofits has meaning, it’s up to us as manager and leaders to make sure everyone feels valued.

Autonomy over my schedule and priorities

With a pool of talented, well developed staff, we can trust them to schedule their time and set their priorities. Of course, everyone needs a manager and strategic objectives. Let’s banish the ineffective micro-manager!

Appropriate compensation

Compensation is lower on my list than many would expect. Nonprofit staff value personal fulfillment and professional opportunity. However, they also want to make a fair, living wage. I know many nonprofits rely heavily on interns, Americorps VISTAs, recent college graduates for inexpensive staff. All organizations still need a component of senior staff with talent, organizational knowledge, and leadership skills.

Have you ever tried to scrambled for hours putting together a budget for a foundation proposal… only to have the senior finance person stop by and give you a few tips and background information that saves you HOURS of time? Nonprofit organizations need to make sure compensation is at an appropriate level to keep those senior staff and improve the efficiency of our work.

Opportunity for advancement

Advancement doesn’t just mean more compensation, although that’s nice. It means opportunity for leadership, opportunity for project management, opportunity for more responsibility. With a well managed, well developed staff, nonprofits can be very creative about how they make room for advancement to keep staff challenged, and high performing.

I made up my own title several times at one of my organizations, helping to bring the organization into new areas of online technology. It was beneficial to me, and (more important) beneficial to my organization.

Opportunity to learn from my manager or organizational leader

In my almost 4 years at YNPN Chicago, the word mentorship has come up hundreds of times. Hundreds. HUNDREDS. Whenever we do a survey, a focus group, a networking event, the word comes up. mentorship. Mentorship. MENTORSHIP. Everyone wants it, so how do we find it?

I look to my peers and managers to be my network of mentors. It benefits all of us to share resources, provide advice and support. I especially enjoy watching my manager or leader in action, and learning how they handle difficult situations. It inspires me to watch great leaders at work.

YNPN Chicago is a dynamic organization, fueled completely by the passion of its all-volunteer board and committees. As part of the executive team since August 2008, I feel like I’ve been through management school.

My list of continuing issues to work on:

• Motivating Others
• Achieving Diversity
• Dealing with Conflict
• Handling Multiple Working Styles
• Dealing with Our/My Own Stress
• Working in Partners vs Working in Groups
• Admitting Mistakes
• Accountability
• Combining Personal Issues and Business