Holiday travel—navigating aging airports, over rusting and pot-holed bridges—reminds us all of a national infrastructure desperate for repair. But an inspiring new book, Engine of Impact: Essentials of Leadership in the Nonprofit Sector (Stanford University Press), points to a more intangible infrastructure also needing renewal: the historical culture of America’s community associations and volunteer networks, people solving problems together, helping one another and addressing physical and spiritual needs of fellow citizens. Authors William F. Meehan and Kim Starkey Jonker offer a call to action and a prescription for how to make a difference in rebuilding that: go serve the non-profit sector—as a leader, board member or philanthropic contributor–and dedicate yourself to achieving change that really matters.
But why, I asked Bill Meehan in a recent conversation, should any talented leader on the rise do that? Why now?
The Search For Common Ground
“Americans today are looking for some ‘common ground’,” he began. “Big money and gerrymandering have polarized our political parties; organized religion is less important for many of now, and society faces huge pressures. It’s time to look back to Alexis de Tocqueville, the 19th century French traveler who observed that America’s people, uniquely, come together in associations for their greater good—mutual assistance, community solutions, shared worship. Our associative initiatives are a formal sector now. It’s perfectly positioned to give us all a chance to do something meaningful without politics. It’s a perfect antidote for today’s dysfunction—because when people join in shared purpose, they see they have more in common than they first thought.”
Meehan noted the personal rewards of leading or otherwise contributing to the non-profit sector. “All the research shows that people today are looking for more fulfillment in work—and that serving others has great power to provide that. Non-profit service is fundamentally meaningful. But to make it count, any social organization you join has to deliver real performance—which most fail to achieve. Our book will to help you understand why non-profit work matters, and what leaders must do to create the impact it depends upon.”
Meehan and Jonker have been finding their own social sector meaning for many years. He’s an award-winning lecturer of Stanford GSB’s perennial popular course on non-profit management, and long active as a board member, donor and practitioner across multiple civic organizations. Jonker is an experienced non-profit executive, and today leads King Philanthropies. Both are former business consultants who achieved plenty of for-profit impact with commercial clients in earlier careers.
Head And Heart
“We like to say,” as Meehan joked about their hybrid careers, “that we’re analysts who happen to also like Yeats.” Engine of Impact will in fact engage you with plenty of poetic inspiration—but also its rock-solid business methodologies which Meehan and Jonker have deftly adapted to the needs of social sector performance. The volume is a plain-spoken handbook to help you build “strategic leadership”– the combination of strategic thinking and management which the writers will persuade you is the true path to achieving measurable non-profit results.
The book maps “strategic leadership” across seven fundamental practices:
• the primacy of mission
• the critical concepts of strategy
• measuring the right performance
• leadership insight and courage
• building a “teams of teams”
• the “essential fuel” of funding
• accountable governance
Each practice is an Occam’s Razor of best research about what differentiates high-performing from simply feel-good social organizations. The aggregated issues, illustrative examples and practical approaches rhetorically challenge you page after page: this is what performance excellence looks like—so why not go for the gold?”
Indeed.
What It Takes To Serve And Win
That said, no leadership book can turn every reader into a successful leader. Your executional discipline and suitability for role will also be part of the equation. I probed Bill Meehan more deeply. If you’re seeking more meaning and greater good as a future nonprofit leader, how to know if it’s right for you? What are you actually signing up for?
Three themes emerged from our conversation:
1. Consider the nature and size of the opportunity. This book offers the data to prove what you already know: the non-profit sector is a chronic underperformer by any set of measures (and finding the right metrics is its own strategic challenge). Chaos and poor performance is always an opportunity for new leadership. But the real upside to make a difference becomes vivid when you read the rest that the first chapter of Engine lays out: the operating environment of this sector will become even more intense in the coming decade.
“Talent and operating costs will rise, earned revenue will stay limited, investment returns will shrink and most non-profits will need a lot more money,“ commented Meehan. “But remember, retiring Baby Boomers are also about to deliver the largest wealth transfer in modern history—where will that flow? How will it be used? So looking at both demand and supply, this sector will need a major jump of management skill. And because donors increasingly want to know their money is well used, and because society is desperate for better civic performance, there’s going to be a premium on leaders who can deliver impact.”
2. Define what it takes to be successful. Bill Meehan quickly acknowledged that “just because it seems noble, doesn’t mean you should—or can—do this kind of work.”
“Before you jump, check yourself against three criteria. First—it’s a calling. Do you hear a voice, have a visceral feeling for some cause that pulls you? Education, homeless vets, clean water for our townships, whatever—if it doesn’t personally drive you, you won’t be successful.”
“Second, you’ll need insight and courage. Insight meaning you can analyze why some social strategy works. If you’re running a rehab center, can you figure out what makes the addict show up? Build a charter school in a poor neighborhood, can you see that you have to have the parents participate too? You have to be able to find the mechanisms that create change.”
“You need courage because it’s hard to go into jungles and build a clinic. Scary to ask donors for a lot of money in order to survive. Scary to be paid less than you could in a regular job when you have a mortgage and kids in school. Scary to be hated by people opposing the program you’re leading. But remember, courage is not lacking fear; it’s being steadfast in the face of fear. Insight and courage are not magical genius. Our book gives examples of how they can actually be learned.”
“Third quality is ethical fiber. That’s now sadly lacking in the for-profit world, but it still matters for mission work. You need to know what the right thing is to do. And more important, how to find out what the right thing is, if it’s not evident. Successful leaders in this sector constantly define and navigate the moral boundaries of their work.”
3. Get ready to work harder and smarter than your business job. “The capitalist system has superb incentives to get people to do things and reward those who succeed. You’re going to have to be cleverer and more determined to motivate and align a social sector organization. When you create value in a business, customers pay you for it. In nonprofits, the people who benefit from your programs won’t be the ones paying for it. So another one of your hands is tied behind your back. And finally, given the complexity of the social and economic systems you’re working to transform, change will take years. When Ashoka’s Bill Drayton created social entrepreneurship in the 1980s, it was fifteen years before donors started to see the fruits, and began to really invest. Nonprofit leaders have to get good at keeping things going, while sacrificing for years. Because success can be so elusive to define, the hill can be even steeper.”
Looking Ahead
Meehan finished on a more optimistic note. “This kind of leadership is not for everyone. Some people may simply want to serve as a volunteer or board member, or engage in philanthropy to help fund the sector. But if you think you have what it takes, don’t miss a leadership opportunity if one comes your way. Behavioral science has shown that ‘happiness’—however you might want to define that—flattens out once people reach a certain compensation. After that, personal meaning drives our spirit. So why not help make a better world?
Originally published on Forbes.com