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Sites that contain useful information for nonprofit managers:
- The Management Information Exchange (MIE) has launched a new web at www.m-i-e.org . MIE is a organization of managers of legal
services programs. The site contains information on training events for legal services
managers, and an excellent set of links to sites of interest to all non-profit managers.
- Nonprofit managers looking for information on alliances or mergers with other nonprofits
should visit www.lapiana.org . This is the site
for the Strategic Solutions Project, whose purpose is to assemble and disseminate
information about strategic restructuring. The site is maintained by David
LaPiana, and funded by, among others, the Packard and Irvine Foundations. David LaPiana
has been the consultant for many nonprofit alliances and mergers, and is currently
assisting with the merger of 6 Legal Services Corporation funded programs in the Bay Area
of California.
The strength of the site is its emphasis on both the results and process of creating
alliances or mergers. Strategic restructuring is defined as a "continuum of
partnerships, including but not limited to mergers, joint ventures, consolidations and
fiscal sponsorships, through which nonprofits attempt to anticipate or respond to
environmental threats and opportunities. These partnerships differ from collaborations in
that they involve a change in the locus of control of at least a portion of one or more of
the organizations involved."
A good place to start exploration of the site is with the Strategic Restructuring
section, and specifically with Frequently Asked Questions ("FAQ's"), where
"strategic restructuring" and other terms are defined, and the merits of
strategic restructuring are reviewed. Then, check each of the subsections on key
parts of the strategic restructuring process ("the mission", "the
process", "the team", and "governance"). Then look at the
"Tips" section, which contains descriptions of some of LaPiana's experiences and
contains very practical information about overcoming common barriers to alliances or
mergers. Lastly, check out the "Resources" section, with its long list of links
to other sites with information for nonprofit managers.
A quick overview of LaPiana's approach can be found at http://www.ncnb.org/beyond_collaboration/no_frames/index.html
which contains the report Beyond Collaboration, that he wrote for foundations and
other groups that invest in nonprofits. LaPiana describes four kinds of strategic
restructurings: merger, acquisition, back-office consolidation and joint venture. He says
that the critical roadblocks to effective consolidation are 1) loss of autonomy, 2)
failure to take the self-interest of key parties (managers, staff, board members, funders)
into account, and 3) culture clash. He notes that "improved quality of service,
enhanced market position or market share, political advantage, and similar strategic
benefits are the most significant outcomes" of strategic restructuring, while
"cost reduction is seldom a short-term outcome of mergers and consolidations."
He also says that "board and staff leaders likely to benefit from strategic
restructuring already possess, at a minimum, a basic level of strategic sophistication
that they bring to their thinking about the organization's future. If they lack this
perspective, and cannot gain it quickly, the strategic restructuring effort is doomed to
failure."
- The Peter F. Drucker Foundation at http://www.pfdf.org . Publishes books on nonprofit
management and a periodical (Leader to Leader) with articles on nonprofit
management by some of the most perceptive management experts. A list of Leader
to Leader articles available for downloading is posted at http://www.pfdf.org/leaderbooks/l2l/complete-text.html
. The site also contains excellent reviews of management books. The Foundation wrote the The
Drucker Foundation Self-Assessment Tool, which can be used by boards of directors and
staff to (as the title indicates) assess their organization. For more information on the Self-Assessment
Tool, see the entry below for Jossey-Bass
Publishers. For a list of locations and dates of workshops on the Self-Assessment
Tool, see http://www.pfdf.org/leaderbooks/sat/index.html
. The Foundation sponsors conferences, with appearances by management experts. In the
past, the conferences were expensive, but this year's conference, held in November, 1998
in Los Angeles, was much more reasonably priced. This site is well worth checking on a
regular basis.
- The National Center for Nonprofit
Boards at http://www.ncnb.org . Best source of
information about nonprofit boards. Many useful, practical publications. We have used
"Ten Basic Responsibilities for Nonprofit Boards" in several training sessions
for board members with very good results (requires some adaptation for use with legal
services boards). Publications available to anyone, but cheaper for members. Single
memberships are $68 per year, less for additional members from the same organization.
- Amazon lists one book on nonprofit mergers and consolidations —Nonprofit
Mergers and Alliances: A Strategic Planning Guide by Thomas A. McLaughlin— at http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ts/book-reviews/0471180882/002-9808985-2847419
. This is apparently the first book about nonprofit mergers and alliances.
Although the author appears to have extensive experience with nonprofit mergers and
alliances—there is an occasional glimpse of a real life situation—his approach
is rather dry and abstract: lots of meat and potatoes, not much sauce or dessert. . The
book includes a floppy disk with a number of spreadsheets (in Microsoft Excel, but other
spreadsheet programs can import the files) for assessing the merits of a merger,
estimating costs, etc.. Recommended for managers who are confronting a merger or alliance
for the first time. Less useful for managers who are involved in a merger and could profit
from an analysis of actual nonprofit mergers or alliances.
- Jossey-Bass Publishers at http://www.josseybass.com . Publishes a large number
of books on nonprofit issues, including all of the books from the Peter F. Drucker Foundation. Of special interest
is The Drucker Foundation Self-Assessment Tool, a workbook that guides members of
a nonprofit's board of directors and staff through answers to "the five most
important questions for any nonprofit organization: What is our mission? Who is our
customer? What does the customer value? What are our results? and What is our
plan?" Also publishes a video package on "Excellence in Nonprofit
Leadership" (including a facilitators guide) and many books on creating and
maintaining an effective board of directors, such as the 12 volumes in the CarverGuide
series, including, "Your Roles and Responsibilities as a Board Member,"
"Board Assessment of the CEO," and "Board Members as Fundraisers, Advisers
and Lobbyists". While I haven't looked at all their materials, what I have seen is of
uniformly high quality. Prices are higher than those for similar materials from the National Center on Nonprofit Boards.
- The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook at http://www.fieldbook.com
. One of the sites dedicated to the concept of the "learning organization"
developed by Peter Senge and his colleagues. Senge's first book was The Fifth
Discipline, one of the most influential management books of the 1990's. My experience
is that most nonprofit managers find The Fifth Discipline tough sledding, in part
because the first chapter covers the most arcane subject in the book (systems thinking)
and because the focus is almost entirely on profit-making organizations. The second book, The
Fifth Discipline Fieldbook, however, has received raves from nonprofit managers. This
book describes the actual experiences of Senge's team in helping all kinds of
organizations become more effective. The book is deliberately laid out so you can
"start anywhere and go anywhere"--more like a web than a book. The site is
maintained by Art Kleiner, one of the co-authors of the Fieldbook, and the author
of The Age of Heretics: Heroes, Outlaws and the Forerunners of Corporate Change,
a wonderful story of the people who have changed management practices (chiefly, in the
United States) since the late 1940's. About the easiest way I know to get an overview of
management theory. The site includes access to other sites about learning organizations,
and sells all of books and videos by the key figures in the learning organization
movement.
- The Harvard Business School offers courses, including an intensive seminar for
experienced nonprofit managers, and publications for nonprofit managers. See http://www.hbs.edu/socialenterprise . Of
special interest are the (few) materials on The Balanced Scorecard, a management
method that measures organizational performance across four balanced perspectives:
financial, customers, internal business processes, and learning and growth. When
Massachusetts Special Olympics used The Balanced Scorecard, it identified
"positive measures to be achieved" such as family satisfaction and number of
social activities outside of competition, as well as "defects to be avoided or
minimized" such as number of athletes unable to find a team, cities with no
registered athletes, and fee increases. A project to demonstrate the effectiveness of The
Balanced Scorecard in nonprofits is now underway in San Francisco. Summaries of
articles in the current and past issues of The Harvard Business Review (HBR) can
be found at http://www.hbsp.harvard.edu/products/hbr/index.html
. Our experience is that almost every issue of HBR contains one or more articles of
interest to nonprofit managers, although some translation from the profit-making to the
nonprofit world is usually needed. For example, see the summary of Henry Mintzberg's
article on managing professionals at http://www.hbsp.harvard.edu/products/hbr/novdec98/98608.html
.
- The NTL Institute at http://www.ntl.org . Excellent
training and publications on organizational development, managing change, group and team
development, and diversity. Courses are often expensive, but solidly grounded in research,
and taught by faculty with extensive "hands on" experience. NTL materials have
been used for decades in all kinds of management training.
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