Leadership Fellows complete semester

The first class of Leadership Fellows at Montana State University has given a formal Presentation of their service-learning projects, including, for example, plans for students to serve Homeless Connect in Bozeman, a proposal for a university-wide Minor in Sustainability, advocacy for a Tobacco-Free Campus, a curriculum on sustainability for elementary school students, and a Day of Service coinciding with the Freshmen Convocation each fall.

Teaching leadership

Beginning January 15, 2009, I will be teaching a class at Montana State University (which I designed) for the new Leadership Fellows Program. In my last entry--April 2008--I wrote about the need to mentor the next generation of leaders for social change. At that time, I had absolutely no idea that I would be so directly involved in finding a solution. The class will use service-learning methodology -- and I'll be blogging about that as the class gets underway.

Making room for young leaders

Turning 59 has sent me into a spin. I want to be young again. One of my favorite blogs is FLiP – Future Leaders in Philanthropy. The contributors are passionate, entrepreneurial, professional, and most of all: demanding. They have high expectations of themselves and the nonprofit sector. And, they will have more fun that I did!

Our Boomer expectations were too low—way too low. I am not saying we did not aim for high results. But, we thought long hours and low pay were measuring sticks of our integrity and commitment. We thought operating “on a shoestring” was admirable. So did Foundations and Boards, and now that’s proving problematic when organizations recruit successors.

Is there truly a leadership shortage taking place because Boomers are retiring from executive positions? There is no shortage of young people who can lead if they have the right tools and support. Lots of changes are already underway to give them what they need (more professional training, better salaries, more benefits, license to be entrepreneurial). More has to be done and I’ll be blogging on that in the future.

You can read about the life changes I’m experiencing in “My Journey: Looking at Nonprofit Work in a New Way,” Chronicle of Philanthropy. April 17, 2008.

--Wendy Bay Lewis

Town Halls for Nonprofits

In anticipation of the Nonprofit Congress June 1 - 4 in Washington, DC, statewide nonprofit associations are convening town hall meetings at the local level. Earlier this week, I was part of the town hall meeting convened by the Montana Nonprofit Association in Bozeman. Our discussion focused on three priorities for the Nonprofit Congress:

• Organizational effectiveness,
  
• Advocacy for the sector, and
  
• Building public awareness and support for the sector.

The New Hampshire Center for Nonprofits piloted The Primary Project to engage presidential candidates in talking about the nonprofit sector. See the video report.

--Wendy Bay Lewis, CivicMind.com

Even lawyers do national service

Broadly defined, national service could be any employment for the public good. In fact, it could include all of us in the nonprofit sector. However, national service is more often narrowly defined as a formal program in which participants work on community development, or teach, or serve in the military, usually for a year or more for nominal pay and sometimes in exchange for a small amount of funds toward college tuition. National service also comes with prestige.

One of the jobs I have not seen described as national service is Legal Aid Lawyer. Does national service assume an employment commitment for a limited period of time rather than a career choice for low pay? In an e-newsletter I received yesterday from the Legal Services Corporation, legislation has been passed by Congress for a loan repayment program for legal aid lawyers. The U.S. Department of Education would be required to “provide loan repayments of up to $6,000 a year—$40,000 for a lifetime—to full-time civil legal aid lawyers who agree to remain employed as such for no less than three years.” The U.S. House and Senate still need to reconcile different versions of the legislation and send it to the President.

The Legal Services Corporation was created by Congress in 1974 “to promote equal access to justice and provide civil legal assistance to low-income Americans.” Legal aid serves Americans who fall at or below 125 percent of the federal poverty level, about $25,000 a year for a family of four. For the 50 million Americans who are eligible for services, more than 50 percent go unserved because of the limited capacity of legal aid offices.

Does a 3-year commitment and a loan repayment option mean that legal aid lawyers are performing national service? Without those provisos, are they just low-paid do-good lawyers? For some people, national service is a career.

A table of contents for social change

This week I wrote a Table of Contents for The CivicMinded Companion, a dictionary for nonprofit and philanthropic professionals as well as everyday citizens. I hope The Companion will be a book that nonprofit executives can give to their Board members, young people will use to plan socially-meaningful careers, and Baby Boomers will read to learn how they can choose volunteerism or engaged philanthropy over retirement.

The book has four sections, each with two or three chapters. The opening section--Serving--will cover community service, service-learning and nonprofit essentials. The second section, on civic engagement, will inventory concepts like “public policy” and “transparency.” Section three, called One Nation/One Planet, will catalog the concerns that motivate, mobilize, and empower us, such as civil rights and environmental justice. The final section--Giving--is devoted to the philanthropic and business sectors, with special attention to new terms like social investing and venture philanthropy. At the end or along the way, I plan to include sidebars about historical and contemporary leaders for social change.

I know the Table of Contents will change as I write the book and I would appreciate hearing your suggestions.

Invest in leaders as well as projects

Foundations often seem separated from nonprofits by a moat. Each side communicates with the other when the drawbridge is down during a grant cycle. In contrast, Susan and Albert Wells, founders of the Windcall Resident Program for social justice leaders, built a footbridge for their private philanthropy. Over the course of 17 years, between 1989 and 2005, they welcomed 400 activists to their Montana ranch for two weeks of reflection and renewal. Susan tells the story of Windcall in her just-published book, Changing Course: Windcall and the Art of Renewal with Seven Profiles by Sally Lehrman (Heyday Books, Berkeley).

Although I have known Susan and Albie for 20 years, I learned much more about the Windcall Program from Susan’s book than either of them ever told me. Windcall alumni are community activists and organizers who work in low-income, usually urban communities and, prior to their mini-sabbatical at Windcall, rarely took time for themselves, much less vacations. As a direct result of their intense work, they suffered debilitating burnout and came to Windcall for a two-week respite. As Susan explains in her own words and those of the residents, they regained their equilibrium through experiences as varied as horseback riding, throwing clay pots, hiking, and writing poetry.

For the first time in their lives, these community nurturers were nurtured – by their hosts, by nature, and by each other. When they returned to work, they took their Windcall experience with them. As one Windcall alum told me, the program is transformative because Residents extend the lesson they have learned to their organizations, colleagues, friends, and families.

Burnout is a serious threat to leadership in the nonprofit sector. A survey conducted by the Young Nonprofit Professionals Network found nearly half of respondents intend to leave the nonprofit sector (some forever) and of those, 90 percent cited burnout “as a likely reason for leaving” followed closely by low salary, lack of career advancement, and job related stress. Stepping Up or Stepping Out: A Report on the Readiness of Next Generation Nonprofit Leaders is available from YNPN as a PDF file.

The nonprofit sector, like society as a whole, has embraced a work ethic based on “productivity and efficiency” which, in Susan’s words, “are antithetical to the very essence of social justice work.” She calls on funding institutions to take a longer view, beyond project performance, and “affirm the important relationship between healthy individuals, healthy organizations, and high-quality, enduring progress."