Q. What questions are you asking?
There is a double bottom line with nonprofits. The first bottom line that a lot of people focus on is good service provisions: Are we doing it well? The second bottom line is: Are we doing it at an affordable cost?
When you look at it that way, I carve out my questions really: What’s the finance process? Are we looking at our accounts receivable and our accounts payable? Are we managing our cash flow? Are we looking at a cash basis or an accrual basis? That dictates a lot about how an organization runs and can survive. Who is in charge and who is making the decisions on how money gets released? Who is making the decisions on how money is being sought? Once you find out who is doing those things, then you can start asking the process by how they make their decisions.
Q. How do you get staff buy-in on ideas and strategy moving forward?
On two fronts: Is it going to make their jobs better and how they do their work better? Is it going to make their overall experience of being within an organization better? Sometimes people look at coming into a place on two fronts: I like my job, but I hate my employer.
What are you trying to do to meet those two things? You have to understand what the employees want.
I always found benefit from meeting with staff over those brown-bag-lunch meetings. You sit down at lunchtime. I’d buy pizza. And I’d say, ‘Here are some of the things going on. What are your concerns? What are you worried about?’
I got a great amount of feedback, which I thought was really relevant. In those meetings, I would say, ‘I’m going to take your feedback, and we’re going to communicate back. If we can’t accomplish those things, here’s the consequence.’
If you can use not just words, but bring in some handouts to show the staff, ‘Here’s what it currently is. There’s our bottom line.’
Q. Are there other essential steps that must take place?
You have to be visible when you’re coming in on a turnaround. We had a couple of sites, and I made a point to always be at the other site on a weekly basis. Actually spend time working there. I didn’t have a designated office. I would pick a conference room, and sometimes I would get kicked out because there was a meeting.
People want to see that you’re there rather than behind some closed door. Minds start to race.
If you’re doing those one-on-ones, if you’re meeting with people on a regular basis, it really starts to help ease their concern. They can focus back on what they need to do be doing.
You have to give a time frame: ‘Within 90 days, we will have structural changes done or some process changes done.’ You may not know what those exactly are.
You have to understand where things are and pinpoint. Depending on where the cash is for an organization and where they might be in crisis mode will really delineate how quickly you have to react.
How to reach: Center for Community Resources Inc., (724) 431-0095 or www.ccrinfo.org