My intent here is not to offend. My intent is to preserve. But be forewarned (and please forgive me), I'm going to be plain-spoken and forthright. If you want coddling, you'll have to find it someplace else.
Volunteer-dependent organizations face a particular kind of vulnerability that rarely gets discussed openly: what happens when the person causing problems is also the person the organization cannot easily replace.
There is a question that surfaces in nonprofit circles more often than most people in the sector would like to admit: Is this bad management, or is something else going on?
It is a scenario many nonprofit executive directors will recognize immediately: A fundraising proposal lands on the board table. The numbers are sound: a modest participation assumption, a realistic cost structure, a meaningful net return. For an organization facing a significant budget deficit in a year when grant funding has contracted and individual giving has softened, the proposal is not a luxury. It is an answer to a real and pressing problem.
Yet the board votes it down. The reason offered: "That's just not who we are." No elaboration follows. The meeting moves on.
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The idea that nonprofit executives couldn't cut it in the corporate world isn't just wrong. It's exactly backwards. Here's the evidence.