Case Study: "I don't have the time for this"

So let's examine this case study a little more closely and see if we can identify some elements of founder-itis that might be avoidable with patience, thought and planning. Before we do this, however, it must be said that this case is not that unusual. I can think of four other organizations with whom I have worked on similar problems where the essential ingredients were almost exactly the same.

Here are some of the key ingredients from this case study:
1. The charity is a one-person show: governed, managed, staffed and programmed by one person. Certainly there were volunteers, but they were recruited and trained by the founder to do her method of teaching her way. There were two staff persons who, again, were under the total control of the founder.

2. The Board of Directors was formed of persons loyal to and personal friends of the founder; they had little motivation other than the relationship, no training, experience or skills for nonprofit governance; they were willing to let the founder do whatever she needed to do. The Board was set up to satisfy the IRS rules and regulations that call for public charities to have a board of directors in order to be granted the 501(c)(3) designation.

3. Fundraising was limited to activities the founder approved and was able to carry out on her own. Her daily schedule was a whirl of crises and putting out fires. She had little or no time to spend on planning or careful, methodical execution. There were no resources that could be appropriated to enhance fundraising infrastructure. Grants, special events and one or two dear loyal friends plus the founder's own bank account were the key sources of revenue.

4. The founder's personal and management style was one that reminded of an autistic child with attention deficit disorder, and this became the style of doing business reflected both at the staff level on a day-to-day basis and in the work of the board of directors. Consequently, there was little planning, few instances of deliberative thought, no consistent follow up on matters of business, and an inability to set even a meeting agenda without constant interruption.

5. The founder's word, preferences, style and scope of options became those of the organization, and everyone associated with that charity publicly avowed that essential posture.

So this was the set-up in our case study of founder-it s: a dysfunctional organization badly needing to have a productive fundraising effort, but unable to get a a process going. Tomorrow we'll deal with some of these elements in more detail, looking for ways to advise new start-up clients and keep them from falling prey down the road to founder-itis.