The Issue of Turf – "Don't Tread on Me"

I will frankly admit that I don't know much of what the rest of the country's nonprofits experience with regard to personal and organizational "turf." But I do know this: that in Illinois, where I lived and worked in the 1960s thru 1980s, turf is secondary to progress. You can get all kinds of projects done because people from one camp will get together with people from another persuasion in order to get some new projects done. Whereas in Michigan, where I have practiced now for the last two decades, turf is held above all else. It is practicall7y impossible to accomplish a new project or achieve some new direction because people are falling all over themselves protecting their own personal, conceptual or organizational "turf."

This has a peculiar and often daunting effect on fundraising; and one can see it most clearly in start-up charities that get into fundraising problems relatively early in life. I will comment on how this works in a moment, but first let's take a look at a definition of "turf" as applied to nonprofit organizations:

My "turf" is my territory: my personal or organizational landscape and context; Turf is all that which I have built for myself within my nonprofit organization, including my accomplishments and the personal learnings that have resulted from my daily experience here.

Similarly, Our "turf," speaking as a group of people involved in the nonprofit, is our territory; the organization's landscape that we have built together, the missional area we have carved out for ourselves, the learnings, policies and procedures we have developed together as a result of our experience in the trenches of service delivery and fundraising. Turf is sacred ground, not to be violated. Turf is our "place" in the world. We protect our turf at all costs, including the cost of not getting anything progressive done.

Turf is seen among board members who vie for the CEO's attention, or who compete in their leadership of committees or auxiliary groups that support the organization. The turf battle becomes hot when a given committee's or auxiliary's work is seen to be duplicative and a move is made to try to combine or coordinate those competing bodies and make the organization more effective, efficient or streamlined.

Turf battles can be seen among nonprofit staff especially when budget is tight and departments need to be downsized. We're fighting for survival of an idea, a process, a department, as well as for our paycheck and personal privileges. No one wants to be the one who has to give up a function or combine that function with someone else's. There's not room enough in the world or enough things to do that there are any alternatives for me (or us) than doing just what we're doing in the present situation.

Turf battles take place between organizations when, for example, foundation grantmakers insist on coordination, collaboration or even combining and merging organizations operating in the same field, doing essentially the same work. The excuse might be methodology, or ideology. For example, if your organization and mine are both half-way houses for battered women, and we're at the table to try to combine and coordinate our services, both organizations may claim to have the best methodology for service delivery, and so neither wants to "give in to" the other.

In fact that's what "turf" often means: a worldview that insists that my approach is right while your approach is wrong. Or, we're the biggest and best, so you must give in to us. The phrase "give in to" is the key. One must win and the other must lose. There is only so much territory, we both claim that territory, therefore there must be winners and losers.

Where do we get that? I've spent the last 20 years looking for the answer to that question. At this point, I would have to say that it seems to have come from two sources: the first source would be those settlers who cam e to the Michigan area from Boston and New York in the 18th century to claim new territory for the making of their own personal fortunes. These folks staked out their territory first against the indians, then against each other. Ideology was definietely a part of the process. The scond source would seem to be the major rift between "labor" and "management" that has expressed itself in the countless battles between unions and, most especially, the auto companies.

It is instructive to reflect that "turf" is a by-product of the desire to exploit resources and fellow human beings for one's own gain. Through timber, shipbuilding, railroads and automobiles, our state of Michigan has been noted for the exploitative capacity of its leading citizens and business operators to take and to use our natural resources, along with the lives of the people who did the work, for individual personal and company gain.

But that was not a phenomenon exclusive to Michigan. Yet we're the ones who have the turf problem today while other areas, like Chicago, among mid-west areas, do not. Why is that? I imagine that it has to do with an understanding that life is win/lose rather than win/win. In Chicago, where progress generally trumps turf, one can see alliances forming between otherwise very unlikely partners just to get a project or an advancement accomplished. Referring the famous lifelong (Richard J.) Daley Democrat, I've heard it said, "Even Ed Verdolyak can become a Republican when there's progress to be made." He made this switch briefly to achieve ends that benefited the whole Chicago community, then went back to being a Democrat. But here in Michigan, turf trumps progress, and "you stay off my turf" is more important than "I'll come join you so we can be more effective together getting this project done."

More about the effects of this on nonprofits tomorrow….