Why Campaigns are "Board Cleaners"

So, talking about "turf" as a factor in new-charity startups, we've tried to delineate the meaning of turf, something of its possible origin, and how it operates in a general way. Now I want to describe some of the deleterious effects I see that this "turf" situation has on a nonprofit's fundraising activity and on the organization's ability to enhance and enlarge its fundraising capacity.

Right from the beginning "turf" allows a proliferation of nonprofits, all of whom want to accomplish relatively the same kind of work, but none of whom want to work with, and especially not work under, any other group like themselves. The effect this has on fundraising is that in the immediate geographic area where the charity is located, among donors and prospects who might be called upon to financially support that nonprofit, the waters become muddied by the proliferation of several, even many, nonprofits, who are all doing the same or similar work.

Questions like "Who do we give to?" or "Who's doing the best, most efficient work?" are increasingly difficult for a would-be donor to answer the more nonprofits there are in a given field. If a donor is trying to ferret out the best way to invest dollars for an anticipated result, the decision becomes more frustrating each year. Eventually, that donor may stop giving, or may choose another cause. The long-term effect is that there are fewer dollars with which to do charitable work, and fewer donors/prospects for whom our work is relevant. After a while, they just don't care and give up. So money is left on the table that could be given to charity, and the nonprofits go begging, have to tighten their belts further.

Another effect of "turf" on the life of a nonprofit is that it makes relying solely "foundations and fun" (foundation grants and special fundraising events) so much more of a temptation for local charity boards, executives and fundraisers. But the more they rely on foundations and fun, and the less they get involved with individual and family donors, the more these charities find their fundraising options restricted. Therefore, the result is stultified fundraising capacity.

Three strikes and you're out. If you get "turf" operating together with "foundations and fun," and this is, in turn, complicated by a management process that makes repeated decisions against investing in fundraising infrastructure, you have a combination that is certain to provide trouble for the nonprofit. And it is from this troubled position that many charities have contacted me through these last ten years as they need help in extricating themselves from this predicament so they can enlarge fundraising capacity. They're starved for revenue, but they can't make headway because they cannot undo the mindset that led to unidirectional fundraising, that was coupled with non-investment in fundraising. Sort of a vicious circle.

The problem, then, is that the intervention that must be made to rectify the situation is so major, and the changes required are so massive, that the executive and the board may well not hold together through the intervention. I don't think it's any accident that, as the old cliché goes, that "capital campaigns are notorious board cleaners."

I think this happens because in a capital campaign most organizations will employ a fundraising consultant to play a variety of roles. First, there is the feasibility study, which requires a keen and objective view of what community leadership thinks about the organization and its campaign project and goal. Next there is the internal assessment of past and present fundraising practices and results, fundraising infrastructure, and board readiness to support and work hard in the campaign. There is also the training that makes plain the conditions under which nonprofits typically succeed in their campaigns. The result of these rolls played out by the fundraising consultant is an exposed, dead-honest, objective revelation of the organization's fundraising problems in expanding fundraising capacity. Many executives and board alike don't like what they see, and it's not uncommon for many to be asked to leave or simply to jump ship as the campaign swings into action.

I should acknowledge, however, that with the small or start-up nonprofits in their first five or more years of existence, it doesn't have to be a capital campaign that forms the intervention. These charities come to a fundraising consultant because they know something is "out of whack" but haven't the ability, the knowledge or perhaps even the political will to do what has to be done. As a recent client of mine put it in our initial interview, "We know what has to be done, but we have not been doing it. We want you to help us do what has to be done" And so we begin a process of organizational intervention that will undoubtedly have far-reaching implications for every aspect of the organization's life and work.

How does this relate to "founder-it is?" Because the trouble starts with "turf" in the original decision of the founder/executive to start a new charity in the first place, when that new charity is going to duplicate efforts already underway in the community. It is exacerbated by the founder/executive's choice of board members who are not coming on as true governors but simply because they're friends of the founder and are giving use of their name for IRS certification purposes. And it stems from the fact that many founders are either unknowledgeable about or unwilling to invest in fundraising infrastructure at the beginning of the venture and this becomes a habit. So "turf" + "Foundations and fun" + lack of infrastructure investment are major reasons why founder/executives get into fundraising trouble.

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….