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Notes for
the by Dr. Paul Pribbenow |
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Philanthropy is a journey. Let JGA be your guide. Johnson, Grossnickle and
Associates LLC
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Volume
One, Number Six (August 2000) ****** "What we have loved, others will love, and we will teach them how." (W. Wordsworth, from
"The Prelude") NOTES
FROM READERS >>What
you think<< I received some good
responses to the last edition of Notes. Eugene Scanlan, senior
vice president of the Alford Group and a fellow participant in various
efforts to connect research and practice, writes that, in his consulting
with nonprofit organizations, he talks about the need for a
“development attitude” throughout the organization.
By this he means that everyone who works in an institution is
part of the development team and we all share responsibility for
welcoming visitors, making good impressions, and helping to build good
and healthy relationships. After
all, he reminds us, research indicates that most people tend to
establish their opinions of others
in the first 10-20 seconds of contact (or less!).
Therefore we must be vigilant when it comes to how a visitor is
welcomed—a welcome (or the lack of one) may have implications for the
future of an important relationship.
It does not mean that everyone is seeking to raise money; it does
mean that everyone has a stake in the philanthropy of an organization.
These are points well made and too often overlooked.
How often have you entered a building or an organization’s
offices to be greeted by a lack of signage, a piece of plexiglass
protecting a receptionist, and/or a busy staffer with little patience
for or interest in you? Small
changes in attitude—big differences in impact. I also received a fascinating essay by Otto Reinisch at the Uhlich Children’s Home in Chicago, entitled “The Power of Inspired Leadership.” The essay outlines three ways in which inspired nonprofit leadership “pricks the human conscience and motivates the human spirit”: (1) Such leadership values insight into complex problems that becomes the basis for visionary solutions; (2) It demands uncompromising integrity of leaders and organizations, consistency between promises made and kept; and (3) It inspires people and organizations to act upon their deepest shared values in a common pursuit. With this power to diagnose, the claim of integrity, and the compelling character of inspired leadership, Reinisch argues that nonprofit leadership has the language and the tools needed to unlock the power of extraordinary works. It is a persuasive essay and a strong reminder that all too often those of us who seek to lead in the philanthropic community forget the power that resides not in authority, status, and organizational structure, but in the vocabulary of deeply-held commitments and passions. For more information about inspired leadership, you can email Otto at reinischo@uhlich.org. I am pleased once again
to welcome many new subscribers to Notes—I hope you'll all be active
members of our community of reflective practitioners.
Occasionally, I (or my colleagues) refer to items from previous
issues of Notes. If
you have not been a subscriber previously, and wish to review our
conversations, past issues of Notes are available on-line at www.jgacounsel.com.
I thank my friends at Johnson, Grossnickle & Associates for
their abiding support for our reflective practice. ****** REFLECT
ON THIS >>Reflective
practice, liberal arts, and serving the public trust<< I
recently finished editing two volumes of papers for the “New
Directions for Philanthropic Fundraising” series for Jossey-Bass.
The papers were originally commissioned for a Think-Tank on Fund
Raising Research, sponsored by the National
Society of Fund Raising Executives (NSFRE) and several other organizations, and all revolved
around the theme of the relationship between public trust and public
policy. There are some
wonderful papers in the volumes, all of which seek to show how serving
the public trust raises important issues for fundraising research and
practice. As
I reflected upon the overall purpose of the two volumes, I was struck by
how the papers all illustrated what I call a “liberal arts” approach
to philanthropic work. There
are papers by a historian, an accountant, a political scientist,
sociologists, a theologian, and others, all commenting from their own
disciplinary perspective on larger questions of philanthropic experience
and practice. As I
commented in my editor’s notes: “The astute
reader—perhaps a successful philanthropic fundraiser or a concerned
citizen—might wonder what relevance these learned research papers have
for our work in the philanthropic sector.
Why should we pay attention to issues of public trust and policy,
to trends in philanthropic giving, to the state of professions in
America? The British
philosopher, Simon Blackburn, recently has suggested that “Reflection
matters because it is continuous with practice. How you think
about what you are doing affects how you do it, or whether you do it at
all” (“Think: A Compelling Introduction to Philosophy,”
Oxford
University Press, 1999, p. 7). This
provocative claim leads to two key conclusions about the reason these
papers are important. First, it supports Donald Schön’s (“The Reflective Practitioner: How Professionals Think in Action,” Basic Books, 1983) suggestion that professionals must be reflective practitioners, individuals who understand the inextricable link between ideas, values, and the work we do day-to-day. These chapters offer all of us who work as philanthropic fundraisers important ideas—concepts, trends, principles, and precedents—that we must take seriously as dialogue partners in our professional work. Second, Blackburn’s
notion of the importance of reflection continuous with practice reminds
all of us that good citizens must value lifelong, liberal learning.
At its best, education is about helping all of us to understand
ourselves, each other, and the world in which we live, so that we might
work together to make a more humane and healthy society.
These chapters offer us the ideas of several liberally-educated
individuals who share our commitment to serving the public trust.
They challenge all of us to join with them in lifelong learning
and service. All of us who care
about philanthropy are called to join together in a public discourse
about why it matters that we love humankind and serve its goods and
interests through voluntary action.
May these chapters provide a starting point for those essential
conversations and the philanthropic practice they will energize.” Reflective practice and
liberal education go hand-in-hand and those of us who are in a position
to shape professional education curricula and programs need to be strong
advocates and role models for the liberal arts approach—the focus on
the larger historical and cultural context of our work. By the way, I strongly
recommend Blackburn’s “Think,” suggested by a former Divinity
School colleague, Larry Greenfield.
It is the philosophy course all of us should have taken along the
way. >>The
etiquette of democracy<< Yale law professor,
Stephen L. Carter, whose work I mention often in Notes, is writing a
series of books on what he calls the “elements of good character that
are…”pre-political,” by which I mean that we should all struggle
to exemplify them, whatever our philosophical or partisan
differences.” The first
in the series is “Integrity”
(Basic Books, 1996), which I discussed
in the last issue of Notes. The
second is “Civility: Manners, Morals, and the Etiquette of
Democracy” (Basic Books, 1998). The
book is fascinating, especially in the midst of this political season,
as it challenges us to think about how the call to be civil may force us
to change the ways in which we organize political systems and processes. My primary interest in
the book is the rules for the etiquette of democracy that Carter
proposes. In particular, I
believe that there are important parallels between these good manners of
society and the character of the organizations we all inhabit.
Under the rubric of “The People We Can Be”, Carter posits the
following rules (among others) for a civil society: (1)
Our duty to be civil toward others does not depend on whether we
like them or not. (2)
Civility requires that we sacrifice for strangers, not just for
people we happen to know. (3)
Civility has two parts: generosity, even when it is costly, and
trust, even when there is risk. (4)
Civility creates not merely a negative duty not to do harm, but
an affirmative duty to do good. (5)
We must come into the presence of our fellow humans with a sense
of awe and gratitude. (6)
Civility requires that we listen to others with knowledge of the
possibility that they are right and we are wrong. (7)
Civility requires that we express ourselves in ways that
demonstrate our respect for others. (8)
Civility requires resistance to the dominance of social life by
the values of the marketplace. (9)
Civility allows criticism of others, and sometimes even requires
it, but the criticism should always be civil. There
are other rules, but I think you start to get the sense of how these
manners for democracy also offer helpful guidelines for our lives in
organizations. Think
especially about rules (3), (5), and (9)—there you have the
foundations for a healthy and humane common enterprise. Carter
is savvy to point out that there are those who criticize civility,
claiming that there are professions for which incivility is a
requirement. His main point
in critiquing this position is that, though we may have evidence for the
acceptance of such uncivil work, we must never allow ourselves to forget
that such evidence raises serious questions about the character of our
common work. Surely we all
experience the disheartening and disabling power of incivility in our
lives—no wonder it is sometimes difficult to imagine the abundance and
wonder of negotiating our lives together. >>Managing
by commitments<< Donald
Sull, a professor of strategy and management at Harvard, writes in the
Spring 2000 issue of “Leader to Leader” about “Management by
Commitments” (pp. 22-29). He
suggests that what he calls “transformational commitments,” as
opposed to operational commitments (e.g., budget agreements or job
assignments), offer the means by which leaders and managers can step
outside the confines of their usual practices and commit to the change
needed to keep organizations thriving. Sull
suggests that there are four types of transformational commitments that
organizational leaders may choose:
Sull
concludes by offering a test of the vitality of our transformational
commitments:
You
might begin your reflection about transformational commitments for your
organization by considering your personal commitments.
How are you changing yourself so that you can help others to
change? Self-reflection is always a good place to begin. ****** PRACTICE
THIS >>To
forgive, divine<< In a recent article in
“Fast Company” (June 2000), Alan M. Webber interviews Jeffrey
Pfeffer, a professor of organizational behavior at Stanford on the
nagging question, “Why can’t we get anything done?”
Pfeffer (along with Robert I. Sutton) has recently published
“The Knowing-Doing Gap: How Smart Companies Turn Knowledge into
Action,” (Harvard Business School
Press, 2000). Pfeffer offers 16 rules for explaining why, despite how much
we seem to know, our organizations don’t seem to get much done.
Among the rules are:
And my favorite:
To err is human—it is
the means by which we learn and grow.
To forgive, divine—which may be an apocalyptic aspiration (!)
but doesn’t excuse us from trying. >>The terms of
philanthropy<< Writing in “The New
York Times Magazine” (July 30, 2000), Jack Rosenthal, former editor of
the magazine and now president of The New York Times Foundation, points
out the excesses of language many philanthropic organizations pursue in
their grant applications. He lists trendy terms: accountability, constraints, leverage,
synergy, strategy, paradigm—mea culpa, mea culpa, we all exclaim—and
suggests that the jargon gets in the way of real good work in need of
support. Rosenthal recommends a
booklet entitled “In Other Words,” published by the Edna McConnell
Clark Foundation (available while copies last from the foundation, 250
Park Avenue, New York, NY, 10177), whose author, Tony Proscio, performs
some skillful verbal archeology to trace the sources of various terms of
beseechment. Rosenthal points out
that there is plenty of blame to go around in the jargon world, and then
suggests that “Excuses aside, by using lame or impenetrable terms,
organizations that serve laudable public purposes do not advance their
chances for (support).” He
commends all of us to consider this simple rule, promoted by one
insurance company: In this policy, we use words in their plain English
meaning. Words with special
meanings are defined in the part of the policy where they are used. Words to live by. ****** PAY
ATTENTION TO THIS >>Daily
reading<< Recently I was reminded
by my teacher, Martin Marty, of the value of “lectio divina,” the
daily practice of reading and studying scripture (or similar texts) that
is prescribed as part of spiritual discipline (along with meditation,
prayer, and contemplation). John
Westerhoff, a former Duke professor and currently the head of a pastoral
institute in Atlanta, says that such reading must be active.
We must read passages slowly, over and over again, until you can
reproduce it without the text in front of you, until a word or phrase or
image emerges as significant. This is a difficult process for those of us who tend to read
quickly because of the volume of material put in front of us, but as
Westerhoff says, “reading familiar texts slowly and actively can
produce new revelations…bring an openness to the text, and let
whatever may happen between you and it occur.
Give up control over the text.
You may be surprised by what it says to you…” Whatever you choose to
read—scripture, good stories, learned papers—the discipline is not
meant to increase the volume of your reading, but rather to suggest the
possibility of a new way of seeing the world.
Daily and divine, once more. >>A
few favorites<< If you are looking for
texts to add to your list and discipline, might I suggest:
>>And a final few words<< Poetry has been a
popular addition to Notes the past several issues.
I need your suggestions for future issues, though, because I’m
plumbing the depths of my favorites! For this political
season, I offer a few of Maya Angelou’s hopeful words, offered in her
“On the Pulse of Morning,” written for the 1992 Clinton
inauguration. “Women, children, men, Take it into the palms of your hands, Mold it into the shape of your most Private need. Sculpt it into The image of your most public self. Lift up your hearts Each hour holds new chances For a new beginning. Do not be wedded forever To fear, yoked eternally To brutishness.” >>Subscription
information<< Subscriptions to Notes
are simple to establish. Send
me an email at pribbenp@wabash.edu,
ask to be added to the list, and you will receive a confirmation from
the mailserver at Wabash College that you are on the list.
Please feel free to forward your email versions of Notes to
others—they then can subscribe by contacting me.
I also am happy to send Notes as an MS Word attachment to an
email, if that would make reading it easier for some of you.
Just let me know. The
current and archive issues of Notes are available on-line at www.jgacounsel.com. >>Topics for the
next issue (October 2000)<<
(c)
Paul Pribbenow, 2000 |
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