They can help fuel your volunteer and fundraising efforts

Government-reform initiatives, particularly in Medicaid, Medicare, and other federal and state grants, have been placing increasing pressure on the fiscal viability and stability of many tax-exempt health and human-service providers. The message from government has been clear for many years. That is, the continued existence of autonomous tax-exempt service providers will, in part, be increasingly dependent on the work of volunteers and the philanthropic support from the organization’s constituency. Accordingly, let’s talk about how the future viability of your organization can be enhanced through coordinated volunteer efforts and aggressive fundraising and development activities. 

The U.S. Census Bureau recently indicated that there are 74.1 million baby boomers, born between 1946 and 1964, living in the U.S. The baby boom population, of which I am a proud member, is retiring at an average rate of 10,000 individuals every day for the next 15 years. 

The people who are retiring each day create an enormous opportunity for tax-exempt organizations. Just look at the American Red Cross and its responsiveness to the recent hurricanes — Harvey in Texas and Irma in Florida. The abundance of people resources, experience, and talent that enters the retirement ranks each day must be tapped by the tax-exempt sector in amounts never seen before. I personally feel that the success of Uber and Lyft can largely be attributed to the baby boom generation’s desire for meaningful activities. 

The opportunity and availability of volunteer people resources is clearly at what many consider to be a historic high in the U.S. Accordingly, every organization’s strategic plan should have a goal of how best to capitalize on the availability of free and experienced labor. Technology advancement only adds to this potential, since people can volunteer from the comfort of their own home. 

In addition to volunteerism, virtually every tax-exempt organization’s strategic plan must also include goals and action steps that will secure the long-term fiscal viability and stability of the organization through more aggressive and successful fundraising efforts. The tax-exempt service sector is in the midst of a seminal change from the past 60 years beginning with LBJ’s “Great Society,” which gave birth to both the Medicare and Medicaid programs in 1965. 

As all levels of government are now publicizing increasing stress on their ability to fund safety-net health and human-service providers, this transformation and the resulting revenue gap must be replaced. If you are looking for evidence, please refer to recent Congressional proposals calling for a $1 trillion reduction in Medicaid spending growth over the next 10 years. And, I might add that the next 10 years will see the 74 million baby boomers continue to age and create increased demands for each and every type of medical and social-service support.

Accordingly, I offer the following 10 recommendations for your consideration as an individual volunteer, board member, or management of a tax-exempt organization. While certain of these suggestions may seem obvious, you would be amazed at how many tax-exempt organizations do not place appropriate emphasis on volunteerism and philanthropic support.

1. No substantial progress can be accomplished by charitable organizations or government if we do not make progress on the overwhelming challenges faced by our urban core. To that end, the public-education sector in Central New York, particularly in our city schools, continues to be a source of extraordinary frustration and lack of educational success for urban youth. Societal issues of poverty, violence, substance abuse, and lack of nutrition, coupled with the decline of the nuclear family, has placed extraordinary pressure for better results. There are numerous volunteer opportunities in urban education, as well as at those tax-exempt organizations that provide support to the education of our youth.

2. To be more specific, follow the example of our local Rotary and Kiwanis Clubs, as well as many other fraternal organizations, which offer tremendous value in terms of both volunteer support and financial contributions to support urban educational excellence that is not available within the budgetary constraints of our city school district. 

3. Identify families, including empty-nesters and the ever-growing early retiree constituency, who have the time and energy to adopt a student for character development, job opportunities, and developing social skills.

4. Through social-service referrals, find volunteers willing to adopt an at-risk family with children to provide monthly financial support and volunteer mentoring for our at-risk youth. 

5. The media has extensively covered the continued racial divides in our country. Each of us has something to offer, either overtly or anonymously, through random acts of kindness and generosity. Support at the core of these issues is being addressed by Greater Syracuse HOPE (Healing, Opportunity, Prosperity, and Empowerment) as well as dozens of tax-exempt and faith-based organizations devoting their entire mission to addressing and improving the core issues facing the city of Syracuse. This initiative is an excellent example of the benefits derived from a coalition of collaborative tax-exempt organizations.

6. Businesses in the community can offer regular and frequent job-shadowing opportunities for secondary school students to provide exposure, awareness, and the reality of a job experience to our at-risk youth.

7. Using the existing infrastructure of Central New York Community Foundation and the United Way, together with our city school district-sponsored charitable foundation, encourage and promote the concept of charitable donations from alumni, businesses, and friends who want to see Syracuse succeed.

8. Health-care systems and colleges and universities have an extraordinary track record in both volunteerism and philanthropic initiatives. There is no need to re-create the wheel. Learn from those who have been consistently successful in capitalizing on the value of volunteer time and financial support. 

9. Publicize your accomplishments in both volunteer services and fundraising initiatives, making maximum use of social-media platforms. There is a long history of the importance of communicating effectively with your targeted audience in each of these areas. The ALS “Ice Bucket Challenge” and the texting of $10 to hurricane-relief efforts are two relatively recent examples of benefits derived from social media. 

10. Figure out a way to connect with those baby-boomer retirees. It’s clear that strong philanthropic support for tax-exempt organizations frequently follows the volunteer connection and related effort. 

Each of the foregoing suggestions may require further discussion and tailoring for your particular organization’s facts and circumstances. I do believe that the resurgence of downtown development and the related focus of many organizations on addressing the core issues of urban decay and our social-service infrastructure will be a key component in assessing the success of these various initiatives for your organization.                           

Gerald J. Archibald, CPA, is a partner in charge of the management advisory services at The Bonadio Group. Contact him at garchibald@bonadio.com

“When we avoid difficult conversations, we trade short-term discomfort for long-term dysfunction.” 

— Peter Bromberg, organizational development consultant

Dysfunction in the executive suite can doom an organization. Many senior leaders, fearful of conflict among those closest to them, strive for artificial harmony — inadvertently squelching debate on issues critical to the company’s strategic growth and its capacity for innovation. 

Experts in workplace dynamics advise leaders to reframe conflict — not as a negative to be avoided, but as an opportunity to stimulate innovation.

“Conflict is productive,” says Patrick Lencioni, author of “The Five Dysfunctions of a Team.”

Research links higher workplace engagement to the ability to speak one’s mind at work. In their study, “The State of Miscommunication,” sponsored by Fierce Conversations and Quantum Workplace, the authors found that, in surveying 1,300 people, those who said they always or almost always speak their minds report being more engaged at work than those who said they never or almost never did so.

Building skills

So, let’s say a leader knows that he/she should be embracing conflict and leveraging it productively. But the leader may lack the skills and the necessary emotional control. 

Gerry Pierce, VP of innovation at Smart Recipe Consulting LLC in Rochester and former senior VP of human resources at Wegmans Food Markets Inc., emphasizes the value of facilitation skills for leaders whose role requires them to productively manage conflict and unlock the door to innovation.

Executive coaching and well-chosen training programs, Pierce says, can strengthen a leader’s facilitation skills. At the highest levels of an organization, he notes, where the stakes are high and the egos are large, respectful listening is particularly crucial.

He describes a scenario where conflict erupts in a meeting: An energized team member dominates the discussion with strong opinions, threatening to derail the meeting. To redirect the outspoken person’s energy, Pierce advises his clients to adapt the skill of mirroring, popularized by Stephen R. Covey and others. He suggests respectfully interrupting the dominant person and reflecting his words back to him: “If I understand you correctly, you believe we’re wasting time by pursuing X.” He may then ask others in the room to comment on the outspoken person’s points. 

Once the outspoken person is heard, Pierce says, both he and the group tend to relax. By deftly managing the dominant speaker, the facilitator not only brings the conversation back onto a constructive track, but he/she also creates an opening for the quieter people around the table to offer opinions.

In workplace cultures where consensus is valued, the meeting leader may hear out everyone at the table and announce a decision on the spot, explaining her rationale and insisting that the decision be supported wholeheartedly. Such approaches can work well in organizations where trust, respect and patience are valued. 

But not all leaders aim for a consensus model.

Alternatives to consensus building

“Consensus is good, but it’s too slow,” says Christophe Weber, CEO of Takeda Pharmaceutical, “and sometimes you end up with the lowest common denominator.” Weber is quoted in a Harvard Business Review article titled, “What Sets Successful CEOs Apart,” summarizing research on CEO effectiveness. 

“When tackling contentious issues, leaders who are good at engagement give everyone a voice but not a vote,” report researchers Elena Lytkina Botelho, Kim Rosenkotter Powell, Stephen Kincaid, and Dina Wang. 

They contend that “engaging for impact” — anticipating conflict and harnessing its transformative value — is crucial to CEO success.

The researchers cite other models of CEO success, such as Madeline Bell, CEO of Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.

“With any big decision,” they quote Bell as saying, “I create a stakeholder map of the key people who need to be on board. I identify the detractors and their concerns, and then I think about how I can take the energy they might put into resistance and channel it into something positive.” 

While Bell says she assures stakeholders that their input is important to the process, “(the leader has) to be clear that you’re making the call and you expect them on board.”

Beware ulterior motives

A note of caution: Not all conflict is a rich resource just waiting to be tapped. Particularly in cultures where trust is low, certain conflict can be dangerous.

Patrick Lencioni writes: “(In some teams,) arguments are often destructive because they are laced with politics, pride and competition, rather than humble pursuit of truth. When people who don’t trust one another engage in passionate debate, they aren’t usually listening to the other person’s ideas and then reconsidering their point of view; they’re figuring out how to manipulate the conversation to get what they want.”

Apple founder Steve Jobs, too, understood the value of rooting out ulterior motives and potential sabotage. “It’s OK to spend a lot of time arguing about which route to take to San Francisco when everyone wants to end up there. But a lot of time gets wasted in such arguments if one person wants to go to San Francisco and another secretly wants to go to San Diego,” he said.

Building a ‘voice-empowered culture’

In reporting on the Fierce/Quantum research on workplace engagement, Dana Wilkie of the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) provides leaders with some guidance for creating a “voice-empowered culture”:

• Build a foundation of trust where leaders communicate transparently, remain accessible, and exercise consistency in dealing with employees and other leaders.

• Create an environment of safety that requires leaders monitor the ways they react to feedback and ideas, guarding against retaliation or shutting down.

• Welcome and support ideas, particularly those that are not yet well developed. 

• Show vulnerability by inviting others to critique the leader’s early ideas, and admitting to being unsure or wrong. 

• Explain how the team’s input is being used.

Conclusion

The best leaders are good listeners, according to Pierce, and know how to manage conflict with a process that builds trust and respect. It is important for everyone on the team to have an opportunity to be heard he says, because healthy conflict stimulates innovation.             

Candace Walters is president of HR Works, Inc., a human-resource management outsourcing and consulting firm with offices in Rochester and Syracuse, serving clients throughout the U.S.