National Settlement Conference
(Kingston - June 18-20, 2001)
Presentation by Monica Patten
to the National Settlement Conference
June 19, 2001
What a pleasure it is to be here today. I thank you for this invitation
and the chance to share with you some of my ideas about the not-for-profit
sector.
I start with a story. In early April I had the great honour of addressing
a conference of not-for-profit, corporate, academic and foundation leaders
in Brazil who are at the forefront of shaping the not for profit sector
in their country. I also had the chance to spend a day with volunteers,
community foundation leaders and NGO staff in some of the poorest slums
near the vast city of Sao Paulo - a day which moved me enormously, overwhelmed
me completely, and inspired me beyond anything I had ever imagined. At
the end of the day of visiting the slums, or favellas as they are called,
I lay down on my bed in my hotel room, and tried to make sense of what
I had seen and experienced. I was both despairing and hopeful. Though
I couldn't get the scenes of abject poverty out of my mind, it wasn't
hard to also recall the laughter of the kids in the centre where they
got their daily bowl of soup. Or the pride and happiness of the volunteers
who welcomed me to the kitchen where the soup was simmering. The tenderness
of the community worker who stopped to chat with an elderly disabled woman
sitting in the mud outside her shack, the ambition and hope of the young
woman who serves on the board of a local agency that had worked really
hard to throw out a corrupt local government in a recent municipal election,
the will and tenacity of a young community doctor I met, and the real
passion of the owner of a major corporation (a pharmaceutical, believe
it or not) who had asked one of his staff to spend the day with me and
who wanted to make sure that I understood what his and other companies
were doing in the area of social corporate responsibility. It was in the
face of misery that I truly saw and experienced the not for profit sector
in all its fullness, in all its richness. And if I had closed my eyes
to the sights and my nose to the smells around me, I could have been anywhere
in Canada, perhaps anywhere in the world.
Let me tell you why I think this story speaks of the not-for-profit sector
in our country as well as in Brazil. I want to do that by describing what
I think the power, value and potential of our sector is; then I will speak
of some of the challenges that I think are facing us as we try to strengthen
our sector at the dawn of this century - as we strive to realize our potential.
I understand well that many of the daunting challenges we face are perhaps
unique to our own organizational situations, but in these remarks, I will
stay focused on sector-wide issues and invite you to extrapolate from
them.
We have tried for a long time, to describe the sector by focusing on
numbers and statistics - you know, how many volunteers, how many dollars
raised and spent, how many paid staff, what kinds of work, and so on.
That is very valuable and necessary, but far from adequate in my view.
There are other characteristics we also occasionally use to describe the
not for profit sector. For example - that the sector is made up of organizations
independent of government and business; who at one level (perhaps only
the board) involve volunteers, (let's be absolutely clear though that
the sector is about more than volunteering, important as that is) and
who, at the end of the year, do not turn over their "profits" to directors
or shareholders, but return them, if they have them, to further the mission
of the organization. We might also say that much of the sector works to
advance social well being, very broadly speaking, and we might even say
that it is at its best at the local, community level. But that description,
coupled with stats and numbers is about as far as we get, and in my experience,
that doesn't do much to describe the value of the sector and its contribution
to our society. We need to find new ways to focus research, describe our
programs and services, invite volunteers, raise awareness about the role
our sector plays in strengthening the fabric of our society. That means,
for me, finding new ways to tell our stories and the stories of those
who benefit from the work we do. In other words, that means having a better
sense and greater pride in who we are AND an ability to more clearly articulate
who we are.
We might want to talk about our ability to motivate and inspire action
- locally and beyond. To deliver programs and services to our neighbours,
our kids, our senior, newcomers - to all in our communities, in countless
ways, from the arts to recreation to offering nutritious meals and care
for those who are on the edges of society. To welcome those who don't
always have a chance to belong. To foster relationships, strengthen connections,
build knowledge, create a sense of trust and belonging. To stand up for
causes and speak out on issues. To raise funds and distribute them so
that important work can be done. To build capacity - that is, to find
and strengthen the skills, resources and commitments that exist in every
community, everywhere. That's who we are and what we do and we can offer
countless examples and illustrations to bring those words to life. That's
our collective story, and we're sticking to it! It's your story, day in
and day out, and it's a powerful story, one worth sharing loudly and celebrating
together.
But we will never be able to say, there, we've done it. We will always
have to speak about doing more, doing it better, realizing our potential.
And realizing our potential, making sure ours remains a compelling story
to tell, requires resources - human and financial resources - as well
as knowledge. It requires confidence and a sense of pride. It requires
investment.
Let me begin with investment in human resources, first with the role
of the board in the work of voluntary sector organizations - a role that
I think is critical, but often problematic. I hear board members ask for
a clearer sense of their role and of expectations. Staff wonder how to
better engage and capitalize on the skills and experience of board members.
I hear both staff and board ask the "who does what?" question. I am a
great believer in volunteer boards. It is through boards (and committees)
that we gain the wisdom and experience of the community, that we have
varied perspectives and hear different voices, and that we publicly demonstrate
accountability and responsibility - and much more. If I was to sum up
what I think a board's greatest opportunity is I would say this: it is
to build the capacity of the organization to carry out its mission by
creating and maintaining a culture that expects and values excellence
in organizational performance. Nothing less. This means focusing on the
big issues and the right questions, such as "what difference are we making?"
and not "how many speeches did we make last month?" It means looking at
the budget to make sure there is an investment in staff and in development,
and being less focused on the photocopying expense line. It means relating
to donors and funders and being accountable and open. It means being proud,
knowledgeable and articulate ambassadors for the organization. And it
means investing in itself - getting the right people around the table
and equipping them to do their job. If boards understand that their role
is to build better performance, the clients and the community will reap
the benefit. Now, I know that there are not too many board members in
the room today (though I expect that many of you are board members of
other organizations), so for those of you who are staff, I urge you to
take the time to talk with your board about how they add value to the
work you are doing - you will perhaps be surprised at what you hear, and
such a discussion (which we don't often have with our boards - we just
assume that we need them) may well be the right jumping off place for
the "who does what discussion" - a discussion that really illuminates
why we in the sector have the type of governance that we do.
I mentioned investment in human resources and I now want to focus on
another aspect of human resources - in relation to the financial aspect
of that investment. Our sector has earned the reputation of paying low
wages (we say that our sector attracts people who are there because they
care - what we don't say out loud is the next sentence: therefore we can
pay them less); having low training and professional development budgets,
offering little support for volunteers, and almost completely ignoring
research and development. In my view this is shortsighted and lacking
in responsibility. The greatest resource the sector has is its people.
It's the knowledge, the community links, the skills that we have. We'd
probably all agree to that but our actions and behaviours tell another
story. In fact, what we know among ourselves is that there is frequent
staff turnover (we cover this up by saying that it's really good that
people learn from us and then move on), burnout and frustration, people
who are compromising family and personal goals, volunteer retention issues
and signs of tension and fatigue. I say to you - we have got this all
wrong. We all - board, staff, donors and funders - need to do something
to fix this reality. And we need to do it fast if we want to keep our
staff and be a sought after employer of the future.
Let me pursue this theme of financial investment for yet another moment
and try and connect it with the difficulty the sector has in being valued
and understood. While it is easy (and often justified) to point the finger
at external forces (the media, say, or funders) for the difficulty in
raising awareness of our value, I think we ourselves send out strong negative
signals and confusing messages. We are pretty good at revelling in our
own poverty. "We're just the not-for-profit sector". "We have to do everything
on the cheap -that's why our computers are so old". "We couldn't possibly
go to that conference". "Our funders and donors expect us to spend every
dime on service". Now, I'm exaggerating, to be sure, but I submit that
we as a sector don't know how to make the case for investment - investment,
not in us, but in the service of our clients and participants and communities.
And to make that case we must be able to more clearly articulate our value
and role, to find new language, to speak with pride about the potential
of our work to make a real difference. We must stop depicting ourselves
as poor and beleagured. Of course, we can't ignore the challenges that
our relatively poor financial state creates and the toll that it takes
on our self confidence and commitment. Many sector organizations have
experienced widespread cuts in the last few years, and are faced with
relentless bureaucracy in obtaining government funds and occasionally
funds from other sources too. This is an unacceptable situation to be
in, and together we must challenge today's funders to rethink the current
processes. We must also challenge the media (today's storytellers) to
help us tell our story more faithfully, and as I said earlier, we ourselves
need to find some new language and a new style, if you will, to describe
the role and value we offer, and why we are the best investment going.
As we consider our role (and in Canada we are fortunate that such consideration
is going on through the Voluntary Sector Initiative, which is tackling
issues of awareness, capacity, funding, relationships and volunteerism),
we obviously need to always have in front of us the question of "who does
what", in a different way than I raised it earlier. Here I am speaking
about the roles of government, the private sector and our sector, the
not-for-profit sector. There is widespread agreement - around the world
in fact - that no one sector can tackle on its own all the issues our
communities face. But there is not the same level of agreement about how
the roles get divided up, how they complement each other. We in the not-for-profit
sector must guard against being co-opted or coerced into taking on roles
that more appropriately belong to others. We mustn't be drawn into partnerships
that compromise our fundamental values and our potential. Yes, we must
(and do) work in partnerships among ourselves and with other sectors,
but those partnerships will be most successful when we are clear about
what our role is and what we can contribute. And so, more reason to become
clear about our value and our potential and to tell that story.
Partnerships, the support of funders and donors, the trust of our clients,
the commitment of staff and volunteers, the expectations of our communities
all require us to be accountable and open in all that we do. Accountability,
in its simplest form means to explain and accept responsibility for carrying
out a mandate in light of agreed upon expectations and arrangements. We
often think of accountability as being only about our funds - it is that
for sure, but it is also about the nature of our relationships with all
the groups I mentioned above. Most of us really strive to be accountable,
because we know that in being accountable we are actually building our
capacity. In reporting our achievements and our challenges we are in fact
building knowledge internally and externally about what we do, encouraging
and reassuring donors, including governments, and making new partnerships
possible. It would be helpful if all of us - our funders and we ourselves
- moved away from the unfortunate view that accountability's chief value
is in measuring worth for continued or new funding, and toward a view
that accountability is about reporting on what we have done, sometimes
well, sometimes not so well, to all who have an interest in and expectations
of us.
Accountability, when it is not conceived of as a bureaucratic process
that strains the very resources we are supposed to be putting toward our
services and programs, is a terrific way of telling our story. It is a
practice we should all take on continuously with enthusiasm and commitment.
This year is the International Year of Volunteers. It is an opportunity
to recognize, celebrate and appreciate the absolutely invaluable contribution
volunteers make to our communities and our countries.
But it is also a time to ask questions. How can we engage those who haven't
volunteered before? How can we determine the appropriate role for volunteers,
so that we don't misuse their generosity or do a disservice to paid workers
by displacing or replacing them? How can we better help organizations
involve volunteers more effectively? These are challenging and important
questions, and I suggest we consider them when we tackle the questions
of investment in our own resources as well as capacity building, which
I think is one of the greatest challenges our sector faces.
In these very brief remarks, I have tried to sketch some ideas about
the role and value of the not-for-profit sector and some of the challenges
we face. I have suggested that, even as we face challenges in governance,
funding, awareness, accountability, we have enormous potential and possibility.
That takes me back to the beginning. To the favellas of Sao Paulo, the
downtown of Montréal, the suburbs of Vancouver, the villages of Manitoba,
the communities of the north. In every one of these places the not-for-profit
sector is in action. It is serving, speaking, inviting. It is sharing,
planning, facilitating. It is weaving together community strengths and
building community capacities. It recognizes its challenges and knows
of its value. Perhaps what it knows best is that it has enormous potential
and scope, enormous energy and will. And so, I invite you to speak out,
celebrate, and renew your investment in that energy and that commitment,
for the sake of all of us.
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