12 Tips for Not Sucking as a Panel Moderator

Posted on by Vu

A while ago I wrote “Tips for Not Sucking when You’re on a Panel,” which went viral. (Among us nonprofit bloggers “going viral” means that at least 12 people have read your post). Of course, a panel can have awesome panelists, but if the moderator sucks, then the panel will also likely suck, resulting in disappointed audience members who are now in a bad mood though they can’t pinpoint why. It will also result in panelists who will immediately go to happy hour to drink and talk about what a horrible human being the panel moderator is for wasting their time and expertise.

Moderating a panel, however, is not like making meth, which I’ve learned in Breaking Bad is actually very complicated and precise. If you are asked to moderate a panel, or if you know someone who will be moderating one, just follow the simple steps below, and you are guaranteed to not suck. There are 12 tips, which may be hard to remember, so I’ve made them into an acronym: TPLFIDPPVCEC

1. First and foremost, Think of the audience. Yes, the unlearned, unwashed masses huddled silently in front of the refined and much better dressed panelists. Seriously, the whole point of the panel is to impart something useful to this lowly group of people. Panelists are just instruments toward that objective. You wouldn’t have a panel if you had no audience, right? You are there to serve the audience first, the panelists second. Always keep that in mind.

2. Prepare. Nothing is as annoying as a disorganized panel, except maybe toenail fungus or children singing in the background of rap songs. Communicate with your panelists so they know the objective of the panel. Read up on their work so that you are knowledgeable when you brainstorm your questions. Give them a few sample questions you may ask. Send reminders as the date approaches, and ask panelists to arrive 30 minutes early. Tell them it’s so that they can meet one another, but it’s actually just a good strategy to minimize lateness.

3. Limit your panelists to 3 or 4 people; 3 is ideal. I was once on a panel with NINE other people. By the time everyone finished their introduction, we had 15 minutes left. It was on a Sunday, too, so there were approximately 18 people in the audience. Fortunately, everyone left inspired, and by that, I mean bitter and angry.

4. Frame the conversation. In your short welcome speech—and make sure it’s short—repeat the objective of the panel. Why is this topic important? What is the problem? What do we want everyone in the audience to leave with? Framing will help everyone stay focused, especially your panelists, some of whom probably didn’t prepare at all and only signed up to be on a panel to avoid real work.

Also, use this framing time to establish some ground rules, including asking panelists to keep their responses to-the-point, and that you apologize in advance but you will cut them off if their answers are too long. It keeps panelists on guard, and it reassures the audience that you are on their side.

5. Introduce the speakers. You wanted them to introduce themselves? Ask a bystander to slap you right now for even thinking of such a thing. Giving panelists time to talk about themselves is tantamount to panel suicide, and I don’t use the term “tantamount” lightly. I’ve seen a panelist go on for 15 minutes about her background, and the moderator did nothing about it. If you introduce people, you can both make the panelists feel important (“Aw, he learned about my work and memorized a fun fact so he could introduce me…”) as well as control the time. If you insist on having panelists introduce themselves, fine, but say something like, “Please introduce yourself in one minute or less. I mean it, one minute.” Then glare at each of them and draw a finger across your neck to ensure they get the message.

6. Ditch the PowerPoint. As a panelist I never use PowerPoint. One, because I’m lazy, but two, because people don’t really want to look at PP slides, because everyone is generally bad at PowerPoint, adding way too much text and having too many slides. And when you have four or five people, each using a PP presentation, the logistics are annoying, and even if logistically everything goes smoothly, people will always go over time limit, limiting time for discussion, and the audience will be snoozing away. There are exceptions, but overall, a simple one-page summary handout will more effectively accomplish almost anything a PowerPoint can do and won’t make your audience members wish for the Mayan Apocalypse to have taken place.

7. Pay Attention. Some moderators feel like they are just there to kick-off the conversation and let the panelists take over until the Q&A section. No, that’s very lazy. As a moderator, your job is to moderate, thus, you are called a moderator…so therefore you should moderate. However, you can’t do that if you are not paying attention. Sit next to the panelists, or maybe in the corner formation (described here in “Feng Shui for Nonprofits, the Seven Basic Meeting Formations”). Have a notebook with you and write down things as panelists talk that you want to clarify or ask follow-up questions to, which we’ll talk about below.

8. Provoke reactions and discussion. You have a bunch of (hopefully) brilliant experts with a (hopefully) diverse set of viewpoints. It is a boring waste of time and opportunity if they don’t interact with one another. Panelists tend to be too polite (unless they read my Tips for not sucking as panelists, in which case they should be getting into fist-fights with one another), so you must force them to interact. You can do this tactfully by summarizing and asking for counter-opinions, e.g., “John: Susan said that parental engagement is THE key factor in student achievement. You had mentioned earlier that you were a terrible student.  I think Susan may have insulted your mother. How do you respond to that?”

9. Varietize. Too many moderators have the “assembly line” format, where they ask a question, then panelists go down the line answering. Usually by the time the third person speaks, half of the audience has tuned out. By the time the fifth person speaks, 75% of them have entered some sort of trance-like state where they are daydreaming about inventing a time machine to go back in time and prevent their parents from meeting so that they wouldn’t be born and thus would not have to attend this panel.

Assembly line is fine once a while, especially if your questions are good, but don’t keep using it. Call on different people for different questions. Ask panelists to rank or prioritize things and defend their positions. Point out potential disagreements. You must be on your toes to do all of that, but the audience and panelists will get a lot more out of it.

10. Cut off long-winded speakers. A major, in fact probably most important, job of the moderator is to intervene when panelists are off track or rambling. If you followed Tip #4 and framed the conversation right, it will help people to not be offended. Now it’s just a matter of politely jumping in with things like, “I’m sorry for cutting you off, John, but I’d like to get the other panelists’ viewpoints before we move to the next questions” or “John, it seems like you have a lot of valuable insight on this topic, but we have several questions left and I want to make sure we get your perspective on those questions too” or “John, excuse me…John? Hey, John…listen…can you…I’m sorry for…John, just shut up! Shut up, John!” It’s uncomfortable to have to do that, but that’s your job.

11. Engage the audience. If you watch talk shows, notice how skillful they are at engaging the audience. Audience members are asked to participate in everything. On The Doctors, they pull audience members up to feel fake mucus in an enlarged sinus. I think that’s what I saw once. Talk shows know that without the audience, there is no show. Depending on how big your audience is, you may want to do things like ask people to briefly introduce themselves, do a quick ice breaker (here are some icebreakers that don’t suck), have small-group discussions, raise their hands for various questions, come up to feel fake snot, etc. Then leave plenty of time for Q&A, since an engaged audience will have more questions.

12. Conclude with practical take-aways/advice. Do not ask your panelists to go down the line summarizing what they just said, or to conclude with some final words of wisdom or something. Chances are, the panelists will waffle something incoherent. Best to end with something like “What is something concrete the audience members can do today to blah blah” or “what are three practical pieces of advice you have for our audience for blah blah” or “In one word, what do you think will solve the problem of blah blah.” Don’t actually say “blah blah.” Replace it with the relevant topic. (Although, blahness is a really big problem in the world)

Get those 12 tips down and you should be a pretty decent panel moderator. Just remember TPLFIDPPVCEC. Leave additional tips in the comment, and please forward this list on to your panel moderating friends.

PS: Bonus tip: Reconsider giving panelists mugs as a thank-you (I have eight from panels). We don’t expect any gifts, but if you are going to give a small token of thanks, here are some acceptable items: Movie tickets, gift cards to local coffee shops, or bars of dark chocolate (at least 65% cocoa). Mugs are fine, but maybe fill them with whiskey first.

Thinking of Bill Henningsgaard and his family

Posted on by Vu

BillIt has been hard to write anything humorous this week after learning about the plane crash in Connecticut that took the lives of Bill Henningsgaard, his son Max, and the two kids who were in the house. I had known Bill only briefly, but those few moments were enough to see what an amazing person he was, and what a caring and loving family surrounded him.

I knew Bill through his wife, Susan, who drops by once a while to the ED Happy Hours I coordinate, a time once a month for us EDs to get together and drink and complain about stuff. I was on a panel about education that Susan organized, and Bill was in the audience. He came up to me afterward and thanked me for the stuff I said about social justice and equity in the education system.

“Vu, I heard from Susan about EDHH,” he said, “can you add me to the mailing list?”

“Sure, Director Bill,” I said, informing him of the new trend I was starting on how we EDs should be addressed, “we should also get coffee sometime. I’d love to learn more about your work with Eastside Pathways.”

“Absolutely,” he said, “send me an email.”

Life got in the way, mainly my impending fatherhood, and I never sent him an email to get coffee. Bill received the monthly invitations to ED Happy Hour, though, and he would send back apologies for not being able to make them. “As a committed Hobbit head,” he wrote to me in an email, “I’m taking my family to the first-day showing,” which conflicted with the EDHH that month.

“Director Vu,” he wrote me months later when I invited him to my organization’s annual fundraising dinner, “Can’t join you on this, as it’s my (and Susan’s) son’s 17th birthday. As almost empty-nesters, we have to make the most of the few remaining chances for birthday cake and candles (as we don’t tend to go in for that sort of thing for ourselves). Sorry I can’t join you.”

Once, though, he and Susan showed up for an ED Happy Hour, bringing beer and guacamole. We had a great time, the seven or eight EDs who were there. Somehow the conversation turned to PeaceTrees Vietnam’s work detonating unexploded landmines, and Bill had this brilliant idea of using a rock band that would detonate the mines using really loud music. Later, I mentioned I was anxious about the baby, and Susan and Bill tried to cheer me up, imparting advice as veteran parents. They left early for a family event, and I thought of how nice and down-to-earth Bill was, how great it was that Bill and Susan prioritized family so highly, and how I really should follow up with him to get coffee. Anyone who admits to being a “Hobbit head” is cool to me, I thought.

My son was born, and everything was crazy, and I still never followed up with Bill.

Today, I was holding my 4-month-old son, Viet, and I thought of the unimaginable depths of grief and despair that the families must be going through, especially the two mothers, my friend Susan and the mother of Sade Brantley and Madisyn Mitchell, who have watched their kids grow up, sung them to sleep, seen their first smile, heard their first words. A parent’s heart breaks with every scratch, every fever. I know this now. To lose anyone, but especially your child, so suddenly, with no time for goodbyes, it is a pain that most of us can only imagine and hope to never have to endure.

Though I barely knew Bill, I knew he was a brilliant and compassionate person who has given much to the community, who will continue to inspire even though he’s gone. I never met Max, and I can only read about the other two kids, Sade and Madisyn, who were killed in this tragedy, but I know they had families and a community that loved them and whose hearts ache for them. Today, holding my little son, who is already growing up so fast, I was reminded of Bill’s words. “We have to make the most of the few remaining chances for birthday cake and candles,” he wrote, words that we should all live by, since we rarely know what joys and what profound sorrows life will bring us.

—

A memorial service for Bill and Max Henningsgaard will be held on Friday, August 16th at 1:00 PM.  The service will be held at First Presbyterian Church of Bellevue at 1717 Bellevue Way NE, Bellevue, WA 98004

Work styles: Are you a Dragon, Pegacorn, Phoenix, or Griffin

Posted on by Vu

 

beast-986054_960_720[Note: The set of creatures originally comprised Dragon, Unicorn, Phoenix, and Lion-Turtle. Due to copyright and other reasons, it has been changed.]

Most of us in the field have done various “behavioral styles” activities.  With so much of our work being relationship-based, it is important for us to understand one another. This will lessen our chances of strangling our coworkers or boss or board members or even some funders or clients.

There are dozens of categorization systems, some using color, directions, or adjectives such as amiables, expressives, drivers, analyticals; or controllers, stabilizers, persuaders, analyzers, etc. Whatever the system, everyone tends to agree that there are four different behavior styles.

It is always good for us to get regular refreshers on what those four styles are. But colors and directions and adjectives are so boring. Here, I’ve relabeled the styles after bad-ass mythical creatures, each awesome (and also sometimes sucky) in their own ways. Find out which style you and the people around you are, and then try to get along with everyone.

How do I know which bad-ass mythical creature I am?

The best way is for you to show this blog post to three or more people, ask them to read it, and then tell you which of these styles most closely describes you. That’s because what we think we are may be completely different from how others perceive us; for instance, I used to think I was an amazing beat-boxer, but based on feedback I was really more like a dying weasel with a spittle problem…

If you’re too lazy to ask three people, just take this one-question quiz below.

When you read the title of this blog post, what was your first thought?

  1. Whoo hoo, Dragons, Pegacorns, Phoenixes, Griffins! Sounds like a drinking game!
  2. This is stupid. I don’t have time to read blog posts about work styles. I have stuff to do.
  3. Hm, this article sounds silly, but I should read it to determine if it has any validity.
  4. Aw, someone took time to write this blog post. I should read it because they spent so much time working on it.

If your answer is 1, you’re a Phoenix; 2, you’re a Dragon; 3, you’re a Griffin; 4, you’re a Pegacorn.

Note: Everyone tends to have a dominant style. But we all have all styles within us, and they change depending on context. You can be a Dragon at work, but a total Pegacorn at home, for instance. Or you can be a Griffin in the board room, but a Phoenix at a gala. See “Have you flipped your iceberg lately?” for part 2 of this.

Dragon

(Red, North, Fire, Controller, Director, Driver, Dominance, Decisive, Sophia)

“When is this meeting over so we can do stuff?”

dragon_stickerWhy Dragons are awesome: Dragons are decisive and like to get stuff done. They are action-oriented and efficient. They hate long meetings, and they’d usually rather juggle live cobras than have to do a wishy-washy ice breaker. Dragons will drive teams to take actions and to be expedient. They wish you would stop reading stupid blog posts like this and do something, like your job.

Why Dragons sometimes suck: They can be brusque and impatient. In their drive for action and efficiency, they can make mistakes. And they can run over people. Then they might roll their eyes when the people they run over want to talk about their feelings. Feelings are for losers, according to Dragons, because while people are all experiencing emotions and crap, stuff is not getting done.

How to best work with a Dragon: Get to the point quickly. Be action-oriented. Don’t make them share their feelings. Just do your job.

Dragons will have most conflict with: Pegacorns. They find Pegacorns to be indecisive, emotionally weak, easily manipulated, and their focus on harmony and snuggling an annoying waste of time.

Phoenix

(Yellow, West, Air, Persuader, Socializer, Expressive, Influencer, Interactive, Blanche )

“Let’s go to Happy Hour after this meeting!” 

Why Phoenixes are awesome: phoneix_stickerPhoenixes are visionary, big-picture thinkers. They are optimistic, trustful, and have unlimited energy. They bring fun wherever they go. They are creative and spontaneous. Phoenixes are great at building relationships, since they are charismatic, great talkers, and excellent at convincing people to think and do things differently. They love to get everyone to go out for drinks after work. They like to be around people, and they’re often hilarious.

Why Phoenixes sometimes suck: They can be unfocused and fail to follow up on things that are not fun, which, unfortunately is about 85% of work. They are not good at details and get bored easily. They can be distracted and distracting, and sometimes they burst into songs, which, depending on the timing and frequency, can be either endearing, or make you want to throw a stapler at them.

How to best work with a Phoenix: Get to know them on a personal level, and let them get to know you. Participate in the stuff they suggest, praise them, and go out for drinks with them. (Hint: Phoenixes like to buy people drinks)

Phoenixes will have most conflict with: Griffins. They find Griffins to be way too serious, stuck-up, and boring as hell.

Griffin

(Blue, East, Earth, Analyzer, Thinker, Analytical, Conscientious, Cautious, Dorothy)

“I’ve prepared handouts for everyone for this meeting.”

Why Griffins are awesome: Griffin_stickerGriffins are diligent, careful, logical, and accurate. They take time to do their work, so it is usually high quality. They are detailed oriented, often picking up stuff that other people miss. They love processes, data, and well-reasoned arguments. They bring grounding and balance to any team, encouraging everyone pay attention to boring technical crap like objectives and timelines and data. They are not sure this description of them is accurate; they need more time to think about it first.

Why Griffins sometimes suck: They require a lot of time to think and plan, which can be annoying. Also, they keep wanting more and more data, and keep asking questions all the time, like “what’s the budget for this?” and “what was the process for coming up with this budget?” which can be infuriating. Sometimes they seem boring, since they often like to keep work life and personal life separate, meaning they might seem stand-offish when everyone goes out for drinks and they don’t.

How to best work with Griffins: Be specific, thorough, and demonstrate that you have thought thoroughly about stuff after doing research. Be consistent and predictable and don’t seem too impulsive.

Griffins will have most conflict with: Phoenixes. They find the Phoenixes to be silly, narcissistic, drunkards, and time wasters.

Pegacorn

(Green, South, Water, Stabilizer, Relater, Amiable, Steady, Stabilizing, Rose)

“Let’s make ‘snuggling’ the first item on the agenda.”

Why Pegacorns are awesome: Pegacorns are considerate, thoughtful, and good at listening. pegacorn_stickerThey like harmony and use their pegacorn powers to help people get along. Pegacorns will always be on the lookout to make sure everyone is comfortable and no one feels left out. They are good at mediating conflicts and getting people to hold hands and snuggle and crap like that. Even though they are gentle, they will stab injustice in the face with their horns of equity. 

Why Pegacorns sometimes suck:  Pegacorns are always searching for consensus, so they can be indecisive, needing to check in with everyone. They can be conforming, insecure, and wishy-washy. Wanting to avoid conflict, sometimes they bottle up their feelings, absorbing the stress until it reaches a breaking point, and then they explode, getting messy pegacorn bits all over the place.

How to best work with a Pegacorn: Do what you say you’re going to do, be kind and considerate to everyone, tell them you appreciate them.

Unicorns will have most conflict with: Dragons. They find Dragons to be insensitive and thoughtless clods who don’t value others’ feelings.

***

I hope that was helpful. Remember, no one mythical creature is better than any other. A good team will have at least one of each of the styles. And also, keep in mind that while we each have one dominant style, we can (and should) learn other styles and transform into different mythical creatures as situations demand. If we can all learn each other’s styles and learn to work with one another, maybe, just maybe, we will survive planning the next annual fundraising event.

***

Make Mondays suck a little less. Get a notice each Monday morning when a new post arrives. Subscribe to NWB by scrolling to the top right of this page and enter in your email address. Also, join the NWB Facebook community for daily hilarity.

Donate, or give a grant, to Vu’s organization, Rainier Valley Corps, which has the mission of bringing more leaders of color into the nonprofit sector and getting diverse communities to work together to address systemic issues.

Also, join Nonprofit Happy Hour, a peer support group on Facebook, and if you are an ED/CEO, join ED Happy Hour. These are great forums for when you have a problem and want to get advice from colleagues, or you just want to share pictures of unicorns. Check them out.

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Community Engagement 101: Why Most Summits Suck

Posted on by Vu

blenderHi everyone. I just came back from Port Orchard for a friend’s wedding. A day-trip with 3-month-old infant is grueling. It was like writing a grant. A cute, drooly, moody grant who spit up all over my suit. I’m exhausted. That is to say, I don’t know how this post is going to turn out. This may not be my finest post, but I am committed to getting a new post published every Monday. Like I’ve been telling the baby, “Consistent adequacy is always better than inconsistent excellence.” And also: “Please don’t throw up on Daddy.”

***

A few months ago, I received a request from a staff at the City of Seattle’s Department of Critical Services (DCS)*. “Vu,” said the staff, “can you gather a whole bunch of Vietnamese people so that the Director of the Department of Critical Services can come and listen to their concerns? We’ve already pulled together mini-summits with three other ethnic groups: Spanish, Somalis, and Canadians.” (Kidding about the Canadians).

Sigh. Despite my best efforts, this seems to happen a lot in Seattle: “Let’s get a bunch of ethnic people together and listen to them. I bet they’re just standing around; they’ll love to come to a meeting and be listened to, especially if we have hummus and baby carrots.” It is very well-intentioned, and usually ineffective in the long-run. Sometimes it is just insulting, especially when the hummus is all chunky and grainy and not smooth, like high-quality hummus should be.

Summits, conferences, and other gatherings, when used right, can be powerful tools for community engagement. Kind of like a blender. You get a blender and make some awesome margaritas, and people are like “this is the best party ever.” (This may be the worst analogy ever). These gatherings can connect people around a common cause, equip them with skills and resources, and energize everyone to take action. They also look cool: “Ooh, look, 500 people attended! Snap a picture for our annual report! (Make sure you capture the diversity).”

But lately summits have become the default shortcut for everything:

  • We need to demonstrate to funders that we are doing stuff. Let’s have a summit!
  • We need to kick-off our collective impact initiative. Let’s have a summit!
  • Our strategic plan needs input from communities of color. Let’s have a bunch of mini summits!
  • We need a cool picture for our new brochures. Let’s have a summit!
  • We need to spread awareness of a critical issue. Let’s have a giant summit and get a national speaker to keynote!

I and a bunch of other people in the field are sick of summit-like meetings, especially as tools for engaging communities of color. It’s like taking a blender and trying to make an entire meal with it, blending the salad, blending the entrees, blending the dessert (I’m not giving up on this blender analogy).

Here’s why most summits suck as a tool for engagement:

  1. They give a false sense of stuff actually getting done. Sweet, we placed sticky notes and stickers on easel papers and drew visions of an ideal community. Yay! We did stuff! (Hey, we got people to vote using sticky dots on easel paper and write their ideas on sticky notes! Yay! We did stuff!)
  2. They give a false sense of hope and then usually lead to nothing, especially the community input gathering sessions. Time and time again, we ethnic nonprofit staff rally our communities to various listening sessions. Time and time again, little if any of our community members’ suggestions are ever implemented.
  3. There is usually very little follow-through with relationship building. Summits are enticing because you can kill 50 to 500 or more birds with one stone. After that, though, 90% of the generated energy tapers off because there are usually no funds allocated for staff with the language and cultural skills to continue to develop the relationships.
  4. Funds to organize summits are inequitably distributed: I’ve seen so many summits that pay consultants and event coordinators, and allocate nothing to ethnic organizations to do outreach work. So what happens? The paid consultants and/or event coordinators start calling us up to ask us to do outreach for free. It’s very annoying. We got stuff to do, like, you know, running programs and stuff.
  5. The worst part of many summits, though, is that they supplant actual effective community engagement practices. They make people think “Yay, we engaged the communities of color, since they came to our gathering!” Then they might not bother with the one-on-one meetings. One-on-one relationships are the basic building blocks of community organizing and engagement. Absolutely nothing can replace it, and it is totally time-consuming.

Anyway, I told the staff at the Department of Critical Services bluntly that I didn’t have time to rally a bunch of VFA clients for his boss to listen to, and that I didn’t think these types of meetings would be effective anyway, consider how annoyed our community members are with the lack of follow-through from previous gatherings. What would be effective, he asked. Well:

  • Meet with community leaders one-on-one, on their own turf. Go yourself, don’t send your assistant. It’s a respectful thing to do, and the relationship building will pay dividends. Stop it with this “I’ll come down from the mountain once a while so that the people may rejoice in my presence” business. That’s not what you mean, but that’s what it feels like when the only time the community sees you is when you’re pushing some project.
  • When you meet with people, ask them to refer you to other people, and meet with those people one-on-one. It’s time-consuming, meeting with individuals, getting coffee, listening to them tell their life stories, finding out about their hopes and dreams and their worries about their kids, etc., but you cannot engage anyone until they feel like you know and understand them and vice-versa.
  • Be where people are. There are tons of places people are already gathered: Senior programs, churches, temples, youth groups, etc. Go down there, meet the coordinators, go multiple times, build the relationships. Attend organizations’ events.
  • Budget for outreach staff who can do on-the-ground relationship building year-long, and not just during summit time, along with funding  for translations, interpretations, childcare, food, and transportation for community members when you have events.
  • Budget for funding for ethnic nonprofits to collaborate with you to do your work. If you value the outreach work these CBOs do, build it into the budget.
  • Do your research to ensure you’re not repeating something that another organization has done and published a report on. It’s frustrating to have to answer the same questions over and over again.
  • If you are going to have a summit, do all the above, and also commit your team ahead of time to actually accept and follow-through on whatever action steps are decided at the summit, if that’s the will of the community, even if you may not like them. So often the only things that get implemented are whatever aligns with the summit organizers’ preconceived agenda. Well, that’s just stupid and tokenizing and a waste of people’s time. If you’re going to get community members’ input, trust and act on their recommendations.
  • Funders: Fund on-going, on-the-ground relationship-building work, and fund communities-of-color-led nonprofits to do it.

Gatherings are enticing, since you can reach more people in a shorter amount of time. When it works, it can be awesome, like a Vitamix blender, which can make delicious hummus and can puree a digital camera. Lately, it’s been sucking, a lazy and superficial way of engaging communities of color. So many of the community members I interact with are so skeptical of any more “coffee chat with so-and-so important person” or “summit to discuss our concerns about the education system” that they’d just laugh in my face if I ask them to come to one more thing. I don’t want them to laugh in my face. I get plenty of that from my family for being in this line of work.

(*This is a pseudonym. There is no Department of Critical Services at the City of Seattle)

For more on community engagement, check out “Being a Nonprofit with Balls” parts 1, 2, and 3, which launched this blog and gave it its title.

10 Steps for a Kick-Ass Emergency Succession Plan

Posted on by Vu

pantsMost people who know me know that I have only one pair of shoes and one belt.  They are both made of vegan fake leather and look crappy. That’s because I got married and thus no longer have any incentives to look attractive. Plus, we Executive Directors of small nonprofits must project the aura of scrappiness and frugality.

One morning, though, I had an important meeting and could not find my belt. I spent thirty minutes looking for it, getting more and more frantic. With no time to run out and buy a new belt, I went about my day with a dress shirt tucked into my beltless pants like an animal. An animal!

What’s the point of this story? The ED or CEO of a nonprofit is kind of like a beat-up leathery old belt that holds up the pants of the organization. And like in my wardrobe, there is only one. Life is unpredictable, oftentimes cruel, and yet filled with unimaginable beauty. But usually it’s just cruel. Who the heck knows what could happen? (Which is why I wrote this letter to my newborn son in case I died early, with important life lessons like “be nice to people” and “recycle”). In the terrible worst-case scenario, the ED could get into a tragic accident and die or otherwise become incapacitated. In the best scenario, he could be offered his dream job of starring in a vegan culinary travel show where he eats and drinks his way around the globe. In either of these scenarios, or a variety of other stuff that could happen, the organization is now left without a leader.

That is why it is so important for all organizations to have ESP (Emergency Succession Plan). Now, there are all sorts of ways to go about developing this plan. For the ESP, though, it is more important to have a decent plan right away than a perfect plan that could take a while to create. Which is why I jot down these helpful tips. Follow them and in no time your organization will have a workable plan, just in case the Food Network calls your ED:

Step 1: Emergency succession planning is really the board’s responsibility, so add this to your next board meeting agenda. Seriously, if you don’t have an ESP in place, put this on your agenda. Assign the task to a board member to lead, preferably someone who has HR experience and understanding of the staffing structure.

Step 2. With the assigned board member in the lead, form a committee. Like with other committees, no one is going to want to join. You can attract them by calling it the Emergency Succession Plan Task Force (ESPTF) and coming up with a cool code name for the work at hand using Greek letters and mythological figures, like “Operation Alpha Omega Morpheus”

Step 3: The ED may be the one to push for an ESP and may join the task force, which is great, but if not, someone from the ESPTF should sit down with her and explain the need for the plan and get her perspective on the important things about her work that the task force should take into consideration, along with her thoughts on who may be potential candidates to serve as acting ED in case something happens to her. If she starts freaking out and crying, wondering if she did something wrong, refer her to this blog post.

Step 4: The ESPTF should define the skills and experience needed in an acting ED to help the organization remain functional during the transition. While every nonprofit is unique, there are certain skills that all EDs have in common: Breaking up fist-fights among staff, going to meetings, making inspiring speeches, herding cats, and begging for money.

Step 5: Define a sequence of actions that the board should take in the case Operation Morpheus must be activated. Depending on whether the situation is temporary or permanent, these actions may include calling an emergency meeting, choosing an acting ED, forming a hiring team, changing signing authorization for checks, panicking, etc.

Step 6: Determine a chain of succession, kind of like we do for our government. If something happens to the President, then the Vice President is in charge, and next is the Speaker of the House, etc. You may have a Deputy Director who may take over temporarily, followed by the Director of Operations. Most nonprofits, though, don’t have clear-cut positions like that. At VFA, for example, our succession chain may look like “Program Director/Office Manager, followed by Development Director/Janitor.”

Step 7: Identify important people you need to notify. These include program officers, major donors, contract monitors, partner organizations, clients, etc., Figure out who would be in charge of talking to whom. People might start freaking out, especially if they learn about things second-hand, so it is good to have clear and prompt and personal communication.

Step 8: Work with the ED and other staff to compile copies of important stuff that the acting ED needs to do his work, for example IRS determination letter, bylaws, board meeting minutes, EIN, past 990s, audited financial statements, business license, charitable solicitation license, office lease, bank info and contact, insurance policy number and contact, office security info and contact, office safe combo, computer passwords, water cooler delivery schedule, etc. We EDs tend to hold all this information in our heads, so it’s good to write it down.

Step 9: Finalize the plan and get to the board to approve. Do not make the plan public, or you might freak out people further; keep it among the board and key staff. Designate a board member (usually the chair) to hold a copy of the plan in a secure location away from the office. Another copy should be held at the office in a secure location where no one would look; at the VFA office, that location would be the fresh vegetable compartment of the fridge.

Step 10: Schedule a time once a year to update and revise the plan. Also, update it when there’s significant change in the organization’s structure or staff.

I hope that’s helpful. Let me know what your organization does and if there are steps I left out. Of course, the ESP is just for that, emergencies, and hopefully you never have to activate Operation Morpheus. All organizations should also be working on long-term succession planning, ensuring staff are developing skills and experience to move up the ladder, that there are opportunities for cross-position training, etc. Only by being thoughtful and diligent can we all keep our pants up.