To Risk Being Honest

We want staff to respect our ability to lead.

We want boards to have confidence in our ability to manage.

We want funders to believe we have the capacity to do the projects we propose.

These wants present a bit of a quandary around technology because they encourage us to present a "facade of competency" - to mask our technological ignorance, hide our inefficiencies, and dance around conversations about capacity. For example, after doing an assessment of your communications flow you realize that your current way of connecting to a core constituency takes substantially longer then if you used email more effectively. To risk telling the board about this means having to acknowledge how inefficiently things have been done in the past and how complicit all the stakeholders have been in the inefficiency.

With staff, many executives find themselves in the same dysfunctional cycle. You can't admit you don't get it when they suggest a new technology-related tactic to use in a program, then when it comes time to manage or evaluate the work, you have no idea what success should look like.

These are the stories that many nonprofit leaders and managers will tell you if given the safe space to do so. "It's just the way it is,' commented one Washington, DC nonprofit Executive Director who recently graduated from the Summit Collaborative's Strategic Technology 'Readiness' program. The Executive Directors in the program, offered by Technology Works for Good as part of their Technology Leadership Development initiative, admitted that by participating in this storytelling with funders and others, they were contributing to a cycle that ultimately did not serve them. They realized ways in which withholding these truths denied them the support they needed and compromised their ability to lead and manage.

Amanda Nevers, a TWFG 'Readiness' program participant and Executive Director of Ophelia's House, sat down a board member and showed him JUST HOW LONG data entry took in one of their systems - a "lesson" that garnered that board member's endorsement of an upgrade. Such demonstrations can open the door to a board member's support; they can create allies who can encourage peers to support implementing new technology.

Many board operations can be improved as a way to free up staff time to focus on programs. Sharing with the board how much time it takes to communicate with them and support their activities, and how that cuts into time that could be spent on the programs that motivated them to join the board, could prod them to explore ways in which they can innovate how they communicate with you and how they do their work with each other. Integrating technology into board work will provide board members insight into how parallel improvements at operations and programmatic levels can also make an organization more efficient and flexible.

We continually find that masking inefficiency rolls out a red carpet for the board to resist investments in technology. Cassandra Burton, Executive Director of the African American Woman's Resource Center, said that simply having technology conversations with the board opened up great possibilities. "Turns out they are looking for me to provide them with leadership…they can't know the state of things unless I tell them."

How do you balance your neediness with the necessity to appeal worthy of your funders' investments? Dorothy Remy, Director of the University of the District of Columbia's Certificate in Nonprofit Leadership, said she has been considerably more honest about where her program is and what they need in grant proposals she has written since taking part in the program. As a one person shop with a host of technology needs, she realized her greatest need was for someone to walk her through strategic planning for technology, a request that previously struck her as inappropriate or unworthy of funding. She became clear that at this time the program would be ill served by a hastily crafted implementation request; but well served by a thoughtful planning process. After participating in the Readiness program and joining TWFG, she trusted that she knew what was best for the program and made a case for why planning assistance was the best path to advancing program goals. We think her potential funders should understand this too.

As executives and the nonprofits they manage risk being more honest about the way their information and communications systems really function, foundations and the technology support community can be more instrumental in meeting those needs. Boards and funders need to know the "real deal" to be able to lend informed support. Withholding this data may temporarily protect your organizational appearance, but not advance your ability to integrate technology strategically into your organization's mission and goals.

Risking honesty may mean risking "looking good," to actually "be better."