Leadership gap affects growing nonprofit
sector By CHRISTINA OCCHIPINTI
Nonprofit organizations may be riding
a wave of national success, but they are facing
a severe imbalance in the supply (low) and demand
(high) of “leadership talent.”
That was the message from Thomas J. Tierney,
chairman and co-founder of the Bridgespan Group,
a consulting firm for nonprofits with offices in
Boston and San Francisco, at the fifth annual Not-for-Profit
Leadership Summit sponsored by United Way of Westchester
and Putnam and the Westchester Community Foundation
on May 14 at the Hilton Rye Town.
“The nonprofit sector is colliding head-on
with a fundamental shortage of leadership talent,”
Tierney said. “This is an escalating leadership
deficit that’s going to get worse and worse, more
profound and more pervasive than anything we’ve
ever experienced.”
There are three “ingredients” needed for
the nonprofit sector to see promising results, with
the main necessity being an intelligent work force.
“You need strategy, you need capital and
you need talent,” Tierney said. “Think of that as
two separate resources money and people and a
plan to put those resources to work. Most business
leaders, and certainly the most successful business
leaders, will tell you that, of those three dimensions,
the most important by far is talent.”
While the supply of talented leaders is
rapidly declining, the number of nonprofits has
tripled in 20 years.
From 2000 to 2007, the number of registered
nonprofits in Westchester rose 23 percent from 3,406
to 4,179, according to a study titled The Economic
Impact of Non-Profits in Westchester, sponsored
by the Business Council of Westchester.
The study found that Westchester accounts
for 6 percent of the nonprofit organizations in
the state. In 2006, nonprofits in the county employed
approximately 40,560 people, up 15 percent from
35,107 employees in 2000. Nonprofits now account
for 8 percent of the county’s work force.
Tierney created four themes aimed at solving
the emerging leadership deficit afflicting the nonprofit
sector today. These themes include:
• Invest in leadership capacity: “Management
has to invest time, it’s not just money. We’re in
this mindset that less is better…but sometimes less
is just plain less.”
• Refining management rewards: “We have
to begin to refine our management rewards to attract,
retain and motivate outstanding talent. It’s not
just compensation it’s also benefits, retirement,
the infrastructure that supports us from day-to-day.”
• Gaining and keeping talent: Nonprofits
have to begin “accessing new pools of talent and
making sure we retain the top talent in the sector.”
• Boards of Directors: “Boards have got
to come to grips with organization building, capacity
building in ways that maybe they haven’t fully had
to in the past.”
In the midst of the current leadership
deficit, local businesses and companies can reach
out and support nonprofits in certain ways, said
Catherine J. Marsh, executive director of the Westchester
Community Foundation.
“Financewise, I would certainly love to
see (area companies) fund some more of the capacity
building,” Marsh said, referring to improved participation
with nonprofits. “There are a number of companies
that do a lot of funding in the county, but it tends
to be for projects that their employees can be enthused
about, which is understandable, or projects that
can further their own mission. It would be nice
to see if they could take, for instance, the IT
(information technology) talent that they have and
share it.”
Ralph Gregory, president and CEO of the
United Way of Westchester and Putnam, echoed Marsh’s
sentiments.
“I would say that it’s very important that
the corporate community and those that are involved
from the corporate community on not-for-profits
boards begin to look at or continue to look at the
series of challenges (Tierney) outlined,” Gregory
said. “We need to make sure that we are making the
right decisions from a governing standpoint, focusing
on what it would take to get to certain outcomes
and it takes real capacity.”
Tierney predicted dire straights for the
nonprofit world if it doesn’t find the supply to
meet its employee and leadership demand.
“This leadership deficit is not going to
be resolved without attention and effort. It’s not
going to go away,” Tierney said. “If we want to
serve society the way our missions call us to, we
are going to have to build our organizational capacity
to do so.”
