Ask HN: Working with ineffective volunteers at non profit as a solo entrepreneur

With respect:

> in reality it's a small business

In your reality/mental model, not other people's.

That you have a functional/strategic view of a particular organization/situation- honed no doubt from other experiences unique to you- has nothing to do with the view/mental model that others in and around the organization have of the organization.

More critically, your view is no more valid than anyone else's view (and in functional terms, is less valid than the mental models of your superiors), and, you have almost no power to change other people's mental models.

This isn't a unique statement about you, it is just a universal truth.

In re:

> How do you deal with superiors at your organization that appear to be without direction, strategy, awareness and action?

Once you understand that all people in an organization are independent, autonomous entities with their own mental models, and therea are no magic buttons or injections that can change those mental models, it should become clear that the only way to engage and potentially to effect anything is to build relationships with people, With relationships, you start to understand what the mental models are of the other people in the organization, what is important to them, what is not important to them, and you and they can build a shared trust.

With superiors, this practice is sometimes called "managing up." It involves setting up conversations, asking questions, learning what's important to them in the context of the organization.

It may seem like there are people who lack direction/strategy/awareness/whatever. That is a failure of one's own perceptual machinery. They may not share your direction or priorities or whatever, but they very well have their own. Mental models that lack ambition are very often the result of learned helplessness (the causes of which especially in non-profits are myriad).

When there is sufficient understanding of their mental model, and trust around shared goals, one can present to them distillations of problems that are important to them, along with solutions or win/win framings of decisions or opportunities.

Understand what success looks like to other people, and then help them achieve it.

This applies not just to superiors but to all colleagues. Understanding what is important to other people and then applying your own initiative and capability to enable their success is the secret to happiness in life.

Great comment. It's not uncommon for people coming from the world of private for-profit businesses to run into brick walls of their own making when they try to work with non-profit causes. The world of charitable non-profit organizations is fundamentally different. The incentives are fundamentally different and, arguable, at odds with entrepreneurial profit-oriented incentives.

Much of what you said arises from the same principle: be humble. Entrepreneurs are not, broadly stated, selected for their humility.

My approach would be to stop trying to do things and start asking questions and listening more. Sometimes the answers won't be palatable, but that doesn't mean they're wrong. Look into the ideas around Servant Leadership.

> The incentives are fundamentally different and, arguable, at odds with entrepreneurial profit-oriented incentives.

From personal experience, the differences seem simple on paper, but lead to much different social and political culture:

* The board has the power. This is inverse of most companies, where the founders or CEO/President have a tight grip on the board. I've been on NFP boards where our first vote at every meeting was "Shall the executive director be retained." I've worked at a NFP where the board was carefully managed by the Executive Director to ensure he maintained his position, and still had to deal with a level of political subterfuge to keep his job that I've never seen in business, large, small, public or private. Eventually, he lost the board.

* The goal is not to make profits. The goal is simple: 1) survive and 2) gain support to achieve something worthwhile. Survive is the same as private sector, but gaining support is very different than selling. Outside of winning grants which is much more like the private sector RFP/Proposal process, getting support is just different. Appeals to ego (i.e. your legacy, public optics) to get big donors, what feels like selling your soul for corporate support (corporate donors often come with an ask beyond the mission of your NFP), or horse trading for government support.

* Products and services are doable, but difficult because it's easier to throw a couple of boondoggles (destination conferences), local awards dinners and publish a newsletter that build something actually useful. There's value in the conferences, awards and newsletters, but it isn't hard ROI.

> listening more ... Servant Leadership

This is extremely good advice.

An honestly fantastic framing of the issues, and reflective of how I've experienced the same conflict play out (from all three perspectives). Great advice.

Excellent Advice!

In addition, the OP might perhaps find some of the resources i mention here (there is good advice from others too in the thread) useful - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39086359

I feel like I should have just paid money to have read something that valuable. There is incredible and no doubt hard won wisdom in this note. Amazing. Thank you.

I ran into this in a non profit I helped found a few years ago.

You very quickly find that your org will attract seemingly random types of people, not united by skill but by whatever the cause is. Many of them will have no applicable skills that can help your org.

If the org is relatively small, the best you can do is find out who the most skillful people are, what exactly they’re good at, snd advocate / influence / pressure the org to slot the right people into the right place.

It takes enormous patience and organizational skills, because you can’t order anyone around in a non profit successfully.

And in particular, get a good person as Treasurer and a leader for whatever version of Operations you have, and competent folks leading whatever major cost centers you may have.

We put a poor choice in charge of overseeing legal teams (our biggest cost by far), and they blew the entire budget on a frivolous lawsuit that was thrown out by the judge eventually.

Things are different to a degree in much larger non-profits, they are closer to regular corps, but they are still their own beast.

And often the org will be fatally flawed and it is best to just walk away.

Treat volunteers like staff and very soon you won’t have anything to worry about because they’ll have moved on. Speaking from experience.

What to do when you need staff, but the nonprofit organization you're leading can't afford staff?

Struggle. Not uncommon!

Accept that you don’t always get what you want? Change what your definition of “need” is? Not everything is an engineering problem to be worked.

For the record, I think the correct answer is "change the mission statement/goals of the nonprofit - or pack it in".

Just so you know, this is not specific to the organization you're working with. I've been doing volunteering for the UN, and it was just the same. We were working on a website, and I was the only with any experience with that. The graphical designer was a student, and the "product designer" was a retired bank manager who wanted to try that web thing. That's just the way it is, skilled people are not attracted by volunteering (unless it's FOSS, for some reason).

There's something in it for you, though : not only it will make you feel like you did something significant with your life, but if you manage to get things working despite the shortcoming of this team, you can make it work with any team. That's a skill (especially if you ever want to hire).

> That's just the way it is, skilled people are not attracted by volunteering (unless it's FOSS, for some reason).

In my experience, volunteering organisations often struggle to deploy people with specialist skills, especially when they're only available for a few hours a week.

I used to volunteer at my local hospital. Maybe I can design advanced circuit boards, program the most complex algorithms straight from academic papers, squat almost twice my bodyweight, and operate a CNC machine like a champ. Well, the hospital didn't need any of that - or if they did, nobody had told the volunteer office about it.

The volunteer office did however know they need someone to stuff letters into envelopes, and a greeter to help disoriented visitors find their way around. So that's what I did.

I can't really blame them - giving some out-of-hours volunteer extensive computer access would have been a very trusting decision. And the volunteering they offered would probably be great for a retired person who started volunteering to expand their social life.

Could you not work a high paying job for a few hours and then pay minimum wage to multiple people to go do the door greeting and envelop stuffing?

That way your higher skill can be utiziled while maximizing the benefit the charity received?

This isn't directed just towards you. I always wondered this about volunteering time vs volunteering money.

Volunteering money doesn't exactly expand social life the op is talking about.

For some social interactions you get from volunteering is why they do it.

I know.

They were just talking about the "efficiency of use of his labor" and I was just trying to point out how to maximize it.

At the high level, my point was: More skilled people volunteer just as much as less skilled people - but you often can't tell because they often end up doing the same work.

> Could you not work a high paying job for a few hours and then pay minimum wage to multiple people to go do the door greeting and envelop stuffing?

Some people do - you can look up "earning to give" for example.

The numbers look great, which makes it popular with utilitarians and spreadsheet-lovers.

Critics feel it smells of the sale of indulgences, and point to the likes of Sam Bankman-Fried using charity to excuse their greed, theft and drug abuse while living like royalty.

> they regard our organisation almost as a good cause whereas in reality it's a small business

It's a not-for-profit centered on mental health - they probably are in it for the good cause. You are right that the governance of a non-profit can be a lot like a business, but it doesn't have to be. If you really don't like the vision the directors of a non-profit have for it, you probably should either change the vision (by getting involved at the board level) or stop volunteer there.

Was CEO from 2007 through 2016, grew to ~15 employees by 2012. Then did Google for 7 years. My biggest Q coming in was "man, how do they handle the hard problems in management, like communication?"

Answer isn't anything helpful. They just don't. How does conflict actually go down internally? If you're lower on the totem pole, bad. It's verboten to say anything within 100 yards of even "without direction" Same sort of omerta as why it's a bad idea to tell your mother-in-law their Thanksgiving menu is horrifically bad. Your manager's manager picked your manager, your manager hired your coworkers.

This also would be a horrible, horrible quality to have as a startup founder. It's a fundamental blindness and lack of accountability.

I learned to do exactly what you did: reframe, recognize limits, bite my tongue, adjust my commitments.

There's also a point at which you can decide to "just go for it", i.e. if I want a certain project to do well and the leader involved seems like they're on a different planet, I just go do the work for it. This inevitably had ~0 professional payoff and short-term psych costs, but so does throwing in the towel, and it's okay to carefully weigh it sometimes and come out as "I'd rather see this get done / move on from this relationship if they can't handle me tactfully having a real talk about this"

It’s in the name. Non profit.

Sorry but let’s be real they are using other people’s money to do stuff.

When there is no tangible incentive (helping other people is noble but isn’t an incentive at greater than an individual level - it is an emotional response) it’s impossible to be effective.

I think you should recommend that you should hire people. Even one or two hired people with a bonus incentive will be far more effective. That’s why most successful big “volunteer” organizations have paid employees who give a shit and rally the free volunteers. Their job depends on them making other people motivated to do the job.

If it’s not possible then I’d suggest you try other ways to help.

I am a volunteer myself. I only volunteer at places where I know they’re staffed and not wasting money.

My time is limited. I’m not going to waste it being triggered by incompetence.

That "using other people's money to do stuff" is a hell of a comment, in this particular venue.

Meanwhile, it's eminently possible to be effective without "tangible incentive" (not sure what this means, I'm guessing from context "money"). It's pretty common in the art world, in fact.

>Meanwhile, it's eminently possible to be effective without "tangible incentive" (not sure what this means, I'm guessing from context "money"). It's pretty common in the art world, in fact.

Huh? Most of the art world is extremely ineffective (and the part that is effective tends to be money-oriented).

How is art supposed to be "effective" exactly? Like how would you measure the efficacy of a painting?

> I think you should recommend that you should hire people. Even one or two hired people with a bonus incentive will be far more effective. That’s why most successful big “volunteer” organizations have paid employees who give a shit and rally the free volunteers. Their job depends on them making other people motivated to do the job.

Suggesting the OP hire people to "rally the free volunteers" instead of developing the skills to do it themselves certainly shows where the mindset needed for success in the corporate world can run into issues in the resource-constrained broke, small non-profit world.

Well I didn’t want to explicitly insinuate that it seems he didn’t have those. And it’s better to put someone with experience in place imo. Again this is only if you really care which he seems to do since he asked.

I’m seeing a lot of people suggest your POV about it being a small business is invalid in some way.

I worked in non-profits, founded a few, and had several social entrepreneurship startups over two decades.

You are completely correct and almost all successful non-profit leaders would agree with you. There are differences, yes, but those are mostly additional challenges like volunteer management.

Generally you could ask for advice of Board members or directors of other non-profits. You’ll learn quickly that large non-profits are competent fundraisers. Small ones may be competent problem solvers, but they are plagued with all the problems of small organizations in general. They are not good at fundraising.

Fundraising is a long climb, almost entirely a marketing challenge, and requires an organic appeal to High Net Worth Individuals.

If a non-profit is not a successful fundraising organization, it must be an effective organizational one. Sometimes you can just outwork the problem.

Your experience as a volunteer is not unique and you learned a valuable lesson - the real problem most non-profits struggle with solving is how to function at all.

Sometimes the cause and the community around it makes it worth it. Not every cause needs a well organized institution to coordinate action that makes a difference.

But if you serve on the front lines you quickly learn the shocking degree to which that is not the case. If you serve multiple non-profits or speak to other super volunteers you learn it is common.

I don’t mean to be negative, many people do have a great impact through non-profits. But in general, the non-profits that are small and thrive (even if they struggle) are run by a deeply passionate founder who is constantly loaning it money and fundraising over holidays.

Just like you wouldn’t offer to help a non-profit without some level of skill, I’d suggest giving yourself the gift of finding an organization with leadership that has the skills to lead.

It’s so easy to get lost in the drama instead of directing the precious hours you have to give towards the reason you are volunteering in the first place.

Good luck!

Don't waste time fixing superiors or whoever you work with, you are not in this world to correct those people, try and join another functional organization.

One option is to bring up those todo items that are not getting done. You aren't necessarily in personal conflict by explaining their priority and the fact that they are not getting done.

There is also a very likely possibility you should think of, that sometimes the director sees the big picture and what you think is important is actually lower priority.

If you considered paragraph 2 and 3 and they don't help, do the first one.

That’s normal, you don’t just carry on with your day do what you can. Most of us work with ineffective leadership

A 'non-profit' is just that, a company or other organization that does not focus on turning a profit. It does not mean that its management is particularly good at handling finances or getting the most 'bang for the buck' out of every donated dollar. There are plenty of non-profits out there that waste money as well as the government (the ultimate non-profit) and pay the people in charge (often themselves) exorbitant salaries and benefits for providing little of real value.

> How do you deal with superiors at your organisation that appear to be without direction, strategy, awareness and action?

Supply direction, strategy, awareness, and action.

With respect and the best of intentions, I think you need to reflect a little. Charities work because they harness the good will, money and free labor of many folks. An enormous amount of value is generated, that would be prohibitively expansive if everyone involved was paid market rates.

It is crucial to understand the social contract involved. People are swapping time/money for a feel-good experience and camaraderie.

If you make that experience resemble their day job, with goals, metrics, project managers, you've broken the contract and squandered the good will.

I've seen this happen, where an upstart go-getter comes drag into a group and tells someone who has been volunteering their time for decades, that they are not up to scratch. This results in the volunteer leaving, which is a huge loss and a failure to understand the forces at play.

>I'm a volunteer

No need to go beyond this -doesn’t sound like this is the place to commit your time if you think they aren’t functioning at the level you expect. Short of joining their board or donors where you might have some pull, take your volunteer hours elsewhere.

As a volunteer Greyshirt with Team Rubicon, I cannot relate.

One of our cultural principles is, literally, “Get shit done”.

Another is, “Your mom’s a donor”.

In your position, I might recommend associating with other volunteer based non-profits and gather some good, concrete concepts around how they plan, their guiding values, how they organize and conduct activities, how they source supplies and execute logistics to support their volunteers, etc.

These relationships and ideas may give you some concrete feedback and examples to share; and offer a conduit for your leadership to engage other leaders and learn from them the lessons & challenges ahead.

Good luck

Is it only "some frustration", or is it "bad stress, which will have effects on your health long after you've eventually fled the dysfunctional organization, potentially knocking a decade or more off your healthy lifespan"?

Know that the latter is a thing. If you care about achieving things, rather than just going through the motions, then bad orgs aren't worth the cost to your health.

I've been in the same situation and it made me realize I value the mission but also other things that are equally or more important.

I decided to leave because I was in the wrong place. But that was my learning to do. No hard feelings.

Is the staff (which includes you) is all volunteers, there’s so reason to expect or want people to have a “get shit done” attitude. You should all appreciate that you’re putting in any time together towards a shared goal.

Hide, fight or flight.

Hide : accept the situation and stay strictly within the boundaries of your job. So be it.

Fight : try to change the hierarchy by proving that some managers are incompetent in regards of their responsibilities. You'll win or be seen as a "Non-team player".

Fight : quit for somewhere better. You'll be forgotten in a few days.

Personally, I can't hide, it's not in my nature as when things are obviously wrong, they have to be fixed.

I tried to fight and couldn't make a dent in the "idgaf organization" I was working for.

I quit.

Volunteer your time elsewhere so that it will be put to good use.

The problem is that most volunteers are B/C players.

I’m the founder and current leader of a small non-profit. I would judge myself as much less “effective”/ “productive” than I was when in the commercial world. However, I do have to step back and see that a great deal of good has been done when I feel frustrated.

One thing to keep in mind is that non-profits working with volunteers are built on relationships rather than structural power. Yes, all organisations rely on relationships but in non-profits structural power is very weak, typically. There are many things I could say about this, but I will only touch on one. First, in no way do I defend or condone your current leader, I simply don’t know enough to make any judgements, but let me give you an example from my own experience. I was once at a conference for non-profit leaders and the keynote speaker started with this “before I get started let me just say that every one of you could further the mission of your organisation if your first act upon returning home was to fire someone in your team.” This led to the room erupting into a high level mummers and chair shuffling. The keynote laughed and said “every one of you just had a face pop into your mind - now go fire them” This single statement became the topic of side conversations for the rest of the event. Now jump ahead a few years and I’m talking to a senior leader of a non- profit about a volunteer on my team who just won’t stay on task no matter what job you give them. His recommendation, “You need to get rid of them because they are not showing respect for your leadership and they are demoralising the team”. However, this person was a friend and beloved by many on the team. In the end it was the right thing for them and the team and the overall mission of the group for them to go but it damaged our friendship and it hurt the feelings of many on the team. I got questions from many staff and partners and donors. I needed to protect the privacy and reputation of the individual and try to help all the parties move on. In the end it was worth all the disruption but it was very hard - much harder than a layoff or separation in the for profit world. Now for the flip side, I had a volunteer who I recruited who was a 1% person - super high achiever - with a passion for our mission. He had an MBA and a ton of leadership experience. He was used to leading a 1% high performance team and “getting shit done”. He made many recommendations to me and I tried to take on board as much as I could. He was frustrated with our volunteers and project tracking and processes. So we got tracking software, we implemented new processes, we restructured one of our big projects on his recommendations. It was taking up huge amounts of my time and it was roughing up the feathers of many volunteers. And one of his first big innovations totally failed. I was ok because I know things fail but it was high profile because so many feathers were ruffled. But we really started to get some traction within a few months and I was becoming hopeful that all this investment was going to get us to a new level. Then he quit - he was frustrated that things were not moving fast enough and wanted to go do something else. I was was deeply impacted. I never felt as discouraged as I did that week. Now I was left with a complex and expensive tracking system that only he fully understood. Our big project was only 50% done and all the ruffled feathers developed beaks as well. At the end of the day as CEO of this small group all these problems belong to me. Failure to manage a volunteer effectively - whether a friend who won’t stay on task or a super high achiever who walked away in frustration - it all comes down to my lack of effectiveness. I don’t just live there, I seek to learn and grow but when I see problem in my org I always have to look at what I have done to allow, create or mitigate the issues.

I hope you find the right path forward for your passion for the mission and your frustration in trying to bring that to pass.

Just join a different organization. If you have the same problem, maybe look in the mirror.

jump ship

The least effective leadership I've ever seen has been in non-profits. Well, non-profits and middle management in F100 companies!

Because ineffectiveness is not disqualifying in these organizations.

Honestly I believe this to be irreconcilable.

Donors are not investors. Clients are not customers. Volunteers are not employees. They just aren't. Their motivations and their goals are completely different.

I have also seen well-managed non-profits, but only those with large budgets who had a fairly even employee-to-volunteer ratio, and produced goods or services that could be reliably measured for quality and quantity.

Maybe this is an opportunity to create a "Get-shit-done" non-profit...

Or even a non-profit-leadership training professional services.

Non-profits does not mean "no money" - Don't forget, 503c's are massive and many heads of non-profits make large salaries.

Providing some leadership training in that space might be a good thing in all dimensions?