Scenario 1

You are the first full-time executive director of a program providing first aid and health assessments, meal boxes, hygiene supplies, and other much-needed services to unhoused members of the community. The board is a founding board, including people who volunteer significant time each week in your programs. You were hired because the program has grown beyond the board member's ability to manage, as volunteers. The board is also concerned about complying with new state-imposed reporting requirements for organizations providing health services of any kind. But the board members remain deeply interested in the details of the organization and its programs.

Your organization currently receives no government funds, so your income is completely from fundraising events, local donors, and both cash and in-kind gifts of supplies from local companies. The unhoused population in the community is growing and also becoming more diverse in terms of culture and language. There is already a need to expand services, and you realize that need will only continue to grow rapidlywhich will require additional funding. But based on conversations with the board and volunteers, you've determined that the existing fundraising events require significant time and effort to plan and execute. You've also noticed that attendance at recent events has been lower than in previous years. You worry that some events may be losing their appeal, and it concerns you that some might just disappear if the volunteers who run them were to lose interest. Expanding them doesn't seem feasible.

You learn from one of your professional connections who works for the city that the organization will be eligible to apply for a new capacity-building grant that could pay the salary and benefits of another new staff member. You think this might be an opportunity to obtain funds to hire a director of development who could help define a funding strategy, including a more structured individual giving campaign, to reduce your reliance on events. At the very next board meeting, you suggest applying for the grant and hiring a development director.

One board member says the organization should never accept government funds. "That just leads to control and is inconsistent with the voluntary tradition of our organization." He adds, "I know that a lot of my friends are not going to be interested in giving their time if we become just some city bureaucracy."

A second board member says that she has no problem with accepting government funds, but she doesn't agree with hiring a development officer to raise money from individuals. She says, "I don't want that person asking me to give--we do enough by giving our time. And, I don't want that person asking me to go out and hit up my friends for money."

A third board member agrees and says he would favor getting the grant if it were to be used to hire some other type of staff member, but not a fundraiser. He says, "Our clients have a lot of unmet needs. How can we justify adding to our administrative expense when people are without homes, jobs, or enough food and clothing? We should hire another case manager instead."

A fourth member says that while she agrees with your recommendation for a development officer, she doesn't think this is something the board should be discussing. "You are the Executive Director," she says. "It's up to you how you go about accomplishing the goals we give you to accomplish. If you need a fundraiser, then you should be able to go ahead and hire one."

A fifth board member says, "If we don't have enough money, maybe we should think about working with some other organizations or even merging with a larger one."

A sixth member of the board jumps from her seat and says, "Well, just who does this organization belong to anyway? I have been on the board for many years, and we always made decisions about how we would raise and spend the money. And, I'm not interested in giving our organization to someone else to run."

As you face the board around the table, you wonder where you went wrong and what to say next.

Instructions and Discussion Questions

Please answer the following questions thoroughly based on the scenario above. In formulating your answers to the following questions, assume the role of the executive director. You are not giving advice to the executive director, you ARE the executive director.

1. Assume that your only choice at this point is to try getting the conversation back on track.
   1. What do you say next in an attempt to bring the board back together?
   2. How do you respond to the assertion that how to spend the capacity building grant is a decision for the executive director and not the board?
   3. How do you respond to the assertion that the board has always been involved in decisions about fundraising and spending?
   4. Make a case for accepting government funds based on resources we've read and watched this semester.
   5. Defend your proposal to hire the development director with as many proof points as you can identify, based on our work this semester. Address all the concerns about the development director raised by the board members.
2. Assume that you can turn back time. Was there a way to surface your proposal differently that might have prevented this situation? If so, how? What did you do right in this scenario and what would you do differently next time?