Erik Hanberg - The Little Book of Nonprofit Leadership: An Executive Directors Handbook for Small (and Very Small) Nonprofits: For Small (And Very Small) Nonprofits, no. 1

Welcome to the exciting world of nonprofit leadership! Where theres a new fire every day just begging to be put out, and everyone needs something from you. Right now.

Whats new today? Well, your board needs your revisions on the next meeting agenda. And your bookkeeper needs an hour of your time to review some expenses. Oh, and one of your volunteers just caused a small flood in the kitchen and needs a mop.

(Why are you doing this again?)

Well, Ill tell you. Because the world needs you to step up and make your nonprofit the best it can be.

So please dont despair.

Use this book to get a handle on your organization and find the levers that will help you start leading change both in your organization and in your community.

Lets get started together.

When I first was hired to run a nonprofitthe Grand Cinema in my hometown of Tacoma, WashingtonI was all of twenty-three years old. The stars had aligned for me to get this job. I knew the board chair because she had seen my work at another nonprofit. I had also been a volunteer at the Grand for more than a year. Like the other volunteers, I signed up for shifts taking tickets, sweeping theaters, and making popcorn, which meant that I knew the organization but at the same time I wasnt too close. And the final star to align was that my job at another nonprofit had a tangential relationship to the world of film (in my job in economic development, I was nominally the film commissioner for Tacoma, which meant that every so often I tried to help movie studios find locations in the Tacoma area that would be good for filming). It wasnt a big deal, but it looked pretty good on the rsum when I was applying to run a nonprofit movie theater!

I also worked my butt off to prepare for the interview, I should add. It was an intense interview process, capped by interviewing in front of the full board of seventeen.

I got the jobmanaging director of the Grand Cinema. When the local movie reviewer called me up to interview me about the new position, he asked how old I was. I hedged and said, Ill be twenty-four next month. To which he answered in his wonderful deadpan manner, So youre twenty-three.

Yes. Yes, I was twenty-three, about to take on the responsibility of running a nonprofit with a $650,000 budget at the time.

Im in my forties now with plenty of gray in my beard, andin many waysIm writing this book for twenty-three-year-old Erik, who had a love of film and a lot of tenacity, but was totally new to what it meant to actually run a nonprofit. Which means that Im also writing it for the thousands and thousands of nonprofit leaders out there who come to this work by following their passion but soon find they suddenly need a whole new set of skills to manage a nonprofit.

Maybe you have just been hired, but havent actually started working at your nonprofit, and this book is a crash course in how to be an Executive Director (ED). Or maybe you have been at an organization for a couple years but are finding that nothing seems to be changing and the organization isnt progressing as you feel it should be.

Whether you are new to the job or just want a fresh start, this book is for you.

As mentioned above, my first job as the director of a nonprofit was at twenty-three. The Grand Cinema was (and is) a nonprofit theater in downtown Tacoma. Leading the organization was something of a dream job for a film buff like me, but the position also cemented my love for working in and with nonprofits.

Later, I was the Executive Director of City Club of Tacoma, a nonpartisan nonprofit that focused on civic dialogue in our community. Later still, I helped out two nonprofits as Interim Executive Director for a few months at each organization. One was focused on youth and the other was the local chapter of the Audubon Society.

In between those times, Ive served at nonprofits in positions of marketing and fundraising, including work in economic development, public radio, and education. Additionally, for eleven years my wife and I ran a small business together called Side x Side Creative, which helped nonprofits with their marketing and branding. I also have four books (counting this one) for nonprofit leaders, which has opened up opportunities for me to consult with dozens of other nonprofit organizations around the US and Canada.

And finally, Ive sat on more than a dozen boards and committees and have served in locally elected office for more than eleven years, so I also bring a strong understanding of the governance side of an organization as well.

In other words, I really like nonprofits and have been drawn to this work for the last twenty years.

My books are all tailored to small (and very small) nonprofits. I actually have a lot of experience at both small and large organizations. But there is a reason I focus my work on small nonprofits. The first is the most basicsmall nonprofit leaders need the most help. Their staff are the most likely to be undertrained and new to the job. (Im writing to the young me, remember?) They try to copy what they see the big nonprofits do, but they often ape the wrong things. This is how tiny nonprofits kill themselves trying to throw an over-the-top gala, not realizing that the hospital gala they were inspired to mimic has a full-time person planning it year-round. One of my goals for this book, and for all my books for small nonprofits, is to help you understand what the big guys are doing that will actually work for a small nonprofit like yours and to help you avoid the things that only work at larger organizations.

I also write for small nonprofit leaders because they are in the place to do the most good. If we can get our small nonprofits working better, we can really make a difference. The head of a nonprofit with three offices scattered across the state doesnt need my help as much as the scrappy environmental nonprofit restoring a salmon-bearing stream.

I also have chosen to write for leaders of small nonprofits because I know that these small nonprofit EDs have read other books on nonprofits and found themselves excluded by the traditional nonprofit literature. When a book recommends delegating a project to your Vice President of Human Resources, and you dont have one (or anything close to it), what do you do then? When a book weighs the pros and cons of whether you should have one, two, or several major gift officers, and you dont have any dedicated development staff, let alone a major gifts officer, you have to work hard to draw the parallels to your own organization. So lets switch it up. The big guys are welcome to stay, but they will have to be the ones extrapolating this time.