Introduction
Some core values such as honesty, hard work, or making a difference may be the same in many nonprofits. Other core values will vary significantly from organization to organization. For example, an environmental organization, a child-protection organization, and a human-rights organization may all hold integrity and hard work as core values, but they will have different values appropriate to their vision and mission such as the value, respectively, of science, compassion, and the law. An organization’s values may include belief in the dignity of poor people, education as the pathway to progress, kindness to animals, spiritual convictions, or any other belief that is cherished and held in high esteem. The values that are essential for an organization – and guide its vision, mission, culture, fundraising, program, and behavior – should be articulated in its values statement.
Importance of Confirming and Clarifying Core Values
Your nonprofit’s values may need to be confirmed or clarified or, in some cases, updated. Here is a preview of how to address an organization’s values:
Values Confirmation: This is worthwhile even if your organization already has a clear statement of its values. Many organizations were born from the values of the founders or have had a long-standing statement of values. These organizations would benefit from reviewing these traditional values to reaffirm them, assure they are currently valid, and ensure new employees, board members, and volunteers know the values they are expected to follow.
Values Clarification: This involves exploring your organization’s current values statement, discussing why you believe in these particular values, and what that implies. This may be especially important early in a strategic planning process and for new employees to assure their agreement and support.
Values Update: This may be appropriate in the wake of current economic and social changes. If external conditions have changed significantly for your organization or you are considering substantial changes in your vision and mission statements, the values statement you have followed in the past should be reexamined and updated.
Values Identification: This is essential if your organization does not have a clear written statement of its core values. An organization’s leaders may assume there are generally agreed values, but if they are not identified and agreed in a values statement, there could be contrary views among staff. This could result in confusion and internal conflict.
Let Your Strong Core Values Activate Your Program
Sonia Velazquez, executive director of Literature for All of Us, a dynamic youth organization in Chicago, believes we need strong values today. Sonia previously served as executive director of an NGO combating child labor in international corporations and as CEO of a private foundation focused on human rights work. She believes: “Given the reality we are living right now and how the world has been changed by the COVID-19 pandemic and the Black Lives Matter movement, the component of values in strategic planning is taking a sharper, stronger, and more compelling dimension.”
It is right to take a deeper look at values. Some agreements on values, Sonia says, might be just situational or a tool to harmonize differences or tensions. As such, they are useful and contribute, but now we need a more “defining and non-forgiving approach” to identify and operationalize values with a more direct focus on a “non-negotiable” standard. We need statements of what we expect and embrace – as well as statements of what we reject, cannot tolerate, and what we will speak against. And the courage to do so!
Caption: "Will your culture be sand or oil in your plans?"
The Right Organization Culture to Succeed
Successfully implementing your new, desired culture can directly – and significantly – increase revenue. For example, as I mentioned earlier in this book, the fundraising efforts of Foster Parents Plan resulted in tripling revenue from $10 million to $30 million in just ten years. To grow and have greater program impact, most organizations will eventually make plans for a larger and more diversified fundraising effort. Funding may come to an organization through grants, but grants can suddenly disappear. The right culture is needed to support these diversified fundraising plans. The right culture is oil in your engine while the wrong culture is sand.
Building a Fundraising Culture
A culture that gives serious attention to fundraising by everyone – including program and administrative staff – is more likely to achieve greater fundraising success. Getting everyone involved in supporting fundraising should be reflected in the organization’s culture and strategic plan as well as in day-to-day practice.
Throughout my career, I have heard perhaps fifty executive directors complain that they hired a fundraiser who failed to get results in the first year, so the executive director fired that employee. I usually ask, “Well, how did you help? What did the board of directors do to support fundraising efforts? How did everyone support the fundraiser’s work? How about the program staff? And the finance/administration staff?” Without an organization-wide culture of fundraising – and without organization-wide support – even good, experienced fundraisers will often fail.
While working in Southeast Asia with the field staff of CARE, a leading international NGO, I was focusing on the need for the program staff to develop a deep commitment to fundraising as well as to their program responsibilities. I have often seen in NGOs that program staff can have a dislike of dealing with donors – after all, they joined the organization for its mission and work, not to raise money.
After some discussion, I was pleased when a young field coordinator said to everyone else, “Oh, I get it. Fundraising – it’s my job.” By that he meant fundraising support was part of his responsibility as a member of the organization. In that moment, he also recognized that fundraising produced the income to pay his salary, implement the program he helped to deliver, and provide services to program beneficiaries. He saw that he played an important role in fundraising by providing top-notch reports, adding stories and photographs he thought donors would like, welcoming donors for field visits, and of course getting excellent program results.
“Fundraising – it’s my job” can be an internal slogan for everyone at any nonprofit organization. This phrase emphasizes the importance of fundraising as an organization-wide strategy, helps to create a culture that supports fundraising, and incorporates appropriate fundraising responsibilities into everyone’s job responsibilities and performance review.
Conclusion
Core values are the fundamental beliefs that shape how an organization carries out its mission. They are the basis of culture and guide everything you do. Organization culture is the glue that binds people together and gives them a similar way of behaving. Culture unifies vision, mission, values, goals, strategies, and objectives – and the people – into common behavior.
For more detailed worksheets and additional tools, visit www.NGOFutures.com.
Here is a great example of a new organization culture that had huge impact for success.
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