Really Bad Advice….

I went to this panel hosted by a non-profit aimed at providing “technical assistance (so you’re here to fix my air conditioner?)” and “capacity building (you build houses not capacity!)” to help organizations perform better and achieve their desired impact (POW!). God, I’m getting really sick of all this jargon.

This panel was on “Board Development” and strategically attracting people to be on your board based on your organizations strategic goals etc… common sense stuff but we got a few helpful tips and tricks. The most galling thing that happened at this event was a comment made by a woman from the Arts and Business Council, a non-profit that seeks to help arts organizations perform better by getting them to perform “more like businesses” she says. The way she said it was so full of self-importance and knowing confidence. I get irritated when people just assume that non-profits need to be more “business-like”-what the fuck does that mean? There are tons of shitty businesses that are poorly-organized, full of dead wood and that don’t generate shareholder or social value-just like many non-profits. They’re such broad categories its almost meaningless to say to be more “businesslike,” but it sounds good-we’ll make you more “businesslike”…what does this mean? Will you make us more Enron-like, Google-like or Apple-like? And when people say that shit, its usually some stereotyped notion of what they think a business is like and its usually just pivoting off a stereotyped of notion what they think a non-profit is not (efficient, ruthless, effective). It’s a nice word to throw around and it gets people really excited-yes, all we need to do to fix non-profits is get them to be more like “businesses.” The private sector has its own set of issues and in reality the two sectors can learn a lot from each other, not just in one direction.

So she raises her hand and mentions a study she has recently seen that and says that arts organizations really need to get better at fundraising. Her evidence? The study says that arts organizations make up this much of the non-profit sector (she puts her hand wide apart, nice and precise -real “business-like”) and then says that they only generate “this much” of the fundraising (she then narrows her hands for dramatic effect). Lets ignore the numerous logical leaps in her implication that this disparity must be the result of some fundraising failure and not other factors; what said next really took the cake: the reason that Universities and hospitals in particular raise much more than arts organizations must be because that they have give-or-get policies for their Boards and arts organizations often do not. This was like a flashback to my LSAT teaching days at Kaplan-it was such a leap in logic I almost broke my neck looking back at her in disbelief. Thankfully, the people in attendance didn’t let her get away with her it either and pointed out the numerous other possible explanations for the disparity and that hospitals and universities were very different (and typically LARGER) organizations with larger donor pools (past patients and alumni). She looked pretty sheepish under all the critiques.

I was pretty irritated and disturbed and it took me a good part of the day to figure out why. I mean, it was just a poorly thought out argument, was I so hateful and pompous that I was angry that she just said something dumb? Partially yes, but then I connected her comments to her assertion that arts orgs need to be more “business-like.” What really pissed me off was that there was this person who didn’t seem to have the critical thinking/analytical skills to identify obvious holes in a faulty claim working for an organization that claims to have the expertise to help non-profits be more “business-like.” How much damage is done to good people trying to do good work when they’re told by some ”expert” to implement some one-size-fits all policy based on incredibly poor interpretation of data (“you clearly need a give-or get policy-that’s why you’re underperforming…”)?

In the end, its people like her that makes me think that any moron can just throw some buzz words out there, make a business card and call themselves a “non-profit consultant,” its fucking scary.

Note to self: 7ARTS will never seek consulting from this group.