Practicing Values-Driven Strategy
In nonprofit strategic planning, we often start with the big stuff – mission, vision, and values. These guiding statements can and should be powerful expressions of the world your organization wants to create, what it will focus on to create it, and the behaviors it will embody on its way to fulfilling these big dreams.
But what happens when you realize that the way you’re working may not be upholding your vision, mission, and values? How do you reset and recenter yourself and your organization on the big stuff?
Naomi Ishisaka wrote a piece for the Seattle Times recently about a King County, Washington nonprofit organization – Choose 180 – that has raised the minimum salary for its employees to $70,000 a year. Compared to an average salary range of $40,000 - $55,000 per year for nonprofit employees nationwide (looking across a variety of sources), this is a big adjustment – and one that breaks the “high-purpose, low-pay” status quo of the social services sector of the nonprofit industry.
Executive Director Sean Goode explained “We live in the richest country in the world. And we live in one of the richest places in the country. We are constantly talking about a housing crisis. Meanwhile, paying people at rates that leave them one paycheck away from being unhoused. We can’t continue to only address those who are living on the street today, we have to also address those that are working hard today, but are one paycheck away because they’re failing to make a living wage.”
A decision like this requires focused listening and an honest assessment of how the organization is living its mission, vision, and values. These forthright conversations create important new opportunities to align the organization’s strategy and operations, and to make clear choices about the organization’s future.
All nonprofits face vales-based strategy questions at some point, and when that time comes, we can use important lessons – like the ones shared by Sean Goode and the Choose 180 board and team – to help guide our questions and choices.
1) Ask Questions & Listen Well – many great ideas sound a little impossible at first. “Goode said that when staff first suggested changing the pay structure months ago, he initially balked.” But then something important happened. Goode listened to the staff who brought the issue to him. He asked questions, spoke to more staff, asked more questions, and realized this issue was much bigger than he’d originally realized. Asking questions and truly listening to the answers is one of the most important tools a leader has to help uncover root causes and ensure they have a fuller understanding of what’s really happening at their organization.
2) Value Your Values – when done right, values help the people who power your organization know how to treat each other and the folks they serve, and what behaviors will help create the culture and success the organization seeks. Regularly revisiting your values and assessing your strategic and operational plans against them is critical to understanding whether you’re truly living your values or if they’re just for show. If you want to be living them, but things aren’t in alignment, then you know you have some important decisions to make to get back on track – and you have to be both ready and willing to make those changes.
3) Know Your Numbers – with any big investment, knowing the short-term and longer-term financial requirements is critical. It’s difficult to make any strong investment decision without a solid analysis of what it will mean for the organization both this year and in the years to come – especially when it involves an ongoing cost like staff compensation. But knowing the numbers doesn’t mean “saying no” to the numbers needed for a big investment. In values-based strategy work, financial data is just one important input into a larger framework for decision-making.
4) Your Community Cares About How You Do Your Work – In strategy conversations, the topic of “what” to do – which programs, services, grants, fundraising campaigns, etc. an organization will execute – often takes center stage. But it is increasingly important for organizations to examine how they’ll do the work. One of the most powerful moments shared in this article is the idea that the young people Choose 180 serves didn’t see the staff who were helping them as role models for success – not because of their talents, which are award-wining, but because they were earning so little. The youth they were serving looked beyond the program that directly supported them and saw the organization as a whole – and what they saw was a disconnect.
Values-driven strategy is an ongoing practice – it takes time, energy, careful consideration, and a willingness to believe the impossible can be made possible. As we can see in the article, Moore and his senior staff and the Board of Directors had many conversations about what it would mean to raise staff salaries – both in the short- and long-terms – including how it would impact the youth they serve and their staff, volunteers, and donors.
They likely also had conversations with some of their bigger donors to help bring them along on this important journey – conversations that helped them feel confident they could make this values-driven strategic choice and fundraise successfully to cover their new costs.
In the end, Choose 180 made an intentional choice to center their mission, vision, and values – the big stuff – with a decision that honors both the people they serve and the people who power their organization. And their organization is likely to be much stronger and more successful for it.