NP 2020: Generating conversations…

Blogging from the first full day of the NP 2020 conference… the open source approach is interesting and definitely creates a different atmosphere than other, more structured conferences. It’s like a spontaneous focus group for the nonprofit sector… the conversations are not necessarily designed to lead to conclusions, but they do produce a fair amount of observations that those not in attendance (especially current leadership and funders) can use to inform their work and the development of their relationships with the next generation.

Because of the organic nature of the conference, I don’t have a nicely packaged post to offer. Instead, I’ll offer a series of questions and some immediate thoughts…

I attended a “session” (they are loose so it’s hard to put them in that box) that emerged from an original question of: Commitment to the cause, or commitment to the sector?

How do the two inform one another, and is it possible to have a commitment to the cause through various levels of relation to the sector (staff, board, volunteer, for-profit)?

This question interested me because it’s something I’ve been asking myself lately. As I have transitioned from working within a nonprofit to advance a mission to working for a for-profit communications firm that helps nonprofit clients advance their missions, I’ve wondered about how I fit in both the for-profit and the nonprofit worlds. I sometimes feel like I’m not a true resident of either sector… and I’ve become part of the statistics that indicate many young people are leaving or planning to leave the sector. At the same time, my commitment to strengthening the sector has probably only increased with my transition to this new job.

I don’t know that the conversation necessarily affirmed my personal question either way, but it did prompt the following:

• Is the difference between for-profit and nonprofit careers simply a matter of the demands of answering to shareholders and the demands of serving community members/clients?
• Is a degree any guarantee that a person is “qualified” to lead?
• Our conversation evolved into one about the “professionalization of the sector,” as one participant put it. This professionalization involves not only staff credentials and qualifications, but also higher standards for accounting, management, etc. I’m still noodling on this one–a lot. I do feel that if professionalization of the sector is to be valuable, its definition and standards need to be articulated in a way that allows it to adapt to organizations of varying sizes, visions, regions, etc.
• And this leads me to another question: Does the professionalization of the sector potentially threaten accessibility to the sector? Is a certain level of “soft skills” lost in the effort to professionalize? I also wonder about cultural competency in particular… at the extreme, the sector could be highly professionalized, highly standardized, and highly regulated. Is there room in that mix for leaders to emerge from the neighborhoods being served via programs? I feel like the notion of professionalizing the sector could, in some ways, be at odds with other thinking about “citizen-generated” social change (see the Case Foundation in particular).

Like I said, I have to keep thinking about that whole topic. I’m off to another session for now.