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Notable Books
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In each issue,we identify and briefly describe a small
number of books that are insightful about consequential
matters and offer new ways of thinking strategically
about the nonprofit world.
Clay Shirky
(The Penguin Press, 2008, 336 pp, $25.95)
Clay Shirky clearly is a man who does not subscribe to
the adage that the more things change, the more they
stay the same. In Here Comes Everybody: The Power of
Organizing Without Organizations, Shirky, a leading
observer of technology and communications professor
at New York University, argues that technology is not
only changing culture, it is revolutionizing it.
Thanks to technology and the array of communication
tools it provides—from email and text messaging to
YouTube and Flickr—people are now able to connect
with one another and, with just a few key strokes, form
new kinds of groups with a capacity for collective
action and collaboration that was previously unimaginable.
Today, people throughout the world are using
email, text messaging and cell phones to help upend
entire governments, organize mass protests, raise millions
of dollars for campaigns, and expose injustices.
Most important, they are doing it outside the framework
of traditional institutions and organizations that
groups have historically depended on to help them
assemble and take action. This reliance existed
because formal organizations had more ability to manage
complex systems and groups by virtue of their
hierarchy, financial resources, and layers of staff oversight.
Organizations will have to adjust or risk becoming
vestigial—especially those that rely on information
as their core product—now that there is competition
to their ability to get things done without a complex
and expensive bureaucracy bankrolling them.
As Shirky puts it, "By making it easier for groups to
self-assemble and for individuals to contribute to
group effort without requiring formal management
(and its attendant overhead), these tools have radically
altered the old limits on the size, sophistication and
scope of unsupervised efforts."
Those who dismiss Shirky's perspicacity have only to
look at the newspaper industry to see what happens
when organizations whistle past the graveyard of the
revolution occurring outside their doorsteps. For decades, newspapers have relied on journalists and
editors to decide what gets published and how. These
gatekeepers became a new set of professionals, which
Shirky defines as individuals with expertise that is relatively
scarce in the larger world.
When professionals' skills and resources, however,
become more ubiquitous, these gatekeepers become less
needed. That is exactly what is happening as more people
obtain more access to sophisticated web-based social
media tools that allow them to create and distribute
mountains of information more quickly and efficiently.
Today, anyone can be a journalist, as evidenced by the
rise of millions of "citizen journalists" who, through
blogs, text messages, web videos, and camera phones,
are shaking up what gets reported and how.
While journalists and newspaper owners may shudder
over this trend in public (just as the scribes did, Shirky
notes, when the printing press came along), in private,
they are reeling from a drop in paid subscribers and
advertising revenues. Shirky asserts this is largely due to
their early dismissal of the Internet as "another form of
competition," rather than a new communications ecosystem
in which they are becoming only one small part.
Technology is also pushing organizations to become
more transparent and less dependent on those "in
charge" deciding what their activities and strategies
will be on behalf of a set of stakeholders. Now, organizations
will have to consider moving from serving as
arbiter of what gets done and how that is communicated
to facilitating information distribution and activities
bubbling up from individuals and communities themselves. Unaffiliated citizens can alter the balance
of power between themselves and an institution
through the power of social media.
In short, the information decision-making pyramid is
being turned upside-down. Information has traditionally
been processed under a "filter first, then publish or distribute"
model. Now, with the rise of technology, it is
shifting to a "publish first then filter" model. Wikipedia
is the best example of this process (what Shirky calls
distributed collaboration). He argues that the "wiki" format
—through which both experts and ordinary people
contribute to knowledge-sharing—allows for staggering
amounts of information to be generated with minimum
overhead. It also builds community, with individuals not
only contributing to the site, but also serving as editors
and fact checkers who can rapidly correct incorrect information
or rein in vandalism.
So what does this mean for nonprofits? Shirky does not
delve much into specific recommendations for different
types of organizations to consider as they try to figure
out where they fit in this brave new world. That is
unfortunate because one could argue that technology
offers enormous benefits to nonprofits, among them,
low transaction costs; the ease with which it allows
groups to assemble and advocate for issues nonprofits
care about; and the ability to encourage the development
of new communities of individuals, many of
whom may have never had the opportunity to interact,
thus, helping to bridge the silos that have sometimes
inhibited nonprofits' effectiveness. Technology is also
more tolerant of failure because of those low transaction
costs, meaning that it can help nonprofits be more
innovative without risk of imploding, which may be
particularly important now in view of the unfolding
financial crisis.
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Nonprofits have a long way
to go if they are to move
beyond providing lip service
to the potential of technology
and putting it into practice
more strategically. |
Still, nonprofits have a long way to go if they are to
move beyond providing lip service to the potential of
technology and putting it into practice more strategically.
Even among nonprofits that are using technology, the
bulk of these efforts tend to be focused on sending
email messages to convey information and creating
websites, rather than on using the powerful interactive
capacities technology offers.
Nonprofits could be using technology to create new
forums for conversation among more diverse groups of
people; ask the public for comments on their agendas
and activities; offer opportunities for people to advocate
for causes more efficiently; create wikis for groups to
develop agendas and strategic plans; and, in the case of
philanthropy, give the public the opportunity to weigh in
on what gets funded. Nonprofits might also start listening
more to young people, who are much more comfortable
with technology, and being more willing to test the innovative
ideas they bring to the table.
While Shirky does mention some of the drawbacks of
the new, interactive technologies—including the insularity
that on-line communities can develop; its ability
to network people for less altruistic purposes; the misinformation
and rumors it can generate to devastating
effect; and the rise of a relatively small group of technologists
and bloggers who have become the most
read and quoted group of "experts," which seems to
mirror the very hierarchy that's antithetical to the
democratization the web ostensibly promotes—he does
not spend as much time on them as they warrant. That
may be another book, however, and one that would be
equally interesting to read.
Still, it is important to note that while Shirky is a true
believer, he is not a zealot. Proof of that may be in the
rather surprising choice he made to convey his thinking
in a book—arguably, a communication venue that would
seem to be relatively archaic in Shirky's world. Nor does
he believe that the significant changes that technology
portends will happen overnight.
What technology does, he claims, is increase our freedom,
enhance our democracy; support connections
among individuals who previously would never have
come into contact; and demonstrate that when people
have the opportunity to participate—not for economic
reasons, but for love of community—they will. Those
are values on which the nonprofit sector was founded,
and, hopefully, will be those its organizations will use
to transform themselves in new ways and with social
media as the driving force.
— Cynthia M. Gibson
Leslie Crutchfield & Heather McLeod Grant
(Jossey-Bass, 2007, 313 + xvii pp, $29.95)
Forces for Good provides a thoughtful yet highly
accessible analysis of the practices that a dozen
effective and influential nonprofit organizations
apply to solve some of the world's gravest social problems, from hunger to climate change to housing
and education.
Leslie R. Crutchfield's and Heather McLeod Grant's
book is important both because of the scale of the
nonprofit sector in the American economy—the country's
1.5 million nonprofits account for $1 trillion in
annual revenues, making it the third-largest "industry"
in the United States—and the value of concise,
research-based analysis that can help leaders, donors,
supporters and observers of the nonprofit world effect
greater social change. In particular, beyond practical
"how-to" advice, authors Leslie Crutchfield and
Heather McLeod Grant offer a new way of thinking
about nonprofits: "High-impact nonprofits don't just
build organizations—they build movements," they
argue, leveraging the power of business, government,
the public and other nonprofits to become formidable
forces for good.
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"High-impact nonprofits
don't just build organizations—
they build movements." |
Crutchfield and Grant seek to analyze nonprofit success
using a dual lens: idealism and substantial experience
in the social sector on one side and the pragmatism and
rigor associated with MBA training on the other. (Ms.
Crutchfield is a managing director at Ashoka, a nonprofit
organization that supports public innovators from
around the world; and Ms. Grant is a senior adviser to
Stanford University's Center for Social Innovation.)
To identify high-impact organizations to profile in the
book, the authors surveyed nearly 2,800 nonprofit
leaders, conducted interviews with 60 experts from
various fields of the social sector and then studied the
twelve organizations that emerged for over a year,
identifying patterns and field-testing hypotheses to distill
the six practices and make them explicit.
The dozen organizations that made the cut are as varied
in their size and issue area as they are in their growth
trajectory and approach to problem-solving. The group
includes: America's Second Harvest; the Center on
Budget and Policy Priorities; City Year; the Environmental
Defense Fund; Exploratorium; Habitat for
Humanity International; The Heritage Foundation; the
National Council of La Raza; Self-Help; Share Our
Strength; Teach for America; and YouthBuild USA. What
these organizations have in common, say Crutchfield
and Grant, is an unwavering focus on outcomes and
results and the drive to do what it takes to get there.
The authors point out that great nonprofits go beyond
program replication and building organizational capacity —the subject of nonprofit research in the past two
decades—to deliver programs more efficiently. Nor do
they prescribe merely translating proven management
techniques derived from business to the social sector,
since better management practices can create only incremental,
not breakthrough, social change—"even the
best businesses cannot tell us how to change the world,
because that is not their primary purpose."
Crutchfield and Grant go beyond traditional measures
of nonprofit effectiveness, choosing to examine great
nonprofits themselves to understand what enables
them to make the next leap—to be the catalytic
agents of change working outside as much as within
their four walls to change entire systems. Collectively,
these nonprofits have not only fulfilled specific organizational
objectives, but, more importantly, have also
influenced important legislation on issues ranging from
housing to welfare reform, pressured corporations to
adopt sustainable business practices and mobilized
the public to act on such issues as hunger, education
reform and the environment.
To achieve this level of impact, the authors argue that
organizations must learn how to:
- Advocate and serve: work with government and
advocate for policy change, in addition to providing
services;
- Make markets work: harness market forces and see
business as a powerful partner;
- Inspire evangelists: create meaningful experiences
for individual supporters and convert them into
evangelists for the cause;
- Nurture nonprofit networks: treat other groups as
partners, not as competitors for scarce resources;
- Master the art of adaptation: adapt to the changing
environment and be as innovative and nimble as
you are strategic; and
- Share the leadership: empower others to lead.
Taken as a whole, the recommendations in Forces for
Good could prove overwhelming, particularly for small
nonprofits. Conversely, an argument could be made
that these practices seem obvious and most nonprofits
beyond a certain size exhibit them to some degree.
Admittedly, the claim made in the book is ambitious.
Attempting to reduce the complex dynamics that constitute
nonprofit success—let alone that of a movement
—to a checklist of principles is bound to raise
questions, not the least of which is the rigor of research through which the six practices were derived (the
authors, for example, had no control group and no
baseline measurement for truly distinguishing top organizations
from the rest). Can it be proven that the chosen
nonprofits have been successful because of the six
practices—and not because, at least to a certain point,
of a visionary leader with an idea "whose time has
come?" Is the list exhaustive? Are the practices both necessary
and sufficient? Academics, nonprofit researchers
and leadership experts will long be at work answering
these and related questions.
It is important to remember, however, that above all,
this book is about the power of leverage—small organizations
achieving extraordinary results by working
through others. The authors give examples of how by
finding "levers long enough" among the nonprofit networks,
businesses and the public, organizations are
able to exert influence far beyond their capacity. Thus,
for instance, YouthBuild USA, with an annual budget
of $18 million, helped secure nearly a billion dollars
in federal housing funds; and Teach for America,
launched by a Princeton undergraduate in a borrowed
office, made teaching in public schools "cool" and created
a vanguard for education reform among America's
future leaders.
The new breed of philanthropists who see giving as a
social investment want to support entrepreneurial
approaches that lead to systemic change and tangible
outcomes in relatively short amounts of time. Indeed,
any leader would do well to understand how to create
leverage to catalyze movements that can transcend
the cross-sector boundaries and the capacity of any
one organization.
— Lana Atanazevich
Daniel C. Esty & Andrew S. Winston
Yale University Press, 2006, 384 + xv pp, $27.50
In Green to Gold authors Daniel Esty and Andrew
Winston delve into some of the major environmental
challenges that society, and in particular business corporations,
face today.
The book is a structured guide detailing why and how
business confronts environmentally-driven issues (which
the authors dub the "Green Wave") and build environmental
thinking into their strategies.
Esty and Winston provide concrete examples from
such well-known corporations as Toyota, Ikea and Nike; in-depth analysis based on hundreds of interviews
with corporate leaders worldwide; and lessons
drawn from the rich experience both men have in this
field. Esty is a former top official with the Environmental
Protection Agency and is the Director of the
Center for Business and Environment at Yale
University; Winston is a former Director of the
Corporate Environmental Strategy Project at Yale
University and is the founder of Winston Eco-
Strategies, an organization that helps companies use
environmental strategies to grow.
Green to Gold expertly tackles the huge subject of corporate
environmental awareness by providing numerous
anecdotes, case studies and real-life do's and don'ts
based on experiences of some of the top 50 "Green
Wave" riding corporations. Esty and Winston demonstrate
how companies have reaped the benefits of viewing
environmental challenges as strategic opportunities
to better their own organizations and surge ahead of
their competitors (the eco-advantage). For example, in
the 1990s, Toyota put an emphasis on environmental
issues in designing a new car model and in recent years
have reaped the benefits of this environmentally-friendly
focus with its hugely successful hybrid gas-electric
Prius. Today, while many in the auto industry are struggling
and nearing bankruptcy, Toyota is generating
record profits.
The authors also include examples of less successful
corporate environmental initiatives to illustrate how
even the best-intentioned plans can fall short, lessons
that are equally important to understand. In 1999, Ford
redesigned its main factory in Michigan. The company
hired a well known green designer to ensure that the
new and improved plant would have an environmentally
sound design. Ford spent $2 billion on this project, and
the new factory now boasts a vegetation-covered roof
and rainwater reclamation system as well as solar panels
and fuel cells. While their efforts to make their factory
"green" should be applauded, Ford simultaneously
ignored the biggest environmental issue it faces—that
many of their automobiles lack fuel efficiency and contribute
to both pollution and climate change. Ford
failed to invest in environmentally sound cars and now
must play catch-up to Toyota.
In detailing who should care the most about environmental
issues, the authors list companies that have competitive
markets for talent, such as those in the service
sector. They note that in these types of organizations, primary
assets (students/professors/employees/clients) can
walk out the door if they are displeased with the company's
values. Conversely, primary assets will walk in the
door if they support a company's actions on the environment.
The authors describe a survey of recently graduated students that found the great majority of individuals
wanted to work for an organization (and were
willing to take a pay cut of up to $12,000 per year to
work there!) if the company had a good reputation for
environmental responsibility.
As Esty and Winston point out, environmental issues are
now impossible to ignore. There is an ever-increasing
awareness among the public about the environment and
our role in protecting it and an expectation that leaders —
whether political, corporate or in the nonprofit world —
will do all in their power to safeguard it, or at least cause
as little harm as possible.
Green to Gold devotes significant time to discussing
how conservation and acting with a green lens can
actually save companies considerable amounts of money
in the long run. However, even more important than
the bottom line, and applicable across sectors and
fields, is the focus on the importance of being green to
an organization's reputation. The authors quote Warren Buffet: "It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five
minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you'll do
things differently."
While Green to Gold is geared toward the corporate
world, the illustrations are also applicable to nonprofit
organizations. Indeed, an organization that chooses not
to acknowledge the environmental movement puts
itself at risk of being left behind and seeming out of
touch. Nonprofit organizations would be wise to consider
addressing their environmental policies as part of
their planning process. The potential for long-term savings,
higher morale and greater productivity and new
respect from current and potential donors is too valuable
to ignore. Green to Gold can help nonprofits build
a strategic eco-advantage that can differentiate them in
their marketplaces and strengthen their contribution to
an environmentally sustainable world.
— Amina E. Swanepoel
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