This is Part 2 of my post of ways that long-term staff can support new foundation staff members.

• Explain the unwritten rules of your foundation- Each foundation has rules about how the work is done, what types of organizations it will and will not support, and how its staff should dress and behave. Knowing these rules can be the difference between succeeding and failing at an organization, so share this knowledge with new staff. But if you can’t explain the purpose or benefit of some these unwritten rules, maybe its time to reconsider them.
• Help new staff find mentors within and outside of your organization- Mentors are an invaluable source of information about organizational culture and can act as a guide as new staff learn about the politics of an organization.
• Be open to suggestions about how technology can improve staff efficiency- Many young foundation staff have needed to be skilled at using computers since elementary school. Technology becomes second nature for many of these staff members and this can be a great opportunity to use this staff member as a guinea pig to try new technologies.

Having a diverse foundation staff, in terms of age, ethnicity, sex, religion, sexual orientation, and opinion on the local sports team is what creates an effective organization. You are better able to make decisions about impacting your local community if your staff truly reflects the diversity of your community. The true benefit of a multi-generational workforce is the variety of skills and experiences that individuals bring to the job. Don’t lose that benefit by trying to make new staff assimilate to the culture of the organizations’ generational majority.

One of my most read posts is Advice to Those New to the Foundation Field. The purpose of that post was to encourage new foundation staff to take control of their personal development. I have gotten lots of questions from long-term staff that want to support young foundation staff but aren’t sure how. I hope the following tips will be helpful:

• Set the bar high- Don’t assume that young foundation staff members will be intimidated by the volume of work at a foundation. Since many can remember the recent experience of juggling multiple priorities and assignments in college or graduate school, the often frantic pace of foundation work isn’t as overwhelming as you may assume. When you give these staff members tough assignments, hide your surprise when they meet or exceed those expectations.
• Use new staff members as an opportunity to identify problematic or confusing operational policies- If you have been at a foundation for a long time, you develop ways to work around parts of the bureaucracy of a foundation that don’t make sense. When you have new staff, pay attention to the questions that they ask about your process, they may see opportunities for improvement that can be missed if you have been working around the system for a long time.
• Provide plenty of training opportunities- It is expense to fully train a new staff member but the quality of their initial training will determine how effective they will be for the rest of their time at your organization. Important training opportunities for program officers include: ethics, analyzing financial statements, legal basics, and any program specific areas that the staff person will be responsible for.
• Have your new staff members map out their long-term career goals- Find ways to support those long term goals and you will have a motivated member of your team that will stretch themselves to help the organization achieve its goals.
• Use the addition of a new staff person as an opportunity to re-institute a culture learning for all members of your staff- Communities change, tools to do your work changes, and the practices of other foundations change. As new staff members are learning about all of these new areas take it as an opportunity to help long-term staff stay current on new trends in the field.

More tips to come on this topic on Thursday.

If you could change one thing about how foundations operate, what would it be and why?

How did you get your job in philanthropy?

I was at a great meeting yesterday about rethinking journalism and how to include the wisdom of the community when covering stories. The organization that I was meeting with said that they had been able to predict interesting trends and get more creative solutions to problems by asking lots of people to share their expertise about a topic. The interesting piece was that they asked people to share their expertise, not their opinions. As new foundation staff we often forget that we have areas of expertise that could be useful to others inside and outside the field. I am going start asking a series of questions about next generation philanthropy issues. I want to see if we can identify trends and new solutions to strengthen the sector.

Much has been made of the upcoming leadership deficit in the nonprofit sector. Baby Boomers are retiring (or not able to because of low nonprofit salaries and/or lack of a retirement plan) and younger workers are unwilling to take on nonprofit leadership positions because of low pay and long hours or unable to take on those positions because of student loan debt, credit card debt, and increasing health care costs.

For-profit businesses invest in professional development for their up and coming staff members to ensure that the company remains profitable. By preparing a “ladder of leadership” for-profits make sure that the culture of the organization is larger than just the current leadership and ensures the organization can continue to thrive in a competitive marketplace.

It disappoints me greatly to say that foundations, not the great wave of demographic change, are the root of this coming leadership crisis. Demographics will make it impossible to continue to ignore the crisis of leadership but it is something that has been brewing for some time now. Foundations rarely invest in succession planning or professional development. Non-profit programming is the cash cow for organizations and nonprofits are penalized for high overhead costs. I am definitely not a fan of overhead, for overhead sake but nonprofits need to pay a competitive salary, offer benefits, and invest in the ongoing development of staff at all levels or else they will unable to continue to provide the services that are so needed in our communities.

Do you believe foundations are responsible for the leadership gap? What could we do differently to create organizational capacity and cross-generational institutional leadership?

Susan Berresford, the retiring president of the Ford Foundation, was a featured speaker at one of the Council of Foundation’s Emerging Leader Salons. These salons were an opportunity to meet with fellow emerging philanthropic leaders and connect with seasoned leaders in the field. At the session, I asked her to describe the characteristics of an exceptional program officer. She said that a strong Program Officer has a series of traits that could be considered conflicting but each trait is necessary to create balance.

Exceptional Program Officers:

Have the ability to see conceptually and yet are detailed oriented.

Are good listeners but after they listen to ideas, they are able to drive good ideas forward.

Are polite and generous with their time with grantees and potential grantees but are able to get to the point and get things done.

What do you think about this list? Are there things that are missing? What are the characteristics that move someone from an average program officer to one that is truly an asset to their foundation and their community?

I listened to a variety of very interesting speakers at the Council of Foundations annual conference that have made me rethink my position on old philanthropy versus new philanthropy. In a previous post, “Are Foundations Becoming Obsolete”, I said that successful foundations are using new methods to be more effective. After listening to Melinda Gates describe how the Gates Foundation was developed after doing a systematic study of other successful foundations, I stand corrected. They made a conscious effort to harness the knowledge that had already been developed in the foundation field, instead of throwing the baby out with the bathwater. One of the detriments of being someone that is new to the foundation field is that you don’t have the benefit of history when you are thinking about effective models for moving the field forward. Sterling K. Speirn the CEO of the Kellogg Foundation said “don’t fall into the new philanthropy versus old philanthropy argument, instead take time to read philanthropic history to learn from past innovations.” Through the application of knowledge and the development of fresh ideas, we can change the world.