Leading Values-Based Culture in Non-Profit Organizations

PADM-GP.2126

Waverly, Room 433

GaraLaMarche

Fall 2012

Successful leadership of not-for-profit organizations depends to a greater degree than is generally recognized on how closely institutional practice aligns with professed public values. Presuming a basic grounding in the structures and roles of the non-profit world, this course explores the values that lie behind them, drawing on the instructor’s 35 years of experience in managing global, national and state-based organizations with an emphasis on social justice and human rights groups as well as a series of case studies from other non-profits, positive and negative, and relevant literature. Some classes, by prior arrangement, will take place onsite in certain of the non-profit organizations studied, with the participation of key leadership of those institutions.

Course requirements and grading

In addition to completing the readings and demonstrating familiarity with them and otherwise participating fully in class discussions, success in the course will be determined by performance in two short (6-10 page) papers required at intervals throughout the semester, a midterm exercise and a final paper. Topics for the short papers will be assigned two weeks before each is due, and require students to think through key questions growing out of the readings and the class sessions, such as:

  • What were the main challenges for Human Rights Watch in knitting what had been independent units into a common brand? What are some of the strengths and weaknesses of the way that institution has gone about its global expansion and related governance?
  • How did Make the Road New York manage its hybrid of community-based organization and public interest law firm? What have been the challenges of shared leadership, and how its institutional culture adapt to support that model?
  • The progressive think-tank Demos and the U.S. Programs of the Open Society Foundation both came into being as new entities in the second half of the 1990s. How did each go about designing an organizational structure and culture from scratch? What adjustments needed to be made in the early years, and how were they arrived at and carried out?

Text for purchase:

The Nonprofit Organizational Culture Guide: Revealing the Hidden Truths that Impact Performance, Teegarden, Hinden and Sturm, Jossey Bass 2011 (hereafter referred to as TNOCG)

Other readings will be available through links below or will be distributed at least a week in advance of course session to which they correspond.

Course schedule and related readings

September 6: Introduction and overview. Come prepared to talk about yourself and your expectations of the class and to share a positive or negative example of leadership and institutional culture as you have experienced or observed it in a work or school setting.

Readings: “The Corner Office, Non-Profit Edition: A Practioner’s Thoughts on Social Justice Management,” GaraLaMarche, Yale School of Management: ; The Corner Office, Adam Bryant, Times Books, 2011, Chapter 16, “Creating a Culture;” “What is Transformation? How it Advances Social Change,” Robert Gass, Social Transformation Project, 2011:

September 13: Institutional values: how they are formed, articulated, and promulgated: some start-ups

Guest resource: Miles Rapoport, President, Demos

Readings include “Working Paper for OSI’s U.S. Programs,” 1996; OSI U.S. Programs Ten-year Report, 2006; “My Life in Institutions,” GaraLaMarche, Terry Sanford School of Public Policy, Duke University, March 21, 2012: ; TNOCG, Introduction and Chapter One; Demos memoranda TK

September 20: Roles: Board and other governance structures

Guest resource: Fritz Schwarz, Brennan Center for Justice

Readings include excerpts from “The Board Book: An Insider’s Guide for Directors and Trustees,” William G. Bowen, W.W. Norton and Co., 2012; “Give and Take: A Candid Account of Corporate Philanthropy,” Reynold Levy, Harvard Business Review Press, 1999

October 4: Changing culture; some case studies

Guest resources: Elizabeth Stock, founder, Computers for Youth; Kate Bullinger, former chief of staff, the Atlantic Philanthropies

Readings include TNOCG, Chapters 2 and 3; “Our Culture,” internal working paper of CFY; Atlantic Philanthropies memos TK

October 11: Merging Cultures: A Close Look at Make the Road New York and the Latin American Integration Center

On-site meeting at Make the Road New York, Brooklyn

Readings include “Structuring Leadership: Alternative Models for Distributing Power and Decisionmaking,” Caroline Andrews, Frances Kunreuther, ShifraBronznick, Demos 2011

October 18: Roles: CEO and senior management

Readings include Managing to Change the World, Alison Green and Jerry Hauser, John Wiley and Sons, 2012, Chapters 4 and 10; Leadership Without Easy Answers, Ronald A. Heifetz, Belknap/Harvard 1994, Chapter One

October 25: Values and crisis: A look at the American Civil Liberties Union during the Skokie case and Human Rights Watch’s work on the Middle East

Guest resources: Ira Glasser, former Executive Director, ACLU; CarrollBogert, Deputy Director, Human Rights Watch

Readings includeThe International Human Rights Movement: A History, AryehNeier, Princeton University Press, 2012, Chapter 9; Taking Liberties: Four Decades in the Struggle for Rights, AryehNeier, Public Affairs, 2003, Chapter Seven

November 1: Leadership transitions and intergenerational issues

Guest resources: Frances Kunreuther, Building Movement Project; Rusty Stahl, former director, EPIP

Readings include “What Works: Developing Successful Multi-Generational Leadership,” Demos, 2010

November 8: Accountability: to what or whom and what mechanisms monitor it

Readings include “Diminished Democracy: From Membership to Management in American Civic Life,” ThedaSkocpol, University of Oklahoma Press, 2003; excerpts from Freedom is an Endless Meeting: Democracy in American Social Movements, Francesca Polletta, University of Chicago Press, 2002

November 15: Institutional culture in global organizations

Guest resource: Maria Pignataro Nielson, Human Resources Director, The Atlantic Philanthropies, former HR director, Human Rights Watch

Readings include “The Local Impact of Global Philanthropy,” GaraLaMarche, The Settlement Summit, October 6, 2010

NO CLASS NOVEMBER 22: THANKSGIVING HOLIDAY

November 29: Gender, race and diversity

Readings include The Miner’s Canary: Enlisting Race, Resisting Power, Transforming Democracy,LaniGuinier and Gerald Torres, Harvard University Press 2002, Chapter 5; Uncommon Common Ground: Race and America’s Future, Angela Glover Blackwell, Stewart Kwoh, Manuel Pastor, Norton 2010, Chapter 1.

December 6: Foundations: how are they different?

Guest resources: Geri Mannion, Program Director, U.S. Democracy and Special Opportunities Fund, the Carnegie Corporation; Darren Walker, Vice-President, The Ford Foundation

Readings include “Should Philanthropies Operate Like Businesses?” Wall Street Journal, December 15, 2011

December 13: Wrap-up and review

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