Sylvia Helper of Launching Lives commented to one of my recent blogs tilted : “What’s in a Name? Benefits of the Nonprofit President/CEO Title”
“While this irritates and offends many nonprofit senior staff, the truth is that ALL nonprofits are actually businesses. And–they need to.be run like a business.”
Sylvia: I strongly agree with your statement. Too many board and staff members in the nonprofit environment ……
Do not realize that a nonprofit can focus even more effectively on “caring” missions, visions and values while operating under a business model.
Mistakenly conclude that using business titles (such as CEO) appears more prestigious than is merited. This mistaken attitude persists in organizations with well over 15 employees and budgets well over $1 million!
Associate business boards with financial disasters such as Enron and Tyco, while failing to perceive the business board model’s benefits, such as having only a few standing board committees.
Fail to appreciate that today’s nonprofit managers must have the tools of professional executives to lead their organizations towards accomplishment.
Choose to continue to implement the 20th century governance practices in which staff members, often without the requisite managerial expertise, are promoted to chief executive positions. A few succeed by growing into the job but most continue on to do little more than “mind the store.” Truly, this can result in a significant waste of board and staff resources.
After many years of participating in nonprofit activities as a volunteer director, consultant and author, I recognized how the adaptation of a business model will positively impact the governance of a nonprofit. This prompted me to write “Policy vs. Paper Clips” which, based on sales of the first two editions, has influenced thousands of nonprofits to convert their governing structure to the model described in the book. The third updated and expanded edition was published in 2011 http://amzn.to/eu7nQl .
My blog site http://bit.ly/yfRZpz now contains over 100 blogs on nonprofit governance.
In summary, many nonprofit boards, managers and staff figuratively stand ten feet tall for what they accomplish. They deserve to have the better aspects of business boards and business venues to do their jobs.
Nonprofit Management 
Well said! I studied Social Work Administration in my masters level degree, and this is almost exactly what we were taught! Especially the reality that talented clinical people are most likely to get “kicked upstairs” and find that the business is a different “animal” than what they have been used to.
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