Guest post by Emily Capito.
I’m of the mindset that non-profits can and should be run like a business…in most ways. The main difference is of course that rather than only producing financial results, a nonprofit truly needs to be guided by their mission. That being said, organizations, whether non-profit, for-profit, or triple bottom line, are only as good as their leaders.
If an executive in chief is pretty miserable at initiating positive change and maintaining high morale, there is no amount of passionate effort by lower level employees that will compensate for that.
Organizations thrive or fail by their leaders.
I find it interesting then that the vast majority of the non-profits I work with put direct mission fulfillment ahead of leadership development. I have also observed that the grantmakers and contracts that fund non-profit work follow suit. A fantastic article by Linda Wood from The Center for Effective Philanthropy highlights this disconnect.
In contrast, for-profits place lead…