Non-profits, like other organizations, are experiments in how we humans, as a species, collectively work alongside and with one another in groups. Improving the results in, and experience of, this area of human activity seems an insurmountable challenge at times.
One thing we can do better is to employ theory, to operate less from taken-for-granted, unexpressed and unexamined rules and ideas. William Isaacs, in his 1999 book, Dialogue and the Art of Thinking Together, writes (pp 73-74): “The word theory comes from the same roots as the word theatre which means simply ‘to see’.” As Isaacs frames it, a theory is a way of seeing that is “predictive of certain results”. It is the act of seeing, not the search for the ‘right’ way, that needs to be cultivated. If we are not conscious of what we are doing and why then we cannot “refine it and share it”, or change it.
Improving how non-profit organizations govern themselves and interact with other players to strengthen their communities is really about leadership, or perhaps more specifically, organizational leadership. It is a topic that has been widely written about by non-profit researchers, instructors, consultants and practitioners.
While there is frustration with prescribed remedies or “models”, good practice ideas, often practical and easy, are frequently ignored. The fact that non-profit board members and executive directors are often caught up in immediate concerns rather than long term ones does not help. The fact that boards add and lose members fairly regularly make it even tougher for improvements discovered to take root.
My theory of change, at least as it applies to improving the ability of boards and staff to lead, is to make small improvements. Boards and executive directors can easily try one or two new things. Small interventions can make a big difference. Sometimes they can even be revolutionary in their effect how the group works. Change takes courage but with small steps we do not always have to summon up huge amounts of it.