Episode 74: Dealing with Polarization and Controversial Issues in Philanthropy

Welcome to another edition of a”Around with Randall” your weekly podcast making your nonprofit more effective for your community. And here is your host, the CEO and founder of Hallett Philanthropy, Randall Hallett.

It's great to have you back right here on “Around with Randall,” your podcast, 20 minutes or less, practical, tactical, key issues in the nonprofit world. Today's conversation is maybe amongst the more political or controversial, although it's not going to be that much so because we're interested in making and helping you be ready and at your very best. But it's about the idea of polarization. And in some ways we live in an age of polarization, whether it's the pandemic or the cultural, social changes that are going on, discussions around the country. We have a lot of this idea of two sides to almost any argument, and more and more we have less people in the middle who see both sides of an issue. How does this affect nonprofits? Well, what we see is stories where something happens, a decision is made and a group of people don't like it, and maybe it's a university and there are college students who are protesting a particular decision, or an organization implements a new program and donors and others don't like it, or an organization chooses not to do something and people and donors and the community doesn't like it.

Never in our history have we probably seen as much polarization as it affects nonprofits, and there are stories after stories after stories of people commenting they don't like what their philanthropic dollars do at this organization and they're going to pull out, or it's on the front page of the news local newspaper, or covered by the local news stations. Today's conversation is getting organizations, particularly non-profits, built to deal with these issues, to be ready. And I’m not talking about any individual issue, just in general, and that this can happen to anybody. 

You might think, “well my organization, we're not in the front lines of this.” I’ve got a healthcare organization who's doing phenomenal things in Covid and vaccinations and their system is decided that any volunteer, board volunteer for foundation, or community volunteer has to be vaccinated or they can't be on the board. Well that's caused an immense upheaval, and it can happen anywhere. It can happen anytime. Some organizations are used to this. There are some on the political extremes that they, what they do just has caused controversy for years, and they've learned to deal with it. And really that's what we're going to learn from today, what are some of the things you can do to get ready for polarization when that donor or someone in the community calls this, “I don't like what you're doing.” How do you deal with that? So we're gonna deal, or talk about this really at a very tactical level.

So the first thing that I would recommend is, particularly in the area of philanthropy, is getting your office ready for this first and foremost is just to have the conversation, this could be us. I like, and maybe this comes from law school where I learned the law as a way to avoid, and maybe this has a little do with practicing law, but how do you build out strategies to avoid the worst parts of what's possible? And so usually that's incarceration, going to jail, death, someone dies, or you're going to be sued. How do you build out, well, in this case it's more of how do you build out a sense of readiness? And the first thing is to say, “this could happen us.” And let's take some examples, and what we would do. Our organization comes out with a statement like this, how would we respond? Or more importantly, how would the community respond? What would we be ready for? And you might take a couple meetings and say, “hey, let's take five minutes and just talk about what might be possible.” You will find it uplifting because it will mean you won't be surprised. Much of the time, I truly believe in terms of crisis management it's the fact that people are so unprepared for what's happening that there's not an understanding of how the process should work. 

I think about a scenario early on in my career and give an immense amount of credit to the people who were running it at the time. Where I was working for a Jesuit high school and we had -  didn't really even involve us in or any of our students - but on a midnight or later on a Saturday night someone shot and killed in the parking lot of the high school. It had absolutely nothing to do with the high school, any of the students, any of the faculty, but we had imagined something like that as a leadership team and there were protocols in place how we communicated it, who was going to talk to the press, what things were going to be said, what groups would meet. It allowed us to stay out of the fray for much of the conversation. So part of this is just prep being ready, thinking ahead, getting out ahead of it. The other thing is is that you want to begin to create what i call root messaging. You want to empower people not with the media because there's probably formal protocols but if you're a gift officer and you have relationships, your donors are going to ask you about it. 

One thing I think that's frustrating is is that the people who are on the front lines don't know what to say, and so as a result they feel compromised, they feel lessened. One of the things that an organization can do is create very strong mission-driven root messages that can be shared. And I’m, again, I’m not talking about like going to channel 7 here I’m talking about you're on the phone or you're meeting with donor and they say well I read this in the paper, are your employees who deal with maybe not the media but people in the community who could read about something, are they prepared for that conversation? Are you empowering them with the right information? So the first thing is to get ready. Imagine creating those written messages, trying to get ahead of the story, empowering your staff to know what's appropriate. 

The second thing is directly dealing with communication, is you need to concentrate on the mission. You need to be able to repeatedly emphasize that the activities or the issue is related to the mission. Now, if somebody just did plain stupid that's one thing, and we'll talk about that here in a second about being honest and apologizing. But if there is a decision that is reached that creates a little bit of upheaval it's critically important that everyone have the ability, internally, and to be able to communicate it externally, to understand how this decision, these activities, these things apply to the mission as a whole. Always fall back to what your mission is because that's the savior. That's why you're there. Hopefully the decision-makers keep that in mind when they make decisions but we don't always get to be in the room when those decisions are made, so then the question becomes communication outward and in reception. Remember that you want to try to deal with the idea of strategic or the strategy. If this is a one-time issue you can say things like, “this was a one-off particular situation. It's too bad. We feel terrible about it. We apologize.” If it's a strategy issue, that's going to take more repeated conversations, more dialogue over and over and over again about why this was important for the mission to move the organization forward.

The third thing I would recommend is to be very careful with messaging. We've become, and this is a technology issue, very lax sometimes at what I think of as proofing and editing. So, when I grew up, I, we didn't have computers like they are today. You actually had to edit. I give my mom an immense amount of credit because she forced us to diagram sentences and for some of you was listening, you're like I have no idea what that is. That's an old school, when I say old school, I mean old, old school way of learning how to write where the sentence is diagrammed in a certain way to produce the outcome that the writer is intending. And you have to know certain things as qualifiers and you have to be able to say what's how the subject is mattered, connected to the predicate, and things of that nature. Really not taught today, but what it did teach me was about editing, which has proven to be very worthwhile not only in my professional career but in my educational pursuits. Today that's just not taught and so you need to have a process where you're double and triple checking everything, and I mean not just you but you should have someone else reading something that goes out. Sometimes the controversy is because someone didn't say what they intended or it read incorrectly or they thought they were saying something else, but they could be read as meaning something totally different.

Having other people weigh in on those communications is, I just can’t… if we could just reduce the amount of unintended miscommunication that would help all of us. The other thing that's we're seeing more and more, and this is again about polarization, about messaging, is that we have a lot of people affiliated in our organization and all of a sudden, maybe not the CEO or the chair of the board, but somebody tweets something out or puts something out on Instagram or on social media that is in contrast to what the organization actually stands for. It's a tough issue, so if you're like a public university there's freedom of speech issues and you've read about those where professors will say something that the university is like look we don't agree with this but freedom of speech is something we do believe in and process matters, they're prepared for that. That was all about prep. Sometimes we have board members who will tweet something out on their own as an individual or maybe it's a staff member that's contrary to the organization's belief system. Are you ready for that conversation? Is it appropriate for that board member to stay? Should they be forced out? Should the staff member be removed? How does that affect if you're maybe in a state like California, maybe they're a union employee? There's process and protocols for that. It's interesting that I really have run into these scenarios with clients they've never thought about it and I’m like, “you guys should be thinking about all of these alternatives.” If a staff member says this on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, here's how I would react. Or the process would go through to do so, or a board member says, I believe in this and it's contrary to what your mission is, how do you handle that? It reminds me of what I always, at least thought of what they called it as incident command but the practice we we, when I was at the University of Nebraska Medical Center and what my job was to deliver food and take notes. So, I wasn't a very active important piece of this. We would practice every quarter a plane crashing at the airport or biological substance being dispersed in Omaha because we needed to know how all of this worked. That was preparation. Now, that's an extreme example. But are you practicing those things? Are you talking about them? This is going back to that readiness, and then the careful messaging that comes from it the fourth thing - is to be honest and up front.

Honesty and credibility are what are going to help you. Write out, meaning work through, get through a challenge with donors and key constituents. My mother taught me that trust and honesty is like a building and every time in the relationship there's something positive happens that trust is like a floor and you build on that in the floors and it builds up and the higher the building the more opportunities for trust and and honesty, credibility, the more that building grows taller. The problem is that when you lose that, even if you had a 20-story building, you may have broken it at the fourth floor and 16 floors or 15 floors fall over. I’ve always liked that thought process. So here's the message. You have to be honest and credible with the people about the challenge and that if you lose that honesty and credibility, that will be the death, now that that will end the relationship because they won't believe you anymore. If you need, and people, are…if you're let's say a gift officer working with a donor and they you're being honest here's what what happened and here's what we're doing about it, you might have to bring in a higher authority maybe it's that VP, maybe it's the president depending on the engagement of the donor, maybe it's a a key part of the relationship, you may need some help and it's okay to ask for that and say, “hey I’m having these appropriate conversations I’ve been empowered to say these things, maybe I could get some help.” In doing so, I probably should have mentioned earlier and I apologize in terms of communication, empowering employees, if you're one of the employees there are times frustrating as they may be, where the organization says we have no comment. If there's a personnel issue or a student issue that's the law depending on where you are, so part of this is also being honest and upfront saying, “I honestly don't know and by the way legally I can't know and I can't comment because I don't know.” So, being honest and being forthright is important, and also utilizing key leaders with key relationships to help continue that relationship. 

Number five is don't run from different difficult conversations. That's really not good because sometimes people are just wanting to ask questions, even if you don't have answers. Maybe they just want to get something off their chest. Here, the key is listen, listen, listen, listen, and listen some more. If you hear, “I don't feel welcome, I don't think this meets up with my values, the organization is changing the response,” is critically important. We want to hear all perspectives. We value the opinions of our donors, of our community. It's critical that I can hear this and take it back to the organization so it can be shared. that doesn't mean that the organization or the issue is going to change, but sometimes people just want to be heard. Sometimes they just want to know their voice has value. That's what credibility and honesty is all about is a person feeling as if you genuinely care for what they think.

Also realize that there's reasonable decisions that the organization can make that fit within the mission, and we talked about that earlier. Is it part of the mission if it's against the mission of the organization, that's a bigger problem and we're not going to deal with that here, but keep in mind that your ability to indicate that everybody's opinion has value but the organization or the department or the leaders will make a decision is just kind of maybe your role in that conduit of communication, concern, objection, support to facilitate that back in an appropriate way.

Last two and then one comment about the internal. Don't under utilize apologies. Maybe the apology is for a mistake the organization made. Maybe it's an apology for “I’m just so sorry this happened, we had nothing to do with it and I feel terrible that it's gotten out publicly.” Maybe it's apology, “I feel terrible that you feel you're personally insulted and or you personally disagree, worse we're your ability to engage with us to donate to us to be involved with us allows us to fulfill the mission.” Don't be afraid to apologize. It doesn't mean you have to apologize like for someone else, maybe you just feel badly that they feel badly and that's also okay. 

The last thing is don't panic. You know, it's interesting. Studies have shown while there's a great deal of anecdote, or anecdotal stories, about a major donor walking away, most large donors don't walk away from the organization over a small issue where there's a little, you know, a little fire. Now if it's a bonfire and everything the in the organization's changing, that's different. The first thing is, don't panic. Is that your ability to listen, to apologize, to engage may keep those donors. Maybe that's all they wanted. Number two, a lot of times donors may walk away for a short period of time but may come back. And lastly, don't forget, if we're really good at what we do and what we believe in process we should be finding new donors as well, and there's lots of stories about an organizations going through change that they lose some donors but that same position has attracted a whole new series of donors. So in this process don't panic. Communicate outreach. Don't forget to get your office ready to concentrate on that mission, to be careful in the messaging, to be honest and up front, don't run from the conversations, and apologize. Because all those things are embodied in not panicking. 

One last little piece. So we talked about this from an external standpoint. I’d be remiss if I just didn't spend 30 seconds on the internal side. There are also times where the organization makes a decision and that, let's take a major gift officer, doesn't agree with it. How are they communicating with donors? My rule of thumb with every boss I’ve ever had is, allow me the opportunity to be heard on issues that pertain to my responsibilities behind a closed door and I’ll give you an honest assessment. And I only have two choices when that door opens. If I’m allowed to be heard I can get behind the decision and not undercut it. Or, I can leave the organization and in some ways that's the way it needs to be. Everybody is entitled to their opinion. Believe in that. But if your team or individuals aren't on board with whatever decision was made or they're not going to support the organization in the way they want to communicate that's a problem. The other issue is, so we need to make sure that we understand that not everybody inside our office is always going to agree and that's also okay. Are we considerate? Are we polite? Are we respectful? Those three things should always be present in any relationship we have internally because that's critical to our culture. The age of polarization very interesting, very challenging. You can help yourself with some of these keys to be ready. 

Don't forget to check out the website - particularly lots of information about a new hire and information on different things going on with clients. And then certainly the blogs - 90 second reads - that's hallettphilanthropy.com. And if you'd like to communicate with me that's podcast@hallettphilanthropy.com. Even in this age of polarization, it's critical, I hope you feel, you know, you're critical, you're you're important to what's going on in your community. That's what philanthropy is all about, making a difference. That's what nonprofits are all about, which brings me to my all-time favorite saying, some people make things happen, some people watch things happen, then there are those who wondered what happened. I hope that you realize that you're making things happen for people, for issues, for challenges, the either the people don't know what's happening or can, are being left behind or the issue or the need is being left behind and that's what we do is we fill that gap. It's important. I hope you know the value that you bring to this profession. I look forward to seeing you right back here again on “Around with Randall.” Don't forget make it a great day.