The Living Dead
Why non-profit organizations are so often ineffectual
Over the course of my somewhat shambolic career I’ve consulted to a number of non-profit organizations large and small, and I spent two years as the CIO of a non-profit research organization funded by the US National Institutes of Health (NIH). With only one exception (Save the Children Fund), what I’ve seen over and over again is people who are well-intentioned yet largely ineffective at achieving any of the goals their organization professes to pursue.
The reasons for this failure to perform lie at the very heart of the non-profit world.
The first reason is that non-profits are too often an attractive place for people to hide. As there are often no firm targets and no penalties for under-achievement, there is much less psychological pressure on people when they work within a non-profit organization. Being busy, often because of the time required to work around all the inefficiencies that have accumulated over time, substitutes for being effective. It’s not always easy to attain goals but it’s always easy to find things to do. When there are no firm goals and no penalties for missing whatever quasi-goals are set, people can simply coast along without undue worry about being fired. Being liked by one’s peers and managers is more important than being effective.
