When Politics And Purpose Collide: A Lesson From Susan G. Komen

February 14 – When the trustees of Susan G. Komen for the Cure announced their decision to suspend allocating contributions to their long-time partner in women’s health, Planned Parenthood, every nonprofit leader in this country was given a front row seat to learn a valuable lesson in leadership.

Citing fiscal stewardship to their contributors as the deciding factor for withholding proceeds from Komen’s world renowned Race for the Cure, the board approved a policy to stop the flow of contributed dollars to organizations under congressional investigation. With a backdrop of fiduciary responsibility and the isolation of a board room, the decision, in the minds of the decision-makers, made sense.

The impact of the decision would amount to about $685,000 and would affect 19 local Planned Parenthood affiliates. In terms of real dollars in the financial pictures of both organizations, that’s not a large amount.

But, within hours of the decision, the floodgates of reactions opened wide. By the end of day one, more than 6,000 contributors reacted by raising over $700,000 for Planned Parenthood. All forms of media were jammed with statements, stories and sides.

By the end of day three, a protest letter was signed by 26 United States Senators and a Komen policy change was in the making. And, by the end of a week, a new policy was adopted, Komen had a resignation letter from its vice president of public policy and the results of a national opinion poll revealed 49 percent of 1,000 respondents reported being less likely to support the organization in the future.

For nonprofit leaders, whether as heads of boards or chief executives of agencies, the ultimate challenge was the ability to separate the personal reaction to the situation from the unfolding lessons to be learned in the political management of a social cause.

Lesson Number One: Every nonprofit leader cannot forget that their organization is a political organization. And, I don’t mean the politics of government. I mean the politics of people.

When a small group of people go about making decisions that affect the lives and livelihoods of other people throughout the community, there are political considerations. The more distance that the board room creates from the realities of why people contribute to, volunteer or work for a cause, the greater the risk of a political mistake.

Today, we have a textbook example of what can happen when a board underestimates the political nature of its decisions. Policy decisions by any nonprofit organization requires due diligence before taking action, including understanding the impact a policy can or will have on people with vested interests.

Lesson Number Two: People trust nonprofit leaders to be very clear on what the purpose of the cause is and to continually lead with the purpose having the deciding vote in all matters. There are other institutions, like government, that have their own purposes, which can include rendering opinions regarding outcomes of criminal investigations.

Today, we have a textbook example what can happen when a board confuses its purpose with the purpose of another entity. Allowing other institutions to serve their purpose before blurring your own purpose is astute community leadership.

Lesson Number Three: Baby Boomer decision-makers cannot underestimate the power of technology even if the policy-makers don’t use or understand the technology themselves. Today, we have a textbook example of social media organizing a national social movement in a matter of moments because of a perceived lack of due diligence by people who shape society.

The Biggest Lesson of All: The equity of a nonprofit organization, no matter how large or small, is measured in its people. To lose a contributor because of poor leadership can be a long-term liability that never makes the balance sheet, but affects its numbers every single day.

When nonprofit leaders don’t know how to play politics well, have forgotten the original purpose of their cause, haven’t measured the distance between the boardroom and the community, and have lost their abilities to calculate equity, the cause will inevitably suffer.

(Jeffrey R. Wilcox, CFRE, is president and chief executive officer of The Third Sector Company, Inc. Join in on the conversation about this article on Facebook or drop us a line at jwilcox@thirdsectorcompany.com)