Community Leadership Program (CLP) graduate and recently appointed

Community Leadership Program (CLP) graduate and recently appointed

A Match Made of Mission

Jason Young, Community Leadership Program (CLP) graduate and recently appointed

executive director of L-NEAT, the local chapter of the nonprofit National Emergency Assistance

Team (NEAT), was tasked with finding new volunteer board members for his complacent

organization. He looked to CLP for new board members. Ella Starr, CLP director, joined the

board not knowing the mission of L-NEAT. She could not refuse Young’s charismatic

recruitment effort. Starr believed in Young’s leadership style as well as the passion and vibrancy

he brought to the organization. Craig King, Deputy Fire Chief and CLP graduate, was also asked

by Young to join the board. King agreed because he believed in the organization’s mission of

community disaster preparedness, fire safety, and fire prevention. King knew how important L-

NEAT was in his community and he thought working with Young was a bonus.

With new board members in place to energize the board, Young began to grow the

nonprofit through fundraisers and community outreach. Starr’s connections helped Young use

his community leadership network to revamp the annual golf tournament, add a wine tasting

party at a local winery, and create a motorcycle ride which included an untapped resource of

bikers. With new funds, Young worked with King to provide additional fire safety and health

programs for the community.

Through Young’s leadership, previous volunteers returned to help L-NEAT while the

board of directors maintained an active presence in fiscal policy and program decisions. His

predecessor practically begged to get enough board members for quorum; Young simply worried

about what to do with too many volunteers. Starting an internship program, Young realized the

value of using college students as interns and the potential of a renewing volunteer base. The

old, established L-NEAT became a youthful and dynamic force for change.

2

The board was thrilled with the organization’s growth and popularity in the community.

When Young asked for assistance, Starr willingly helped out although she did not initiate

volunteer activities. King eagerly worked with L-NEAT to promote fire safety. Board members

regularly attended meetings, served on committees and participated in fundraisers, although little

time was spent on board development. Staff capacity was expanded to handle more programs

and activities. Increased visibility in the community brought more volunteers and funders to

support the organization.

Many severe national disasters left NEAT in a financial deficit and organizational

restructuring crept into the success of day to day activities. Responsibilities were regionally

consolidated and soon local employees were working region-wide and reporting to other

managers besides Young. With control now highly centralized, L-NEAT was caught in the

middle. Inevitably, Young was wooed away by his alma mater, leaving the organization and the

empire he created, just as it faced a major crisis.

Rose Hill, a registered nurse, was an inexperienced board member who became board

chair, expecting to be guided by Young. Instead, she faced her first board leadership challenge

of hiring a director without Young by her side. The NEAT reorganization gave Regional

Director Robert Thomas authority to hire an outsider with limited nonprofit management

experience over the local favorite which left L-NEAT board members grumbling. That newly

hired director left after only six months, frustrating Hill’s and Young’s painstaking effort to

introduce the new director to key stakeholders and orient her to the community. Once again, the

board, with Hill as the board chair, was without an executive director. With added pressure from

the regional office and less autonomy for L-NEAT, the board began the hiring process. When

Thomas shifted responsibilities to the regional office, L-NEAT finally realized the board had

3

quietly and unintentionally transitioned to an advisory committee. Local control of L-NEAT was

being lost to regional management of NEAT.

In the parking lot and at other meetings, board members questioned the leadership of the

Rose Hill and NEAT; however, they did not question their own actions or motivations at L-

NEAT. No one thought about their personal values and reasons for joining the L-NEAT board

or how those values would now affect the leadership of L-NEAT. It was all too easy to blame

changes on NEAT and not consider what was happening at L-NEAT or with individual board

members. Questions of board member motivation, whether board members were driven by the

mission or the leader, did not arise. Instead, Thomas and NEAT stepped in to provide

supervision and staff support which dictated new standard operating procedures to the struggling

L-NEAT. Within a year after Young’s departure, the recently reinvigorated agency languished.

Broken hearted by Young’s departure, Starr could not bring herself to fight for L-NEAT.

She tried a couple of times, but Hill and Thomas made it so difficult, she wondered if it was

worth the effort. After all, she thought, it was really Young who drove the organization and she

only joined the board because Young had asked. Without Young as the leader of L-NEAT, Starr

decided to put her efforts toward other organizations where she believed in the mission. In doing

so, Starr ignored email pleas and quietly disappeared from the board without actually resigning.

Craig King, was not about to give up on the L-NEAT presence in his community. When

Young asked King to join the board, he agreed because he believed in the organization’s

mission. In L-NEAT, King found an organization which supported his work in the community.

Without L-NEAT, he knew people would be homeless after emergencies. He believed in L-

4

NEAT so much, King decided to throw the full support of his department behind keeping it

viable.

Two years after Young’s departure, only two of the other eighteen board members whom

he recruited remained active. Those were Hill and King. All other board members had either

been recruited by Young’s predecessor, or they had since resigned or disengaged. They were

board members in name only. Despite Thomas’s takeover efforts from the regional office, four

active board members remained. They are collectively determined to keep L-NEAT alive in

their community because they believed in the mission of the L-NEAT and the people the

organization serves.

5

Scholarly Commentary

Active, engaged, and independent followers are critical to the success of organizations.

Using community volunteers as a type of follower, this case study examines how follower

motivation—mission-driven or leader-driven—contributes to the success or failure of an

organization. Some followers engage in activities believing in an organization’s mission while

others engage because of the organization’s leader (Keim 2014). By examining follower

motivation in the citizen engagement arena through nonprofit and civic organizations, the

potential for a successful mission match between followers and nonprofit and civic organizations

becomes more apparent.

Nonprofit and civic organizations utilize volunteers on projects, committees and boards

to link followership and civic engagement through emerging follower motivation: mission-

oriented and leader-oriented. The star followers (Kelley 2008) and active followers (Chaleff

2009) are more likely to be mission-driven while the sheep (Kelley 2008) and bystanders

(Kellerman 2008) are more likely to be leader-driven. For organizations challenged with

recruiting or retaining followers (volunteers), understanding that mission-driven followers

become more involved and stay involved because of the organization’s mission provides

nonprofit and civic leaders with important mission match information to consider for volunteer

recruitment and retention efforts (Brudney and Meijs 2009). This could be a new approach to

attract and keep volunteers over time.

The case study of L-NEAT investigates the motivation of two new volunteer board

members who were brought on to energize a board that had become complacent. When Jason

Young, the charismatic and forceful leader, convinced Ella Starr to join the board of directors,

6

she said yes because she was asked by the leader. On paper, Starr was quite a catch for the board

of directors with her community connections and proven ability to fundraise. Early on, Starr

participated in events and activities when prompted by Young rather than promoting L-NEAT in

the community. While Young did not confront her, Starr’s lack of enthusias

The post Community Leadership Program (CLP) graduate and recently appointed appeared first on superioressaypapers.

 

Looking for a Similar Assignment? Order now and Get 10% Discount! Use Coupon Code "Newclient"