The Business of Doing Good

not-for-profits in the Lee County area. Although the results won’t be complete

until January; so far, she says, “the numbers are incredible in terms of the

impact we have in this community.”

The unpaid workforce

A primary difference between not-for-profits and for-profits

is the people who do the work. Many of the organizations have a few paid staff

members, but they are heavily dependent on workers who receive no pay; so part

of their challenge is getting unpaid workers to do what is needed. But you

won’t find too many not-for-profit directors who view it that way. Their

volunteers offer their services because they believe in the organization’s

mission.

“What you’re doing in a community has to be important enough

that people want to be involved with it,” and the volunteer has to be well

matched with the position, McManus says. The Collier County Education

Foundation has about five regular paid positions and numerous volunteers

working with each of the programs it supports — up to a thousand with just one

reading program.

An exception is Goodwill Industries. The Southwest Florida

Goodwill, which serves five counties, has volunteers, including its 26-member

board of directors. But getting free work out of people is not in line with its

mission, Beehler says. Its purpose is to help people with disabilities — and

others who have had trouble getting a job — find paid work.

It has about 20 paid staff members in administration. It

also employs more than 300 people who work in the local Goodwill’s 27 retail

stores, in its operations center where goods are collected and sorted for sale

either in the retail outlets or in bulk to Third World countries. Goodwill also

has paid clients at its new banquet facility at Three Oaks, and it contracts to

do the janitorial and maintenance work at highway rest areas. In addition, it

provides vocational rehabilitation, helps people get additional training if

they need it, helps clients find work, and helps them adjust to the work

environment.

“We pay everyone here. If they perform any work, they’re

paid,” says Beehler.

Of the 1,000 or more people who volunteer for the United

Way, many have been touched in some way by the United Way agencies. The

function of the 10 staff members is to support those volunteers, and they do it

in a way that makes it easy to be a volunteer, says campaign chairperson Laurel

Smith. “They have a business-like attitude. They way they run board meetings

and cabinet meetings [shows] they really respect volunteers’ time.”

The Salvation Army, which has 110 full-time paid employees,

helps ensure volunteers will remain dependable by having them apply for

positions, specifying their interests and how much time they can dedicate.

Volunteers put in more than 13,000 hours in the past year, equaling another six

full-time positions, Geltner says. They are critical to the Salvation Army’s

success, she says, and a key to motivating them is to make sure they know how

important they are.

And at the YMCA, with a 35-member board and about 300 others

running the various programs at 22 sites throughout the county, volunteers are

crucial to the organization. “Volunteers are basically the lifeblood of our

organization,” says Fulscher, one of the Lee County YMCA’s six full-time staff

members.

Bridging the Gap with Business

Through their volunteers, not-for-profits have the willing

cooperation of some of the community’s best business minds, who often serve on

their boards of directors and committees.

“I’ve depended very heavily on the finance committees and

the business leaders on the board,” says McManus. “One of the benefits of a

nonprofit compared to a small company in the profit sector is that board

members really give you the education that you need. They lend all of their

experience to your plan. You’re not struggling on your own. You have a very

good board of advisors.” The Collier County Education Foundation has “lots of

business leaders involved,” she says. “They are interested in public education;

they want to see a good work force coming out of our public schools.”

The board also serves as an important link to the community

that the organization serves. “One of the key roles of the board of directors

is fund-raising. They have to tell your story. You want a very well-informed

board,” McManus says.

With the growing demand for accountability, not-for-profits

have adopted more practices long used by for-profits. “With funding streams

raising accountability, we were forced to begin to build bridges between the

business community and non-profits,” says Geltner.

“Sometimes the business community looks at non-profits as

not being run as businesses,” Hampton says. “Every non-profit is a business. ...

We’re not in business to make a profit, but that’s not to say we don’t make

money.” In fact, not-for-profits have a great deal in common with their

business counterparts. “The similarities have a great deal to do with planning,

communication, budget development and implementation. There are certain

cornerstones of any business — whether not-for-profit or for-profit — that will

make it a success. From a day-to-day standpoint, I can’t get caught up in the

philosophical view. I have to look at it in a business sense,” says Hampton.

Some not-for-profits hire business-savvy directors, and many

also have resources at their disposal from their organization’s national

headquarters. The United Way and the YMCA are both autonomous organizations,

responsible for their own financial resources. The local entities pay dues and,

in return, they receive training, legal counsel, national marketing, and other

such resources.

“They train local YMCAs on how to raise money and how to

keep the best business-like practices,” Fulscher says, as well as providing

information from cross-studies on financial development, program standards, and

national program certification.

Each education foundation in Florida — and most counties

have one — belong to a statewide consortium, of which McManus is the in-coming

president. The consortium allows them to exchange information and ideas and

provides guidance, leadership and professional development.

A not-for-profit has to have good business practices,

Beehler says, or it won’t be able to effectively fulfill the mission it has

been charged with.

“The reason we’re successful is because we use business

management strategies to make it more effective,” she says. “We do what every

other business does and think that we do some of it a lot better,” she says.

“When people talk about the business aspect and why it’s so

important to have good business tactics in working in a nonprofit, the bottom

line is, if there’s no money, there’s no mission. We can only provide

additional resources and services to people with disabilities if we’ve

developed a business sense to bring the revenue in so we can help those

people.”

Jill Tyrer is a Cape Coral-based freelance writer.