How to spot founder's syndrome

Running a charity is hard. I take my hat off to all those non-profit founders who bring their vision, energy and drive to create social change. However, when assessing charities and deciding which ones to fund, the term ‘founder’s syndrome’ often comes up.

There are lots of inspiring charity leaders and there is nothing wrong with a charity having a compelling and persuasive founder involved – often they are absolutely vital for attracting support. The problem occurs where the founder has too much power. But how do you spot it?

This is what sets off my ‘founder’s syndrome’ alarm when assessing charities:

On paper:

1. There is a high turnover of Trustees or conversely, the same Trustee group staying for years and years. The first pattern suggests challenges to the status quo fail and the second can indicate that no challenging is taking place.
2. There is no formal plan – because there is no point having one, it is in the founder’s head and subject to change as they decide. In fact there is generally a lack of formal structures e.g. performance management, Board skills audits.
3.  The charity is not part of any external quality assurance schemes or formal partnerships.

On a visit:

1. They don’t listen – they tend to avoid direct questions and tell me what they think is important.
2. They meet you on their own – they don’t bring in a Trustee, finance director, frontline worker or a service user to speak with me.
3.  They lack awareness – founder’s syndrome is much talked about so if you are a founder meeting with a funder it should not be a surprise that they will ask about succession planning, governance, or exit strategies and you should be happy to discuss these.

I am not saying any one of these or all of them means there is definitely a case of ‘founder’s syndrome’ but it does set me off on a line of questioning about decision-making, conflicts of interest, performance management etc.  And neither is this confined to founders – there are other non-founding leaders with the same issues of control.

At a recent charity, I met with the founder who, before I even asked, had told me his exit strategy (after 10 years), the work he and the Trustees were doing on succession planning and stated his wish “I want the charity to flourish without me”. Now, that’s the way to do it.

Emma Beeston Consultancy advises funders and philanthropists on giving strategies and processes; selecting causes and charities; assessments and impact monitoring. Services for charities include external perception reviews; bid reviews; training for fundraisers and non-fundraisers involved in bids. www.emmabeeston.co.uk ;  emma@emmabeeston.co.uk ; emmabeeston01

Do not register to vote

Today I got another request from a charity to vote for them to help them to win some funding. I am sure, like me, you get lots of these requests. It only takes a few minutes to register and vote and it is an easy way to demonstrate support. However, I am becoming increasingly reluctant to participate and I have two reasons why I am uncomfortable with this voting model as a source of funding for charities:

1. Popular ≠ Good

It takes resources to select the charity that meets the greatest need or has the most impact. A cheaper option is to hand over the decision to a public vote. I am a supporter of people (grant recipients, service users) being involved in funding panels. But that is not what this is. There is no judgment against criteria, just a simple measure of the most votes. Voting in this instance is a measure of how many supporters a charity can mobilise. On the list of the awards you will therefore see lots of sports clubs and Scout groups as these are well placed to appeal to friends and family members for votes. Charities that work with prisoners, trafficked women or other unpopular causes don’t stand a chance.

2. Proportionality

Proportionality usually comes up when designing grant programmes. For example, is the amount of internal resource needed to assess and administer applications appropriate? Is the amount of work that the applicant has to put in to their application worth it for the size of the grant? But proportionality also applies to the PR gained with any grant. With the voting model, the corporate behind it benefits from the positive profile with the charities, their supporters and the wider public. Such programmes can generate great PR and be cost effective for the company involved but often with just a few hundred pounds going to each ‘winner’. The substantial effort lies with the applicant – to create and upload a profile and encourage their supporters to vote.

You could argue that there is no harm done. The company gets good PR and some popular groups get some unrestricted funding. But I believe there is harm done in the opportunities lost. Charities miss an opportunity to raise awareness of their cause and reach a new audience of potential supporters. In a recent voting appeal, there were over 3,000 profiles for Bristol charities alone – no one is going to read those to make an informed choice. Rather than small cash ‘winners’, these funding pots could be properly managed and allocated with greater effect. Companies could properly engage and create genuine partnerships with charities, not just create an online voting system and leave the public to it.

I for one would like to see an end to these voting appeals – what about you?

Emma Beeston Consultancy advises funders and philanthropists on giving strategies and processes; selecting causes and charities; assessments and impact monitoring. Services for charities include external perception reviews; bid reviews; training for fundraisers and non-fundraisers involved in bids. www.emmabeeston.co.uk ;  emma@emmabeeston.co.uk ; emmabeeston01