Young people account for half of the world’s population, yet they are the most untapped resources to date. However, for the first time in history, the have the chance to do something themselves, without having to wait for their governments or other institutions.

And this is what really struck me the most, from our conversation as well. I invite you all to listen to it here below!

The organization we occasionally refer to is SPEED (Student Platform for Engineering Education Development), the nonprofit startup we’re both working on and in which Lachlan is in charge for shaping its organizational structure, hence his presence in the podcast.

I hope you enjoy listening. We’re also open to suggestions for future topics and remarks on our discussion, just leave us a comment!

I tend to define international NGOs in a developed world/undeveloped world relationship. I tend to think of it as the facilitation of resources from the West elsewhere. I guess that’s my hangup.

His words reminded me that associating the concept of international NGO/nonprofit with the concept of global voluntary/charity/humanitarian/development organization is pretty commonplace for everybody I talked to about the subject.

Since this blog focuses on international nonprofits, I think it’s worth clarifying the issue, once and for all.

What do others say?

Wikipedia produces a quite general definition:

An international nongovernmental organization (INGO) is a voluntary association of organizations or individuals for worldwide or regional action.

However, a simple Google query for “what is an international NGO?” confirms the aforementioned preconception: in fact, the source Google refers to as the only definition on the web of international NGO (gotta work on that definition search engine Google!) describes it as

an organization that has an international headquarters and branches in major world regions, often with the purpose of undertaking development assistance

Fortunately, two main relevant classification systems help us in sorting this thing through.

The first one, developed by the Union of International Associations (UIA), is certainly complex and is complemented by extensive documented research on the subject. Although it highlights some interesting aspects of the issue, it concludes that:

A clear and unambiguous theoretically acceptable definition of international NGOs remains to be formulated.

The second one is called the International Classification of Non-Profit Organizations (ICNPO) and is produced as an annex to the International Standard Industrial Classification by the United Nations Statistics Division. The classification deals with international non-profit organizations as a separate category on its own (ICNPO group n. 10).

Interestingly enough, in none of the two systems the bias towards the voluntary/charity/humanitarian/development definition can be traced back to. My best explanation is that the exposure, size and influence of that kind of international organizations make most people associate them with the words “international nonprofit” or “international NGO” even if they’re not the only kind.

What do I say?

INTERNATIONAL AS AN INDEPENDENT DIMENSION

More than a section or a category (as in ICNPO’s classification), more than a separate kind of organization, I think that being international or not is just an aspect (you could call it geographical scope) of a nonprofit, just as much as the scope of its activities, finances, membership and so on. I really believe that the geographical scope is to a certain extent independent from other elements in a nonprofit organization and not, as many people tend to think, dependent on the type of activities (development/humanitarian/etc.) that the organization is carrying out. For example, imagine a local nonprofit organization that specializes in safeguarding local gastronomical traditions and a healthy lifestyle; imagine now the same organization, at global level… well, guess what, it really exists! And it doesn’t need to be about helping people in third world countries!

My point is that there are many (but not all) types of local/national nonprofits that can work at regional/global level as well, with the necessary adjustments. And just as there are nonprofit concepts that can work locally/nationally only, there are concepts that can work on a regional/global scale only too (e.g. a language exchange kind of nonprofit would not work really well if participants share the same language).

INTERNATIONAL OR TRANSNATIONAL?

The other important distinction I’d like to make is that perhaps the word “transnational” fits more into what I have in mind than the word “international”. Wikipedia explains

Very careful distinctions are now being made between international or multinational relationships - between and among nation-states or agents thereof - and transnational relationships between and among individuals and other entities, regardless of nation-state boundaries.
Internationalism refers to global co-operation between nation states, and points to the affairs between nation-state governments, while transnationalism refers to global co-operation between people, and points to activities, which transcends national boundaries and in which nation-state governments do not play the most important or even a significant role.

And according to the the words of and former UIA director Anthony Judge

The term “transnational association networks”, was chosen in order to provoke comment on the adequacy of the current term “international nongovernmental organization”. “International” is not applicable to many INGOs; and the current increasing use of “transnational” seems more appropriate. “Association”‘ is used because international “organization”, in the literature and in practice, is nearly always associated implicitly with IGOs.
“Networks” is added in the plural because most bodies are embedded in several inter-organizational networks — this is usually ignored and INGOs are analyzed as isolated entities. The properties of the network and the nature of an organization’s involvement in it, may be more significant than that of the sum of the “isolated” entities or an aggregation of their transactions.
“Nongovernmental” is dropped because there are many mixed, “intersect”, organizations particularly in the developing and socialist countries — also in some cultures “non-” may mean something very close to “anti- “. To define ” X” as “nongovernmental” is a plain confession of inability to conceptuaIize ” X ” and in practice means that ” X” can only be conceived of in relation to government — and, in practice, as the “hand-maiden”, of government. For this reason, at the national level, terms with a positive connotation are mainly used as appropriate (e.g. “voluntary”, “professional”, etc.)

And I quite agree with him on that.

MY OWN CRITERIA

As far as this blog is concerned, the distinction for-profit/non-profit has bigger relevance than any other aspect, hence the title. However, starting up a governmental nonprofit organization has certainly different implications than the ones I experienced in my short nonprofit career. Also, I haven’t had any experience on local nonprofits. What I’m focusing on is therefore all international organizations founded and rooted in the civil society.

For the benefit of clarity, these are the three criteria that define what I mean from now on with “international nonprofit” or “international NGO”, or any equivalent using the word “transnational” instead:

1. the organization is born to address a common problem or to seize a certain opportunity, at either worldwide or regional level (with a minimum of 3 countries, as reported in the two classification systems presented above)
2. the organization is non-profit
3. the organization originates from civil society, not being therefore affiliated with government or intergovernmental institutions, as in the most common definition of “non-governmental”

Anything other than that is material for a different, new blog… so feel free to fill the market gap!

Short answer, more than 40000.

Long answer, 40000 is just the tip of the iceberg. Wikipedia says that ”The number of internationally operating NGOs is estimated at 40,000″: the source is ‘Global Civil Society 2001′ (Anheimer et al., 2001), containing info about international organizations and the location of their secretariats (together with other useful stats like links between international organizations, nationality and membership of international organization leaders, breakdown of international organizations by purpose, etc.). However, Wikipedia continues, ”National numbers are even higher: Russia has 400,000 NGOs” and “India is estimated to have between 1 million and 2 million NGOs”. Counting governmental nonprofit organizations too, the number might be way bigger. Another source, for example, reports that “According to the NCCS Table Wizard, there are currently nearly 1.4 million nonprofit [i.e. governmental and non governmental alike] organizations in the United States.”.

Regarding international nonprofits, however, unfortunately no conclusive data can be found on the Net, perhaps because (strangly enough) it’s hard to define what “international” really means (international activities? international membership?) and it’s also hard to find your way through the variety of nonprofit types registered/recognized in the different countries of the world.. Idealist.org supports that point by stating that “there just aren’t any lists that include all nonprofits. There are, though, many websites that offer access to specific types of nonprofits or nonprofits that are active in certain parts of the world”.

Coming back to my first question… My guess is half a million. What do you say?

Picture courtesy of Esse, through CreativeCommons license.

Your battle, as founding member of a nonprofit organization, is to have as many good people as possible cross that thin line that separates them from seeing the new project as “just another hobby” to seeing it instead as a new serious commitment in their lives. The goal should be bringing the number of skilled and passionate people willing to contribute to your cause to a high enough critical mass, that will allow the organization to thrust its way through the initial development and open the doors for the consolidation of your nonprofit in your organization’s environment. You want to make those barriers for involvement low and you want to make sure that, once new people get involved, their involve-o-meter goes one way only: up.

Communication and its role

Now, there’s a lot to the subject of involving new members other than communication: leadership, management and teamwork/team dynamics are the most relevant topics in dealing with this issue and they all cross lines with each other, and with communication as well. However, I’m sure we’ll have the opportunity to explore other elements in the future, so let’s focus on communication for today. Communication is a powerful tool all throughout a nonprofit’s life, but, as with other tools, increases its importance in the startup phase. What will be one day your ability to attract 10 new people and add them to an already committed workforce, which doesn’t need additional explanations on why they’re doing what they’re doing, today is instead your capacity to attract 1 new fundamental contributor to your cause and add him/her to a team that hasn’t figured out yet even what their role in this project is. What will one day determine whether your organization grows from 150 to 160 members or not, today will determine the very existence of your nonprofit.

Communicating properly with potential future members, new members and the other co-founders will allow them to understand the organization you have in mind, project their involvement through time and therefore empower them to play a crucial role in the startup’s development, despite the fact that (a) the idea and the real concept of your nonprofit organization has not been defined yet, (b) their involvement is a path as uncertain as the idea of the organization itself and (c) perhaps the ways for them to contribute right now to your cause are unclear as well. It’s almost as if you were selling a product that hasn’t entered the market yet and you couldn’t even tell your customer how to buy it!

Nevertheless, your challenge is to turn those undefined elements as opportunities for the potential, new or existing members to express their own passion on the subject and, quite uniquely, to shape in collaboration with everybody else involved what those opportunities will become in the near future. However, an excess of communication is rarely a solution of its own. Abundance of opportunities, choices and, most of all, of things that need to be done, easily scare off many newcomers to a startup nonprofit organization. The hectic behavior of an over-communicator usually acts as a turnoff for people who’re simply looking for an easy way in your organization. Again, this is very understandable: when reaching a critical mass of committed people is one of the fundamental early objectives of a nonprofit start up, founders might put some extra pressure on the new members, since they need them so much to survive and develop.

What we can learn from all this is that tact and timing are of the essence. Every person that comes into the orbit of your project is a potential full-time active member of your organization, to be handled with extreme care due to his/her high value with regard to the small size of your startup group. The key to their successful involvement is in gradually increasing the frequency and intensity of your communication, up to the point you feel they’ll have reached their ideal position within your vision (but we’ll talk about that later). In the next sections, I’ll reveal a typical 5-step sequence for the use of communication for the involvement of new members in your organization.

Due to my experience and the resulting focus of this blog, this approach is mostly suited for international nonprofit startups, whose members or potential members don’t have (or rarely have) the chance to meet in person, at least for long periods of time. But I’m sure many steps adapt very well in other forms of organization as well.

Step 1 - The initial approach

According to the circumstance, you’ll be either approaching a person who expressed their interest in your project, or somebody you think might be interested in it but hasn’t had the chance to hear about it yet. In any case, after the initial contact (via email, in person or else), send him/her an email soon after (the same day or the following one, if possible), introducing yourself, giving an overview of your project and making him/her understand that yours is an open group of people who always welcomes new ideas (or something similar to that); try to do that without necessarily asking him/her to become a member and therefore putting him/her in the awkward position to decide about his/her involvement in your very first conversation (avoid yes/no questions in your first interaction).

This will allow the potential new member to feel like there’s an open door for him/her, without necessarily needing to decide whether to go through that door yet or not. In this first step, you’ll want to focus on awareness of your cause and your activities. Try to be clear, to picture your project as something original and interesting, but at the same time try to use a “light” language, in order to avoid daunting your interlocutor with unnecessary details and secondary information. Your guy/gal should look at your nonprofit in the same way you’d look at a new restaurant opening in town that offers a special promotion for lunch: something nice, worth checking out again.

Step 2 - The follow-up

If he/she doesn’t reply, even for a few days, do not despair; give him/her a week or even two in some cases (depending on how busy is this person) and then send another email; beware not to put him/her in a corner by asking something to the extent of “so, have you made your decision?” or “can you tell me if you can help us or not?”; putting pressure on the new guy/gal won’t speed up his/her involvement (or at least, it never did in my experience); try instead to find a way to ask him/her about something you discussed about in your first meeting/correspondence (e.g. something about himself/herself, some of his/her work, etc.) without getting too personal, but still being polite and attentive. Or perhaps find a useful news article or the information about an event that he/she might be interested in. Sometimes even a simple “how are you doing?” might be enough, if you feel comfortable enough with it. Undoubtedly, your informal conversation will remind this person of the previously mentioned opportunities for involvement and, if the idea is still positive in his/her mind, he’ll write back not only about the thing you’ve been discussing about, but possibly with a couple of questions on your organization and how to get involved.

This second phase takes the relation with this person one step further: it consolidates awareness, but at the same time tries to build a personal connection to the person. Going back to the new restaurant analogy, it’s as if you met the new owner at the grocery store and you were simply chatting while waiting in the cashier’s line. You wouldn’t want him/her to invite you to come to his new restaurant, would you? That would create an awkward situation…

Step 3 - Integration in the team

If the previous steps are successful, you’re either looking to a nice relationship with somebody who shares some of your interests (but still, for various reasons, doesn’t want to get involved in your nonprofit), that might still come in handy in other situations, or, if you’re lucky, you’re looking to a new member in your team. In that case, congratulations! Whereas earlier on, during your initial approach, you would risk scarying off the newcomer by flooding him with information, now instead it’s the right time to start exposing him/her to the internal communication flow of your organization (i.e. mailing lists, forums, discussion groups, etc.). Remember to do that step by step and keep that personal connection you established in Step 2 and don’t leave him/her at the group’s mercy. Only gradually you’ll be able to let go of your initial mentoring role, which could perhaps be the responsibility of another member of your team (your future HR manager, perhaps?).

Again, if you had your new friend as one of your first customers in your restaurant, you wouldn’t let them get stuffed with everything you cook, right? This is possibly the most crucial phase of the approach: the starting pace of your communication will most likely be the default intensity from now on, so don’t let him/her stay too much time without communicating with you, but at the same time make sure not to overflow the communication channel. This pace will also determine the expectations of the newcomer with regard to his/her involvement in the team: if the pace is too high, you can either make it or break it, you can either have him/her jump into your high-frequency and high-intensity workload (in that case, consider yourself lucky) or he/she can leave right away because the hill is too steep to climb for him/her right from the start; instead, a more soft pace, which increases its intensity with time, will make sure that you slowly allow him/her to build speed and manage to climb that hill you want him/her to climb.

Step 4 - Increasing responsibilities

Once your new member is involved in some basic activities, accomplishing tasks and reporting successes, it’s perhaps time to increase his/her level of responsibility within the organization. Communication-wise, a useful strategy is to include him/her in correspondences directed to a limited number of people. Whereas he/she was part of a bigger group, now he/she will feel that you’re directly addressing him/her (amongst few others) as a sign of an increased trust/attention. That will most likely result in a realization that you are gradually raising the ante on him/her and preparing to assign him/her new responsibilities, a new role and an increased importance within the team.

During this period, you might also think of increasing the frequency of your communication and/or switching to a different communication protocol/procedure. For example, whereas during his/her period of membership you might have contacted him/her once a week, via email, now it’s time to contact him/her twice a week, plus perhaps call him/her once every 10 days as well.

Step 5 - You’ve found somebody to fill in your shoes!

When you get to a core group of people you moved up to Step 4, most likely your successor as leader/manager of the organization will be among them. Now, different organizations have different methods for deciding upon who’s in charge next and I’m not going to deal with this for today, but once the person or group of people who are most likely to be those next ones in charge are defined, then you find yourself in step 5 of your communication with members of your organization.

Almost daily communication is pretty standard in this case, calls are frequent too (at least once a week) and this time flooding the other people with information is not only ok, but it’s actually a good thing to do: the ones who’ll end up managing/coordinating/leading the nonprofit will have to deal with amounts of data and info higher than what you could possibly tell them about. Communication overflow, even in random frequency or protocols/procedures, will train the person to deal with this and more.

My questions to you

Communication is your way to ensure a steady involvement of new members in your nonprofit. But this comes from my experience only, so now it’s time for some questions to you:

• How do/did you communicate with your team and with new potential members of your start up nonprofit?
• What issues are most common in such communication?
• How do you develop and maintain commitment through communication?
• Did anything of what I wrote makes sense to you? Can you relate with your personal experience?

I’d be really glad if you could all share your stories!

What are advisory groups?

Advisory groups are individuals and/or groups of individuals that contribute to the establishment, maintenance and development of an organization. Advisory groups are part of the organizational structure, yet separated from its membership. They’re somewhat in between the role of an external consultancy and an internal auditing team, in their impartial, yet caring, approach to the organization’s issues. They are usually characterized by the variety of its members’ peculiar expertise in organizational issues and/or in the organization’s core activities. They are formally and legally detached from the organization, but they still contribute to it by providing guidance and insight.

What kind of groups are we talking about?

The most common denominations of such advisory groups all centre around the word  “advise” (e.g. board of advisors, advisory committee, council of economic advisers). In some other cases, the concept of advisory board overlaps with the concept of “board of directors”: in these cases, the influence of the advisors (a.k.a. board members) is greater than the one they would have as a separate advisory board on their own, although they are still not the ones directly managing the organization, a responsibility that falls instead in the hands of a single person nominated by the board of directors (i.e. the CEO or Executive Director or any similar role). Separating the concepts of “advising” and “directing” clarifies each group’s role within an organization and that is why, in the rest of the article, we’ll consider advisory groups as a separate entity of their own, neither overlapping nor intertwined with any other organizational structure.

Why are they necessary?

There are various reasons why an organization should consider establishing advisory groups. Among them, most important are:

• expertise: the people involved are usually experts in their field and can provide valuable counsel on certain issues, when these issues are faced by the organization or the organization’s management team, be it about strategy, crisis management, or anything else related to your nonprofit’s core activities
• accountability/self-discipline: reporting to a board of advisors gives to an organization the capacity to account for its own activities to an external body that is not concerned with a specific aspect of the organization, but rather for the organization as a whole; sure, relations with customers/users/members/donors are important, but they all are just a part of the big picture: an advisory group is just like Snow White’s mirror, it reflects what it sees, with an impartial judgement (well, not exactly like Snow White’s mirror then)
• long-term memory: in some cases, especially with youth nonprofits where the generational change is rapid and not many members are active in the organization for more than 3-5 years, advisory groups can be the longest standing bodies in place in or around an organization; they are yet another mean to ensure that the collective wisdom of the organization, gathered in a few individuals, stays indeed anchored to a solid bedrock of experts who’ve been in the “business” for a long time

What do advisory groups usually work on?

These are some of the possible tasks your organization might ask its advisory groups to focus on:

• connecting: due to the decades-long experience of your advisers, it is very likely that their network of people and organization is much broader and influential than yours; group members are valuable in their capacity to connect you to (a) somebody you’d like to connect to, through a credible and authoritative channel or (b) somebody they think might be good for you to know, due to a similarity of interests or activities or challenges faced
• clarifying your organization’s identity: when you start up a nonprofit, it’s very hard to get your vision/mission/objectives right the first time you put your mind to it; advisory groups help you by making sure you know what you’re dealing with, either because they have been going through the same processes in their career (i.e. starting a business/nonprofit or rebranding their organization’s identity), or because they’re experts in your nonprofit’s field and know what similar organizations’ visions/missions/objectives are and can help you fit yours among them
• improve effectiveness: most likely, your advisers have worked for longer than you have been; they know how to run teams and organizations, they can always shed some light on working procedures, structures and day-to-day management good practices
• act as mediators: sometimes issues might arise in your work that require an impartial, yet friendly, point of view; advisory groups are your “go to” resource when you deal with team issues, organizational crises, internal disputes and so on
• lend credibility: especially in your start up phase, they can give to your nonprofit the credibility you wouldn’t have otherwise; donors often rely on that to be “insured” against a potentially bad investment in nonprofit activities
• provide strategical insights: finally, advisory groups can do what you’d like them mainly to do: advise you on everything and anything!

Benefits and rewards (a.k.a. your costs)

So, we know how important are these groups to us, but what’s in it for them? Most commonly, all the expenses related to the involvement of people in your nonprofit’s advisory groups should be covered by your organization: travel costs (if any), meeting costs, communication costs. If you think it’s necessary, a compensation for their work (something like a yearly salary) can be awarded either to them, or to a charitable organization of their choice. All this, plus of course the intrinsic rewards of serving a cause they believe in, enjoying the challenge of supporting a start up organization and working with people they love working with!

Structure of advisory groups

Here’s where things get complicated. Designing advisory groups is pretty much a skill, rather than an exact science. Once you know what you want out of them and how much can you afford to spend on their maintenance, you’ll know how many groups you need and what will each group do. I have three alternatives in mind so far, but I’d be glad to add more if you have other suggestions:

1. all-in-one (e.g. Mars Institute): call it “board of advisors”, or “international advisory council” or whatever else; you gather all the people you want recommendations from in a unique group, which takes care of all the tasks I mentioned; all kinds of people are in here, advising you on all kinds of issues at stake
2. alumni (e.g. Kellog) + other experts: one alumni advisory group, made of former members of your organization (possibly, previous middle and top managers), capturing the past knowledge of your organization (with “long-term memory” as its main role); in addition to that, one group of experts, with outsider knowledge (“expertise” and “accountability/self-discipline” as its main roles) to complement the alumni group in their advisory role
3. users/customers (e.g. Apple) + other experts: although we’re dealing with nonprofits and not with businesses, sometimes it’s important to focus on our organization’s target group and giving it a voice and a place of its own
4. honorary members: no team of its own, but simply a group of people that is consulted for specific occasions/reasons, due to their past or current high impact with the organization’s activities

Once the structure is in place, there are two issues that need to be discussed:

• coordination with the organization: is there a chairman of the group(s) who regularly keeps in contact with the management team of the organization (option 1 or 2) or is there a responsible within the organization who acts as the advisory groups liaison (options 1, 2 or 3)?
• size of the group: proportional to the size of the organization; some resort to a huge variety of advisors, some others to just a couple of them; 3-5 people is enough for a start up nonprofit of small size that has limited resources to spend on advisory groups; also note that size has implications on how often advisors are contacted (i.e. large group, less frequent meetings) or in general on how much the group acts as a team rather than merely as a list of contacts

Communication

Regardless of who’s in charge of the communication with the advisory group(s), the following should be taken into account:

• updates should be regular and timely, a few times a year, and for ad-hoc situations as well
• sometimes letters are a nicer way of communicating with them than emails (it makes them feel like they get the respect they deserve)
• clear expectations, goals and objectives of their teams are essential for a fruitful collaboration
• and, finally, politeness and capacity to listen and accept their input must transpare in every interaction

Meetings

In the first year, you’ll mostly try to meet them during the activities you organize or attend to (e.g. conferences), or you won’t meet them at all, since you won’t be probably able to pay for their travel expenses. Still, you should make sure that every time you meet them around the world, you give them the treatment they deserve (e.g. paying for a dinner out, coffee/tea and refreshments during a meeting, providing them with paper-printed copies of your documents, etc.). When the organization is more mature, you can think of paying for their travel expenses to a yearly (or, every 6 months) full-fledged meeting.

In the meetings, make sure to involve all members of the management team (to increase buy-in of the advisors’ insights), follow an agenda that meets determinate objectives and, most importantly, let the advisors advise you, by allowing them to talk a fair share of the time!

Who?

Finally, the most pressing question of all: who whould you invite to take part in those advisory groups? When it comes to characteristics, look for people who complement your management team’s strength and weaknesses and that can be considered a useful (and necessary) extension of your organization (i.e. to extend your network of donors, to extend your knowledge of managerial issues, etc. - you know better your own criteria and needs). Look for those characteristics first of all in the people and groups that have been already working with you in starting up your organization (but try to avoid those who might condition further advancement - e.g. a major donor who wants exclusive cooperation). Develop profiles according to the characteristics you have in mind and simply start contacting the people who match those characteristics, trying to aim for a group with enough diversity to match all profiles. And remember to keep in touch with all the people in your shortlist: even if they’re not ready for such a commitment, they might be up for a hint or two in times of need… you never know!

There are two main types of blogs related to nonprofit organizations: one category includes blogs of nonprofit organzizations, that come to life, as most commentators suggest, mostly as a communication and marketing effort, driven by a desire to better relate to one organization’s target audiences, be it customers/users, donors, media or others; the other category includes blogs about nonprofit organizations, where managers, leaders and administrators share their insights on their industry and on the “arts and crafts” of starting, developing and running such an activity.

This blog takes place in the latter category, with a few distinctions that we hope will allow us to play a specific role in the nonprofit blogosphere:

• our stories and related insights are generated by our experience ”from the field” of establishing a nonprofit organization; good stuff, bad stuff and all in between will have its right to be presented here at our blog
• due to the nature of the organization we’re currently establishing (i.e. a global student nonprofit organization), this blog will focus on issues faced by international nonprofits around the world; many blogs in English have been focusing on the American reality of 501’s, IRS’s and state laws: we’ll try to avoid any national or regional bias and think truly globally (but still in English, for the time being)
• this blog will start by focusing on how to start up an international nonprofit organization; there are no long-term goals, we’ll just see how it goes from there

This said, see you soon with our first article!