THE LITTLE BOOK OF NONPROFIT LEADERSHIP

A comprehensive guide to managing and leading a small nonprofit organization.

The latest book from Hanberg, the director of audience development for KNKX public radio in Tacoma, Washington, is aimed at a small and very well-defined readership: present and prospective executive directors of small-to-middling nonprofits. He sets the tone early, noting that the typical experience of running a nonprofit is one of running desperately from one crisis to the next, trying to put out fires. Hanberg has had two decades of experience dealing with such crises, and he imagines that he’s writing his book for that younger version of himself, just starting out. He begins by defining basic terms: What does an executive director do? How do they interact with what the author sees as the three key elements of all nonprofits: mission, people, and money? Along the way, the author draws a crucial distinction between being an employee and being a leader: “Did you actually work to make something different and better (a leader) or did you sit back and take what was given, even if you thought there could be a better way (an employee)?” Hanberg advises his readers that good executive directors must have a wider vision for a nonprofit, lead with that in mind, and not get caught in day-to-day squabbles on an operational level: “The more you can extricate yourself from the daily operations of your nonprofit,” he writes, “the more the real work of your job can begin.” Sometimes, according to Hanberg, that real work will eventually shape the nonprofit itself. “The nonprofit will start to look like you,” he writes. “Because everyone is taking their cues from you.”

Hanberg is a highly engaging writer, and he shows himself to be adept at shifts in pacing that make for fluid reading—and which are generally rare in leadership-related books. He enlivens the narrative with stories drawn from his own long experience and also with a protracted but useful hypothetical situation involving a nonprofit executive director who faces pretty much every problem and complication that any of Hanberg’s readers are likely to see. On the surface, the book’s ambit seems dauntingly narrow; its broader application comes from the fact that its author never loses sight of the fact that his real subject is leadership in general. He delves into the specifics of nonprofit activities, such as building memberships, establishing new streams of income, and modeling efficient budgets, and he spends a good deal of time discussing boards of directors—often the bane of a typical executive director’s existence. But his primary focus is how to manage the mission, the money, and the people that get the job done: “Even if you have a new staff hungry for a change,” he writes, “it's best to showthem the changes you want to make later, not just vaguely tell them about it on your first introduction.” These leadership principles are broadly applicable and not simply visible in the nonprofit spectrum.

A wide-ranging and compelling explanation of what it takes to do a nonprofit executive director’s job well.