And, what does "money" mean in the context of Jewish organizational leadership It means one's personal capacity gift -- and that gift must inspire others to give to their capacity. Every organization with which I have been privileged to serve has been successful because its leaders have committed -- some even over-committed. I have participated in solicitations where gifts were driven by the solicitors' passion which, in turn, ignited passion in the solicited -- yes, a passion ignited by the solicitors' gift.
Let me offer an overly simplistic rule of successful organizations: you must assure that your Board Chairs/lay Presidents are giving to their capacity and that those gifts will motivate others to give. (Thus, one whose "capacity" might be a $5,000 annual gift, would only qualify for the Board Chair/President position of the organization to which that contribution flowed if leadership believed that a $5,000 gift would inspire others to give to their capacity; and, a $100,000 annual gift from one that organizational leadership knows is far below capacity would be a disqualifier.)
Thus, with all of my criticism on these pages of JFNA leaders over the years for positions taken/not taken, one that you have never heard or read would have been of their financial commitments to their home communities and to the Jewish People. From Charles Bronfman right through Mark Wilf, JFNA has elected leaders who are also incredible philanthropists. I have seen these wonderful examples across the best and most forward-driving organizations -- most recently at JNF where Ambassador Ronald Lauder, as Chair, and President Sol Lizerbram lead by the examples of their time, their ability to inspire and their financial commitment.
We are living through the worst of times for organizations dependent on the voluntary commitment of philanthropic dollars -- COVID-19 and, at best, a pandemic-driven recession. More than ever our organizations need to reexamine their leadership, the criteria to be employed, and the length of terms. Reading that one President of one of our important organizations, had been re-elected to a "second four-year term" shocked me. This means that no one within that entity's leadership rose to the level of electability for 8 years?
Institutional introspection is long overdue. I'll be writing more about this in the weeks ahead,
Rwexler
Institutional introspection is long overdue. I'll be writing more about this in the weeks ahead,
Rwexler
The importance of grooming future leadership is very important as you rightly point out. In fact one of the most important roles of the president/chairman is to find and groom your successor. However, one example such as you are referring to doesn't necessarily indicate a trend nor does it make this organization any weaker. Unsuspected and unfortunate things occur that prevent those being groomed in the first four years of the term that may force another term or partial term on the incumbent. There can be health issues that cause the logical successor to have to step down, financial concerns such as the current economic crisis, change in fortunes, etc that may have limited the successor from stepping up to the top position or other changes that were unanticipated 4 years early when the logical successor was first "annointed". It is the credit to the organization and the incumbent that he/she was willing to sign up for a possible additional four years. If any of these circumstances occurred relatively close to the time of transition, perhaps the organization did not have time to prepare a successor and/or to change its bylaws to re-elect the incumbent for a shorter term. Perhaps they have found a new successor and in less than 4 years there could be a change. The most important thing is that the organization and its leadership is strong enough to overcome what were "the best laid plans....."
ReplyDeleteResponding to Anonymous 11:19 a.m. Great points and potential alternative. Yet, recently, confronted witha controversy over the nomination of a successor Board Chair, about which Richard has written, the Conference of Presidents was able to immediately amend its governance to extend the expiring term of its outgoing Chair for one year. This seems to me to be a better solution than giving an old Board Chair another full Term.
ReplyDeleteAs a former CEO of a very large organization I can say that in response to Anon 11:19 and also 11:40's point about changing the governance each organization has procedures they have to go thru in order to amend constitutions and bylaws. Some are more restrictive than others. We don't know the underlying issues nor the timing of when these decisions were made and how much advance notice there was before the current chair/president had to re-up. I seriously doubt that he/she wanted to have to be in this position but the reality may have prevented any other immediate option. Perhaps the organization is now taking steps to modify the length of the second term, but it still must go thru its bylaws and proper procedures.
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