Category Archives: Governance and management

Montpelier Adopts New and Improved Mission Statement

Mission statements are required part of non-profit organizations, but I’ve often found that they’re treated like death and taxes–inevitable but you don’t want to think about it. In museums and historic sites, you can tell when they’re particularly useless when you can swap the name of the organization with another and it still makes sense.  Good mission statements are distinctive, memorable, and passionate.  They have to help you make decisions–is this project, activity, donor, or partnership right for us?  They have to go beyond “collect, preserve, and interpret” and describe what you want your audience to “think, feel, and do“.  Creating a good mission statement isn’t easy and examples are hard to come by, so when I find them, I collect them like golden eggs.

Montpelier's new mission statement on the back of a business card.

When I visited James Madison’s Montpelier last week, I learned they adopted a new mission statement.   Developed as part of their strategic planning process by a small team of trustees and staff, it was then shared with the entire board and staff for comment and revision before it was adopted by the board of trustees.  I thought it was so good I wanted to share it as an exemplar:

Our mission is to inspire continuing public engagement with American constitutional self-government by bringing to life the home and contributions of James and Dolley Madison.

Yes, there’s a bit of jargon that requires some explanation but it’s so much better than the previous one:

The Montpelier Foundation preserves the legacy of James Madison, his family, and
Montpelier’s plantation community, and seeks to inspire an understanding and
commitment to the ideals of the Constitution as the first successful form of self
governance to secure liberty for its citizens. The Foundation’s mission is founded on
the fact that the Constitution is a landmark in the history of mankind’s quest to achieve
freedom. James Madison, the individual most responsible for the Constitution,
provided both the innovative ideas central to its success and the leadership that
brought about its creation and ratification.

Yikes.  Try to fit that on the back of a business card.

Want Buy-In? Build Trust

John Kotter is a prolific author of books about “change” in organizations.  Getting people, organizations, and communities to move in new directions or to end old habits is difficult, but he’s developed lots of practical strategies and outlined a step-by-step process to succeed based on his studies of dozens of companies.  Fundamental is a relationship of trust among the participants (e.g., managers and employees, city council and residents, historic sites and neighbors), which is a result of transparency and openness, and a willingness to listen and discuss tough issues.  It sounds obvious but I’ve seen national organizations create an atmosphere of suspicion, hostility, and fear simply because they hold too many closed door meetings, only communicate bland or stale news when the environment is clearly unsettled, and won’t answer simple questions about what’s happening.  The result is change has to be forced (and enforced and reinforced) and buy-in, participation, and support is low.  It’s the worst way to implement change, except for war.

If you’re dealing with change at your historic site or house museum (either leading or experiencing it), John Kotter introduces this idea in, “Levering Trust to Achieve Buy-In,”  a short video at Forbes posted last week.  If you want to explore his ideas further, I’ve found his books Leading Change (a classic) and Buy-In:  Saving Your Good Idea from Getting Shot Down (really a handbook, great for advocacy and fundraising) to be helpful.

Maintaining Your Entreprenuerial Edge

The people who work in historic sites and house museums are often among the most entrepreneurial I’ve encountered, mostly because circumstances force them to be risky, resourceful, creative, and innovative.  Working with a tight budget and a reliance on volunteers to change the world (or at least their community), they are continually looking for new ways to succeed.  The trick is how to do it without getting overextended, derailed by interruptions, and staying in a rut.  In the Daily Muse, Adelaide Lancaster recently shared Three Bad Habits of Entrepreneurs and How to Break Them to attain these goals:

  1. To have a clearer head. At any given time, you should have only a few main areas of focus—no more than three a quarter. Other initiatives must be declared a secondary priority, and projects or “opportunities” unrelated to your business goals must be declined. [A focus on a few things done well rather than many things done poorly seems to Continue reading →

Should Historic Sites Become Social Entrepreneurs?

Historic sites and house museums are increasingly being encouraged to think as much about the revenue as they do expenses, as much about profit as they do mission.  It’s often hard for non-profit organizations to embrace this movement–many are still stinging from the years when “business thinking” and MBAs were all the rage in the executive office.  Certainly economic sustainability is a goal (if we go out of business, who will do our good work?) but it doesn’t seem the usual models coming out of business schools is appropriate.  Perhaps it’s time to recognize that another model can be followed, one that combines mission and money along with a new set of performance measures.

“Social Entrepreneurship” and “For Benefit Corporations” may offer a new approach to managing historic sites, although it’s actually not that new.  It’s been around since the 1970s and one social entrepreneur–Muhammad Yunus for his microlending program through Grameen Bank–has received a Nobel Peace Prize.  In “Social Entrepreneurship and the Next Generation of Giving,” the Washington Post provides the latest summary of this type of organization as well as some advice:

  • Get the Right People Working on the Right Team:  “To drive a social innovation to scale, it takes Continue reading →

Learn How the Museum Assessment Program Can Help Your Site

The Museum Assessment Program is one of those program that’s been a major benefit to the field for decades, but unless you’ve participated, it’s a mystery.  You may have heard how it can transform an organization, move it to the next level of development, or solve a vexing situation.  It sounds dramatic, but I’ve seen it happen at both large and small museums who have gone through the process.

So how does this happen?  You can find out at a free webinar about MAP on Thursday, November 10 at 3pm Eastern Standard Time presented by the American Association of Museums and the Institute of Museum and Library Services.  Registration isn’t required but Continue reading →

Is an Organizational Hybrid for Non-Profits and For-Profits on the Horizon?

In my work with historic sites, financially sustainability is one of the major challenges, and many are seeking advice from business leaders to increase their earned income.  It’s often an awkward situation because business owners don’t share the same values for preservation and history, and non-profits are uncomfortable with the risks associated with entrepreneurship.  Much time is spent explaining and defending various practices, and making decisions is incredibly slow.  But there may be an answer.  This month’s issue of the Harvard Business Review predicts that the growing desire to meld non-profit mission and for-profit entrepreneurship will create a new form of organizational structure:  the for-benefit enterprise.

For-benefits are a new class of organization.  Like non-profits, they can pursue a wide range of social missions.  Like for-profits, they can generate a broad range of products and services that improve quality of life for consumers, create jobs, and contribute to the economy.  Combining social and commercial ends is not new–think of hospitals, universities, arts organizations, Goodwill.  But the for-benefit model does much more than that.  It redefines fiduciary duty, governance, ownership, and stakeholder relationships in fundamental ways.

Author Heerad Sabeti calls this a fourth sector of the economy, distinct from government, non-profits, and commercial businesses, with the following characteristics: Continue reading →