Guiding Nonprofits Through Election Season: Navigating Politics and Mission

Tim Barnes: 0:01

I believe that one of the most challenging seasons of a nonprofit leader is leading through a contentious election year, similar to where we find ourselves at this moment. What happens when the reason for the existence of your organization becomes a focus of the political discussion?

Nathan Ruby: 0:20

Well, Tim, that's a great question, so let's see if we can find some answers today to leading during an election year.

Tim Barnes: 0:38

Welcome to episode 120 of the Practice of Nonprofit Leadership. I'm Tim Barnes and I'm Nathan Ruby. Well, nathan, although our episode today focuses on the national election, the phrase is that all politics is local, and even local elections or issues can have an impact on your nonprofit and requires effective leadership in the midst of it.

Nathan Ruby: 1:04

Oh, absolutely, and it could be the focus of your work. I mean, it could be that your organization is tied into a political issue or something that is a significant, where policy impacts it a lot, but it doesn't mean that even organizations that aren't inherently political can run into the same question or the same issue. So, for instance, let's say you're leading the local what would be an example? That you're leading the local symphony? Let's use that as an example. And, tim, for the most part, symphony is pretty benign. You don't run into a whole lot of political issues when you're leading the symphony, until your local school district is trying to pass a referendum. And if that referendum fails, then the band program is on the chopping block. The first program to go if this referendum fails is banned. Well, things just got political and you want to see some intense people go talk to band parents. They are passionate. So the question becomes should you engage or not and if so, at what level? Before we dive into our discussion, we want to take a moment and remind you about the practice community. Are you ready? Are you ready to go deeper? Are you ready to learn more? Are you ready to join a community of people who are walking the same path as you. Well, if you are, tim and I invite you to join the practice community. As a member of the practice community, you will have access to two things. First, you will have access to additional content. Tim and I will be recording additional shows that only members of the community can have access to. Second, you will be invited to our monthly office hours. Once a month, tim and I are going to be hanging out on a Zoom call and members will be invited to join us. There will be time to ask questions and to get feedback, not only from the two of us, but also from other executive directors who are walking right alongside with you. All of this for just 10 bucks a month. When you divide that out, it's only 33 cents a day. That is a whopper of a bargain To join the group today. Go to the show notes and click on the link that says the practice of nonprofit leadership, and it has a plus sign at the end of it. That'll take you right to the sign up page. We are really excited to offer this opportunity and to be able to connect with you on an even deeper level. Please join us. We'll be glad you did. Alright, tim. Let's dive into some practical actions we could take while leading our nonprofits during an election year.

Tim Barnes: 4:06

Yeah, I'm kind of excited about this discussion we're going to have, nathan, and hopefully it's going to be very, very practical in where we find ourselves. So I want to give you some key points to keep in mind and actions that you can take. So the first one is and I'm sure you're going to get tired of hearing this almost every episode we say this, but, as an executive director of a nonprofit, don't forget your mission. You've got to keep your focus on your core work and continue to serve the community that you're in. And sometimes, in the midst of elections and when things get very contentious, it's easy to get so focused on that and on these discussions that you lose the mission. You forget what you're trying to do as an organization. You need to remind your team and your stakeholders yes, these issues are important, but we need to remember the organization's mission and the goals that we're working towards. We can't get distracted from that. We can't allow the partisan politics to distract us from why we exist.

Nathan Ruby: 5:18

You know, Tim, I'm a history major that was actually my undergraduate degree and you go back in politics all the way back to, you know, even when Abraham Lincoln was running and even before them, and you look at some of the cartoons and some of the newspaper articles, oh my gosh, they were accusing each other of all of the I mean crazy things. All the way back into the 19th century and, I'm sure, since the dawn of humanity, politics have been part of our lives. Everybody's going to have an opinion on how far should you get engaged and how far you should be engaged as a leader. And I think this year, looking ahead into this year's election cycle and I know my parents said this, I know my grandparents said this, I know my great grandparents said this that this year's going to be as contentious as it's ever been. Things are lining up, with Trump running again and with President Biden and the issues, that is, I mean, it's going to be bad this year, and I can always, as I guess. And so how far you go in this is actually your job as a leader. I mean, you set the pace. You get to decide. Are we going to just not even address it at all and just keep going down the path we're going. Or are we going to stick our toe in the water, or are we going to cannonball into the deep end? I mean, that's up to you and you have to decide what that's going to be. But, Tim, just like you said, you cannot let that distract you. You cannot let you like a wheelbarrow when you've got a lot of weight in the wheelbarrow and all of a sudden it turns to one side or the other and you're all of a sudden going a different direction. You've got to stay true to your mission and the people you serve, and all of this other stuff has to be secondary, not primary.

Tim Barnes: 7:26

Right, we're going to talk a little bit about how to handle some of that. But you're exactly right, Nathan, and I just want you to just challenge yourself not to allow your energy and your emotion to get so caught up in the political issues that you lose sight of why you exist as a mission. So that's the first thing Forget your mission. The second thing is don't assume you know where people are politically and how important is that Nathan Tim is Tim is laughing because he knows this story.

Nathan Ruby: 8:00

So I was on a fundraising call Sometime in the past I won't say how long ago, but sometime in the past and I had a volunteer on on the, on the call with me who's helping me at a great call, I, I Great donor call, and we got to the end and we just started you know it was a zoom call. It was, you know, the, the old COVID zoom call that we all went through and so we're we're talking after we kind of got done with the meat of what we wanted to cover and we're just chitchatting a little bit and my volunteer made a political comment, assuming that the and this was the, the volunteer knew this, this, the donor. Well, this was not like they'd never met before. I mean, this was a long-term relationship and Made it, made a joke and in a certain political, you know, position. And all of a sudden the donor came unglued, angry, and we had my volunteer had no idea the political position or or beliefs that the donor had, and so we handled it pretty well and we got through it, okay. And so then, after we had done, every time we did one of these calls. Then we would do a debrief right after you know we get off the zoom call and then you know we would call each other and say, okay, you know this went well, we need to do this better next time. Yeah, it was like, okay, we're not gonna have. You know, let's not use that as a conversation anymore. And so, and my, my volunteer was like I had no idea. I I've known that guy for 20 years and I had no idea that they felt that strongly, you know, on that side of the aisle. So anyway, so you might want to just keep that, keep that out with with your donors.

Tim Barnes: 9:53

It's really easy. You know, we may, we may go to the same Religious institution, same church or whatever, and we think, oh, we all, we all believe the same about about certain political issues, or we're all part of this club, or we're part of that family which you know. Families, uh, god bless them. Um, but anyway, the the key here is and this is true of when you're talking donors how important is that you don't want to offend your donors because you think you know where they are, or even your staff. Your staff may have different opinions even though they're working for your organization. The key is not to assume, when you get into conversation, when things become contentious, you've got you've got to take some time to get to know what's going on, so don't assume you know where people are politically.

Nathan Ruby: 10:44

Yeah, and you know, tim, one thing that I've used in the past if you get yourself caught, where you end up because you're your donors, volunteer staff, they will Because because you probably shouldn't be coming out hard and strong on what you believe. Now we're talking about if you're running like a social service organization or a typical nonprofit. If you're running an organization who's whose job it is, whose mission it is, if you're running a political organization of some type, then obviously that's different. But what we're talking about is a typical 501c3 nonprofit that is doing some type of a social Delivery, of a social Output. It's not uncommon for your donors to engage you in the conversation and they will not have that restriction. They will tell you exactly what they think and they will, I think, sometimes expect you to believe what they believe and agree with them. Um, so if you get caught in a conversation that you can't get out of or that you you can't, just you have to say something. One way to kind of gloss over it is is say you know what, you know I left or right of the aisle, you know there. There, I don't want to say crux, that's not the right word, but you know, it's not just one side. It's all of them, it's politicians um, hopefully there's no politicians listening to, um, and typically if you, if you're talking to somebody who's like overly engaged in the debate, they will accept that as a oh yeah, it is, you know, they're all. They're all you know a bunch of nincompoops or whatever. So it is a. It is a way to kind of get off that conversation and move on to something else without offending your volunteer or donor.

Tim Barnes: 12:35

Well, that's, that's good. So don't assume, don't assume where people are politically, but let's, let's follow up on what what Nathan just said, because I think there are some ways to respond. Because the third point is you need to be willing to engage with your community around these issues. Um, and here's how you do it you encourage Open dialogue and create spaces for respectful discussions Around the issues that matter to you and your organization. And and how you create that space is really important because that allows on your board, that allows your staff, that allows your donors to have these kinds of Of respectful conversations, to find out where people are and how that might impact your organization. You know whether you're engaging community members or donors or volunteers. The idea is to try to understand their concerns and their perspectives in this, and I think I think a couple things that can happen. It's true of any, any kind of conversation. But first of all, listen. That's that's the. The hardest thing right now is just to stop and say, okay, I want to, I want to listen. Don't get angry, don't get all upset. Just let me listen, let me be authentic, um, about who I am, but let me ask questions, not questions like how in the world, could you believe that? But ask questions like help me understand, you know, tell me more, you know some of those kind of things, so you begin to understand where, where people are in this and, as you engage, stick to the facts and stick to your experiences. Those are the things, especially your experiences. This is what you've experienced in these situations. I mean, you can argue about it, but they can't take that away. This is your experience that you've had. I had a situation so I worked for a nonprofit and our focus is people who have been forcibly displaced around the world, and that has become a very highly focused. For a number of years it's been an issue that has actually become part of the political discussion, political dialogue, really.

Nathan Ruby: 14:52

That's political right now this year. I know that's hard to believe. Yeah, I didn't know that.

Tim Barnes: 14:57

I remember Nathan being asked to come and speak to a group of guys about what I do and about that situation. I came in with just okay, what are your questions? That I began to share, and here's how I approached it. First of all, this is my world that I live in, so I'm going to share with you what I know is fact, because that's my world. This is what I'm actually dealing with. Let me share with you my experiences. We had a really good discussion afterwards. I was talking to a couple guys and a couple guys said to me you know, we knew you were going to speak tonight. We almost didn't come. I was like, well, thanks for your encouragement, but it was interesting because as we talked about it, they appreciated what I shared. They learned things that they didn't know before and their perspective had a little bit of a change, only because they were actually listening to someone who knew what they were talking about. Honestly, they're arrogantly. That's just the world I live in. It was really interesting, but I stuck with the facts as I knew them and I shared the experiences that I had in this kind of situation with the people that I'm involved in Trying to listen to. What are your concerns. Why do you think that I actually had somebody call me? One of the guys called me like two days later. He was listening to a radio show and he goes you got to call this, you got to call the host, you got to call in. He doesn't know what you're talking with, he doesn't have all the facts. I'm like I don't think he'd want to hear from me just saying but the key is to engage, to listen, to be authentic, to ask questions, to speak authentically, to not try to make someone believe what you do, but just share your experience of the facts as you know them. I think it's really important as you engage with your community.

Nathan Ruby: 17:08

Yeah, tim, we live in a soundbite headline world and I'm even susceptible to that as well. When I read articles, wherever I'm getting my news from, I probably read the entire article. I don't know 10, 15% of the time. I try to get down three, four, five paragraphs before my attention span is gone, because sometimes they'll stick really important information down at the end of the article. I think if you're gonna have these discussions and again, we're not saying that you shouldn't, and many times you should you need to be having these discussions. But you've gotta be educated. You have to know the facts. So, going back to our example of the symphony and the referendum for the high school band, if you're gonna go talk to people about that, have you read the budget for the school? Do you know where they are spending their money? Do you know what else is on the referendum? You have to know those things. And so, and again, like Tim said, if somebody has a hardcore belief, you're probably not going to change their mind in that discussion. That's not your point, or that's not your purpose. But to have a valid discussion, see it from their side of the point, but then to offer facts, not emotions but facts of okay, this is what's actually happening, and so I think that's part of it, but you just need to be prepared, is what we're saying.

Tim Barnes: 18:53

And I think this might be a good point to just say also we were talking about this before we recorded. I don't know if it surprised you or not, but Nathan and I have different approaches, or different. I should remember what the word I used. But we actually come at politics a little bit different. We're on a little bit of different sides of the aisle. We vote very differently. We vote. I guess that's a good way to say that we vote very differently. But we have put this into practice over 15 years as friends to engage in some of these conversations and also to know when not to engage. I think I mean it's like, okay, it's not worth my time or effort right now, it's not gonna impact us, and so I guess we're saying we're learning, I gotta find some wood here, knock on wood. But we have been able to navigate that by using some of these principles that we're talking about you today and it's been good.

Nathan Ruby: 19:57

And I think, as part of our friendship, I've also used not that I mean, I know that you don't speak for an entire population of people who think like you do but I've also, multiple times over the last 15 years, have used you as a check and balance, maybe as a way to say, okay, what am I missing, what am I thinking, what I have this thought, I have this. What's the word I want? I have this. I don't wanna say feeling, because it's not feelings, but I have this idea in my head and just to double check myself, what am I missing? And so you and I, we've actually talked over things before, and I know you do the same thing, and so I think we make each other stronger. Neither one of us tries to convince the other one to switch or to think differently, but it's a way to just double check what we're thinking and why we think that way.

Tim Barnes: 21:05

Yeah, so it is possible. Yeah, right. So after you talking about engaging your community, the fourth point is I think it's okay, as a leader, to engage in issue advocacy, and let me tell you what I mean by that. So while we stay neutral in partisan politics, we don't get pulled into that. Nonprofits can engage in issue advocacy. Now you have to be careful. You, as a nonprofit, really cannot endorse a specific candidate. You cannot do political work around a candidate and you should always make sure, if you get Towards that direction, you need to make sure you check the law. You might want to get some legal counsel and all that kind of stuff. Make sure you have a really good sense of what you can and cannot do. But you also can Educate people around your issue. So if you're, if your issue is the homeless, like you are, you are trying to provide resources for people who are without a home. They're, they're not housed in your community. You know that becomes a contentious issue in a lot of places. And yet here you are. You're doing the best you can to meet the needs of people. You can educate your legislators, you can educate your leaders in your community and you shouldn't be afraid of advocating for those who are part of your mission, what you're trying to do. You can't stand up and go hey, here's Joe. Vote for Joe, because Joe's on our side can't do that. But you can advocate for those who sometimes don't have a voice and are being left out by politicians.

Nathan Ruby: 23:02

Yeah, you know it. Going back to our symphony Example, you, you can't, you shouldn't, you can't go and tell your local councilman, you know Well, this would be a district, so it'd be the school board member.

Tim Barnes: 23:20

Um, I just need to put a disclaimer. We're not lawyers here.

Nathan Ruby: 23:23

Yeah, exactly, exactly, exactly. So you can't. You can't tell your, your congressman or your state senator or whatever. I, you know, I urge you to vote no on House bill You'll 3a to 6. Stay away from that. But what you can do is you can go and say you know, this is the work that we do and this is what, this is what we experience and this is how we help people, and this and this and this and this and this, and you know it'll be obvious in, in how you're presenting that and and how you, how you do your work, what their vote should be. It's pretty obvious, that of that. But you just you really need to stay away from you know, vote yes or vote no. But I will also say that if you are going to actively start spending time Advocating like this, you really really need to have your board on board with that before you start. And typically, if you bring, if you say this to your board hey, you know, this is a this, this is an issue that that is coming up, this is there is legislation federally, state, local that will impact our ability to do this. I really think we need to start engaging in this. You will scare the heck out of your board, because they all know in the somehow they've heard. You know that we can't do that, and so you need to have a. You know, yes, this is. You know, we have to do it the right way. This is how we need to do it, this is why we need to do it. This is my plan and but. And you need them on board with you or on the same page as you, because this will take time. I mean, if you actually want to make a difference and and impact it, it's going to take time and that means time away from what you're already doing. So just make sure that your board is is on the same page as you if you want to do these things.

Tim Barnes: 25:25

And, just as we finished that point up, also just remind you again To, if you're going to go full bore into that, do have legal counsel in terms of how you, what you can and can't do. So it's very clear. Yeah, on that as well, absolutely. The fifth point is during a Contention selection year, I think also, you should be planning for contingencies, and what I mean by that is, you know, there you should anticipate some potential challenges of disruptions that could arise in your program, in your, in your organization, during an election year. Develop contingency plans to address any issues that may impact your organization's operations, your funding or the relationships that you have, all those you know. If your, if your mission Becomes a political issue, you need to be ready to figure out what happens if I lose this funding, what happens if I lose these donors. You just need to be thinking about the what ifs and how will I approach that. There's always, it's always important to have some contingencies in mind as you step into this, this plan. We don't know what's going to happen, but you should be thinking about what if.

Nathan Ruby: 26:42

You know, along with that, tim, along contingencies and thinking of what if is also opportunities, and To be prepared for that as well. Because if all of a sudden, you're in the spotlight, you're your, your mission is in the spotlight being able. I mean local TV shows and radio shows. They're always, always looking for guests to come on. And so if you're, you know whatever it is that you do is now in the national spotlight. You know, perfect opportunity for some marketing and to get Awareness of your organization is call up the local radio. You know morning talk show and say, hey, I could talk about these four things. Guarantee you you will be on the next day.

Tim Barnes: 27:27

So to be ready with things like that as well, as long as you're getting ready for contingencies, and you might find also, sometimes in the donor field, you might find there are people who will support you that haven't supported you before, because they're Upset or they're frustrated with the way things are being done. And so, you know, being open and and to have some dialogue with them as well is important. Well, my last point is this, and I feel pretty strongly about this, and the last point is remember, most issues in a political election have people at the core, and when I think about who gets lost in the political dialogue, who gets lost in the contentious elections, are often the very people that we are trying to help in our nonprofit organizations and so we talk about. You know, closing the loop and doing these kinds of things oftentimes means we are saying no to a group of people who need help, who need encouragement, and it's not maybe that blatant, but oftentimes politicians can be more focused about how they're perceived and about their votes, and sometimes they lose sight of the very people they should be advocating for. And I want to encourage you, as a leader, to not lose sight of the people that you're working for and to not be afraid of speaking up and speaking for those who maybe don't have a voice. That's why we exist.

Nathan Ruby: 29:05

It's exactly why we exist and it's exactly why you, as the leader of your organization, it's why you do what you do. It is about providing voice you just said it, tim but providing a voice for people who have no voice. And you know, again, we're not saying that you have to do these things and that you have to. You know, go to the city council meeting and stand up and do your three minutes. You know, when people from the community get to say something, or that you're going to go to your state legislature or go to Washington DC, we're not saying that you have to do that, but maybe you do. Maybe what you do is so important and it's so critical and whatever policy federal, state or local is being discussed that you need to stand up. And so if you do, if that's you, then hopefully you know what we talked about today will give you a little guidance on how to move forward.

Tim Barnes: 30:04

And, I hope, the actions that we've shared. Again, you probably can't take every single one, but those are some things that you can do. It's guaranteed that as we go through this year, this election year, we will all be impacted in one way or another. And so, again, just remember, as a non-profit executive director, your primary focus should be on advancing your organization's mission and serving the needs of your community, regardless of the external political dynamics. Don't be afraid to engage in your community in respectful and constructive ways, and don't forget the people that you serve.

Nathan Ruby: 30:53

Well, thank you for listening today. If you've been benefiting from what we've shared on this podcast, tim and I really invite you to click on. Go to the show notes and click on Join the Practice Community link. It is. We are really excited about this. You are going to get a ton of value out of this. It will be the very best 10 bucks you've spent this month. We invite you to join us at the Practice Community. Well, that's all for today. Until next time.