Most American non-profit organizations are small. Unfortunately, most of the administrative functions necessary to success aren't scalable. To survive, achieve any meaningful success in accomplishing the mission, and to grow, a little NPO must ably grapple with the same issues as any other organization. Meanwhile, small NPO's are typically run by an all-volunteer board of directors. Serving on the board of one of these small NPO's pays nothing, is usually a thankless job and doesn't do much to enhance one's resume. Thus, it's usually difficult to get anybody to serve, let alone people who, by virtue of their education and experience, are up to the task. New officers and directors very often come to the table having no real concept of what they need to know, but don't. Herein lies the reasons why small nonprofits often languish after the initial exuberance wanes.
 
What volunteers need to know is not secreted as privileged information. Books, seminars and conference sessions on relevant topics abound. If these tend to be rather expensive, there is a wealth of free information available to anyone interested in searching it out on the Internet. But then there is the problem of sorting through what is directly appropriate and useful, and what is mostly academic, irrelevant given the particular situations at hand, or just plain bad information ... outdated, inaccurate, incorrect, or otherwise faulty. All this can consume more time than volunteers may be willing or able to invest, and not everyone is interested in or good at doing this sort of research.
 
This was exactly my situation as I entered upon my first adventure as a volunteer officer and director of a small, dying nonprofit. I hadn't volunteered; I was volunteered ... being blind-sided in front of an annual meeting by my nomination for election as the corporate secretary. It was an awkward moment. I didn't want the job, yet there were no other takers. Although the surprise nomination was inappropriate, I was reluctant to decline after it was immediately seconded ... and enthusiastically thirded. I rationalized not having enough backbone by thinking perhaps I was just what the doctor ordered, since the organization really needed to be put out of its misery ... meaning disbanding and dissolution. As an experienced businessman, I knew I would be able to handle that gracefully. When my colleagues on the executive board didn't agree, I decided that my Plan B would then be to figure out what had led the organization to failure, and see if we could turn it around. Four years later, the corporation had been completely reorganized, and we had successfully met membership recruitment and fundraising challenges. The membership was expanding, contributions and donations had increased tenfold, and we were engaged in meaningful and rewarding mission projects.
 
What I learned in the process of doing Plan B has been put into this book. My purpose is to help you help your organization to succeed in a similar way, but without your having to re-invent the wheel. You can read this book from cover to cover in a day, and you'll be in possession of everything I learned over my four-years of service as that organization's corporate secretary. After that, it will serve as your handy desktop reference until you develop a style of your own and a degree of expertise that will relegate it to irrelevance.
 
 
About the Author
 
I was conceived on an island, whose main importance at the time was its U.S. Coast Guard Station and lighthouse. My father was a Coast Guardsman, as were several other members of the family, on both sides. So that's what I thought I'd be when I grew up. "The Chief" (my father) rose to the Coast Guard's highest enlisted rank in spite of having only an eighth grade education, so he felt my graduation from high school provided me with as much education as was appropriate for "people like us" ... that college was only for the wealthy, or the "smart ass".
 
The family tradition ended with him. When I went down to enlist, the Coast Guard didn't want me, because I was near-sighted. So I joined the Air Force. I liked what I was doing, and excelled at it, being honored as "Outstanding Airman" of the 4228th Strategic Wing and then again of the whole 4th Air Division. But during my four years of active duty, I figured out that unlike my father, I was not cut out to be a "military man".
 
After leaving the Air Force, I tried to leverage the electronics training I'd received by applying it to industry. I quickly learned that my career as an outstanding B-52 and KC-135 technician didn't translate very well to the world of industrial electronics. The Air Force had state-of-the-art stuff. Industrial electronics was at least twenty-years behind the times! I decided to seize upon that opportunity, but quickly discovered that being a technician also didn't translate very well to that role ... I didn't know "beans" when it came to designing electronic stuff. So I became an "engineer" at my kitchen table, pouring over texts, trade articles and application notes well into the wee hours every night for the next few years. My kitchen became my "lab", with electrical supplies, electronic components and experimental circuitry everywhere. I was still a bachelor, so having no other need for them, my kitchen ... the cabinets, refrigerator and oven ... became my library and stock room. I spent hours in restaurants, following breakfast, lunch and dinner by drinking coffee, smoking cigarettes and filling the back of paper placemats with scribbled schematic diagrams, math formulas and notes. I eventually found out that I was referred to as "computer man" at the place I usually stopped for breakfast, and that they'd papered one kitchen wall with the placemats I'd left behind.
 
The last company I ever worked for was a small, but highly successful closely held corporation. I became the company's "boy genius". After eight years, I'd created a whole new division dedicated to developing and manufacturing electronic controls, and was a member of management with a seat on the corporation's Executive Committee. Not bad for "people like us".
 
Yet, having achieved more than I'd ever dreamed, I found myself disillusioned. Here I was, on top of the world ... so why didn't it feel that good? I didn't understand at the time that my vocational success resulted from the fact that I was being driven by neuroticism. No matter how much I achieved, it was never enough, so I'd struggle on to even greater heights. I'd been busy all my life trying to impress everyone else as a means of dealing with my own low self-esteem and, of course, that wasn't working. No amount of glory and praise could change my concept of who and what I really was ... the eldest son of "people like us".
 
In my ignorance, I decided I'd be happier running my own business, so that was the beginning of Warner Instruments. We have designed and manufactured specialized temperature control systems for industrial applications since 1976. The company never grew to great heights, but it allowed my wife and I to work near home, being with our five children during the years while they were growing up, which turned out to be a privilege worth more than a business fortune.
 
Having become semi-retired, I decided to turn my attention to volunteer work ... and to finally give in to my wife, whose been badgering me to write for the past several years.