"...Don't ask about the rate of their overhead. Ask about the scale of their dreams." Dan Pallotta

Over the last month, I've joined sector colleagues to watch a film I can’t get out of my mind: the Uncharitable Movie. This film has the potential to be a lightning rod for our sector to rethink, reimagine and co-create our future. The film documents and digs deeper into some of the charitable sector stories that made the news as “scandals” and “scams” over the course of my 4-decade career: Invisible Children in 2012, the Wounded Warrior Project in 2016, Boys & Girls Clubs of America in 2010, and the collapse of Dan Pallotta 's own company in 2002. Perhaps one day we can add ME TO WE FOUNDATION or WE Charity to the list. There is far more to that story than most folks in this country are prepared to consider. SO much easier to tear something down than build something new.

The film interviewed social impact leaders like scott harrison , Dorri McWhorter Milton Little and Billy Shore It looks at some of the challenges we face in this sector. Here’s my top ten list.  

1. We are too risk averse, and this keeps us from being innovative.
2. We keep overhead low at the expense of everything.
3. Staff are generally underpaid, organizations are generally under-staffed and we lack resources for training, team building and retention.
4. Lack of leadership and leadership training.
5. Inability to allocate time to strategic, innovative thinking and intentional building of kind, collaborative and inclusive cultures.
6. Acceptance of incremental change when transformational change is needed.
7. Lack of investment in resource generation. In the private sector it is understood that you need to spend money to make money. This is often further restricted by volunteer boards who think they know more about our work than we do.
8. Inequitable salaries. There are leaders in our sector who are doing just fine. They run large organizations, and they are compensated fairly for this. I highly recommend you look at this CRA website and look up the salaries of the top ten earners at your favorite organization. By the way, if the salaries are not listed on the quick search page that’s a BIG red flag. Often – even within the top ten earners there is inequity, that is, the CEO (earner #1) is making more than three times what earner number ten earns. One can only imagine how much more inequitable it is as you go further into the organization. (See this post for more information.)
9. Our system of governance requires an overhaul. See www.good-governace.ca Volunteer leadership needs support and training. We can’t believe that just because someone is an awesome lawyer or entrepreneur or accountant that they know a damn thing about our work.
10. We have a leadership crisis. This has created a sector that is competitive not collaborative. It has created leaders whose egos are out of whack and who care more about themselves than their organizations or the change they seek to make. Leaders who bully or allow bullying to flourish in their organizations. Leaders who hit the pinnacle of earning success and then become part of the problem, not the solution.

We can fix this. It is not a single solution. We need to provide resources to organizations like the Ontario Nonprofit Network and Imagine Canada We need a home in government. We need to educate boards and donors. And, perhaps most importantly, we need mature, emotionally intelligent leaders who can put their egos aside and collaborate.

Two years ago, I had a similar experience to the one Dan had with his company though on a much smaller scale. I created something, and instead of support from this sector, I was torn down and canceled. I wrote a playbook that is a starting point for us to rethink, reimagine and co-create a new social impact sector. I sought to collaborate on that journey but instead was met with vitriol and self-righteousness. Folks who didn’t agree with everything I wrote, or didn't like design elements of the book, or the fact that I'd shared news stories about our sector's treatment of staff, chose to write me off instead of engaging in dialogue. It is SO much easier to be an armchair critic, and editor, than it is to create. So much easier to tear something down than build it. I am hopeful that Dan’s film will be the catalyst we need to bring the sector together in a collective and collaborative way.

“The time of the lone wolf is over. Gather yourselves! Banish the word ’struggle’ from your attitude and your vocabulary. All that we do now must be done in a sacred manner and in celebration.

We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.”

--Hopi Elders' Prophecy, June 8, 2000