basic organization meeting framework (or why are nonprofits so poorly managed?)

to date, i have not worked at a non-profit organization that wasn’t poorly managed. i’ve worked at at least five. i have some systemic suspicisions about why this is, but i’ll leave that alone for later…

right now, i just wanted to reflect a little on this excellent, simple framework shared by a new colleague (thanks, mercedes!).

https://www.tablegroup.com/imo/media/doc/death_by_meeting2.pdf

the simplicity of it is that it’s laid our clearly with no bells and whistles. and to be clear, this is the good type of simplicity. it’s more mechanical and less human than i think is good, but it’s still a good type of simplicity.

for some reason(s) (which may be totally legitimate), so many nonprofits i’ve seen or been in feel the need to reinvent the meeting wheel. every single group has a different, self-made meeting regimen. i just can’t seem to get to the crux of why every single one has felt the need to reinvent the wheel.

now, i totally get that there’s value in pushing back against and even wholly resisting corporate structures, especially when you believe those structure don’t work and potentially cause harm. but the problem is that i’ve never a from-scratch structure that worked. as in, the people who designed the organization’s meeting structures never actually like them.

so given that that’s been my experience, it seems like these orgs should just take what has worked in another context and tweak it. because the amount of time spent across these organizations (even just the five i’ve been in) planning planning meetings is colossal. and it seems a huge waste.

now, why it is all these organizations are poorly managed is a different question, but one that i am beginning to believe is systemic. i don’t have time to go into deeply here, but it definitely has something to do with the role of nonprofits to corporations as it parallels gender dynamics between women and men. there’s something about how toxic masculinity frames “efficiency” and “work” that i think the nonprofit sector meaningfully avoids, but there’s something to dig into give the fact that nonprofits are often funded by foundations, which are delegates of corporations and somewhere in there values systems clash… i don’t know… i’m not there yet… i’m sure someone else has thought about this already…