Do Your Organization's Mission, Values and Actions Align?
Wayfair protests this week? Maybe, like me, you only know Wayfair as a business that clogs your email, one that apparently presumes you buy "home goods" as often as you buy groceries. But this week it made the news, and those of you who are leaders would do well to pay attention. In brief, Wayfair sold approximately $200,000-worth of beds to BCFS, a nonprofit, that supplies the Department of Health and Human Services' border facilities for unaccompanied minors. When Wayfair employees learned about the sale, they contacted management. Subsequently more than 500 employees signed a letter asking Wayfair to cease selling to BCFS and any other nonprofit doing business with border facilities. Wayfair leadership declined to stop the sale. In turn, hundreds of employees protested outside its Boston headquarters, garnering national news coverage. What was most interesting was hearing protesters repeat Wayfair's mission statement, saying Wayfair should live up to the company promise that “everyone should live in a home they love.” One of the protesters added,“We don’t want to profit off of being complicit in human rights violations.” If you're eye-rolling here, think how this might translate to the sometimes staid world of museums and heritage organizations. Think it couldn't happen to you? Remember last spring's demonstrations at the Guggenheim, protesting donations from the Sackler family? Or the protest when MoMA honored a Bank of America CEO whose company funds private prisons, and the Decolonize This Place protests at the Whitney? You may say, well that's New York where there is more money and more activism than in your community. Maybe true. But for all the head-down, thumb-tapping, addictive qualities of the Internet, it's also hugely democratizing. Protests, disagreements and opinions ignite quickly. In an hour your organization can move from every-day complacency to under siege. To add to that, a recent study tells us that staff just aren't as cowed as they used to be. Employees, particularly Millennials are 48-percent more likely to be workplace activists than either Gen-Xers or Boomers. They have opinions and they aren't afraid to share them. So how should you prepare and/or respond? Where are the chinks in the armor of your mission statement versus your organizational actions versus your board's actions or your investment portfolio? Hint: the answer is not assuming it won't happen. It might. And if you're a leader, you need to prepare for praise and protest. Ask yourself:
What's your mission and does everyone understand it?
Does your staff keep abreast with news in your community? If you haven't already, for goodness sake follow Colleen Dilenschneider and Susie Wilkening. Use their data and wisdom to help understand your community.
Do you know your supporters and what they believe in?
Think ahead. What steps might you take to ensure you have the right messaging in the event of controversy or crisis related to your organization and its mission? Role play possible controversies to make sure your organization will react as a team.
Has your board ever discussed whether there's a line in the sand that would make it take a public stand?
How would your board react to your staff participating in a protest? Of their own? With another organization?
Is your organization able to react quickly? There's little time to gather your peeps to strategize. If a board member's caught in a personal or corporate scandal, if a staff member has a DUI or your organization accepts a gift from someone whose politics are at either end of a political spectrum, are you ready? Who's your point person? Last, know your organization, and make sure everyone else from trustees to volunteers does too. Know why it matters. If the community loves you, understand why because the more you're loved, the higher a community's expectations, and the more you have to lose. Joan Baldwin Image: Members of Decolonize This Place and its supporters rally in the lobby of the Whitney Museum, Courtesy of Artsy.
