Do you have a strong back office?
Does good administration really make a difference in your nonprofit’s success?
Yes!
A nonprofit without strong accounting, operations, and related functions works about as well as you would without a skeleton.
A strong back office provides structure and holds things together so that your mission, and the people who deliver it, can flourish. It shows resilience in the face of challenges.
So how can you tell whether your nonprofit’s administration has set you up for success?
Look for signs like these:
You have engaging financial reports
A good financial report will engage your board and management.
When you review your reports, do your leaders get good insights and ask good questions? Or do most of their eyes glaze over?
If your leaders don’t engage in the financial data, then how can they do their due diligence and make sure that the organization is on track financially? How can they make informed, strategic decisions?
Processes are well-documented
Are your key administrative processes well-documented?
If your administrative staff won the lottery and ran off to Tahiti tomorrow, could someone pick up the documentation and make sure all key processes continue without breaking a sweat? Or would you have a hot mess on your hands?
If you don’t document your processes, you will pay significantly more the next time you have turnover or someone out on extended leave. Expect to have delays that can easily cost your nonprofit tens of thousands of dollars in time, broken good will, missed opportunities, burned out staff, and even fines.
The good news: documenting things like payroll, using the donor management system, accounting processes, and the like doesn’t require a significant time investment.
Real time off
If your administrative staff can really take and fully enjoy their time off, that’s a sign that you have a strong back office.
That means, for example, that the person who regularly runs payroll can take a vacation, or parental leave, or get sick but payroll gets handled just fine without them. Nonprofits where this happens have adequate process documentation and staffing so that the person taking time off can truly disconnect.
Budgeting for a little temporary coverage on key functions can more than pay for itself.
This helps to prevent burnout, increase morale and job satisfaction, and makes the nonprofit more resilient to surprises.
So ask yourself: can your administrators truly disconnect during their time off? Or, instead, when they take time off do they have to:
Take calls from the office?
Actually work while they’re “on vacation”?
Time it between payroll or other cycles?
Plan to work long nights and weekends after returning from “vacation” just to get caught up?
Quietly let their time off accrue and pray for when they might actually take a day off?
Work-life balance
In strong nonprofits, administrative staff maintain good work-life balance. Something approximating a 40-hour work week allows them to stay well-rested, sharp, and perform at their best.
Detecting when things have gotten out of balance represents a challenge for many nonprofits because the typical administrator often “sucks it up” rather than making a fuss. We will even tell ourselves, “why should I complain when the people we serve have much, much more difficult lives than I do?” So you will frequently find nonprofit administrators among those staff who begin work early, stay late, and never say a word even if they’ve reached their breaking point.
Although it may not always be easy, your nonprofit should set the goal of work-life balance and pursue it.
Nonprofits who make work-life balance a true priority can expect to see it pay for itself in reduced turnover, stronger productivity, and a more positive culture overall. When work-life balance represents the norm, that also means staff have the capacity and resilience to handle momentary surprises with ease.
Regular improvements to processes, procedures, and technology
Good administrators love to improve systems and leave things better than the way they found them.
If your admin doesn’t do this, perhaps their routine workload more than fills the available hours. A workload like that frequently means that they are on the road to burn out.
Instead, seek to build a back office where:
Staff have the time to keep up with the latest trends in their field
Every quarter you can point to meaningful improvements
Your organization leverages best practices to work smarter, not harder
You’ve used technology and strong processes to minimize expenses and maximize productivity
What to do if you don’t have a strong back office (yet)?
The typical nonprofit can get a strong back office without resorting to magic, rocket science, or spending millions of dollars.
The exact path will depend on their unique circumstances, but it may include:
Making it a priority to achieve the goals above, one at a time.
Prioritizing improvements that will quickly pay for themselves in direct savings and/or improved productivity
Paid internships free up administrator time and to convert some routine tasks into a learning opportunity for someone early in their career
Engaging a specialist to help you clearly identify weaknesses and prescribe solutions
Done right, I guarantee you that this will be one of the best investments you can make in your nonprofit’s success and impact.