Leadership in Focus: Faye Wightman
By Elisa Birnbaum
January 4, 2010
This month in our Leadership in Focus series we feature Faye Wightman, president and CEO of the Vancouver Foundation. Faye’s nonprofit foray began unexpectedly thirty years ago when, as a nurse, she became intrigued with the sector. The rest, as they say, is nonprofit history. Prior to joining the Foundation in 2005, Faye served as president of BC Children's Hospital Foundation for 14 years and as vice president of external relations at the University of Victoria. Her leadership was recognized in 2004 when she was honoured with the "Influential Women in Business Award," presented by Business in Vancouver magazine.
CharityVillage: How has the economic climate impacted the ability of the Vancouver Foundation to do its work?
Faye Wightman:
Certainly, like most other foundations, we had a significant impact on our endowment revenue and we use the income from the endowment fund to make our grants. But, of course, we didn’t have any income last year so we had to change our governing act to allow us to encroach on capital, which is quite unusual. We got a one-time dispensation to encroach on capital.
So we made grants in the first quarter of this year using capital from various funds. But the market turned around enough for us and our investments did well enough that we only had to do that with our first quarter payment and our last three distribution payments were done through income. And we are now in a position that we can repay the capital that we encroached upon at the beginning of the year. So that’s good.
But the downside of all this is that, like most funds, we lost money out of our endowments so we were only able to grant about half the amount we’d normally grant. Normally we’d be doing $60 million in grants and we’ve done closer to $30 million this year. We dropped our distribution rate from 5% to 3% and going into 2010 I think we’ll be able to go back up to 3.7%. We’ll be able to distribute more but we won’t be up at the level it was at prior to the economic slump. I think it will take a couple of years to get there. Like many other grantors, we will be cautious about going into 2010 and 2011, not spending all in one year even though, from our perspective, investments have turned around. But we lost that cushion so we wouldn’t want to jump back up to 5% that’s for sure.
CV: What about the impact on BC charities?
FW: We were hearing a lot of anecdotal reports but wanted some hard facts so we conducted a survey in September. We received around 500 responses from charities across BC. Most came back saying they had less revenue. The areas that seemed to be hit hardest were arts and culture, environment and animal welfare. Most charities talked about having to lay people off, on average, that was 20% of their workforce; most talked about freezing salaries or not filling vacancies. So, not only did they see a drop in revenue from most of their sources, but for charities, particularly in the social service and healthcare sector, they saw an increase in demand for their services. It was a double whammy; they had fewer dollars but had more to do. Going into 2010, over half surveyed were not overly optimistic that things were going to turn around dramatically for them. And about 61% were either not prepared or not well-prepared for going into 2010 (you can read the full report, Weathering the Storm on the Vancouver Foundation website).
"When I think of the changes that's happened in the world of AIDS and the world of cancer, particularly breast cancer, it's almost mind-boggling. I believe we can have the same kind of revolution in attitudes toward mental health, in particular, children's mental health. " |
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CV: What are some measures you’ve taken at the Foundation to offset any challenges due to the economic turbulence?
FW: We certainly cut back ourselves. We did an 18% cut in our staffing in terms of how much we would normally be paying in the compensation area. And we did a 9% in our non-compensation areas. And we had no salary increases or cost-of-living increases. We froze our salaries and we kept most positions vacant until the end of year. We did a lot more electronic communication as opposed to print. Even things like the packages for our board members are now sent out electronically.
CV: What advice would you give BC charities and communities to deal with their own challenges moving forward?
FW: I would say avoid any kneejerk reactions; don’t make any dramatic changes. I think what’s important at this time is to identify your key staff and key programs that you need in order to continue to focus on your mission. It’s probably not the time to look at new programs but at what it is you do well and are uniquely positioned to do and continue to focus your limited resources in those areas. It’s also the time to reach out to those individuals who have supported you over the years and that you know are very supportive of your work and your mission and ask them to consider stepping up and making an additional gift.
Or ask them to help you get the message out to new people, friends, acquaintances who may be interested in providing support. Often, as charities, we feel if people are already giving to us we don’t want to ask for more. But those are the donors who know you best, they are the ones who are supportive of what you do, they are the ones who don’t want to see you fail. When we told our 350 donor-advised funds that because of the economic slump we’d have only about half the amount that we normally had to make grants with, we asked them if they would consider topping it up. And a huge percentage agreed to it; that was very reassuring.
The other thing to look at is whether there are any opportunities to share with another charity. If you shared space or some functions behind the front office could you save some money? We have three other charities who share space with us. And I think it’s growing in popularity especially when you look at what you have to pay for rent.
CV: In your opinion, has the nonprofit sector evolved over the years and, if so, how?
FW: I think it has. Many charities are well aware today of how important it is to have a close relationship with your donors and to communicate with them, often in an open and transparent way. And most organizations realize now that you need to report back to your donors about the donations they made. I’ve been in this business for 30 years and when I was at the Children’s Hospital Foundation, we were one of the first organizations in BC to have a donor stewardship person on staff. Now it’s accepted that you have to have a stewardship program and you need to report back where the dollars are going.
I think more charities today are using the technology that’s available - giving online, receiving online, those kinds of things. People understand the importance of governance in terms of a charity’s reputation. We weren’t so focused on it 30 years ago. Of course some of that has to do with what’s been happening in the corporate sector over governance issues. But I think it served us well in terms of saying, "well let’s make sure we have our act together."
CV: Economic realities aside, what are the main challenges the sector faces today?
FW: I think probably one of the biggest challenges we are going to see over the next five years is labour market challenges. It’s probably not very different from the challenges in the private sector but in the nonprofit sector when so many charities have 20 or fewer employees and when a significant number of them will probably be leaving the workforce, we have to ask, "Are we doing enough to bring on new leaders?" "Are we giving them the training they need?" And that includes both at a staffing and volunteer level.
CV: Do you feel the sector does enough to foster young leaders?
More about Faye Wightman... |
First nonprofit job: Red Cross
Education: Bachelor of Science in Nursing
Annual budget: $530,000
Number of employees: 42
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FW: I don’t think the sector really embraced the concept yet of the need to identify who these young leaders are and how to mentor them. At a recent talk I gave, this is one of the challenges I mentioned: understanding that the millennial generation is very different from mine, in terms of how they look at life and what they’re looking for out of life and the fact that most will have five or six jobs in their careers etc.
And there aren’t that many courses at university that can teach you nonprofit management and most nonprofits are quite small and don’t have the ability to bring people on in a learning capacity. And nonprofits don’t go to career fairs to recruit. We don’t encourage people to get into the sector as a career option. We should have recruitment packages talking about the benefits of working in the sector. We so often talk about how tough it is working in the sector because of the long hours and we don’t get paid as well but why don’t we have a list of the real advantages of coming to work in this sector? Maybe it’s not all financial but I don’t think kids today are looking for just financial. We need to talk to young people about these incredible opportunities, what they can learn and what they can give back. And we need to encourage young people currently in the sector to take additional training etc. Do we even know what’s required to be a leader in the sector? We need to offer them the opportunities to learn those skills.
Also, I don’t think we have heroes. You can name the top CEOs in Canada but the nonprofit sector doesn’t do that. We tend to downplay our roles but you have to have leadership on a staffing level and we are so reluctant to recognize that.
CV: What practical advice on leadership would you offer others?
FW: One of the biggest roles of a leader is to keep that big picture in mind. To set the vision and to constantly be looking at what we’re doing to lead us toward that vision. You need to ask yourself, "Am I surrounding myself with other people who have the kind of thinking and courage, caring, compassion and drive to make that difference? Are we mentoring them?" Because you can’t lead by yourself. You need people with you, behind you, beside you, to move it forward. My advice is to be humble but continue to motivate the people you are working with.
CV: Have you had any inspirational mentors over the years?
FW: I’ve been really blessed because I’ve had opportunities to work with a number of different board chairs and board members from whom I’ve learned a tremendous amount. I’ve also learned so much from the people I work and worked with in the last few places; we have such an open relationship where you can learn so much from others. And when I was at the Children’s Foundation, I had the distinct pleasure of doing some work in Asia with some of the Buddhist foundations. And, to see the very quiet, humble leadership that some of the monks take on, was very inspiring. I learned from the model of the eastern culture about saving face that you don’t need to seem to be winning in order to get to where you need to go. Perhaps, as North Americans, it’s something we need to spend more time contemplating.
CV: Any books or resources on leadership you can recommend?
FW: I read a lot of different books. I particularly like Peter Drucker’s work and Malcolm Gladwell’s books; they make you think a different way. There are a lot of books on philanthropy out right now that I enjoy too. I’m probably less inclined to read how-to books than those on motivation etc.
Elisa Birnbaum is a freelance journalist, producer and communications consultant living in Toronto. She is also president of Elle Communications and can be reached at: info@ellecommunications.ca.
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