Leadership in Focus: Janet Austin
By Elisa Birnbaum
July 5, 2010
This month in our Leadership in Focus series we feature Janet Austin, CEO of YWCA Vancouver. Before joining the ranks of one of BC's largest, most diverse, and entrepreneurial nonprofit organizations, Janet served as executive director of Big Sisters of BC Lower Mainland and as the director of development services for BC Housing. Though she didn't start out in the nonprofit sector, Janet's unwavering passion for and commitment to volunteerism inspired a career shift. Thankfully, that passion is seemingly burning still.
CharityVillage®: What do you see as the main challenges facing the nonprofit sector today?
Janet Austin:
One is the whole issue of governance and how effectively organizations manage to define their governance framework and work within it, but also work in a way that helps it evolve and deepen in accordance with the needs of the organization and the community it's serving.
Another challenge is the fact that we have an ageing workforce. And when hiring young people, we have to acknowledge they have different expectations and demands. And in order to engage them we need to reflect that in our recruitment processes and organizational management and development practices. Of course, the role of technology is key, but we must be careful not to simply jump on the bandwagon because everyone's doing it. At the same time, you need to make sure you're not left behind. There are few nonprofits who are really able to invest in their core infrastructure. They're never ahead of the power curve; they're always struggling just to hang on.
How you manage and evaluate outcomes is another challenge. We've implemented a construct known as the balance scorecard where we look at four aspects of organizational performance. One is financial health, another is human and voluntary development, another is operational effectiveness and productivity, and the last is external relations. For every program we operate, we collect measures that help us to identify how we're doing in these areas. But the most important thing we've done is we attempted to define success for every program we operate. So it's not just a question of whether someone participated or completed the program but whether it actually changed their status in a meaningful way. So you want to know they've come in and their experience with YWCA has had a positive, lasting impact that has perhaps taken them in a different direction.
For example, we operate a second-stage transition house for women leaving violent relationships, the first in the country. They can stay with their children for 10 months in an independent, fully-furnished apartment; have access to a broad array of services that help them define what a better future looks like; what they need in terms of support to get them there. We then take the results to donors and it translates what would otherwise be simply anecdotal information into more — we can see the results in an empirical way. From the point of view of staff running the programs, they know where the weaknesses are in the programs so they can work toward addressing them. So many nonprofits are not in the position to be able to invest resources necessary to measure outcomes like this.
Another challenge is many organizations are quick to chase any funding opportunity that's out there. But it's very important to understand what you're taking on and to develop a long-term sustainability plan for any program so you're not constantly in crisis mode.
CV: Talking about sustainability, the YWCA runs a number of enterprising initiatives. What have you learned from those experiences and what advice would you give other organizations?
JA: The YWCA is a rare example of a true functioning social enterprise in that we do self-generate a lot of our revenue. We have a very diversified funding base and that stabilizes the organization. So we're able to invest in training for our staff, and we're able to invest in external expertise to develop solid governance practices. All of those core functions that really make an organization strong tend to be quite sophisticated, but we have the resources to put to it and we've made those choices.
"Sometimes social enterprise is seen as a panacea to the challenges faced by organizations, but it's not." |
|
And it's been fabulous for us. It's very useful for organizations to explore opportunities but they have to be very careful of what they take on. Sometimes social enterprise is seen as a panacea to the challenges faced by organizations, but it's not. You really have to have a business proposition that makes sense, you have to look at what competition is and you really need to make some hard-nosed business decisions as to your chances of success and how long you can float the idea. You need to be clear about what you're doing it for: is it to generate revenue to support the bottom line? Or is it a wash, like money in, money out sort of thing? You also have to be very careful with your relationship with CRA to ensure you're on side. Work on public policy could have a very positive impact on the ability of nonprofit organizations to engage in social enterprise activities more effectively.
So I definitely recommend organizations take a look at social enterprise but that they not be naïve about the challenges of doing it successfully. And you really need to look at where your unique niche is. Our YWCA hotel is a very interesting example. It's not a hostel, it's a budget price-point hotel, with 155 rooms and gross annual revenue of about $3 million. It's a significant financial contributor to us in the downtown economy. Our net is about $1 million. That allows us to support activities that are difficult to raise money for.
In addition to that, and to stay on the good side of CRA, the hotel has a mission-related focus. So besides the traveling public, we also subsidize 50% of the room nights annually.
It's a very important source of short-term and emergency accommodation for clients, women leaving violent relationships and need a safe place to stay, seniors who are in town for medical appointments, students who are new etc. It's a wonderful model and within that construct we still get those financial outcomes. It's a big job and you need to invest in it and maintain the physical infrastructure, but all of that is key to maintaining the financial results we get.
CV: How important is a leader's commitment to the environment?
JA: The environment is an area in which the YWCA has shown a lot of leadership. We ensure our practices reflect a sustainable culture and ethics. We've made a commitment that any new capital development will be green. We retrofitted our hotel with about a half a million dollars in capital improvements but reduced our greenhouse gases by 76% and will recover that investment in about five years of operating savings. And our ornamental garden is now a farm garden, operated by volunteers. All this demonstrates that it's not only the right thing to do; it also makes good business sense.
CV: Are organizations doing enough to foster young leaders? What can they do better?
JA: I think there are some organizations that do an exceptional job of fostering young leaders, and there are others that don't for a variety of reasons — it may be choice, or it may be a lack of resources.
But I can tell you that work on the internal culture is so important; there's nothing more important for building a strong organization. We have a very strong culture here. And we do a lot of employment engagement surveys and we can tell you that 97% of employees are very proud to work for the Y and would recommend it to their colleagues and friends as a good place to work. They stay because we make a strong commitment to work-life balance and a family-friendly workplace fundamental to our vision. We can't be out advocating for women and advocating for systemic change in society and public investments that support women's ability to make those choices without modeling that here.
CV: What makes a leader successful?
More about Janet Austin... |
First nonprofit job: Executive Director, Big Sisters of BC Lower Mainland
Education: English and the classics.
Annual budget: $17 million
Number of employees: 375
|
|
|
JA: I never had the privilege to have a formal mentor but certainly there have been people who've greatly influenced me along the way. One person I'll often talk about is a woman who was a peer, about 20 years older than me and way wiser. And when she used to see me admiring someone who was very accomplished, she used to say to me, "You are no different than that person; the only difference is a few years and a bit of experience." And she got me to visualize myself in different roles, to think, "Yeah I could do that." An interesting thing happens when you go through that thinking process. It changes the way you think about yourself, it gives you confidence and that changes the way others see you. Particularly for women, that type of encouragement is extremely important.It certainly was for me.
Other people who've influenced me are people who maintained humility. When you're in a leadership position, it's easy to lose sight of the fact that sometimes people around you tell you things they think you want to hear, not necessarily what they really think. And so my job is to make it okay for them to tell me what they really think and to disagree with me. It's part of the whole process. They have to share the same goals and have a commitment to a team culture but can still speak up honestly about what they think is best. So those are the things that I've seen in others that I greatly admire and I try to emulate.
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.
Next week: Considerations when hiring an intern or summer student.
Click here to learn more about
upcoming cover stories.
