Leadership and Culture in Nonprofits: Insights from Maryann Kerr 

Tasha: Good morning. Could you please introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about your nonprofit origin story?

Maryann: Absolutely. Thanks for having me Tasha.

Marianne Kerr. My origin story. I’ve been in the sector a long time. I can’t really keep track. 38 years, I think. And I. Started with a little tiny organization the kidney foundation in Toronto. And I was the special event coordinator. And from there I went to the lung association and I was there for eight years and then I’ve been all over the place since then.

And I’ve consulted, I have my own consulting business. I love the work. And I think it comes for me, it comes really from A very deeply personal place. I can remember my earliest memories actually are related to charity, you know, walking around with my dad and him telling me to get a poppy and to always pay more for the poppy than you can really afford, which was a weird thing, right?

But. And and the Salvation Army kettles and, you know, never putting in coins because back then dollar bills were bills, not coins. Yep. Yeah. Right. And so that’s, those are my, I have these really beautiful memories with my dad. I have a lot of not good memories too, but because the really good memories are related to charity, I think it helped to push me in this direction.

Tasha: I love that. And what’s your role currently?

Maryann: Well, I’m the CEO of actually a small foundation. It’s called Children’s Aid Foundation, Ontario. We’re working in the child welfare sector and we fund those things that government does not.

So early intervention and prevention things like transitioning kids out of care. Bursaries, all of those sorts of things. But until very recently we were focused only in Peel region and we are still our number one kind of focus is still Peel region. So that’s Mississauga, Brampton and Caledon.

But we have created what I will call a tent under this new name where we are inviting in other agencies who don’t have the capacity to fundraise to help them to access philanthropic support for their work as well. So it’s a big change in the sector and we’re super excited about it. Amazing.

Tasha: That’s fantastic. Now you have such a wide, you said 38 years wide view of this sector, which I love so much. What do you see as some of the biggest challenges for people, particularly in house that they’re facing?

Maryann: Yeah. You know, it, it really does depend. I’m glad you added in house because I think the issues really that we could address that could fix so much relate to how we treat the staff in this sector. It really does come down to that. If you have a team of people who are well paid, well supported properly trained, given the resources they need to do the work.

They’re going to flourish and your organization’s going to flourish. And the people that depend on your organization are going to get the things that they need. So I think it’s the number one thing. There are so many other things, but I feel like if we narrow our focus a little bit and think about our organizations and how we, we interact with staff I think that’s the number one thing it’s what we need to fix.

Tasha: Organizational culture. And I’m going to be the person who plugs for this brilliant book you wrote because it’s one of my favorite in the site is it’s fantastic, but there is so many things and you highlight some of them in the book and you and I have had conversations about this too. Yeah.

Organizational culture piece within nonprofit needs an overhaul. And you can kind of see when in house and the staff cascading effect that happens out in the To the rest of the people you then support to how the community views you. I think that’s something we often forget is that. It’s not this isolated bubble where no one hears afterwards when people leave disgruntled because they were taken advantage of.

Like, everyone knows, right? It is something that too often it feels like is put onto the back burner. It’s a future state problem. We’re going to talk about this later and, but later never comes until it’s now.

Maryann: Well, thank you for liking the book. It, you know, it was a tough book. It’s a tough book to get out there because you know, I do highlight some of the organizations. If they were in the media and they had issues that were publicized, then those. Those things are in there. People don’t want to hear the bad news stories about charities, right?

Where we want to just think about ourselves as this, you know, do good, good or kind of culture, but culture leadership, governance, those three things are really intertwined. And if we look at those three things and we focus on them, I think that we could make a tremendous difference in the outcomes for the folks that we’re here to serve.

And that’s the bottom line, right? It is. And honestly, there isn’t a day go by, I have a small team, but there isn’t a day go by that goes by that I’m not talking to one of them as a period, pure on check in, right? Like I heard something yesterday. You sound like you’re, what’s going on? Help me understand.

How can I help? Right? That’s my job. I’m, how can I help? That’s my job.

Tasha: Now, this is a little bit of a side tangent and I didn’t throw this question at you before prepping. Bye. You know, as a leader in this sector, nonprofit leader often a question I get as part of the nonprofit hive is where do I go to for leadership training?

Where do I go to, to find the supports? I do feel like there’s also a lack of support for the people in leadership roles to know how to go about being a great leader.

Maryann: First I love the question because we are mostly small organizations, right? If you’re in a hospital foundation or a university foundation, there are resources and probably you’ve got a budget to hire a coach and all of those kinds of things.

But the very back of my book is a whole list of free resources. So, you know, I’m a reader. I love to read. I have a few books. I recommend in their leadership books that I think are absolutely tremendous. One of them is called the leadership challenge by Kouzis and Posner. I think it’s not that one. I love Patrick Lencioni.

I mean, there’s a lot of good, inexpensive and free resources available and also. Places I, the nonprofit hive, right? I mean, having those conversations with other people in the sector, knowing that they will support you, that they’re, you know, no one wants to reinvent the wheel. A lot of the time. I think that we get into these places where we’re still So crushed for time is because, you know, we have a big thing.

Oh, we need policies. We need procedures. We need all of this administrivia stuff in place. Well, we’ve already got it or someone else already has it. Let’s help each other. Right. So that there is space and time for me to read a book about leadership and have a conversation with people about leadership.

 I don’t think it needs to be expensive. And I think that there’s lots of reasons that you google leadership. And there’s a million resources, right? They’re used to. I don’t know if it’s still there. Barrett’s value center, a place I love because they have an online test that helps you determine what are your values as a leader, right?

And how do I now translate those values into my day to day work? And how do I interact with people in a way that is coming from a values driven place. So there’s so many things that we can be doing.

Tasha: Challenges first, but I always like to then follow up with this, like gentle. What’s your favorite part of working in this beautiful sector?

Maryann: You know, a lot, there is a lot because I wouldn’t, you know, I’ve had a rough time of it at many times. And I remember one day, you said something I loved. I can’t remember where we were, but. You said something about you know, there was a good chance that you would never have worked again, that some nobody would ever have hired you again.

And that’s absolutely true. Because I spoke publicly about the toxicity in the sector. I spoke publicly about the lack of leadership. I spoke publicly about governance issues, right? I spoke publicly about workplace bullying. But what happened when I did that? Was this community came around me and literally hugged me and said, it’s going to be okay.

It’s going to be okay. And you’re right to speak up and you’re right to publicize this and you’re right to shine a line, a light on it. So it’s that because as an introvert, right? I act community for me is a kind of, it’s more conceptual, right? I love, because it’s one on one and I don’t have to go to a group event, right?

I love so, so that I think community is what I love about it in every job. When I think about it, I, there isn’t a job I have held in all 38 years that I don’t have associates, colleagues, friends from still today. So

Tasha: The community piece is huge. And I think nonprofit. nonprofits, nonprofit organizations in general are not leaning into community the same way post COVID or we all haven’t figured out how to do it well, right?

In remote work environments and the fact that we don’t see each other in person day to day in the fact that we sometimes don’t see our constituents, even like that we’re who we’re serving. We may not be with those people either and that disconnect. I think was already being driven by society and just kind of increased during COVID.

And we still haven’t figured out how to get back to where we were before, but the expectations is that we have community, but a lot of people don’t realize you have to work towards community. It is not a given. It is a, it is something you earn and something you work towards whether you’re an introvert or an extrovert and Yeah.

Community is flexible around the people.

Maryann: I agree. And I think, you know, one of the things when people come into the sector, a lot of the time they’re coming in because they care, they want to change the world, their social justice advocates, all of these sorts of things. And I think the fact that I think the last five years has really, you know, the vitriol online the self righteousness around being more correct than someone else.

This has created community Within the sector itself, a bit of toxicity. So I think that, you know, for quite a while, I was kind of afraid to go to play, go to events, right? Because I thought, yeah, I’m gonna walk into a room and I know that, you know, that person thinks this and that person thinks that and we don’t necessarily agree.

And there hasn’t been space made for us to not be 100% Aligned with each other. Yeah, we don’t make space for it. So then that so then instead of reaching out and being a part of something you tend to go insular, right? And you, you want to protect yourself.

I think having the opportunity to be able to be one on one with each other through what you do I know this wasn’t supposed to be about that, but I can’t help it. Cause I, even though and I, you know, I feel, I don’t participate that much right now because this is, and I’m sure it’s true for less, but this is our busiest time of year, right?

Like everybody’s going nuts right now. So, but I know you’re there. I know you’re there. I know that every week I have the opportunity to do that. That’s actually amazing. Just knowing that community is there.

Tasha: Nonprofit is supposed to be a soft space to land.

Like, I think that’s what it was supposed to be. It is supposed to be the backup soft space to land where you can find, you know, some inclusivity, regardless of your background, because you’re going to find a nonprofit. Whether, you know, it’s within the healthcare sector because your family has been affected by something that way, grief, loss, all of those, you know, whether you’re an animal rights advocate versus a civil rights advocate.

It’s supposed to be a soft place to land to find a group, right? Or find people who you feel value aligned with. So I do think you’re right. I think we’ve lost a little bit of the softness over time, whether that was automation, whether that was our desire to try to keep up with what for profit was doing or a lack of support.

I don’t know what’s made us a little harder, but I, that saying softness, I don’t know, it made me immediately think. Yeah. Nonprofit’s supposed to be soft. Like it’s supposed to be a little bit softer, right?

Maryann: And kinder maybe, right? And I think that idea that people often mix up kindness and niceness because, you know, often it’s funny how often I have one board member who’s always saying to me, I’ll tell him something, he’ll say, you’re so nice.

So nice. And I’m like, no, I’m not. I am not nice. I am kind, which means sometimes I say things that are tough to hear because that’s a gift. There’s a gift in that feedback, right? So I’m not always going to be nice, right? I try, but I’m not always going to be nice, but I am always going to be kind, even if you’re not happy about what I’m saying.

I love that. I

Tasha: love that. That’s a great leadership trait right there, Marianne. Peer support, you know, in your lengthy career in nonprofit, how has peer support factored into your success?

Maryann: Well, huge because and particularly, you know, in the years I had kind of like a 10, I always say I had 25 great years.

I had some incredible bosses and mentors early in my career. And, you know, right now I I informally mentor some young women and I, my heart was actually breaking yesterday because I see them working in environments. where someone is trying to put out their light and they’re young and enthusiastic and bright and they’ve got so much energy and commitment and someone is crushing them, right?

Someone is threatened by them and it breaks my heart. So I want to be that for other people, help them to see that. It’s not always going to be this way, but it’s a reality. So I was lucky. I didn’t have that in the early years of my career. I had great bosses. So I knew when I hit the crappy ones, I knew this was not okay.

So I kind of think I was really lucky in, in that in that way. And then having built up a, group of people over the years that I talk to on a regular basis. When I hit those bullying moments, for instance, I would get on the phone and say this happened and someone else identified it for me.

Someone else would say, you know, that’s bullying. You know micromanaging is bullying. You know somebody telling you that publicly in front of your peers that you’re not doing a good job is bullying. I mean, somebody else had to, my peers had to tell me what was happening to me because when you’re in it, you don’t see it.

So I survived the worst years because of my peers because we were able to support each other. And some days I know they were like, Oh, I don’t want to bug her. She’s having such a tough time. And I’m thinking, Oh, I don’t want to bug her. She’s having, right. But you’re never too busy to help another human being ever.

Tasha: I think that’s a really good motto to have, right? Like it, the load is always lighter when shared. I love my direct messages, particularly from my LinkedIn community and the Hive community. Like, I want to know what’s hard because maybe I know so much. Maybe either I know a solution or I know someone who I’m like, this is really cool.

You guys should be kind of, right? Like that was kind of how it started where I was going. How do these amazing humans not know each other in this world, but I know them both. Like that was, yeah, exactly. Yeah, that was the idea behind it. And you’ve been a Hive member for quite some time. You had shared with me initially when you joined that you had started something similar and, you know, I think I love people who are super connectors like yourself and so many amazing people.

What have you gotten out of being a hive member so far?

Maryann: I think it shows me that there are lots of people out there who, you know, they’re not in these conversations cause they’re trying to sell me something, right?

They’re not in these conversations because they’re trying to get something from me. They’re just in conversation and that is a beautiful thing.