Episode I: The adventures of a corporate clone in the not-for-profit sector

My not-for-profit work began in 2011. I had just had my third child, Cleo, and I was enjoying my life on the Central Coast and my job at the Commonwealth Bank building a new investment platform. But something was missing. I grew up on the Kapiti Coast, north of Wellington in New Zealand, in a family with a strong sense of social justice. My 3x great grandfather, Octavius Hadfield, was a missionary who arrived in New Zealand in 1838 and was a high-profile advocate for Maori whose land was misappropriated by settlers and the government of the time. My grandfather, Barry, had been the mayor of the region. He was a huge influence in my life, and he always talked of the importance of giving back to society. He believed, like Ghandi, that you must be the change you want to see in the world — and create the change through your words and actions.

My friend Damien had recently returned from a stint up in North East Arnhem Land, helping Aboriginal communities through a programme named Jawun. So I jumped on board and volunteered to do the same with the Aboriginal community on the Central Coast — on an 8-week full-time Jawun secondment. I was assigned to work with a large mainstream not-for-profit (NFP) named Youth Connections Group, helping their aboriginal youth services unit to break away and grow as an independent Aboriginal organisation. While I was there Youth Connections had an AGM and the Chair and CEO invited me to join the Board. It was a great honour for me, and an opportunity I would not have been given with (at the time) so few grey hairs. I was in the right place at the right time, and had been lucky enough to have had the opportunity to demonstrate my capabilities to the organisation’s leaders. It also gave me an opportunity to follow through on the hard work I had put in to help the Aboriginal unit to gain independence. They eventually did break away, and became Bara Barang — one of the leading organisations in the Central Coast’s Empowered Communities consortium. Meanwhile, I remained on the Board of Youth Connections, eventually becoming Deputy Chair.

I ended up leaving Youth Connections for personal reasons (a whole other story), but was back in the thick of it within a year. I got a call from one of the former managers Marcus — he had left YC to start building tiny homes for the homeless. These guys had got their hands on some factory space in Gosford, and set up a truly innovative manufacturing model. They broke down the end-to-end process into its component parts — no skill tasks, low skill tasks, and trade-specific tasks. Then they built a training framework around the work, and put people on the production line who were homeless themselves, jobless, down and out, they had special needs kids pulling nails out of planks. It was incredible. And the output of the production line was flat-packed tiny homes that would be shipped out to councils to erect ‘tiny homes’ hubs for the homeless. We succeeded, as part of a consortium of organisations, in creating Australia’s first full tiny homes for the homeless hub in Australia — and it’s still going strong up at Gosford, sitting on a small strip of council land between the hospital and the train station.

Alongside the tiny homes, we were progressing with a new social enterprise to build the Australian Apprentice Association, which was to disrupt an industry much in need of disruption, with a digital platform and partner network. We even had plans for our own crypto currency. But alas, it wasn’t to be — we ended up stepping away from both ventures due to a cashflow crisis. We had strong opportunities in the pipeline, and huge potential. But bills have a due by date. It’s never a cash crisis in small business, it’s always cash FLOW.

So we all ended up paying a significant amount of money out of our own pockets to clear the balance sheet. As bad as it was for me, I was just an adviser. It was much worse for the other guys — it was their idea, their hard work. One of them had quit his job to pursue the venture full time. He was my friend, he had a family, and he got burned badly. I felt rotten. Like I had failed them.

Anyhow — about a year later, I got another call from Marcus. He was now working with an organisation up in Armidale named BackTrack. I’m not going to get carried away on the topic of BackTrack, except to say that if you have not heard of them, it’s time you did. Start by going to YouTube and searching the term “BackTrack Boys”.

BackTrack was getting inundated by requests from community leaders, politicians, and philanthropists from across Australia to take what they’ve done in Armidale (with unprecedented success), and “do it everywhere else”. Marcus wanted to bounce some ideas off of me on how that might be achieved. So I decided to do one better — I spoke to Paul Rayson, who was the Managing Director of CommSec at the time — and I asked him if I could take a team of our best and brightest up to Armidale for a week to help BackTrack develop their “BackTrack Everywhere” strategy. Paul was 100% supportive, and so that’s what we did.

So this brings me to the present day. I’m working full time at CommSec still. Great business, great people, interesting work, and it pays my rent. I’m looking to get involved with batyr. They’re looking to build a digital product that I think has potential to make a real difference for young people across Australia. I’m still helping out BackTrack when I can, which is not nearly as often as I’d like. But this is a marathon not a sprint.

What I’ve learned

First thing I want to make clear… I am not the hero of this story

I have got to know some truly inspiring leaders (Bernie, Maggie, Marj and Denise to name a few) and freakishly talented social entrepreneurs (Marcus, Nick). I feel honoured and privileged that these people have allowed me to come along for their ride. For me it’s been the opportunity of a lifetime to learn from them, be inspired by them, and make a difference by supporting them to achieve positive social outcomes.

Failure hurts, but be careful what you label as a failure

The brutal truth is, I have failed in most of my efforts in social enterprise. It hurts to have to admit that, to you and to myself. It’s not through lack of trying. It’s just the way it goes I guess. Mostly, things don’t go right:

Youth Connections hit turbulence when the government cut funding to our cornerstone programme in its May 2014 budget. As a result of this, we ended up in ‘financial survival’ mode. The organisation downsized, and ended up shifting its focus to activities that were more financially stable, but left us less able to help the people who mattered most to us — the young people on the coast who had fallen through the cracks and needed a helping hand.

Bara Barang achieved financial and constitutional independence. I was immensely proud of the role that I played in that — writing the company constitution, restructuring the balance sheet and P&L, managing relationships with the YC Board, and even helping Gavi come up with the name. Since then, the organisation grew, but then shrank. It’s still there, things are not easy for them (that’s the industry today), but they’re surviving.

Tiny Homes Manufacturing closed its doors. We failed as a business — but we helped set the precedent for others to follow, proving that the TH4TH model is possible — integrating agencies, social security, manufacturing and local government.

The Australian Apprentice Association still sits on our laptop hard drives — the business model, designs, blueprints, everything. Huge potential. Nothing delivered. Yet.

BackTrack is a roaring success (so far). But that’s certainly not my success story — it’s theirs.

When you wage war on social disadvantage, you get used to losing battles. Organisations come and go, but the vision never dies. I’ve seen directors and social entrepreneurs shuffle between organisations to find the best way to achieve their social mission. And the interesting thing is that among the most visionary people I’ve met in this industry, not one of them gave a damn about the success and future of ‘the business’. It’s always about the purpose, the mission, their comrades in arms, and above all else, the beneficiaries of the work.

This was a real epiphany for me — even when you’re in business, the people are more important than the business. Otherwise what’s the point? Customers are people — they’re your people. Ultimately, your purpose should be to deliver value to those people.

It’s important to resist the urge to call them customers and view them purely through the lens of your business’s services, products, revenue, and risks. Because you want your business to succeed. But first, make sure your customers succeed — and then find the win-win for the shareholders when you’ve found a way to deliver value. Otherwise you’re making them money at someone else’s expense. And that’s not cool.

You may be in a very big pond, but that doesn’t make you a small fish

Daniel Kim talks of ‘levels of perspective’ in his version of Systems Thinking. The top of the pyramid is vision & purpose; next down is mindsets, values & mental models; then systems (structures, processes, methods, frameworks, designs etc); followed by patterns of behaviour, and at the bottom; events.

I’m going to generalise here somewhat… in the corporate world we’re pretty effective in the design and application of systems to deliver upon our vision. The challenge is usually in the middle — with the mental models, mindsets and engrained assumptions that get in the way of values being put into practice. And the wrong mindsets can shape patterns of behaviour that are counter-productive to the purpose. I’m not by any means saying we have a ‘mindsets problem’ in our organisations. Just saying — if there is a challenge, that’s where I think it lies.

In my experience, this challenge is not as prevalent in the non-profit sector.

There seems to be a much clearer alignment of mindsets — attitudes towards money and profit; what’s worth risking; taking it personally; tolerance of uncertainty, ambiguity and emotional strain; depth of connection with colleagues; no distinction between ‘work’ and ‘life’ (because your work is part of your life’s purpose); and willingness to get up again after failing. The common thread is that each and every mindset I listed (and there are more) comes from an authentic and direct connection to the purpose. The staff work with these kids every day, and they care deeply about their wellbeing. This shared connection to the purpose creates shared mindsets.

I think part of the challenge comes from the confronting truth that we usually occupy a smaller space in our customers’ lives than BackTrack occupies in the lives of the young people it helps. And what we do often has a less direct impact upon the lives of these people. In most cases, we don’t go home each night worrying about the personal wellbeing of a ‘customer’ we care deeply about. This makes it harder for us to connect with the purpose and align our mindsets across the organisation.

Non-profits usually have a different problem.

What’s lacking in non-profits is the systems and structures — the toolkit of methods to apply in designing and delivering solutions and business models. This is the space where I think corporates can help. I’ve mapped stakeholder networks for Bara Barang, modelled out pricing options for YC startups, created Business Model and CVP Canvases for the AAA, and applied Customer Centred Design principles to create Community Profiles for BackTrack. In the corporate world, we take this stuff for granted. We have a ready and available toolkit of methods to apply to any given problem or opportunity. Don’t take for granted just how valuable this is, and the difference it can make for smaller community organisations who don’t have it. This is one area where people from the corporate world can really help NFPs who are tackling social issues head-on.

Our social dynamics are more complex than our systems

We think of our systems, our processes, as being complex. But they are simple compared to our relationships. If you’re in a marriage, that’s 1 relationship. Add 2 kids and you’ve got 6 relationships. 3 kids and you’ve got 10 relationships. 21 including pets. Now consider the relationships you have in the workplace. And consider the inherent uniqueness of each and every person, relationship, and group.

The upshot is that the social dynamics of teams of people trying to work together are far more complex than any of our operating models or technology.

I was given some great advice to just focus on having a productive relationship with each and every person I work with — 1:1 — and put the group dynamics aside. To cut through the complexity, you focus on your purpose (theirs and yours). Do they want what you want? Do they care about the same things? Start with that shared purpose, and collaboration will follow naturally.

Don’t disturb the web

I always thought that relationships and politics were complicated in the corporations I worked in. Until I dipped my toe into the Aboriginal community. I was out of my depth trying to do business unaware of the generations-old friendships, alliances, misunderstandings, and sometimes grudges. Denise (or was it Gavi?) once told me that these relationships are like spiders’ webs. Complex. Strong. But also fragile if you try to mess with them. You can’t reshape a spider’s web — the spiders have got to do it, and you’ve got to trust them. So from these experiences, I kind of stopped believing in “professional relationships”. All relationships are personal. And you need to be authentic, respectful, empathetic and humble. You’ve got to give trust to earn trust. Circumventing it all with a corporate mask of “professionalism” is just not sustainable.

Customers are people, and people matter more than businesses

As I mentioned before, most of the people I work with in the Community have a great deal of clarity on what they care about. I think part of the reason is that they are much closer to their customers — the people they are trying to help. And so when something goes wrong (or right), they see it happen, and they feel the consequences along with their ‘customers’.

If you ask Bernie (or anyone) at Back Track “hey what do you do here?”, you’ll get a reply like “we take on kids who are really struggling — we keep them alive, we keep them out of jail and then we chase their hopes and dreams”. BackTrack’s stated mission carries gravity because behind the positive intent lies the sobering reality that many young people in our society face a future of jail, or no future at all.

We take the same approach in corporates — anchoring to a clear vision or purpose (At CBA, it’s the financial wellbeing of Australians and communities). But it’s missing that sense of urgency, because we’re not saving lives or keeping kids out of jail.

But that doesn’t mean we don’t have something of value to offer to our customers. We too have the opportunity to make the world a better place. When you’re not on the front line with customers, it’s easy to just hang your hat on the solutions, products, websites we deliver. So it’s important to develop a clear idea of what (or more importantly who) you care about, and use this as a compass to guide you in your work, your designs, your decisions. Everything you do needs to mean something to your customers. Not customer profiles, or segments, but real people. Find a benchmark, meet your customers. My old neighbour Dave was a CommSec customer. I used to make a point of asking myself sometimes “what would Dave think of this?”. Dave if you’re reading this, I’m sorry they cancelled CFDs, they’re too risky.

The Commonwealth Bank of Australia gave me this opportunity

People are beating up on the banks quite a lot these days. I’m not going to go into whether it’s deserved or not. What I will say is that an organisation is nothing but its people — and the rich experiences I’ve had wouldn’t have happened if my boss Jason, and his boss Lisa at CBA had not agreed to pay for me to work full time in the community for 8 weeks in 2011. Likewise, Paul, Kevin, Soraya and Eric at CommSec agreed to pay for 4 people to spend a week in Armidale giving BackTrack a hand to get struggling kids back on track. They didn’t have to do that. Most corporates have a stated mission to improve the wellbeing of society as a whole. And like I said, mindsets are key. If you can demonstrate a win/win, then you have the opportunity to put the organisation’s values into practice.

If you want to get involved, it’s not that hard. Reach out to your organisation’s community engagement or CSR team, or directly contact an organisation like Jawun to find out where you can start. And there’s nothing stopping you from contacting organisations directly, if you feel you have something to offer. But start by developing a clear view on (a) what you’re passionate about, (b) what skills you have to offer, and © how much time you can commit to it. In my experience, nobody is going to complain that you’re not putting enough into it. They’ll just be grateful that you care and are willing to help.

A final word

I’ve gained so much from this NFP work. I’ve got to know inspirational and talented people who I never would have otherwise met (many of them have become friends). And I’ve learnt stuff I could never have learnt without these experiences. My mind has grown and my heart has expanded. I’ve got enormous satisfaction out of what I have done and I’m keen to do more. If you’re working in the city and you get the chance to help a NFP, just do it. You’ll get back more than you give.

I was chatting with Marcus the other day about all of this… and whether we’ve been doing it wrong. Working in our day jobs, putting food on the table. And then spending all of our spare time working on our non-profits, finding time where we can. Maybe instead of putting all our time and effort into non-profits, we’d be better off focusing our energy on a for-profit startup. Get rich, then have the freedom to go all-in on the war against social disadvantage. I reckon there’s 2 times when you can risk going all-in on a startup — before you’ve got kids and a mortgage, and after they’ve left home. My Dad always advised me to “meander with purpose” in life. It’s good advice, so for now, I’ll just keep meandering and enjoy the journey.