Mission Metamorphosis

Leadership for a Humane World

Robin R. Ganzert

• Publisher: Fast Company Press
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9781732439184
• eBook ISBN: 9781732439191
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Leadership
• Index: Business

Innovative advice for leading with grit and humanity

This inspirational guide by Robin R. Ganzert, PhD, president and CEO of one of the most renowned charities in America, will equip you with the leadership tools you need to increase your business revenue and efficiency dramatically, all while effecting positive change in the world.

When Dr. Ganzert took over the struggling animal safety and welfare non-profit American Humane, she performed a fiscal and brand rescue, and the organization was reborn. In Mission Metamorphosis, Dr. Ganzert presents the inventive techniques she employed to revamp American Humane, turning it into a top-rated charity and honoring its historic legacy. She also offers concrete information for creating your own success story, including how to:

• Be a moral and ethical leader

• Achieve programmatic success

• Keep a brand fresh and relevant

• Promote constructive change in the community

• Tackle new problems with new solutions

• Bring in revenue every single day

By mixing engaging stories of animal rescue with prescriptive methods for growing and maintaining your business, Dr. Ganzert provides the motivation and tools required for you and your organization to survive and thrive.

Getting the Job Done

“A Hurricane Warning is now in effect for #Florence from South Santee River, South Carolina, to Duck, North Carolina, including the Pamlico and Albemarle Sounds. Preparations to protect life and property should be rushed to completion.”

—National Hurricane Center tweet September 11, 2018³

TThe voice on the other end of the phone line was exhausted. “Robin,” my director of rescue team operations asked, “do you know someone in North Carolina who has a truck?”

An American Humane Rescue truck, on its way to the Hurricane Florence impact zone, had broken down in Raleigh. Flooding from the hurricane had contaminated underground tanks of fuel in the surrounding area with water. After our American Humane truck filled up at a local gas station, its engine sputtered out, stopping the operation dead in its tracks.

It was a do-or-die situation. The truck was hauling boats that our American Humane Rescue team needed to traverse the floodwaters of Hurricane Florence. Either we could get the rescue boats to the impact zone and start saving animals, or we would fail in our mission to be first to serve whenever animals are in need. If we couldn’t get our rescue boats there, we’d let down those we had promised to help.

In this situation, failure wasn’t an option. So I turned to a constant source of support in my life—my mom. I reached for my phone.

“Mom,” I said, “I need a truck. I’ve got a big trailer full of rescue boats in Raleigh. Can you help?”

“Well, Robin,” my mother replied, “you know Scott, the man who shoes our horses? Scott will come.”

I immediately got Scott, who was in Mocksville, North Carolina, on the phone. “Scott,” I explained, “our rescue truck is stuck, and I need your help. It’s already 5:30 PM, and we should already be in the water, rescuing animals. Can you help me?”

“I’ll be there,” Scott replied without hesitation. But then he asked, “Robin, I’ve got to take a meatloaf out of the oven. Can I do that first?”

“Absolutely,” I said, “it may be your only hot meal for days. But if you drive through the night, then we’re going to be able to start saving animals by morning.”

When you’re trusted with saving the lives of animals in danger, things can get hectic and tense. It requires a lot of grit and a lot of guts from our team members, full-time staff, volunteers, donors, and everyone in between to get the job done.

At the very heart of what we do, we are a humanitarian organization, the boots on the ground and first to serve all animals. We respond to the needs of animals whenever and wherever they are—whether they are caught up in a natural disaster and in need of rescue; on a movie set where they need protection; or in a farm, aquarium, or zoo where their welfare needs are not being met. That is where we lead, setting the standard and determining what it is to be humane. We act as the voice for the voiceless—rescuing, sheltering, protecting, and keeping animals safe from harm.

During Hurricane Florence, we were able to serve once again. Scott drove his own truck to Raleigh, where he picked up our truck and trailer at 9:30 PM. He drove it to the staging area where the rescue boats were being launched. By sun’s light the next morning, our American Humane boats—with our volunteers and experts in water rescue—were in the floodwaters, saving lives.

Rescue is a 24-hour-a-day job, and it’s not for the faint of heart. Frankly, some of the situations we find ourselves in can turn even the strongest stomachs, including my own. I sent my youngest rescuer, Amber, to help with our disaster response. Amber had responded to many disasters but none of this magnitude. She was trained for it, however, and felt in her heart of hearts she was ready for whatever was to come.

When a young person tells me they’re ready to do this type of work, I believe them and send them into action. But I send them knowing they are going to be changed forever as a result of what they see, experience, and do. I always worry about compassion fatigue.

Amber got into the boat with our most experienced swift-water rescuer—our director of rescue operations—and they motored into the North Carolina floodwaters, not sure what they would find. As they approached a mobile home, they heard dogs barking. The home’s porch was about four feet high, and it was completely underwater, and the inside of the home was four feet deep in dark, contaminated water. They waded into the flooded living room in their drysuits, where they found six pit bulls—all barking wildly, as if their lives depended on it. It was only when our team cautiously approached the frightened dogs that they figured out how some had managed to survive. The desperate animals were standing on the dead bodies of their littermates.

The team brought the surviving dogs onto our American Humane boats, which carried them to safety, to hope, and to compassion—an emotionally and physically draining undertaking and just one rescue among many.

It takes everyone giving their all to complete a successful rescue mission. It takes a farmer in North Carolina who gladly drove his own vehicle into harm’s way to make sure our trucks and boats were able to complete their vital rescue missions. It takes the generous gift of prominent animal lovers like actress Victoria Principal, who donated the boats to American Humane. It takes the two rescue trucks we brought into North Carolina that were gifted to us by our dear friend and American Humane board member Lois Pope. It takes long-term relationships like those we built with the state of North Carolina officials to be able to deploy efficiently under appropriate disaster response protocols. And it takes compassionate people like our responders, who have the courage to see the most heartbreaking scenes and drop everything in their personal lives to deliver on the noble mission of humanitarian relief.

It’s what we’re all about. It’s our business.

To fulfill our historic mission and to do so with integrity, we must take account of, evaluate, and know how to run our business. Our business is all about making a more humane world for people and animals. It’s a business built on delivering social good. We appreciate that our responsibility as leaders in the humane movement and in the nonprofit sector requires a complete commitment to excellence in business, passion, and heart. Just as rescuing pit bulls from contaminated floodwaters is not for the faint of heart, neither was transforming an entire organization from top to bottom.

In 2010, I was invited to interview for the CEO position at American Humane by a recruiter who called and said, “We’ve been reviewing your background, and we thought this would be a terrific opportunity for you.” The organization had already interviewed several candidates for the position, but I was intrigued.

At the time, I was deputy director of philanthropic services for the Pew Charitable Trusts in Washington, D.C.—one of America’s premier nonprofit organizations. When I received the recruiter’s call about the CEO position for American Humane, a national nonprofit known for its work with children and animals, I had already built a strong foundation in philanthropy and knew I was ready to take the next step with my career.

American Humane brought me in for an interview. I spoke with the interim CEO, a former American Humane board member who had been affiliated with the organization for a number of years. During our discussions about the position, he gave me a set of financials that were 18 months old, explaining they didn’t have any more-recent reports. The financials showed that American Humane had a pattern of ongoing deficit spending. That was a little bit of a worry, but the interim CEO assured me the organization had $10 million in reserves.

I was offered and accepted the position. Little did I know that $10 million in reserves would be drawn down to just $1 million when I took the reins of American Humane 60 days later. That was just the first of many surprises.

It’s been nearly a decade since I joined the team at American Humane. During that time, we’ve worked a lot of long, hard days and nights. Now, we’re at a place where we’re optimistic and excited about the future growth of our programs.

The results prove our efforts were worthwhile. Today, American Humane is proud of the following achievements:

•We rescue, shelter, feed, and protect nearly 1 billion animals each year.

•CharityWatch named American Humane a top-rated charity, with an A rating.

•We earned gold-level status with GuideStar USA.

•Charity Navigator, the country’s top nonprofit watchdog, gave American Humane four stars, the highest of any major humane group.

•American Humane is one of fewer than one-tenth of 1 percent of US charities that made the Better Business Bureau’s Wise Giving Alliance list.

•Ninety-one cents of every dollar spent goes directly into lifesaving programs, according to our fiscal year 2019 audit.

•Independent Charities of America awarded us their Seal of Excellence.

•We have been named a top-rated charity by Great Nonprofits.

•Consumer Reports called American Humane a best charity to support.

The past 10 years have taught me lessons—learned with blood, sweat, and tears—about the essentials of management in the charity space. Many of them were borrowed from the for-profit world, but all of them are essential to lasting success.

I’ve learned a lot about transformational leadership—rebuilding the boat while you’re at sea. In the nonprofit world, there are two intricately linked ideas—mission and programmatic success. At its heart, that’s what this book is about: defining your mission and achieving programmatic success.

In Chapter 2, I’ll give you a brief overview of American Humane and the situation I inherited. It’s a storied organization with over a century of history. We needed to look toward the future, however, not just reflect on the past. This chapter talks about what exactly constitutes transformational leadership and the parallels between for-profit businesses and nonprofits.

In Chapter 3, I’ll discuss the starting point—building a crystal-clear mission at American Humane. All things flow from your mission; it’s like the foundation of your house. You want a solid mission to rely on when things get shaken. There is a lot of work to be done after establishing the mission and before achieving the ultimate goal of programmatic success.

In Chapter 4, we’ll explore building programs around the mission. At American Humane, we needed to evaluate our programs—their efficiency and how they related to the work for which we were chartered.

Then, in Chapter 5, we’ll explain the necessity of hiring good leaders. Leaders are essential in any organization, whether for-profit or nonprofit. For example, our rescue team wouldn’t be where it is today without the leadership of our director of rescue operations. His expertise is necessary whether rescuing pit bulls during Hurricane Florence or planning future missions.

In Chapter 6, we’ll explore what culture looks like for any organization. Leaders give life and shape to the organization’s culture every day. Culture is being ready to drop everything at the first sign of disaster and dive headfirst into rescuing animals.

Authentic brand and sound financials undergird all of our work. These are areas some don’t like to talk about in the nonprofit space. They’d rather pretend that doing good work isn’t reliant upon a sound marketing strategy or fundraising plan . . . both of which are essential components to programmatic success.

In Chapter 7, we’ll consider how to build a brand that reflects the mission and emphasizes the work of the organization. Donors and volunteers are attracted by an authentic, candid brand...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Foreword
• 1 Getting the Job Done
• 2 A Tremendous Challenge
• 3 Positioning for Operational Success
• 4 Operating with Clarity
• 5 Hiring Exceptional Talent
• 6 Cultivating a Positive Environment
• 7 Building a Unique Image
• 8 Funding a Better World
• 9 Meeting the Future Head On
• Author’s Note
• Acknowledgments
• Further Reading
• Index
• About The Author