Giving Compass' Take:

• This Blue Avocado post discusses the need to shift power in the nonprofit world, from grantmakers, staff and board members to constituents.

• How can we make sure we are meeting the needs of those we intend to serve? In what ways can we involve them more in the decision-making process?

• Here's more on why community engagement matters more than ever.

Those of us who work at nonprofits are drawn to a particular mission and a desire to do good and give back. Most of us have navigated our careers thoughtfully and intentionally and have worked hard (perhaps even tirelessly). Yet often, despite our good intentions and hard work, we find ourselves replicating the practices that created the inequity we committed to disrupt in the first place.

Specifically, we tend to forget who our clients are at nonprofits. We become so focused on our donors, boards, and staff that we can lose sight of our clients and whether our efforts are meeting their needs and priorities. We assume that our research, experience, and desire to do good work are sufficient qualifications for staff and board to make the critical decisions toward achieving our mission.

This means that we frequently make decisions that impact those we serve without engaging them in the decision-making process. Chances are that not including our clients — those who will be most directly impacted by our decisions — contributed to the inequity that motivated the nonprofit’s founding in the first place.

Staff and board members may not share similar backgrounds to those you serve, and failing to take into consideration needs identified by your community undermines your impact by not creating a sense of ownership and partnership with your clients, creating a lack of alignment across the organization, and potentially wasting lots of your time internally crafting solutions that may not be appropriate.

Read the full article about how to put clients first by Dr. Marc Spencer at Blue Avocado.