Staff at the organization, The Second Mile, learned of allegations against its founder, Jerry Sandusky, a year before the board member first learned about them in a newspaper article. Chances are that all board members were equally clueless about the allegations (unless some board members were also complicit in withholding information from fellow directors).

The board member in question is a state senator. His presence on the board undoubtedly opened doors for the organization and gave it credibility in certain quarters that it might not otherwise have. Perhaps the board membership was a feather in his cap that helped the senator politically as well. Whatever both sides sought or got out of their relationship, it was apparently a very flawed one.

There is generally a bright line between the kinds of day-to-day operational issues that staff needn’t bother board members with, and larger concerns that impact the organization’s credibility, financial viability or other big picture matters. And while there may be some gray area on either side of that line, the default should always be to inform the board when in doubt.

Some executive directors treat boards as the legal requirement they are and little else, tolerating their existence but always trying to minimize their role (and, ultimately, their effectiveness). Some board members like the title more than the responsibility. There’s plenty of room between those two approaches, and it’s probably where most staff and board member find themselves.

It is hard to attract and retain good board members, and that might be why a well-intentioned executive director will try not to burden them with a messy situation she thinks she can handle herself. That might be the right instinct in many circumstances, but systems should be in place to help staff recognize when to err on the side of informing at least the board chair.

The scandal at Penn State is layered with instances in which information was inappropriately withheld and authorities turned a blind eye to circumstances under their control. The Second Mile’s role in the scandal may turn out to be relatively small, but its staff and board seem to have been as dysfunctional as other more primary figures.

The ad tells readers to “protect what is yours”. Okay, your home is yours, but so is your physical condition, and if that condition lands you in a nursing home, so is the bill for your care. That may be a bit harsh, but the ad makes it sound like the nursing home or the government is out to take your property from you. What is really going on is that you’re being offered information about how you might be able to transfer a financial liability from yourself to the rest of us tax payers.

The ad raises some very interesting questions, particularly given the current anti-government fervor dominating so much of our public discourse these days. Medicaid is welfare. When it was enacted as part of LBJ’s Great Society, it was the anti-poverty companion to Medicare. How odd it is at a time when criticism of government spending on entitlements is at such a fever pitch to see an ad so clearly aimed at middle to upper middle class property owners running in a newspaper serving such a staunchly conservative region. I’ll bet the workshop is a hit.

Perhaps some workshop attendees will feel that they’ve worked hard all their lives and never relied on the government for a hand-out, so why shouldn’t their children inherit their property instead of losing out to the nursing home? That sounds like an argument for getting the government involved in spreading the costs of health care more equitably among all of us, given the randomness of the conditions that require expensive care, including nursing home stays. Or is it more about Medicaid only really being welfare when people who don’t pay taxes use it?

Then there is the question of the imbalance between our spending, whether public or private, on health care for the aged versus spending on the health, well-being and education of the young. And what about the role inherited wealth plays in the ever growing gap between the rich and the poor?

And while we’re talking about long term care, how many nursing home stays result from illness related to tobacco or obesity? Plenty. So doesn’t government have a legitimate role in promoting healthy living through policy interventions, particularly if we expect government to pick up so much of the tab?

There’s plenty of room for honest debate about the role and size of government, but until we read an ad like the one described above and recognize the irony and hypocrisy laced throughout it we might not really be ready for that debate.

As the baby boom generation ages and the number of children living in poverty rises, we as a society need to more carefully consider how we allocate resources at either end of the womb-to-tomb continuum. Hopefully, we won’t waste too much more time on the notion that government is the problem rather than a very critical part of the solution.

Right or wrong, that’s a pretty simple and concise thought, but I couldn’t have expressd it in just one tweet. 

After Osama bin Laden was killed a football player got in trouble when he tweeted something about how strange it was to watch people celebrate someone’s death.  That didn’t go over very well at all with his Twitter followers (I think that’s the proper term, although this story makes it seem like an odd choice).  The player lost an endorsement contract, and his team rushed out a statement distancing itself from his comments.  He took a beating in the press, on blogs, and on various social media sites.

Before I learned about this incident I had been in a few conversations with well-informed, thoughtful and, in the fullest sense of the term, patriotic people who were uncomfortable with the public displays of joy over bin Laden’s death.  These conversations were not artificially limited in length or context, and they were interactive. 

So when I heard what the football player tweeted that got him into hot water, my first reaction was to feel a little sorry for him.  But you really can’t win points for reflection or nuance when you’re using Twitter.  He brought it on himself and probably deserved his public flogging.

First of all, shouldn’t an athlete with followers on Twitter assume that his fans are interested in him as an athlete and not as political or social commentator?  Secondly, why would someone attempt to address such a delicate and controversial issue without really knowing who he would be talking to, let alone without the capacity to go into the kind of depth the topic requires?    

Here’s the real problem – Twitter is part, maybe a big part, of the dumbing down of our public discourse.  We have all of these really serious and complex problems that need to be confronted by an informed electorate demanding bold action from politicians able to look beyond the next election to what is in our long term interests.  Instead, we increasingly talk to and about each other in grunts, whether on angry talk radio or cable “news” show, or assorted electronic means that encourage brevity and discourage real interaction.

What was that Donald Trump thing all about?  How does that guy spend more than a few minutes being considered a potential presidential candidate?  And where’s the reality in his reality TV show?  If you were watching us from a distance and trying to figure out how we’re going to deal with the fiscal crisis, the economy, health care, failing schools, climate change, the war on terror, or immigration, how odd would it seem that Donald Trump managed to garner so much attention for way too much time without ever seriously addressing any of our real problems?

I’m not blaming Twitter for Trump.  Trump’s our own fault.  But if we don’t do a better job of talking about our problems, understanding the differences among us, and learning more about how to address them, we’ll continue to be distracted by nonsense and noise.  Twitter is a mostly a toy, and when traditional media outlets, government agencies, nonprofits, and policy makers play with it to reach their audiences and constituents they run the risk of diminishing the quality of that interaction.

For the time being, many among the perpetrators identified by Ms. Aviv are behaving better, but unfortunately that is unlikely to last.  As long as groups and individuals on the ideological fringes wield a disproportionate amount of political power, they will continue to be riled up by uncivil media provocateurs and catered to by gutless politicians with their hands out for campaign cash.

Many nonprofit organizations are primarily in the business of persuasion, and Ms. Aviv certainly has them in mind as she calls on nonprofits to lead the push for civility.  But I suspect she’s also talking to the vast majority of nonprofits that on a daily basis deal with problems like poverty, addiction, violence, hunger, illiteracy, delinquency, and mental illness, to name a few. 

These organizations provide direct services to their clients and generally leave the issue advocacy to others.  But with their intricate knowledge of the subject matters they address and their credibility among the stakeholders they engage, these organizations can perhaps do more to inform the public, and to raise the level of debate about the issues central to their missions.  This seems to be what Ms. Aviv is calling for.

A communications strategy can seem like a luxury for a community organization struggling to keep up with the increased demand for its services resulting from the bad economy and public sector budget cuts.  But such a strategy is needed for nonprofits to leverage assets like their substantive expertise and good standing with the public.  When nonprofits exert their leadership capacities to inform the public they can elevate the tone of the discussion while at the same time increasing their visibility among potential volunteers and donors.

Editorial board visits, opinion pieces and letters to the editor, community forums, constituent newsletters, and speakers bureaus can be used by nonprofits to educate the public about their missions and contribute to the debate about the issues of the day in a measured, mature, and nonpartisan manner.

Nonprofits and those they serve are regularly and significantly impacted by the action or inaction of elected officials.  They cannot afford to watch from the sideline with disapproval when those elected officials engage in unproductive and uncivil finger pointing and posturing.  Electioneering is prohibited and lobbying is limited for most nonprofits, but there are plenty of permissible ways for all nonprofits to inform and influence public opinion, and in the process lead us to a more civil discourse of our most pressing concerns.

The country faces a myriad of complex problems, and many voters seem ill-prepared for their role in the problem-solving process, or lacking the patience to approach that role with a realistic and long-term perspective.

When a nonprofit faces operational challenges rooted in financial or personnel problems, has failed to adjust to changing circumstances, or strayed from its mission, it’s up to its board to exert leadership, taking the long view to address the problems head on. 

Voters need to act more like a board of directors, setting a direction for the country and outlining plans to be implemented by those we elect – not to lead us, but to follow our lead and solve problems based on the directions we set for them through the ballot.  This requires a committed, prepared electorate.

While voter participation varies from place to place and race to race, in general terms roughly half of those eligible to vote bother to register, and about half of those registered turn out to vote.  That means candidates routinely win elections with the support of less than 15% of eligible voters.  And the math is even more startling in primaries which often results in more ideologically extreme voters wielding a disproportionate amount of power.

The fact that relatively small minorities of eligible voters pick the winners in our elections is troubling enough, but the real power often rests with some of the least informed voters.  In most political campaigns, probably as many as three out of four voters are really not in play; for them, the battle lines between the two parties are well drawn and they know which side they come down on.  These chronic voters may have a range of reasons for their allegiance to one party or the other, but they generally pay more attention to politics and public affairs than the more casual voters who tell pollsters they’re undecided deep into October every election cycle.

So we have a relatively small subset of the adult population willing to set a direction for our elected policy makers, and the least engaged of this small subset are really in charge.  They rail against politicians who flip flop, but isn’t that a fair description of what swing voters tend to do?  They don’t want gridlock, but they continually vote for divided governments as if driving a car with one foot on the accelerator and the other on the brakes.

Obviously, voters should not be expected to act in unison; ideological diversity is critical to our democracy and healthy debate can produce reasonable and practical solutions.  But while we complain about negative ads and the corrosive effect of money on politics, it may well be that voters get the campaigns we deserve.  Voting is not for everyone, and maybe that’s okay.  But those who want to participate should come prepared.  Watch a bunch of campaign ads that typically run the weekend before election day and it’s really hard to believe that they could possibly work on anyone who is even modestly informed about the problems of the day.  But they’re running because they work, and that’s our fault.

And the problem goes well beyond just foundation dollars.  Most university-based technical support centers for nonprofits are in urban areas.  Unlike rural and remote communities, big cities tend to have a constant influx of young professionals that can potentially expand and diversify the volunteer talent pool available to nonprofits.  Corporate giving is bigger when corporations are bigger, and the biggest ones are usually in metro areas. 

These disparities between the nonprofit sectors in rural areas versus those in urban areas can result in a less strategic, less collaborative approach to regional problems.  With less resources and support to draw upon and more parochial concerns driven by localism, nonprofits in rural and remote areas might  understandably tend to narrow their perspectives and focus on their own survival.  In contrast, with more interconnected issues and communities in metro areas, urban nonprofits have more reasons and opportunities to develop deep and meaningful partnerships, and the large foundations that fund them frequently use their leverage to foster such collaboration.

While some funders like community foundations and united ways in rural areas may be inclined to commit their resources to regional concerns and promote long-term, comprehensive approaches to addressing them, there is pressure on them to continue to serve as ATMs for local nonprofits with limited fundraising capacities.

To some extent, private sector market forces seem to be in play here.  Smaller towns should have smaller problems, and they should need a smaller nonprofit sector to address them.  But the question is really one of quality more than quantity.  Problems rural communities face related to poverty, substance abuse, and youth delinquency, for example, are no less complex or intractable than they are in urban areas simply because there are fewer incidents of them.  Rural nonprofits need to be as well equipped and supported as their urban counterparts to deal with these problems, and arguably more so given the likelihood of a less aggressive governmental response to such problems in more conservative political environments.

Perhaps this is so because it is easier for lower income people to appreciate the need for charitable organizations.  If you’ve had to use a food bank or homeless shelter, or have friends and relatives who have, you might be more inclined to support them.  Buffett and Gates seem to be saying that we all benefit from the infrastructure of our society, which includes the nonprofit sector, and the most successful in particular have an obligation to recognize those benefits and support that infrastructure.

How lucrative a profession would medicine be if there was no public or charitable investment in medical research and technology, or hospital construction?  How vibrant a private sector would we have without the public and charitable investments that have educated generations? 

It’s a safe bet that two equally talented entrepreneurs would fare differently if one set up shop in a country with ineffective or non-existent public and charitable support for education, health, recreation, the arts, transportation and communication, while the other was able to take advantage of the civic infrastructure built and maintained in this country by the public and nonprofit sectors.

As Buffett and Gates bring more attention to our shared obligation to support charitable endeavors, they will undoubtedly also bring attention to the need for nonprofits to be more accountable for their performance, even if that is not their intent.  And that is a good thing.  Current economic conditions are forcing governments, businesses, and consumers alike to make adjustments and rethink priorities.  The nonprofit sector must do the same.

Hard times are when strategic planning is most critical.  There is only so much giving to go around and only so much talent available to serve on boards.  More collaboration and perhaps in some instances some consolidation among nonprofits may be required as the sector positions itself for the improving economic conditions that lie ahead.  Hopefully, Buffett and Gates have started a conversation that will increase charitable giving, and not just among the very wealthy.  If so, the burden is on nonprofits to demonstrate they are worthy of that support.

Here’s a story about how badly a nonprofit can behave behind closed doors.  Ironically, protecting this organization’s good standing with a valued donor caused its leaders to act recklessly and dishonorably.  They succeeded in covering up their misdeeds, and won back the donor’s trust.  It’s unclear whether the experience ultimately brought about any positive changes in how this particular organization operates, but others can surely learn from it.  

It began when the president of a very prominent company sent the organization a letter expressing his extreme displeasure with how the organization was characterizing his industry in a ballot measure campaign that involved an issue central to the organization’s mission.  The letter indicated that the organization could no longer count on his company’s support.  Senior management got together and came up with a set of talking points for staff aimed at addressing the donor’s concerns, but inexplicably no one from the organization bothered to answered his letter.  Not yet scandalous, but clearly poor management. 

The ballot measure campaign ended, months passed, and the angry company president who wrote the letter retired.  The organization’s CEO set up a meeting with the new president at this company to mend fences.  Beforehand she was briefed by her staff about the ballot measure campaign so that she’d have her facts straight and be ready to finally address the donor’s concerns.  Well, it turned out that the new president really didn’t care much about the details of the campaign.  He simply wanted to know how it could be that no one at the organization ever answered his predecessor’s letter.  Perhaps recognizing that there was no good answer to his question, the organization’s CEO made one up – she told him that the letter had in fact been answered several months back.  Still not a scandal, but it turns out she opened the door to one. 

The CEO left the meeting believing that she had made some headway with the donor and asked a staffer to prepare a letter of apology, explaining that while the organization was committed to winning on the issue it allowed its campaign consultants too much leeway and they were responsible for the messaging that had offended the donor’s former president.  Sure, this would mean eating a little crow and rewriting a little history in the process, but she had to keep the customer satisfied.  No scandal there. 

After the apology letter was drafted but before it was sent, the CEO came up with a remarkably bad idea – date the letter as if it had been sent months earlier to the donor’s former president, and send a copy to his successor, explaining that this is the reply that had been sent at the time.  And if that wasn’t strange enough, the CEO had the letter signed by the chair of her board, using her electronic signature without telling her what she was doing.  Several senior managers knew what the CEO was up to but no one tried to stop her.  Now that’s a scandal.  

With scandals in general, so often the cover-up is worse than the crime.  Here, the cover-up was the crime.  The organization’s failure to reply to the angry donor’s letter was a misstep, but compounding the error by falsifying a reply months later was unforgiveable.   The CEO’s decision-making would be considered amateurish is she were at the very bottom of the organization’s flowchart, but this was a highly compensated, seasoned veteran overseeing a multi-million dollar operation with well over a hundred employees in several states.  

The story would be bad enough if it ended there, but there’s more.  After a little time passed a staff member who was aware of what had happened filed a grievance against the CEO with the board of directors under the organization’s ethics policy.  The board, including the chair whose electronic signature was affixed to the fraudulent letter without her knowledge, closed ranks behind the CEO (who had appointed most of them), and in a secretive process administered a gentle slap on her wrist.  In time, the staff member who had filed the grievance was pressured to leave the organization, and the board member who took the lead in shepherding the grievance through to its inconsequential resolution ended up taking over for the CEO when she retire gracefully a couple of years later. 

While the facts here are somewhat unique, the patterns of conduct are pretty familiar.  The organization obviously should have directly and promptly answered the letter from the donor; the CEO should have quickly admitted to the donor’s successor that she misspoke when she told him a reply had been sent; staff aware of the CEO’s intent to send the fraudulent letter should have tried talking her out of it; the board should have taken serious action against the CEO even if it chose to do so quietly without disclosing it to the aggrieved donor. 

Although a lot went wrong here before the matter reached the board of directors, perhaps the biggest lesson to be learned is that board members need to check their loyalty to the CEOs that recruit them at the boardroom door.  Employees, even at the most senior level, come and go and ultimately are rarely the reason donors, volunteers, policy makers, the media and the general public hold nonprofits in high regard.  Board members needn’t micromanage the day-to-day operations of the nonprofits they lead, but they must vigilantly safeguard the credibility and transparency of those operations.

For example, a national foundation recently designed a grant program to fund youth advocacy projects aimed at addressing the obesity problem through public policy strategies.  Specifically, this foundation hopes to learn more about how best to effectively engage youth from communities with high rates of obesity in policy advocacy.  The call for proposals invited applications from partnerships between academic researchers and community groups. 

This alone would assure that new alliances would be explored across the country even though very few would ultimately be funded.  And then, during the proposal development process as these new partnerships sharpen their focus and put together the programs they hope to get funded, they will inevitably expand to include other groups in their communities.  Local policy makers will be consulted to help gauge the feasibility of projects.  It is not uncommon for efforts like these to take on a life of their own such that the grant itself becomes much more a means to an end rather than the ultimate goal. 

In this sense, the foundation has advanced its mission without writing a check, and in many more places than it planned to fund.  By the time the funding decision is made and a small handful of applicants get the good news, there likely will be many more projects at various stages of development around the country which might never have gotten off the ground had the foundation not put out its call for proposals.