It’s a reality as old as the cubicle: departments within an organization experience “siloing.” It doesn’t matter whether the organization produces goods or services or is for-profit or not-for-profit. Except for the smallest organizations, as soon as there is enough organizational complexity to merit the beginning of staff specialization, there will be an inexorable shift to siloing.
This might look like the marketing department not fully understanding the program with resulting accusations of “false advertising” (or the program team doing its own advertising!). It might look like the finance department enforcing policies and procedures that don’t align with the other teams' workflows and slowing down work across all departments.
Is there a better way? Definitely. Let’s consider how each functional area within a nonprofit organization can effectively interact with its counterparts toward mission fulfillment. For the purposes of this article, we’ll consider four functional areas: programs, development, marketing, and finance/administration. Whether some or all of these functional areas are “departments of one” at your organization, the ideas here are meant to be broadly applicable and start conversations between colleagues across different functions.
We’ll identify how siloing manifests at the intersections of those functional areas, and then explore how to de-silo those pairings. We’ll conclude with a brief look at how executive leadership fits into this effort to de-silo.
Programs and Marketing
We hinted at how this cross-functional relationship can go awry above. If marketing doesn’t know what’s happening in programs, how will they ever tell the story to the public toward garnering new clients or customers? In a healthier relationship between these areas:
- Program invites Marketing to attend or observe events.
- Program suggests clients and customers who can provide testimonials.
- Program helps Marketing access the best opportunities for capturing content.
- Marketing uses the knowledge and content library to expand the number of people who know of the organization's programs.
If your organization provides services for a fee or has other earned revenue, there’s an even greater need for marketing to have the content library to support the sales and contracting process.
Programs and Finance/Administration
Finance and administration is a broad functional area, covering needs such as payroll, insurance, and interface with regulatory agencies. One especially significant process is preparing the annual operating budget. Budgets reflect an organization’s priorities, and since programs are the entire reason the organization exists:
- Finance must shape the budget to reflect how programs operate.
- Financial resources should be allocated and optimized according to the programs’ taxonomy.
- Finance should be willing to alter their budget templates as programs evolve year over year, rather than annual copy-and-paste exercises.
- Program must keep accurate records and notes of their work – including future plans such as the anticipated number of future clients – so that finance has the data needed to shape the budget accurately.
Also read: 6 steps to elevate brainstorming with opportunity mapping
Marketing and Development
A nonprofit organization doesn’t just need to communicate with its clients and customers; it must also communicate with its donors and funders. There may be overlap in recipients, but even so, the messaging is different when offering services as compared to inviting support.
- Communication is needed not only to reach new donors, but also to steward current donors.
- Leverage the work done between Programs and Marketing and re-package that content for the donor audience.
Development and Finance/Administration
This pairing of two critical support functions requires a dose of humility for each function to understand the other’s particular nomenclature and professional standards. Accrual accounting rules can run against the grain of donor stewardship timelines. Ambiguous pledges are seen differently depending on which side of this pairing one falls.
A healthy relationship between these two functions looks like:
- Finance understanding the campaign calendars.
- Development understanding Finance’s documentation needs and building those considerations into the solicitation and stewardship workflows.
- Both teams having a regular cadence of reconciliation so that donor records match revenue records.
- Finance recognizes its role is to support development, so that development can support programs, the mission of the organization.
Executive Leadership
The above ideas will help start the conversations among colleagues and teams – and there’s a lot of value to be had from this work beginning between peers. At the same time, there is a critical role for executive leadership. Nonprofit executives often rise through their organizations, or at least through the sector, from one of the functional areas, and must thus:
- Resist the tendency to favor that functional area.
- Take time to learn the nuances of the other areas.
- Foster a culture of collaboration.
- Encourage teams to find synergies.
The organization’s board has a role here as well if there is an established committee structure. Similar to how the management-level finance and development function must work against siloing, so too must the finance and development committees of the board recognize the dependencies between those functions and encourage collaboration from their oversight perspective.
Where do you see siloing in your organization? Are certain intersections more prone to it than others? Try some of the above ideas, and see how your organization can overcome those silos and the different teams work better together toward fulfilling your important mission.
Eric Rubio
he/him/his
Director of Finance and Administration, The Washington Chorus
Eric Joseph Rubio is Director of Finance and Administration for The Washington Chorus in Washington, DC, and a member of the sixth and current senior cohort of Sphinx LEAD.
Prior to joining the Chorus, Eric was Finance and Operations Manager for Seraphic Fire, Director of Finance and Administration for Calvary Memorial Church of Oak Park, Illinois, and Assistant Manager of the Wheaton College Artist Series. He holds the Bachelor of Music Education degree from Wheaton College (IL) and has completed additional coursework at the Lilly Family School of Philanthropy at Indiana University.
In addition to his professional engagements, Eric has served as a grant panelist for Chorus America and the state arts agencies of Florida and Virginia. He is a board member of Embracing Arlington Arts and has served in volunteer leadership roles with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra Association. He is a freelance writer on arts and nonprofit management across a variety of platforms.
