I’m a Volunteer for a Nonprofit. One Influential Person Is Sabotaging Us All.

Good Job Photo illustration by Slate. Photo by BonNontawat/Getty Images Plus. Sign up for the Slatest to get the most insightful analysis, criticism, and advice out there, delivered to your inbox daily. Good Job is Slate’s advice column on work. Have a workplace problem big or small? Send it to Laura Helmuth and Doree Shafrir here. (It’s anonymous!) Dear Good Job, I volunteer for a nonprofit group that I’ve worked with for over 30 years; over that time, I’ve held several leadership positions, such as trustee and president. Currently, I’m on a committee charged with creating a conflict of interest policy, which the Internal Revenue Service expects us to have. The template the IRS provides only considers financial conflicts of interest. However, our organization is volunteer-run except for a small number of part-time positions, so financial conflicts are rare and would be known to everyone on the board because they know all the employees. So the committee suggested including wording on how to handle non-financial conflicts of interest in its draft policy. Non-financial conflicts come up often, because our organization is self-governing. When rule violations are enforced or adjudicated, it’s often by a close associate of the person being disciplined. We recently experienced a massive fiasco where a teammate of someone who had broken a club rule was charged with meting out a consequence to that person and utterly failed to do so. A non-financial conflict of interest policy would’ve greatly helped in that case, which is why several committee members are recommending one. The problem is the organization’s president, who is also a volunteer and a teammate of the scofflaw. The president is adamantly against a non-financial conflict of interest policy, which is fine—they are allowed their opinion—but they haven’t offered reasonable arguments for why such a policy is inadvisable. Instead, this person deliberately misinterprets the suggested policy in order to reject it, even after being told what the policy is. They also flat-out deny the validity of the lived experience of the individuals advocating for the policy and refuse to acknowledge the demonstrated existence of other non-financial conflict of interest policies from other nonprofit groups. How do I best deal with this behavior during committee discussions? I’ve tried being supportive (“That’s a great point, and it actually supports why such a policy is important”). I’ve tried being assertive (“I realize you disagree, but this is an important issue to me and I would like you to take it seriously”). I haven’t yet tried calling them out or confronting them about their stonewalling and hardball “negotiation tactics” (really, bullying), but I’m not sure that would have a positive effect. Do you have any suggestions for how to deal with this behavior in the future? —At Loggerheads Dear At Loggerheads, Oof. How much longer does the current president’s term last? If your organization doesn’t have term limits for officers, your committee might want to address that problem as well as the lack of a conflict of interest (COI) policy. This president is poison. The president’s primary loyalty—as I’m sure you know as a past president—should be to the organization, not to their buddies, grudges, or entrenched beliefs. You’ve tried being reasonable and cooperative, and that didn’t work. You might be able to steamroll the president instead. Consult your organization’s bylaws to see if you could call for a committee vote on whether to advance your draft COI proposal to the full board. In a properly functioning organization, your committee would then present the proposal to the board for discussion and a vote, with the president’s vote counting no more than any other board member’s. If the bylaws allow the president to prevent committee or board votes, well, there’s another problem your committee should address. (Rename it the “governance committee.”) The other officers might be able to act without the president’s approval, or they could be sneaky and vote on the proposal when the president is absent and the vice-president presides over a board meeting. If you can’t force the issue, keep presenting evidence from external sources that a COI policy that encompasses more than financial conflicts is necessary. The National Council of Nonprofits has clear guidelines for COI policies, which they describe as “perhaps the most important policy a nonprofit board can adopt.” Many states require registered nonprofits to have a comprehensive COI policy. If that applies to your organization, tell the president you’re out of compliance with state law. If your organization applies for funding from foundations, point out that many of them won’t support an organization that lacks a clear COI policy. The president seems resistant to reason, but other board members might listen if you explain, again, that a COI policy is, above all, about transparency, and most conflicts of interest can be resolved with disclosures, discussion, or temporary recusal. If nobody is willing to budge, ask to bring in a consultant to work through the conflicts on the board and help you understand the COI policy process. Sometimes people will listen to an outside expert even if they’re saying the exact same things those people rejected from a peer. —Laura More Advice From Slate I am the only child of my father’s first marriage, my father had two children (one surviving) from his second marriage, and no children from his third marriage to my step-mother “Alice.” My father and Alice moved to my midwest town about 30 years ago, my half sibling remained on the West Coast. In their final years, all the caregiving fell to me, my father was sick for about seven years before he died, and my stepmother survived about another seven, becoming increasingly frail, and needing more and more care. As any caregiver of elderly parents can attest, it was time-consuming, as well as mentally, physically, and emotionally grueling… Advice Workplace Jobs