Faculty Feature: Mark Light, Ph.D.
Q. You are teaching Earned Income for Nonprofit Organizations for the first time this semester. How are you enjoying teaching this topic to Mandel Center students so far?
Teaching at the Mandel Center is a joy; the students are incredibly talented, colleagues are generous in their support, and the learning environment is astonishing. It's no surprise that the Center is the best of the best. And that wonderful portrait of the Mandel brothers at the front door just shouts out the importance of the work everyone is doing. Talk about a pick-me-up everyday!
Q. What kind of impact has the current economic state of our country had on your class?
Our class was an intensive and ended the last weekend of September when the Dow was about 11,000; today it's down about in the 8,500s, give or take. Of course, a tough economic climate is nothing new to those who work in the nonprofit sector; it's the way of the world day in and day out, especially for the people we serve including the one in six people on this planet who lives on less than $1 a day.
Q. What types of adjustments do you think are necessary for nonprofits to make regarding their fundraising tactics and earned income in light of the current situation?
More and more executive directors are learning first hand that we're not in Kansas anymore, that the days of Kumbayah and marshmallows are long gone; competition for resources is intense. The most important adjustment needed by many executives is to accept this reality and as such, they must be on top of their games 24/7. You don't play to lose or tie; you play to win for your clients, your agency, your mission.
Q. You are the President and Founder of First Light Group, LLC. Please tell us a bit about the company, how you came to start it, and what kind of work you do.
I founded First Light Group in 1995 to provide client-centered services to nonprofits. At first, we focused on planning, but the menu has expanded to include leadership development, presentations and publishing.
Most of the work lately has been centered around corporate strategy to help agencies decide what they want to do in a very competitive world.
Q. You are also known as "Dr. Conflict," an advice columnist for The Nonprofit Quarterly. What are some topics commonly discussed in your column? What have been some of your most memorable submissions/responses?
The range of topics is very broad from what to do about board members engaging in parking-lot chatter to the clueless staff member who doesn't come to work on time. Not surprising, most of the executive director conflicts have to do with board matters including micromanagement and salary. The funniest letter came from an executive director whose board chair asked her to refrain from cheering too much for her son's baseball team when it was playing his son's team unless his son's team was winning, in which case it was okay. Dr. Conflict recommended that the board chair get a hobby or a prescription filled at the pharmacy.
Q. What do you enjoy most about this work?
Writing the column is a lot of fun. Everyone has conflict in their lives - whether they're engaging in it or avoiding it - and it's a topic people easily relate to.
Q. What do you find to be the most challenging?
I don't want to be careless in a response - that's the most worrisome issue I face. For example, Dr. Conflict gets a lot of people who ask whether they should threaten to quit their job because of a conflict. Usually they don't want to deal with the conflict directly; they'd rather quickly compromise, avoid it altogether, or nuke it with a threat. That doesn't necessarily solve anything; conflicts rarely go away and instead fester on and on and on even when nuked! That's why Dr. Conflict usually advises a different course of action, which sometimes means talking it out with the other person directly or getting a third party to help. To be sure, the best course of action is often to bite your tongue and live another day; that's what Dr. Conflict's wife recommends!
Q. What other interests, hobbies, etc do you try to make time for?
I have three boys, two still at home; that keeps me very busy. I do make time almost every day to exercise so that I can occasionally beat my kids at ping pong without cheating.
