Relentless
April 27, 2012
Our subject line reflects the title of the passionate and personal speech Mario just finished giving at The City Club of Cleveland, based heavily on his work with Venture Philanthropy Partners. Hes handling Q&A right now, so we appropriated his email account to send out this message.
Were biased of course, but we think the former high school baseball player with the middling batting average hit it out of the park!
We hope the speech will be the opening salvo in a cross-sector movement to advance high performance as the norm for nonprofit and public-sector institutions.
True to form, Mario pulled no punches:
- We funders, board members, and civic leaders should be supporting nonprofit leaders to build strong, high-performance organizations. Instead, we cause them to think incrementallymonth to month and hand to mouth.
- We often say were focused on results. But really what were doing is demanding more information on results without paying enough attention to what leaders actually need in order to produce those results.
- Our society will have less money for services. And we will have more demand for services from a broader swath of the population. Just imagine how hard the funding decisions are going to become! What will we fund? What will we drop? How will we decide?
- Nonprofit leaders and their public-sector counterparts have to summon the courage to seek high performance. Forget your damned funders. Do it for yourself.
Quotes From Leaders Like You

- Isaac Castillo, DC Promise Neighborhood Initiative

- Sam Cobbs, First Place for Youth

- Denise Zeman, Saint Luke’s Foundation

- Patrick Lawler, Youth Villages

- Lou Salza, Lawrence School

- Anne Goodman, Cleveland Foodbank

- Molly Baldwin, Roca, Inc.
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