200 TASK 1: MANAGING ORGANIZATIONS AND LEADING PEOPLE
Organization Overview
I have chosen to analyze PPF. This non-profit organization was created to benefit the
students, teachers, and administrators throughout the d
...
200 TASK 1: MANAGING ORGANIZATIONS AND LEADING PEOPLE
Organization Overview
I have chosen to analyze PPF. This non-profit organization was created to benefit the
students, teachers, and administrators throughout the district. Though it is an independent
organization from the school district, it serves as an avenue wherein private donors, businesses,
and community members can contribute both their time and monetary donations. I have also
chosen to examine the leadership of the Foundation’s president, Jane Doe, which will provide
greater insight into the organization and its culture. Ms. Doe has lead this small organization for
the past seven years. Due to the small nature of this non-profit, Ms. Doe’ contributions have an
immense impact on every part of the organization on a daily and long-term basis. I am familiar
with this organization and the leadership because of my past work experience as the
Administrative Director under Jane Doe three years ago.
Organization Description
PPF (PPF) is a non-profit organization, which supports members of the District USA and
began around 2000. District USA (DUSA) is considered an urban city school district with more
than 14,000 students and a poverty level that exceeds 80%. Due to the high poverty level, the
school district has struggled to find funds to support critical programs that would benefit the
well-being of the students, staff, and administrators. A couple of examples of need inside DUSA
include uniforms for low income students, student scholarships, and teacher grants. Federal and
state tax dollars are insufficient to meet the needs of the school district, thus requiring help from
outside resources. The Foundation was created to help fulfill those financial needs by soliciting
and managing donations from community members and directing them appropriately. Initially,
the Foundation only provided money for college scholarships and teacher grants. Teacher grants,
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C200 TASK 1: MANAGING ORGANIZATIONS AND LEADING PEOPLE
in particular, are critical in providing extra monies for teachers to use their classrooms to help
students better understand curriculum or enrich curriculum-based ideas to a higher standard.
Today, the Foundation continues to provide support for the scholarship and teacher grants, but
they have expanded into other programs including Career Exploration and Adopt-A-School
creating an even larger avenue for supports.
Since the Foundation was created, they have also increased the number of employees. In
2010 when Jane Doe took over as president of the foundation, she was the sole employee of the
organization. Within a few months of her employment, she felt it was necessary to expand and
create a support role (the Administrative Director position). From there, the Foundation has
grown to five employees and has added three new revenue sources. She has also created a web
page, mission statement and a vision statement for the Foundation. The mission statement states:
“To develop
Their vision statement asserts that they champion positive change in the school district and are
willing to implement bold ideas to achieve extraordinary outcomes of the students (Welcome,
n.d.). The purpose of this analysis is to define leadership practices, strengths, and weaknesses of
the organization as well as opportunities and threats that exist for the non-profit organization.
Three Leadership Practices
A leadership practice that Ms. Doe embodies is an ability to hire the right people who
will work to support her goals and the mission of the Foundation. She prefers to employ people
and appoint those to the board of directors that tell her “yes”. She is fearful of criticism which
would indicate to her that she is not doing a good job and is also tied directly to her self-
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C200 TASK 1: MANAGING ORGANIZATIONS AND LEADING PEOPLE
confidence. When the past chairman of the board indicated that Ms. Doe needed to understand
the financials more than what she did, Ms. Doe defied the request because she did not want to
learn how to read the financials and how the numbers were derived. As she had told an
employee, she is fearful of numbers and numbers do not make sense. For this reason, she stated
she does not balance her own checkbook. Unfortunately, the chairman resigned within months
as she could not get Ms. Doe to change nor the board to uphold the request. Ms. Doe appointed
someone else in her place that was a personal friend of hers, whom she knew would not place
those type of directives on her. The new chairman has had no previous board experience.
Another leadership practice that Ms. Doe displays is delegation, which helps her focus on
her role as president and allows employees to feel empowered in their roles. The major role of
the Foundation president is to be the face of the organization to the public in which she networks
and solicits donations. Ms. Doe thrives in her role when she makes public appearances and
social media postings. She delegates the annual report write-up, newsletter, written
communications, financials, fundraisers, grants, and scholarships to name a few. Most
employees do not know exactly what she does on a day-to-day basis. Ms. Doe does not take into
account the numerous responsibilities each delegated job entails. She becomes distressed when
the delegated task cannot be accomplished by the employee, makes a note of the failing for
performance review time, and finds someone else to complete it. Part of Ms. Doe’ job
description is to compile data, raise funds, and write the annual report. Because Ms. Doe does
not understand the systems used at the Foundation for financials and donor management, she
assigns her jobs to a member of her board of directors or the administrative director.
The final leadership practice Ms. Doe displays is her ability to cultivate and enrich
relationships. There are very few donors that many hefty contributions. Ms. Doe can coax and
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C200 TASK 1: MANAGING ORGANIZATIONS AND LEADING PEOPLE
politely cajole these few donors into bigger contributions or to finance certain needs at the
Foundation. With her employees, her way to cajole and enrich relationships is through gift
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