How Smart Nonprofit Leaders Create Lasting Impact: Karen Peterson
An interview with Karen Peterson, National Girls Collaborative Project
In this time where folks are stretched thin, where many staff and leaders of nonprofit organizations are leaving the field or those who have stayed are truly running on empty, I went looking for leaders who have figured something out.
The good news is: I found them! This series, How Smart Nonprofit Leaders Create Lasting Impact, shares the insights of amazing people who continue to navigate the ups and downs of nonprofit leadership to create lasting impact. This is one of the many ways we help clients of Development Without Limits improve their services so they can reach more clients with high quality programming that opens new revenue streams.
Karen Peterson, Founder and CEO, National Girls Collaborative Project
I had such an inspiring and enjoyable conversation with Karen Peterson from the National Girls Collaborative Project. As a smart nonprofit leader, Karen listens closely to her team and has taken flexibility to the next level. She finds ways to ensure each and every person has what they need to be successful with their work. And it pays off! The NGCP team supports networks of networks across the country with the same care and attention they experience at the national office.
Q: As we navigated the pandemic, what are you most proud of in your leadership?
I think creating policies, processes, and awareness around self-care. When the pandemic hit, my biggest concern was that folks who work for me and folks in our network would get sick, and that would cause additional stress. So we gave everybody another 40 hours of sick leave. Regardless, it just added 40 hours to their balances. So nobody was concerned about not having enough sick leave. I also encouraged people to not hesitate if they felt like they were getting sick, take the time off. We're a totally virtual organization. We have employees in eight different states across time zones. We did that for years before COVID. So we already have these processes in place.
We use Microsoft Teams, and we chat a lot. And we keep in touch. We have some protocols. If you're sick, you send a note out to the whole staff list and say, “I'm sick today.” Things like things like that. If you're going to be away from your desk for more than three hours, you just send a note out and say, “I'm taking off,” or put something on your calendar. So we communicate about that. But I wanted people to know that if they started coming down with COVID, or they had a family member to take care of, they didn't have to worry about that.
The other thing we did was we did some intense cross training, because I was also worried that someone would get sick. We have contracts and deliverables, right? So everybody sort of looked at what the work that they were doing and thought about who else could step in? I asked people to do that themselves. Is there something that you're doing that no one else knows how to do?If that was the case, then we assigned someone to learn that thing, which actually was helpful, just generally, even without COVID, to have more cross training, and that people being able to step in to work, because we have some databases and things that that are public-facing that people would notice if they went down. I also did regular check-ins, when I was checking in with folks, and you I'm sure you remember this at the beginning of COVID. I just felt like everyone needed to talk about it. This is weird. This is difficult.
So I allowed space for that. I remember one of our first staff meetings, we probably spent the first 20 minutes just talking about how weird this was, and people would just share. I just said, “How's everyone doing?” Then I feel like words would sort of tumble out. Instead of being the sort of leader or supervisor where we're, “Let's get to work and talk about work,” I just let that happen. And I was very aware that I was doing that. But I realized people needed to talk about it.
Q: How have all of the things that you employed right at that moment carried forward? Now we're kind of potentially nearing the end or as we're entering this space?
Well, I would say that we were already flexible, but we're even more flexible. A couple of these seem like little things, but I think they make a difference. We've always had a technology stipend, so we give you $1,000. And you can use that for a computer. We want to own equipment. I don't want the organization to own equipment. So you can use that to buy a computer. I think I would say six months into the pandemic, we're doing all these Zoom meetings. And somebody said, “Well, I'm having trouble seeing XYZ.” And I said, “Well, do you have a second monitor?” And she said, “No.” I said, “Oh, get one, and we’ll pay for it.” And then I told everybody, if you don't have two monitors, you get another one. I think actually I just gave $200 to a whole bunch of people.Now we've sort of increased what the technology stipend can be used for. Before, it was just a computer. But now you can use it if you need another monitor or blue light glasses or better internet. So that has stayed.
“What if I gave the team more vacation? Somebody said they wanted to stop working Fridays. I mean, we already have a significant number of people that only work four days a week. They didn’t seem like big asks...”
Also this idea that people have always set their work schedule. We have a flexible work agreement where people set their work schedule. I would say that's been stretched even more, in a positive way. I also wanted to check in with everyone. I'm trying to think maybe we were a year in. And so I created a pandemic recovery plan. I sent that out to folks. And it was for questions like, “How has it affected your work? Are there additional things that would be helpful?”And then I went through all those, and anything somebody said they needed, I gave it to them. Someone said they needed more vacation, because they wanted to go off for like three weeks and recover. I think it was after the vaccines. And I said, “Okay, all right.” What if I gave the team more vacation? Somebody said they wanted to stop working Fridays. I mean, we already have a significant number of people that only work four days a week. They didn't seem like big asks, and the fact that people wrote them down and said this would be helpful. One person said she wanted to take this yoga class every day. It's in the middle of the day. And I said, That's fine. Just put it on your calendar. It's like taking lunch.
I also think we spend more time sort of sharing personally than we did before the pandemic. I've allowed space for that to continue. So just being more in tune with when somebody takes the time to ask for an accommodation or something special. My first inclination now is “why not?” rather than analyzing it.
Q: How are you doing that? How do you actually make that work on the nuts and bolts level?
I've always been a fairly transparent leader, but now I am so transparent, even more transparent. At a staff meeting I said, “Thank you for your pandemic recovery plans. I want to be transparent that I gave people what they requested. Some people asked for more vacation and gave it to them, if that's something that you want, and you didn't ask for because you didn't think it was possible, reach out to me. I don't want someone saying, “Oh, I asked Karen for 20 hours of vacation, and she gave it to me.” So I am even more transparent than I've ever been. I think that's one thing that COVID sort of helped me with also. You never know what people are going through, how it's affected them, what's happening in their lives, and it's better just to make sure that they all know what's going on.
Q: Is there any big obstacle you are still navigating as a leader?
I still have a number of young staff. I've been meaning to read more about this, sort of the generational issues in leadership and the range of staff experiences. And so sort of navigating, trying to fill in some of the knowledge gaps. And some of this may be unique to our organization since I'm a founder. I've been doing this for a long time.
We hired a number of new staff during the pandemic. We weren't able to have an in-person staff retreat, they haven't attended some of the things that we've done that help build knowledge about our work. And so helping staff first sort of understand where they have gaps in their knowledge. And then helping them build that knowledge became even more of a challenge during the pandemic that we're still trying to face.
Another thing that I've done is, if you need to take the class, if you want to buy a book, let's talk about that because we haven't been able to get together in person. We will in September, which will be great. We used to have a Collaboration Institute every year. And it was always really dramatic. New staff would come to that, they’d meet our community, they'd learn about our collaboration model and the gender equity work that we do. And it would dramatically shift their capacity. We didn't do that at all during the pandemic, but we hired new staff. There were some struggles just around knowledge.
We’re working on leveling up the institutional knowledge in our organization, but also realizing that younger staff from different generations have different needs. And maybe I'm the oldest person on our staff, so the younger generation, they manage things differently. And what is important, they have different priorities, which I learned a lot about during the pandemic. People wanted to talk about what was going on and how they were dealing with it. Or one young staff member was super social. She was having real difficulty because she wasn't seeing her friends and going out, really struggling like depressed, struggling. And so I had said to her, I'm working from home. If you want to find one of those co-working places, we'll pay for it. Because I could tell she was just really struggling working at home. Even without a pandemic, I think that some organizations struggle with that sort of thing. But that really speaks to intergenerational priorities, how people work, and what they find valuable.
Q: Can you describe your staffing model and how you collaborate with organizations across the country?
We have a national staff of ten, and then each collaborative has a leadership team. Those are partners. They're part of other organizations. I will call them part of our network. But then we have a national staff that works on a number of contracts. Often people receive a federal grant and they hire us to help with gender equity, adaptation, and content, and the training, delivering the training as well. We call those network projects because we also involve our collaborative.
A common thing is somebody will say to us, “I have this project, and I want to do it in 10 states,” and NSF sends people to us. And I say, “What states do you want,?” and I reach out to those states. So it's sort of a scaling function, as well. We have people on our staff that help people in those states do that. But it is a different way of thinking if someone has worked in an organization, a local organization–shifting their thinking more nationally and abroad, right to the systems thinking versus a couple here and there.
That's one of the first things that we have to work on when somebody new comes to us: Yes, we function within systems. And the way that you might implement something for three organizations is different from the way you might implement something for 500. I find often that's a role that I play. Someone says, “Well, I have to send this out.” We asked how many we need, like 100 responses. I say, “Well, so let's get on some of the big list servs” You're not going to email 1000 people. You're going to find networks to distribute. My next question is, “How are you going to collect the information?” It's so funny because someone will usually say, “I'm just going to have them email me.” It's like, no, no, no. You need a Google form. We do have such a big network. One time somebody asked me to publicize their workshop. And I just did it. She called me later and said, “I'm full and I only had like 30 spaces.” So now I always say, “How much room do you have?” I can send it just locally, but do you really want me to put it in the NGCP newsletter that goes to 85,000 people?
It's that systems approach and really thinking about you approach a task, and we have a relatively small staff for the reach that we have. People are surprised. But it's because we do things in systems.
Q: What is the secret sauce to your leadership that you think a lot of people miss? This is something that you've developed over time– not something that we're going to find in a leadership textbook.
It's interesting, because I actually think about this a lot. I would say it's sort of a combination of two things. First, I really listen and pay attention and take notes. I think sometimes my staff are surprised like that. I know that somebody likes to play frisbee. At every staff meeting, ask a checking question, which can be professional or personal, but I take notes around those things so that I just know them. Sort of connected to that is I spend quite a bit of time asking them, what it is that they really want to do or learn? What are they most interested in?
And then, I say this really transparently, if there's funding for something that you really want to do and meets our mission, you can do it. You can go out and get a project if it pays for itself and you can do it. And I don't think that's true for a lot of organizations. I think a lot of organizations people come into, there's work and they do the work. But within our organization, there is some freedom. If you're really interested in, say, science communication, we don't do a lot of science communication. But if you're really interested in that, and it can be connected to gender equity, and our networks, and helping our collaborative leads, if you find a project or write a grant or form a partnership, you could add that to your work.
“[My leadership secret sauce is really the] combination of paying attention to what staff are most interested in—what they’re passionate about—and, keeping my own ear out for projects I know they would love to do.”
Because sometimes I know more about what's floating around out there. And also, letting them know that they can look for projects as well. But as I said, it's got to pay for itself, it has to meet our mission. And I have been saying that and operating in that way, for at least 15 years. I led another organization before this one and the same sort of thing. And I have found that to be, well, motivating, and pleasing. And sometimes I have to repeat it because I am not sure if they actually know that I mean it. Because I've had someone say, “I really would love do something in early childhood.” And I've said, “So-and-so's doing early childhood work. I talked to her a while ago about having a partnership. Why don't we meet with her and see if there's something we can pick up together and figure out the funding.”
I don’t feel like many leaders do that. I haven't had that experience with folks that I've worked for in the past. Because if you're not doing meaningful work, you're probably not going to stay somewhere. And I think I feel strongly about that, too, because I've been able to follow my passion. I wrote this little NSF grant. And now we've got an organization doing all this work.
Amazing, Karen! Thank you so much for the conversation. I agree–we don’t hear from many leaders that if there’s something the team really cares about, let’s find it and do it. That's also what our experience says: People stay when they're doing stuff that they love to do with leaders that they know value and appreciate them.
Karen A. Peterson has over 30 years of experience in education as a classroom teacher, university instructor, teacher educator, program administrator, and researcher and has served as Founder & CEO for the National Girls Collaborative Project (NGCP) since its beginning in 2012. NGCP seeks to maximize access to shared resources for organizations interested in expanding girls’ participation in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). The overarching goal of NGCP is to use the leverage of a network or collaboration of individual girl-serving STEM programs to create the tipping point for gender equity in STEM. Currently, 33 Collaboratives, serving 41 states, facilitate collaboration between 42,500 organizations who serve 20.2 million girls and 10 million boys.
Peterson is also Co-Principal Investigator for Leap into Science: Cultivating a National Network for Informal Science and Literacy and several other projects all funded by the National Science Foundation which address gender, racial, and socioeconomic underrepresentation in STEM fields. Many of them access NGCP’s national network and dissemination tools to distribute, scale-up, and/or replicate project outcomes. These projects have leveraged Karen’s expertise in STEM equity project development, effective national scale-up strategies, dissemination, and capacity building.
Peterson serves on local and national boards that develop and administer programs designed to increase underrepresented students’ interests in STEM. She has served on the Board of Directors for True Child, an independent think tank that translates research and knowledge on the impact of gender stereotypes into a range of effective interventions, policies, and other resources for the organizations and policy makers. Peterson has published in The Journal of Women and Minorities in Science and Engineering and CBE Life Sciences Education, a journal published by the American Society for Cell Biology. She co-authored evaluation reports and promising practices reports in informal information technology education for girls for the National Center for Women & Information Technology. In 2013, Peterson was profiled in STEMConnector’s™ 100 Women Leaders in STEM publication. A graduate of the University of Washington, Bothell campus, her Master’s thesis focused on gendered attitudes towards computer use in education.
