The Pollyanna Principles: Reinventing "Nonprofit Organizations" to Create the Future of Our World [Paperback]

Hildy Gottlieb (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0981892809 | ISBN-13: 978-0981892801 | Publication Date: January 25, 2009

The Pollyanna Principles will show you how to create the future for your organization and your community right now! From the first page of this groundbreaking work, prepare to be inspired to get to work creating an extraordinary future for your community. Drawing on her extensive experience in the field, the "nonprofit" sector's respected contrarian - veteran consultant and author Hildy Gottlieb - debunks everything you thought was true about creating "effective organizations." From governance to planning to resource development and everything in between, Gottlieb has one goal in mind as she reinvents the Community Benefit Sector's most commonly used systems: How to build healthy organizations as just one step in building strong, healthy, vibrant communities.

Product Details

• Paperback: 388 pages
• Publisher: ReSolve, Inc. d/b/a Renaissance Press (January 25, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0981892809
• ISBN-13: 978-0981892801
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.9 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #353,922 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Do you want to change the world?, June 18, 2009

By 

Galad (Lake Havasu City, AZ) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Pollyanna Principles: Reinventing "Nonprofit Organizations" to Create the Future of Our World (Paperback)

If you want to change the world, at any level from personal to global, the Pollyanna Principles will set you on the right path. The Principles aren't "how to's" for a quick fix, they are the basis for a new perspective on life.

I have worked on the nonprofit (Community Benefit) sector for many years, and I was becoming increasingly frustrated with current philosophies and systems. I have read many of Hildy's articles and books in the past and found them progressive, positive and practical. The Pollyanna Principles is all of those things and more.

All I can say is buy this book today! Whether new to the sector, a seasoned professional,elected official or volunteer, the Pollyanna Principles will change your vision for the future and help you learn how to create lasting change.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars What Would Pollyanna Say? Well, Here's What I Say, Anyway...., June 8, 2009

By 

Stephen Nill "CEO, CharityChannel.com" (USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Pollyanna Principles: Reinventing "Nonprofit Organizations" to Create the Future of Our World (Paperback)

If you've followed Hildy Gottlieb's postings to the [...] professional forums over the last decade, you would come to realize that hers is an intellect that will invariably tackle a question by going deep, exploring aspects that at first seem distractingly far removed from the issue at hand. This tendency could be a bit annoying to the uninitiated practitioner who is just trying get something quickly solved and move on. Yet, invariably, her probing would lead to insights that suggested ultimate solutions that were far more effective and sweeping than the usual surface treatment of topics on discussion forums.

Despite these tendencies, Gottlieb's prior books, many of which I have had the pleasure of reviewing for[...], have been relatively easy, fast reads. Though insightful and immediately practical, they rarely left familiar territory for those of us who have been in the trenches for years.

So, I was not prepared for The Pollyanna Principles. This work is simply stunning. It is a magnum opus, if not Gottlieb's maximum opus. Frankly, it is the most important and transformative nonprofit-sector work I have read.

Correction: Gottlieb would slap my typing fingers for the "N" word ("nonprofit"), as she advises us to expunge it from our lexicon. So, allow me to make a nunc pro tunc correction by substituting the term "Community Benefit sector," composed of "Community Benefit Organizations." In fact, CharityChannel is adopting the term "Community Benefit Organization" and "Community Benefit Sector," making it the first professional community to do so.

Named, presumably, after the fictional character Pollyanna from a best-selling 1913 novel by Eleanor H. Porter, Gottlieb presents what she calls The Pollyanna Principles. Here's the first one: We accomplish what we hold ourselves accountable for.

Pollyanna was a hopeless optimist. When she gets hit by a car and loses the use of both legs, she overhears the physician state that she'll never walk again. Pollyanna decides she can still be glad that she had legs. This optimism, no doubt spurred by a vision of walking again, leads her to eventually do exactly that.

So too is the first principle put forth by Gottlieb driven by unfettered optimism. Writes Gottlieb, "Imagine the potential ... if we held ourselves accountable for making our communities healthy, vibrant, resilient, humane places to live? If we accomplish what we hold ourselves accountable for, our potential is limited only by us!"

The other Pollyanna Principles are just as, well, Pollyannish - and I mean that in a good way. Pollyanna often gets a bad rap, her optimism sometime being dismissed as naive or impractical. Yet there is no denying that, despite the injuries to her legs and the pessimistic prognosis, she walked again because she envisioned herself doing so, and worked hard to regain use of her legs. Say what you want, Pollyanna was, in the end, triumphant.

One can imagine Pollyanna herself nodding with enthusiasm at Gottlieb's Pollyanna Principle #2: Each and every one of us is creating the future every day, whether we do so consciously or not. Adds Gottlieb, "If we are creating the future every day, then every day we can expect to aim our work at the cause-and-effect that will create a healthy, vibrant, humane future for our children, our grandchildren, and their grandchildren. Our actions will then flow from those expectations."

I'll leave to the reader to discover the power and depth of the first two Pollyanna Principles, and the others. I don't want to give too much away. Besides, I cannot possibly do these principles justice in a review.

The book opens by identifying assumptions we have come to accept as "reality," then demonstrates how those assumptions have led to the systems under which community work is done. It then moves to The Pollyanna Principles, which I have only briefly touched on but which set out a new set of assumptions and expectations, aligned, as Gottlieb phrases it, "behind the goal of creating a healthy, vibrant, humane world...."

I have previously written in [...] WE REVIEW section about Gottlieb that she is a practitioner's practitioner. She has, like me, been in the trenches as a founder of a successful Community Benefit Organization. Though she somehow sees farther and deeper than almost anyone I know in our sector, her feet remain firmly planted on terra firma. Indeed, the latter sections of the book provide practical, down-to-earth case studies and examples. These are very much needed, because any new way of governing - of thinking - requires reinforcement by specific examples. Even the most battle-weary, harried practitioner will conclude that The Pollyanna Principles identified by Gottlieb become real and practical when the reader can see how they work in action.

I will now add one new, and unexpected, observation: Gottlieb is now the Community Benefit sector's philosopher. It is simply impossible to read this book and continue to view our work in this sector the same. It is a startling realization in my case; I am in my fourth decade of service in this sector.

I will say that this book will demand of you that you confront your preconceptions. Do not start reading it unless you are prepared to pause repeatedly, especially in the first chapters, and become uncomfortably aware of your assumptions and precepts being challenged. I found myself writing notes in the margins and pausing for days simply to contemplate the implications of what I was reading. Having been favored with an early pre-release copy of the book so that [...] would be the first to review it, I had no choice but to delay this review in order to be certain I had fully contemplated what I was reading, and its implications.

Even now, I am in need of reading the book again - for the third time. Rarely has a book so elevated my thinking and recharged my belief in a bright future of humankind. I now challenge you, my gentle colleague, to read this book and decide for yourself if what I have written is a fair description. You are invited to jump on to the[...] forums, where both Gottlieb and I - and thousands of other colleagues -- actively participate, and discuss the book and its implications.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A must-read if you really want to make a difference, August 5, 2009

By 

Pamela McAllister (Seattle, Washington, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Pollyanna Principles: Reinventing "Nonprofit Organizations" to Create the Future of Our World (Paperback)

The Pollyana Principles is a must-read for anyone, volunteer or professional, actively involved in "nonprofit" organizations (a term I join with Hildy in rejecting).

Three ideas that most stood out for me:

(1) "We are creating the future, right now, with every action we take." So we might as well be conscious about it.

That sounds simple, but it may be the most profound truth of all. (And applies far beyond the scope of this particular book, of course.)

(2) The tendency of community organizations to "react to what is troubling us, rather than aiming to create something extraordinary."

My own experience working with and in "nonprofits" bears this out. I've seen great resistance to moving from a problem-solving mindset to a stance that asks "what kind of world do we want?" ... and then goes about creating that desired future. Yet that's exactly what's called for, now more than ever. And organizations that move in this direction do great things for the world.

(3) Visionary leadership as the missing piece of board "governance."

So many board members miss completely their opportunity to provide genuine leadership for their organizations and communities. Perhaps, as Hildy points out, they'd be more inspired if the sector were more encouraging of big dreams and less focused on narrow fiscal and legal oversight.

There's so much more, including plenty of practical advice. Just go ahead and buy the book. Better yet, buy a case of them and hand them out to your board, staff, volunteers, donors.

We can all use a shot in the arm right now, and this book is a great one. (It might also be a kick in the pants.)

Thanks, Hildy!