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John Heymann

jheymann@newlevelgroup.com
(707) 255-5555 x105

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John Heymann has more than 35 years experience as an entrepreneur, business owner, and nonprofit leader. A former Peace Corps volunteer, Managing Director of the Land Trust of Napa County, and CEO of international financial consulting firm Motto Kryla & Fisher, John is known for his ability to work with disparate groups to gain consensus and deliver results.

With a keen understanding of the needs of both businesses and the nonprofit sector, John helps social benefit organizations turn their passion into progress by building cultures and structures to improve performance, capacity, and impact. Working with nonprofits, businesses, and government agencies in the areas of strategic planning, leadership development, organizational effectiveness, sustainability, strategic fund development, and triple bottom line initiatives, John has helped dozens of organizations achieve new levels of success.

John is currently the Chair of the Board of Social Venture Network, a group of CEOs, investors, and social entrepreneurs from around the world who have made a significant impact on the environmental and social challenges facing the planet. He is a Past-Chair of the Napa County Farmworker Commission, serves on the Steering Committee of the Mayors’ Roundtable for Arts & Culture, is an Advisor to the Fundación Humanitaria, and has served on the advisory boards of Theodore Roosevelt National Bank and Montgomery College.

Publications include Gestión Empresarial: Una Guía Didáctica, a business administration textbook and teaching guide (Spanish), published by the Costa Rica Ministry of Education. John has written extensively for a range of publications on the topics of governance, management, leadership, training, technology, and development issues.

Articles by John Heymann

Articles by John Heymann

Articles by John Heymann

New Articles

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Building an Effective Board
In my work over the years with the boards of hundreds of nonprofit and social impact organizations, it is clear that one of the most important determinants of success is the quality of leadership – at both the board and staff levels. Patrick Lencioni, in his book The Five Dysfunctions of a Team lists the five behaviors that hold groups back from achieving high performance. I’ve adapted his approach slightly, because I prefer to focus on the positive traits that are necessary for success.
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What Every Board Member Should Know
What is a 501(c)(3) non-profit and how is it different from a for-profit corporation? Most people’s initial answer has to do with a nonprofit’s tax-exempt status – it doesn’t pay taxes on its earnings, and contributions to the organization qualify for a tax deduction for the donor. While true, that’s just part of the story.
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Strategic Thinking
I’m not a big fan of doing a strategic planning process if it’s seen as just a means to an end. What I am a big fan of, however, is using the process to develop strategic thinking skills. Too often, strategic planning plays out as a process of canned exercises aimed at developing a wide range of hopeful but unrealistically ambitious goals. The output usually gets cleaned up and memorialized in a 64 page document which then goes on a shelf, never to be looked at again. No wonder powerful women shudder and strong men weep when they hear their executive director say “it’s time for strategic planning.”
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Think

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Business for Good
For years, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has held itself out as the “voice of business.” Politicians court their approval and, when it comes to crafting business-friendly legislation, elected officials ignore Chamber lobbying at their peril. But the U.S. Chamber really only represents a certain kind of business: big. And for years, big businesses, whether they are in the financial sector, manufacturing, energy, retail, services, or tech, have focused primarily on one thing – maximizing short-term profits.
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Nonprofit or Business? Do You Have to Choose?
It's not just businesses that are trying to figure out ways to boost revenues. Increasingly, nonprofit organizations are putting their creative energies into developing earned income streams, whether from activities related to their programs, or from straightforward business opportunities.
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Strategic Thinking
I’m not a big fan of strategic planning. What I am a big fan of is strategic thinking. Too often, strategic planning plays out as a painful process of canned exercises and platitudes that get translated into a 64 page document that then gets put on a shelf and never looked at again. No wonder powerful women shudder and strong men weep when they hear their executive director say “it’s time for strategic planning.”
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If the IRS Comes Calling, Can You Bare It All?
Funding has always been a challenge for nonprofit organizations. Today, times are even tougher than usual. Private donations could well decline as slow growth in personal income, coupled with high prices for everything from food to gasoline, forces consumers to make difficult spending decisions. Declines and uncertainty in the stock market have reduced the value of donor and foundation investment portfolios. Slowing economic activity lowers tax revenues for all levels of government, at the same time the pressure to fund expanded services is increasing.
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Thinking Inside the Box: Keeping a Strategic Focus to Guide Decisions
The world is full of opportunities, but which are the right ones for your organization to pursue? Thinking inside the box can help maintain your focus.
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Vision and Mission Definitions
A vision is a guiding image of success formed in terms of a contribution to society. If a strategic plan is the
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The Next Generation of Nonprofit Leaders: Will There Be Enough?
A perfect storm is brewing in the nonprofit world — one that promises to rock the boat for nonprofits and the communities that they serve. At a time when the sector is rapidly expanding (between 1995 and 2004, the number of nonprofits grew at a compound growth rate of 69%), baby boom executives are retiring and the available labor pool will soon be insufficient to meet demand.
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Getting Your Nonprofit Board On-Board
One of the great things about nonprofit boards is the passion they bring to their volunteerism. But passion alone is not enough to develop, plan, and provide the leadership necessary to have an effective, high-functioning organization. Board members of successful organizations are constantly challenging themselves to improve their approach to fulfilling the legal, fiduciary, and management responsibilities of the position.
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A Culture of Learning
Today's knowledge workers are a lot different from workers of past generations. Well-educated, highly-experienced specialists often coming out of big corporate environments, these are not really employees in the traditional sense. Just as a company's capital may be held in buildings, equipment, inventories, brands, and proprietary processes, a knowledge worker's capital — their intellectual property — is held inside their heads.
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What Gets Measured...
It's been said that, "What gets measured, gets managed." But how does one determine what should be measured? Should all measurements be objective or is there a place for the subjective as well? Measurements — both subjective and objective — are critical for an organization to maintain alignment between its strategic goals and its day-to-day activities.
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Culture and the Bottom Line
What does a successful wine business looks like? Most of the measures wineries focus on to steer their success tend to be hard and quantifiable: gross margins, price points, sales volume, market share, distribution clout, or direct sales percentages. How can something more qualitative, like your organization's culture, determine success?
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Baby You Can Drive My Car
If we can’t get Americans to give up our cars, then one approach is to make cars that are more energy efficient and non-polluting.
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Act

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Darfur, Soccer, Sting, and Triton the Lion
A real world example of a social venture that is pushing into new territory is the One World Futbol Project. A hybrid organization made up of a for-profit Limited Liability Company (LLC), registered as a B-Corp (Benefit Corporation), along with a nonprofit 501(c)(3) foundation. With help from NewLevel Group, the founders developed a business plan, secured start-up funding, and launched the business during the World Cup, quickly earning great buzz for the project.
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Building An Effective, Sustainable, Impactful Organization
While there is no one formula for building a high-performance social sector organization, there are attributes and processes that all effective organizations have in common. The following is a checklist of some of those basic components.
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High Satisfaction Days TM: Leading Indicators of Results
Have you ever measured the doneness of cookies baking in your oven using the smoke detector instead of a timer? When the smoke alarm goes off, you certainly know the cookies are done, it's just that the information isn't very helpful at that point. That's an example of what economists call a "Lagging Indicator". While most successful organizations use performance measures to gauge results, the majority of the measures they employ — financial reports, sales results, 360° reviews — are lagging indicators. That is, they tell you with some accuracy how you did, but not until after the fact.
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Tough Times Call for Strong Leadership
Funding has always been a challenge for nonprofit organizations. With today’s economic challenges, times are even tougher than usual. Private donations are likely on a downward trend as slow growth in personal income forces consumers to make difficult spending decisions. Declines and uncertainty in the stock market have reduced the value of donor and foundation investment portfolios. Slowing economic activity lowers tax revenues for all levels of government, at the same time the pressure to fund expanded services is increasing.
Read more...