Managing the Human Services Business
'Astonishing' Number of Business People Take Top Posts
How can social workers compete with business executives for
leadership of social agencies?
By Peter Slavin, Special to NASW News
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| Illustration: John Michael
Yanson |
The growing number of social agencies being run by people from
other fields has social workers worried. It's not a new development
— social agencies began hiring top administrators from outside
the profession in the 1980s — but it now seems to be more widespread
and is expected to become even more common as the current generation
of social work executives begins retiring in the next few years.
In New York City, an "astonishing" number of business
people are moving into the top tier of human services agencies
and private nonprofits, says Shelly Wimpfheimer, a past president
of the National Network for Social Work Managers, with which NASW
has a memorandum of understanding for collaboration on issues
of mutual interest.
Wimpfheimer cites a Johnson & Johnson executive who took
charge of the National Urban League, an Avon executive who went
to Girls, Inc., and an AT&T executive who took over Wimpfheimer's
agency, the YMCA of Greater New York.
In South Carolina, six or seven years ago, three state human
services agencies were directed by people with social work degrees,
says social work management consultant George Appenzeller. "Now
they're directed by people with business degrees or attorneys."
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From May 2004 NASW News. © 2004 National
Association of Social Workers. All Rights Reserved. NASW News
articles may be copied for personal use, but proper notice of
copyright and credit to the NASW News must appear on all copies
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