Co-leading the nonprofit of nonprofits

Co-leading the nonprofit of nonprofits

By A. Kam Napier – Editor-in-Chief, Pacific Business News Aug 11, 2016, 1:04pm HST Updated Aug 12, 2016, 5:23pm EDT In January, Micah Kane, 47, went from the board of the Hawaii Community Foundation — a position he had for seven years — to a staff position, one newly created by CEO Kelvin Taketa and the board to create a co-leadership model for the organization. Taketa continues as CEO; Kane is president and chief operating officer. Former COO Chris van Bergeijk now heads HCF’s Strategic Initiatives and Networks Group, focusing on the foundation’s long-term initiatives and strategy.

Kane was most recently COO of Pacific Links International after serving as director of the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands and chairman of the Republican Party of Hawaii. He also serves on the board of Hawaiian Electric Co. and is a Kamehameha Schools trustee.

PBN Editor-in-Chief A. Kam Napier met with Kane at the HCF offices to learn more about his new role and the direction of the foundation as it celebrates its centennial.

The role you’re in is new? It was decoupled; much like what First Hawaiian Bank did with Bob Harrison and Eric Yeaman, Kelvin and the HCF board decoupled the CEO and president role.

And Kelvin doesn’t see [my position] as just an operational role, he sees it as a co-leadership role, even though I’m a direct report to him. He’s been very open to me bringing the strengths that I might have and shoring up the weaknesses that I might have to try to co-lead the organization.

In general, Kelvin has more of an outward focus and yours is more internal to the operations? Initially, I thought that would be the case but it’s not. He wants a co-outward focused effort, which I appreciate. I think our relationship is close enough — he’s been a mentor to me for many years, so it hasn’t been difficult. It’s been interesting. It’s allowed me to get to him from a more tangible perspective, which has been good.

What would you say your own split is on outward-facing vs. internal? Well, he does a lot of internal as well. This is not a large organization, it’s 72 employees, our Neighbor Island offices are small and tight and very close to the Honolulu office. His office is right next door to me, we work together, socialize together. I’m responsible for a lot of the direct reporting, so I have that, but a lot of [our time] has been based on the on-boarding for me, getting to understand what our work is and bringing my background for a different perspective on how we do things.

Are there specific needs you’re seeing that HCF can address? A lot of them we’re involved in already — education, poverty, homelessness. The issues today are very defined. They’re complex, but they’re defined. I think our role as a convener in bringing diverse thought can be constructive, where we leave our egos at the door or set aside our political agendas or our respective corporate jerseys and put on a Hawaii jersey, to focus to what that [solving those issues] looks like.

How would you describe the current relationship between the business community and the nonprofit community? And what would you like to see develop there? There’s a high level of giving. I think we want to see a better definition of the role the nonprofit community might play where government isn’t necessarily the solution for all our problems, though it plays a role. I think the for-profit community wants to see that philanthropy is going to make a difference.

There’s limited time. It seems like everybody is chasing time right now so people are going to be more selective about how they spend their time. We’re chasing these things all day [holds up smartphone] and we forget there’s a human behind the text message we need to be thinking about.

How many direct reports do you have? Too many! [Laughs.] Right now I think it’s nine. It’s good in that I’m really understanding the granular level of the operation. In discussions with Kelvin, I’m sure we’ll talk about how that might change going forward, as to whether we restructure that. I think philanthropy is changing and expectations are different — people want to see change during their lifetime, which I like. You can get restless on results when you’re talking about really abstract places. I like the direction we’re going.

What’s your management style like? Very flat. My childhood has been touched by philanthropy. Kamehameha Schools was my first experience with that, and as a result of that upbringing, it’s created a mentality that you can do better if you allow people to help you. And so my management style is much flatter than others’, but at the same time, I realize that at the end of the day, you have to carry the water of those decisions. I value people who can challenge an opinion in a constructive, meaningful and respectful way. A lot of leaders have an opinion about how things need to be, and they’re going to drive to that answer. I think I tend to welcome a different perspective.

Do you think you’ll continue your roles on the board with HECO and as a trustee of Kamehameha Schools? I’d like to. I think it gives an interesting perspective of our world that can be very valuable to the role I hope to play here, not only at HCF but also in the other roles I might play in the community.

Are you on any other boards? I sit on the Friends of Iolani Palace board and I’m a trustee with my college, Menlo College, something I’m very passionate about, a small school in Northern California. That whole post-secondary sector is a space we need to pay a lot of attention to right now, from the financial challenges that sector will face to the challenge of the cost to a family to get an education past high school.

On the public policy standpoint, how much time do you spend in front of the Legislature?

More so now. Kelvin, along with the board, has really started to see a role that we could play and

Chris van Bergeijk comes with a unique set of skills. [Kelvin] started to identify certain sectors within these areas of housing, homelessness and education where our involvement will have exponential impact on a policy change that will affect a broad range of people. That strikes a chord for philanthropists as well, because it’s change that people can see pretty quickly. It creates some risk for us, but it’s something I feel comfortable HCF moving more toward.

Does that take the form of testifying for or against different legislation? Not really, no. It’s going in on issues where we’ve created subject matter expertise, more education versus advocacy, cultivating opinions and providing background long before [the legislative] session gets underway so that issues can move through with a lot less drama and politics.

Do you see much crossover between the business and nonprofit community in terms of leadership? Would it be helpful if people from business took on executive director roles in nonprofits and vice versa? I do. Absolutely. I see a lot of nonprofit leaders who could be effective in the for-profit community. Dawn Dunbar from After-School All-Stars — I think she’d be just as successful with a corporate hat on. I think a lot of the skill sets to be an effective leader in the nonprofit community are effective in the for-profit community. They’re dealing with a lot fewer resources, you don’t have the same flexibility to hire and offer compensation, your hands are a lot more tied. I look at my own background and it was kind of a crossroad for me to come here because I could’ve stayed in the corporate arena. But I realized everything I was doing, even in the corporate arena, ended up having a community focus, so I said, “Why fight it?”

Where did you grow up? Primarily in Kailua. My mother passed away when I was young, so I was raised by my grandmother and spent a lot of time in Nanakuli, Waianae, too. At Kamehameha Schools, I was part of the indigent and orphan program, which allows you to get a foot up in getting into the school, because my mom passed away. And that’s the real foundation of where I come from. If I can do it, anyone can do it. If you’re given the right leg up and are mentored by good people and get a little bit of luck, you can go a long way.

I went away for college, came back in 1991 when this economy wasn’t doing well. I was a dorm adviser at that time at Kamehameha Schools, so I decided to go back to school and get an MBA at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. While I was doing that, I got a job at the Building Industry Association, managing their government affairs. That’s where I met [then-Maui mayor] Linda Lingle — we were trying to allow the construction industry to compete for public-sector construction work, and Linda was trying to privatize a Maui landfill as mayor, so I was the guy who would pick her up at the airport, take her to the Legislature, take minutes of the meetings.

That’s how I started down this track and ended up going to the Republican Party, ended up going to Hawaiian Homelands, got appointed to KS, then worked with Pacific Links for four-and-ahalf years and then came here.

What was your first job, the dorm adviser job? My first job was working for my uncle at Kailua High School, mowing the baseball and football fields with a push mower at 14. Actually, I started when I was 12. He was the athletic director there for 40 years, Alex Kane. I think I was the only nephew gullible enough to go with him and push that lawn mower. Most of my work early on was all labor, a lot of sweat.

Anything you learned from that work that you carry with you? Yeah. My family had a commercial fishing business that operated out of Waianae Boat Harbor, so as a kid, when I would spend time in Nanakuli and Waianae, it was either stay in my grandmother’s house and take two naps every day or get on the boat and work. So my perspective has been the work ethic of the boat and respecting what you can learn out there, because you can run into some pretty challenging times.