Conflict Resolution

Working for a nonprofit organization requires funding from many private individuals and corporations as well as federal, state, and private grants.  While private donations typically don't require anything in return, grants stipulate that you uphold certain requirements and report back statistics of how your program properly implemented those things.

A new government grant opportunity became available in the field of early childhood.  The government is offering a large sum of money to organizations to help promote and implement quality early education for preschool age children.  On the surface, the grant is very appealing and certainly will bring about a large sum of money to fund such a program.  What goes unseen by the untrained eye is how the grant funds are defining a quality program and what it is asking of the organizations who accept the funding.

For the development director, whose sole responsibility is to find funding for our organization to keep us in business, this opportunity is definitely intriguing and worth the fight, even if it means sacrificing or changing practices to accommodate the requirements of the program.  For myself as the director of our early childhood programs, my responsibility is to look after the best interest of the children, their families, their education, and my teachers.  How can I ask my teachers to teach and assess young children in a manner that does not compliment our current practices, beliefs and core values and does not follow what we understand developmentally appropriate practice to mean?

Certainly, this creates a conflict between myself and my development director.  It also expands it reach beyond just the two of us.  I must be the spokesperson for our program while she must be the spokesperson for our administration and board of directors, those who do not have a background and education in early childhood but instead in principles of business management.  Indeed, this is an area that creates conflict.

For now, we have put it on the back burner until we can have a chance to gather additional information and come back together to talk about whether or not our organization will seek this funding.  Here are some things I have learned that I must do to prepare to address this conflict with my co-worker:

• Prepare myself by increasing my knowledge and doing my research.  Talk with other professionals in my field, talk with my teaching staff, and research national organizations that take a stand for early childhood education and determine how they would respond to the requirements of this grant.
• In my research and preparation, gather information for both sides, not just my own.  Be willing to understand both sides of the conflict and come up with some creative possible compromises.  Is there a way that we can both get our needs met? This will help in staying focused on the actual problem: our organization needs money and we need to uphold developmentally, culturally, and individually appropriate practice.
• Determine what areas I am willing to compromise and what areas I am not willing to compromise.  Perhaps  making a list of items in priority of what I am willing to abide by in the grant and what I am not.
• Learn to manage my own emotions.  While I may personally feel strongly for or against an aspect of this conflict, I  must learn to manage and appropriately express those emotions.  I must also be aware of the feelings of the other people involved in this conflict, either directly or indirectly.

If I properly take these steps, I believe that I will be more prepared to address this conflict in a constructive manner, whether that be that the outcome comes out the way I hope, or a way that both sides can live with.