Preventing escalation, transforming conflict: What an Ombuds may bring to nonprofit organizations

Conflicts in nonprofit organizations can drive healthy, productive change. Managed well, conflicts promote honesty in relationships and make possible productive outcomes rooted in diverse ways of analyzing and responding to challenges. The Ombuds concept represents a groundbreaking option for enabling this productive option - and preempting or at least mitigating all-too-familiar power struggles in which conflicts are destructively waged, quickly turn personal, and wreak immense harm within the organization and to its reputation. This chapter begins with six diverse fictitious situations in which an Ombuds would be useful. It then introduces the Ombuds concept and unpacks the logic behind its innovative, defining principles - independence, impartiality, confidentiality, and informality - as well as the functions an Ombuds may take within an organization. Ways in which an effective Ombuds might respond to the six situations are then elaborated. The book chapter concludes with reflections about how an Ombuds may serve as a supporting complement to leadership and the more formal dispute settlement processes within the organizational setting - and as an indicator of an organization's integrity and commitment to care, justice, and excellence.