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If what your nonprofit does is valuable, special, and unique it has the most important attributes of sustainability.
Valuable –This implies that what your nonprofit does is respected and appreciated. Valuable goes beyond being needed.
Special – This implies features that are hard to find and serve a purpose that a limited number of people want and value. The limited number of people might still be a large percentage those in need (70% for example).
Unique – This implies something that is only available in one place. Every Catholic school provides a Catholic education. While a Catholic education is special, it lacks uniqueness.
The three preceding attributes are equally important. How easy it is to create each attribute depends on your mission and other service providers in the community.
All three attributes must be evaluated from the perspective of the client, donor, community, referral source, and advocate. How each attribute is expressed will vary from audience to audience (donor versus client, client versus community, etc.). In addition, regardless of your value to the clients, if the donors are unable to embrace the value, they are only going to provide minimal support.
Next Step:
Evaluate your nonprofit based upon the three attributes
Determine what is required to raise your value, uniqueness, and specialness in the opinion of your constituents (donors, clients, community, advocates, and referral sources)
Determine how your nonprofit ranks among the other similar organizations in the area (for-profit, government agencies or departments, and other nonprofits)
Determine which attribute to enhance first
Deciding which attribute to enhance is a balancing act.
Which one is easiest to enhance?
Which is the least expensive to enhance?
Which will take the longest or is the hardest?
Which will receive the greatest support (donors, volunteers, advocates, etc.)?
Which one is likely to provide the greatest benefit (more clients, more donors, more volunteers, more recognition from the community)?
Optimizing the value of your nonprofit is also part of increasing its sustainability.
As always, contact Mission Enablers if you want help. We use a special process that offers a guarantee. For more information about our process and guarantee, you can click here.
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Creating measurable positive improvement is important if one wants to increase community support. Are you looking for a simple way to express the positive improvement your nonprofit promises?
Quantifiable evidence of your client’s success will increase donor support, community engagement, and you opportunity to serve more clients as well as retain existing clients.
Boards are responsible for the sustainability of the nonprofits they lead. One of the ways they fulfill that responsibility is by monitoring the success of the organization. Organizational success depends on several factors besides financial data.
One of those other factors is the success of the programs. Successful programs create sustainability, engage more donors, attract community support, increase client enrollment, and improve client retention.
The implication is that the success measures (smoking cessation, college enrollment, etc.) used to monitor the programming are meaningful to donors, the community, clients, referral sources, and advocates. There is also the implication that positive improvement is necessary and measurable.
Knowing where the client starts the change process (baseline) allows one to measure the change. This is the first step in reporting a positive improvement. The accurate measurement of the change provides evidence a positive change occurred. It also makes it easy to determine if the change is sufficient to justify an increase in support from the various constituents (client fees for example).
If the change is insufficient to meet board expectations, it helps the staff determine how to change the internal processes. The guidance also makes the process of changing the internal systems more effective and efficient. With firm evidence of a need for change, it makes it easier for the board to approve requests for increased funding.
The separation of the board from the daily operations makes the process of creating measurable improvement easier and more objective. When we work closely with a process, we tend to focus on the minor changes. However, the community, like the board, is unable to see the significance of the minor changes.
Next Step:
Ask the board to create measurable goals for each of your nonprofit’s programs that are meaningful to the external audience (donors, clients, the community, referral sources, advocates, etc.)
Establish a quantified baseline for each of your programs
Ask your staff to report to the board, at each meeting, the measurable progress yours clients are making toward the goal
Determine how to express your clients’ success to the public, donors, etc.
Sustainable organizations make measurable improvements in the communities they serve. Their sustainability comes in part from the increased support, growing donor base, improved client retention, and growing client enrollment.
What quantifiable evidence do you have of your clients’ success? How can you use that evidence to increase the support of your organization and increase the number of clients you serve?
As always, contact Mission Enablers if you want help. We use a special process that offers a guarantee. For more information about our process and guarantee, you can click here.
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Relevance is a common topic of conversation. How important is it to a nonprofit?
When I think about relevance, I think about the importance, meaningfulness, and value something has from my perspective. You are probably the same way. As an example if in the next paragraph or so this article seems to lack relevance to you, you will stop reading and move on to some other task.
Without the appearance of relevance your donors, clients, advocates, referral sources, and others will shift their attention to an alternative. Please note the use of the phrase “appearance of relevance”.
Most organizations are relevant and important. However, the needs, wants, or ways of expressing the needs change over time.
I have lived in my current home of over 30 years. Many of the local businesses have changed over the years. Some have closed. I know some of the small business owners. When they have sold or closed their business, they have said the reason was one or more of the following:
Change in Demographics – The new people in the area never shop in the store.
Economics – The people in the areas are unable to afford what the store offers.
Stopped Growing – The growth rate of the area slowed or stopped for a variety of reasons or families are having fewer children.
On the surface that sounds good, but is it true? I have shopped in those stores but stopped shopping there long before they closed. I am the same person I was when I moved in (not a change in demographics). I have been employed in good jobs throughout the time (not economics). Overtime the community has grown. Sometimes it has grown faster than other times but it has always grown.
The key point in the preceding paragraph is that I stopped shopping there before they closed. My perception was the store became irrelevant. If they were able serve my needs, they were unable to express their ability in a way I understood. If my needs changed, they failed to notice the change. Either way the store become irrelevant before it closed.
As an outside observer, how would you assess the relevance of your nonprofit? Is your nonprofit doing the same things, in the same ways, and talking about what it is doing in the same way it did a few years ago? Are the changes you made over the past few years sufficient to keep people thinking your nonprofit is relevant?
Next Step:
Talk with and study your community, clients, donors, referral sources, advocates, and partners (constituents)
Determine how they are evolving with our evolving society
Determine how you need to change your service delivery model or the expression of your services to sustain your relevance to your constituents
All of the major world religions are more than 1,000 years old. They have been able to remain relevant because the way they have expressed themselves has changed over the years. Staying relevant is a key to their sustainability. However, the religion has remained constant.
We expect the board of a nonprofit to ensure the organization will continue to be sustainable. When is the last time your board discussed the relevance of your mission and the relevance of the expression of your mission?
As always, contact Mission Enablers if you want help. We use a special process that offers a guarantee. For more information about our process and guarantee, you can click here.
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What is the positive improvement promised by your mission statement? Does the community want the positive improvement you are promising?
No one is in the business of making things worse. It therefore makes sense that everyone is trying to make things better.
If the world agrees that your mission statement promises something positive, it is easy to engage the community in the support of your mission. If you want to increase the support for your organization, you must strengthen the promise(s) of your mission statement.
Unfortunately, the world often measures what is positive in a different way than the nonprofit measures it or expresses it. As an example, consider this excerpt from a mission statement:
“…mission is to strengthen children, families, and communities in (our city)”
From the excerpt, we are sure that the organization intends to do something positive. It is impossible to tell what it is. What is the problem that is being solved? Without defining the problem or the positive results being produced, it is impossible to know whether you want to support the organization.
Is the organization important to the community?
Should I refer people to the organization?
Should I advocate for the continued existence or support of the organization?
Should I donate to the organization?
Should I volunteer?
Should I attend an event sponsored by the organization?
Could they help my family?
Since you serve on the board of an organization, you know the answer to all of those questions about your organization. Do your mission statement and program descriptions provide the average community member with the same understanding? If not, why should they investigate and learn more?
Next Step:
Review everything your organization says about itself (website, material, mission statement, grant proposals and outcomes, etc.)
Determine if your promise of positive improvement is clear to the community
Determine if the program results justify or validate the promises of positive improvement
Make the necessary changes in the promises and the results to ensure the community understands your organization’s value and that the expectations you are creating are clearly being met
Sustainable organizations have growing community support. They are important to the community at large. They provide a positive improvement in the life of the community. They enjoy broad community support.
What changes does the board need to make in you mission statement and program descriptions to help the community better understand why your organization is important to your community?
As always, contact Mission Enablers if you want help. We use a special process that offers a guarantee. For more information about our process and guarantee, you can click here.
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In our modern times, innovation is king. However, some innovations are a distraction. How do you decide when to adopt something new?
The reason innovation is king is because the next fresh idea helps an nonprofit remain relevant in an evolving society, respond to changing economic conditions, attract new donors, enroll more clients, and retain current clients. Innovation also helps organizations avoid being trapped by or enablers them to escape from an adverse trend.
It is important to differentiate between innovation and invention. Inventions are things that never existed before. Teflon was invented in 1938. It was patented in 1941 and began to have practical uses shortly after that. Bonding it to a frying pan in 1954 was an innovative use of Teflon or an innovative change for the frying pan. In any case, both Teflon and the frying pan existed before they were combined.
Inventions are prone to failure. Each year the patent office grants patents for hundreds of ideas that lack any practical value.
Innovations have a much higher probability of success because they are a combination of two or more proven items or the use of a proven process or article in a new way.
Traditions are innovations that have lasted a long time and become part of the fabric of our society, organization, or lives. Sometimes traditions are hurdles an innovation must climb over.
We humans love our traditions. When innovation threatens a tradition, there are those who will express their concerns. The important thing to remember is that the purpose of an innovation is to help us reach a goal everyone agreed was important. If the innovation fails to help, one can always return to the tradition or keep innovating until the goal is reached. Keeping the discussion focused on the goal is the best way to help the innovation over the tradition hurdle. The best way seldom implies that climbing the hurdle will be easy.
Next Step:
Before presenting the innovation, remind everyone about the goal that was agreed upon
Tell the board what the innovation will allow your organization to do that current processes (traditions) are inhibiting
Remind the board that it is an innovation and therefore an experiment, if it fails to achieve the desired results returning to the status quo is possible
Innovation is part of the culture of sustainable organizations. Innovations are a mistake sometimes. Most of the time, innovations are a beneficial step forward. The fresh approach can help your organization stay current with the evolving society, respond to changes in the economy, attract new donors, enroll more clients, and retain your current clients.
What innovation would increase your organization’s sustainability and help it reach an important goal?
As always, contact Mission Enablers if you want help. We use a special process that offers a guarantee. For more information about our process and guarantee, you can click here.
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The best boards are engaged, deliberative, and forward-looking. Here are ideas to help your board become all that you want it to be.
The steps we are offering here can be taken immediately. However, transforming a board from where it is today to being a more engaged, deliberative, and forward looking is a multi-step process. The steps can be taken in any order but all of the steps must be taken to complete the transformation.
Imagine the executive director’s report says, “Ms. X is now the interim director of the afterschool program.” Now think about the following questions:
What is a board member expected to do with that piece of information?
Is it reasonable to expect someone to give up a few hours of family time to read that report?
If they dutifully read the executive director’s report at home the day before, why would he or she feel it was compelling, important, or even necessary to attend the meeting?
What do you want the board member to tell a prospective donor about the organization?
What does the information tell the board members that will help them lay a foundation for a more sustainable future?
How engaged, excited, and passionate about the mission and organization do you expect the board member to be after reading the report?
When you objectively analyze the executive director’s report for your organization, how different is it from our example?
What if the executive director’s report said, “Our goal for the coming school year is to reduce the dropout rate of those enrolled in our afterschool program to less than 5%. We are providing each student with his or her own tutor and requiring each student to enroll in a leadership development, problem solving, performing arts, or visual arts activity each semester. In the fall of 2012, we want to start a second afterschool program at the high school on the south side of town. This will require the board to create a plan for the new program by January 2012.”
Now think about the preceding 7 questions again with the second report in mind.
Next Step:
Review the executive report, the committee reports, and other reports that appear before the board
Decide what is required to make the reports future facing
Make the reports future facing
Discourage board member from asking questions about the past except to develop context for evaluating future decisions
Boards have a hard time remembering that part of their job is to plan. Planning is a future facing activity. Ensuring that reports face forward helps remind board.
Sustainability depends on having an engaged, deliberative, and forward-looking board.
No one can effectively drive a car by looking in the rearview mirror. How soon will you have your board looking forward so they can help you effectively drive your organization into the future?
As always, contact Mission Enablers if you want help. We use a special process that offers a guarantee. For more information about our process and guarantee, you can click here.
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One of the reasons to have a board is to have a group of people who are going to carefully deliberate over important issues. What issues are important enough to require board attention? Let us refer to the important issues as “significant transactions”.
Of course, it is impossible to have standard rules. The size of the nonprofit, number of leaders, frequency of board meetings, fiscal condition, rate of growth, recent history, and length of time the executive has been with the organization are all factors.
An insider with an understanding of all of the preceding factors would still find it difficult to define a “significant transaction”. In the preceding factors are the guidelines for establishing the boundaries of the significant transaction. The three key elements that determine if the board should be engaged in the decision-making process are:
Number of clients affected by the decision
Number of staff members affected by the decision
Budgetary impact of the decision
In addition, the board needs to determine if the number of clients and staff members reflects those immediately effected or if the affect needs to be measured over a period of time (months or a year for example). A similar decision needs to be made concerning the budget impact. Is it better to express the impact in absolute dollars or a percentage of the budget, reserve, or cash flow?
Let us now assume the issue is a significant transaction based on the preceding criteria. Before asking the board to make the decision, it is important for the executive to provide the board with context.
The context should include the following items:
How will the transaction affect the mission of the organization?
How will the transaction help the organization reach its long-term goals?
How well does the transaction fit with the core capabilities of the organization?
How will the transaction improve cash flow?
What are the board’s options?
It is especially important to provide the board with 2 – 5 options. Deliberation is only possible if there are choices. Without choices it is a binary decision (Should we or shouldn’t we?).
In addition, it is important to provide the board with time to make the decision. The process of introducing the topic, presenting the options, allowing time for discussion, and expecting a decision all within one meeting is unlikely to optimize the decision-making process. Part of the deliberative process is providing the decision makers with adequate time to thoughtfully consider the transaction and carefully consider the options.
Consider this example from a youth organization:
An executive reported to the board that the boiler was failing in the administrative building. The contractors had bid $32,500, $34,300, and $37,800 to replace the boiler. The executive wanted the board to decide which contract to sign since he was limited to making decision that are less than $25,000 in value.
In this situation, the board chair reprimanded the executive for taking up the board’s time with this matter. The valid reasons for the reprimand are:
Unless the executive wants to recommend eliminating the boiler the decision is limited to the difference between the least and most expensive options ($5,300). A $5,300 decision fits within the authority of the executive (less than $25,000).
It is an operational decision. The board deals with mission and strategic decisions.
There is nothing to discuss. It is a judgment call. The details of each contract and contractor reputations must be examined. If the executive needed help evaluating the terms of the contracts, he should have asked one or more board members or other experts (accountant, lawyers, contractors, or others) for help.
The executive should have reported the situation to the finance committee and let them deal with the budget and cash flow implications. In addition, the executive should have provided the finance committee with recommendations for dealing with the budget and cash flow implications (extra fundraising, capital appeal, grant applications, etc.).
From the board’s perspective, choosing the boiler vendor is not a significant transaction.
Next Step:
Establish the criteria that defines a significant transaction
Outline the information the board needs to see before making a decision
Ensure the board has reasonable options
Provide adequate time for each member to thoughtfully consider the transaction and the options
Board decisions are a key part of every nonprofit’s sustainability. It is hard to make durable decisions that add to the sustainability of an organization when the time for discussion and deliberation are limited. The best decisions are made when topics are presented and discussed at one meeting and the decision made at the following meeting. With careful planning and discipline, it is possible.
Board engagement increases as the level of deliberation and the significance of the transactions increases. Most boards pride themselves on recruiting knowledgeable, accomplished, and intelligent individuals. People like that want to think about, discuss, and decide important matters. It is one of their strengths.
Are you using the intellectual capital in your boardroom to make high-quality strategic decisions that increase the sustainability of your organization?
As always, contact Mission Enablers if you want help. We use a special process that offers a guarantee. For more information about our process and guarantee, you can click here.
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Every nonprofit board should focus on growth. Not every organization needs to grow. Do you know the difference?
Some organizations are the perfect size. A public elementary school is a great example. The model for the right size for the school is well documented and understood. It creates a manageable organization with the right dynamics for learning. When it is larger or smaller than the established range there are often problems.
Stopping expansion is different from deemphasizing growth. When expansion stops, growth becomes more important. Think about the school for a moment. While there are open chairs in the classrooms, expansion is good. Every new child fills a seat and brings in more revenue. When the last seat is filled, growing revenue becomes difficult.
The challenge for the school board is to find a way to continue to grow revenue. The obvious choices are increase taxes or build new homes and businesses to expand the tax base. However, neither is under the direct control of the school board.
Your organization is the same way. There is a right size for it. When it is the right size, everything works in harmony. When it is the wrong size, there are discordant notes periodically. Sustainability is at its highest when discord is minimized.
The point of the opening paragraph is that when your organization reaches the “right” size it should stop expanding. The board has a role to play in determining when the organization is the right size. When the right size is reached, it is important to switch from expansion to growth.
Growth is more than a revenue issue. When it is time to emphasize growth almost every aspect of the organization is affected. When expansion is occurring, it is important to handle the next client coming through the door. When the service capacity is reached, it is important to find more efficient and effective ways to handle each client. This places an emphasis on staff development (skills growth).
When client expansion stops, revenue growth becomes important but the options are limited. It is unlikely the clients can afford to pay more. Therefore, it becomes important to expand the donor base, reduce expenses, avoid cost cutting, and find new sources of revenue.
Each organization and situation are different. A rule of thumb, says when an organization is at 80% of capacity it should begin switching from expansion to growth.
Expanding to capacity is good. But the expansion process need to slow as capacity is reached. Overshooting the capacity limit causes serious problems for most organizations. Gradually, approaching the limit makes the transition from expansion to growth comfortable for everyone.
Next Step:
Determine the “right” size for your organization
Determine your transition point between expansion and growth
Determine which areas within your organization to begin growing as expansion is deemphasized
Sometimes an established organization will be below its historic capacity. This indicates either the historic capacity is unsustainable or the organization must grow its internal systems before it can begin an expansion program and return to capacity.
Has your board thought about the difference between growth and expansion? Do you have the right balance between expansion and growth?
As always, contact Mission Enablers if you want help. We use a special process that offers a guarantee. For more information about our process and guarantee, you can click here.
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Even the best run organizations experience tough going from time to time. How a nonprofit responds to the tough times determines how it exits the difficulty.
There are never any hard and fast rules for dealing with a challenge. Every challenge is different and every organization is unique. Therefore, using a formula to respond to a challenge is suboptimal at the best of times and a great way to exacerbate the situation at other times. At the same time, the best formula is an excellent starting point for designing your unique response to the challenge.
The first step is to decide what attitude the organization is going to take into the process. There are three broad choices.
Survival – This is a tough problem and we need to eliminate the threat so we can return to business as usual.
Neutral – This is like any other event. It is going to slow us down but will be back on track soon.
Thriving – This is a wakeup call. The world is changing and we need to get ahead of the change.
As you know, the primary focus of our business is helping nonprofits through the toughest of challenges. When we talk with clients about their attitude, we advocate thriving. The majority of the time their first response is that we are being too Pollyanna about a serious problem. They believe that survival is the only rational response.
Until there is a meeting of the minds, it is struggle to go forward. Luckily, the gap between the two views is narrow and easily bridged.
Focusing on survival causes one to think exclusively about the immediate. However, the actions one decides to take may have long-term consequences. Focusing on meeting the immediate need can prevent one from seeing the impact or cause one to assume that crossing that bridge when you reach it is sufficient. In either case, one is prepositioning a problem into the future. As a result, one minor crisis can lead to bigger crisis.
The next crisis is bigger because some of the resources necessary to deal with a crisis were just used to meet the past crisis. Having fewer resources makes the crisis seem larger and more urgent. This places an emphasis on short-term thinking and quick action. This snowballing has the potential to destroy a great organization. In fact, there are several documented cases where this thinking has destroyed large, respected organizations.
Taking the neutral view is a milder form of the survival attitude. However, it still leads down the same path. The lack of a long-term solution means the problem will continue to drain resources.
Focusing on thriving causes one to think long-term. With the long-term results as the primary focus, one approaches the immediate need with a different view. Therefore, the response plan protects the resources that will be needed after the crisis passes. The preservation of critical resources prevents the follow-on crisis and ensures the organization has the resources to meet the next crisis regardless of its size.
Here is one example. During the two years prior to contacting Mission Enablers, one of our clients consumed $950,000 of their reserve by focusing on the immediate need. When we were asked to help, their financial team predicted the closing within 3 – 4 months. Their attitude change with many other changes has allowed them to escape the dire prediction. Without the attitude change, it would have been impossible to make the other necessary changes. Today they are operating profitably and with positive cash flow.
We certainly hope that none of our readers is experiencing a major challenge. At the same time, we hope that each challenge, no matter how small, becomes an opportunity to increase your organization’s ability to thrive.
Next Step:
Ensure that each challenge, problem, threat, or crisis is introduced to the board as the next step on the path to thriving
Establish long-term goals (at least 3 years beyond the hoped for end of the challenge)
Require all decisions necessary to cope with the challenge to be optimized for the achievement of the long-term goals
Celebrate the attainment of the long-term goals rather than the end of the challenge
Sustainability is all that matters. Sustainability ensures that the clients will continue to receive the services they need. Sustainability ensures that the employees are able to retain their jobs. Organizations that are thriving are sustainable.
Survivors feel lucky to see tomorrow’s sunrise. Those who are thriving have plans to celebrate tomorrow’s sunset.
What is the most significant challenge facing your organization? Do you see how to reposition the discussion so that meeting the challenge becomes the first step on the path to being a thriving and highly sustainable organization?
As always, contact Mission Enablers if you want help. We use a special process that offers a guarantee. For more information about our process and guarantee, you can click here.
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If you want your nonprofit to be more sustainable, what are the major areas you should focus on to create a more sustainable organization?
First, let us agree that the formula for sustainability requires constant adjustment. Almost every major corporation has had a period of high sustainability and a time when survival was in doubt. GM is a well-documented recent example.
In the 1950s and 1960s, GM was one of the standards of excellence in American business. Long-term sustainability was assumed. However, all of that eroded away and they filed for bankruptcy.
What is the formula or specifications required to increase sustainability?
Sustainability is easily defined but hard to achieve. The key elements for sustainability are capable people, discipline, and effective systems and processes.
Sustainability = capable people + discipline + effective systems
“Capable people” implies the staff is able to handle the challenges. This implies both the known and unknown. Very few people accurately predicted the economic downturn. We all had to live through it. How well our organizations weathered the storm is a measure of the capability of its leadership.
Two of the most important characteristics of the capable person are humility and objectivity. This is true whether the person is a senior leader, board member, traditional employee, temporary employee, or volunteer. We all have to be capable of meeting the challenges in front of us.
Humble people realize they could fail, may be failing, and believe they need help to avoid failing. When you think about organizations that are struggling, you realize that they never expected to have problems and many times downplay the problems (or have yet to acknowledge they have problems) even though their problems are obvious to others. When asked about their problems, they will blame external factors (weak economy, changes in society, disengaged board, reluctant donors, etc.). Their message is, “I am okay. It is the world around me that is causing problems.” They also find comfort in telling you, “We are doing better than the XYZ Group.” They also like to tell you why any unfavorable comparison is unfair (They are bigger than we are. They have an engaged board. They service financially better off clients than we do. Etc.). A little more humility would allow the leader to have a more objective view of the world.
When we are objective, we can see what others see. Objectivity tells you that if one group is successful (Toyota for example) everyone can be. Objectivity tells you that survival comes from solving problems rather than blaming external factors or someone else. Objectivity tells you it is better to ask for help than keep fighting. Objectivity also ensures that the leader is able to properly analyze the needs of the organization and set the right priorities.
The definition of an effective system or process is that it meets the needs of the donors, clients, and community. GM’s cars must meet the specifications of the buyer and government regulations. Now that the cars are meeting the requirements of more people, GM is selling more cars. Like GM, when a nonprofit is meeting the expectations of its donors, clients, and community the support necessary to be sustainable increases. When the ability of the organization to meet external expectations improves, sustainability improves.
The objective leader knows what question to ask when support is below expected or necessary levels. The objective leaders ask, “What service or process changes do we need to increase the level of support?”
Discipline is also essential. Our experience tells us that discipline is often a problem. We find that those who are struggling have plans but stray from the plans. They set priorities and allow events to change the priorities. They have rules but make exceptions. Rather than solving problems, they provide excuses, exceptions, and explanations.
Since the nonprofit board consists of passionate, intelligent people and has access to the data that defines the condition of the nonprofit, the board is in the best position to know when sustainability is slipping. Encourage your board to monitor the sustainability of your nonprofit. At least four times each year, ask you board to recommend changes that will increase sustainability.
Next Step:
Evaluate your nonprofit and determine the strength in the important areas of staff capabilities, effectiveness of the systems, and discipline
Ask your board to develop ways to measure your nonprofit in the three areas
Ask you board to evaluate the sustainability of your organization quarterly
Ask your board to recommend ways to improve sustainability especially when the threats to sustainability appear low
It took GM many years to decline from great to filing for bankruptcy. Most nonprofits have smaller reserves and must be more alert. Without a large reserve, it is easy to decline beyond the ability to recover. The larger the reserve, the quicker one can recover from a decline. Seeking help as soon as the need is recognized improves the chances of survival and reduces the cost.
Do you know of a nonprofit that would benefit from outside assistance? Please encourage them to seek help. The sooner they have help the better it will be for the community they serve. Timely help will ensure:
The people who need the nonprofit’s services will continue to receive services
The employees of the nonprofit will continue to have a job
The senior professional leader will avoid having a very dark stain on his or her resume
As always, contact Mission Enablers if you want help. We use a special process that offers a guarantee. For more information about our process and guarantee, you can click here.
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