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If you hear about a successful program at another nonprofit, how do you adapt it to fit your nonprofit?
The desire is to adopt the idea as is. However, it seldom, if ever, works that way. Usually there are adjustments that must be made.
Does it fit your mission? Usually the idea needs a little adjusting to fit the mission. The originator of the idea had a different mission.
Does it fit your clients? Think of all of the differences between your clients and theirs. Think of all of the difference between their demographics and yours. Is there the same level of engagement with the community? Do the family members of your clients have the same expectations? Are your client’s aspirations the same?
Does it fit with your donors? Why do your donors support your nonprofit? Will the new idea fit with the donor’s expectations?
Does it fit with your nonprofit’s culture? Does the organization who originated the idea make decisions the same way you do? Are their staff members empowered the same way your staff is empowered? Do they define quality the same way you do? Do they have similar expectations of their clients? How do their goals compare with yours?
The preceding list of questions is incomplete but you now have a starting point for your analysis.
The purpose of the questions is to help you determine how much work it will be to adopt the new idea. Sometimes a few fine adjustments are all it takes. Sometimes it takes a redesign of some of the systems (your current systems or some of the systems in the new idea or both).
If possible, try the new idea on a small scale (only the newest clients, only the clients in program X, etc.). This offers the opportunity to see how well reality matches your expectations and to make adjustments to improve efficiency and effectiveness before you fully commit. It also demonstrates the success of the idea and helps to win the support of doubters and donors.
Next Step:
Determine what adjustments are necessary before committing to implementing the idea
Determine how to do a limited scale implementation
Make the anticipated changes necessary for the limited implementation
Determine how to adjust the process to make the full-scale implementation more effective and efficient
Gather donor support for the full-scale implementation
Successfully implementing new ideas keeps your nonprofit relevant and increases its sustainability. Using a carefully structured process helps to increase your level of success. In addition, a structured approach to change is more comfortable for all of those affected. Each success makes it easier for your nonprofit to embrace the next change.
What is the new idea your nonprofit will be adopting in 2012?
Alumni can be great sources of funds, referrals, volunteers, and advocates. However, many small nonprofits have a hard time engaging and keeping track of alumni. It taxes a small nonprofits skills, time, and money.
It is often between 5 and 15 years after program completion before an alumnus achieves sufficient success to make it possible for them to comfortably donate. By that time, many of the staff members have moved on and the alumni have a decreasing emotional connection. In addition, many of the alumni have moved out of the area.
Obviously, if the alumni would track themselves the problem would solve itself. If the alumni had a reason to stay in touch with the nonprofit, they would track themselves.
Each nonprofit tries to ensure each alumnus will reach his or her full potential. When the alumnus believes the nonprofit played a formative role in his or her life, the alumnus will stay in touch with the nonprofit. Those alumni return to the nonprofit to reconnect with their source of strength.
If a client has one or more mentors helping them, it is easier for them to reach their potential. Through the nonprofit’s alumni, staff, and others, the nonprofit has many potential mentors for each client and each stage of the client’s life.
Connecting a client to a mentor does many things for the client and the nonprofit:
Mentors enhance the probability the client will succeed and shortens the time required for the client to achieve his or her potential before and after leaving the program
Mentors strengthen the nonprofit – client relationship
Successful clients increases the reputation of the nonprofit
The client and his or her family will see the added value of the mentor as the client makes progress
Withdrawing from the program a more difficult decision (higher client retention)
The success of the client and the presence of the mentor provides a meaningful competitive advantage when clients or their families are looking for help
The success of the client and the presence of the mentor provides meaningful and durable evidence that the nonprofit is committed to the success of each of its clients
The success of the client and the strong connection with the client increases the probability the client will be a generous alumnus, an active referral source, and advocate on behalf of the nonprofit
All of that is possible with minimal effort and expense. The primary effort is to find appropriate mentors (proper motivation, right skills, commitment to the mission, and willing to commit the time).
Next Step:
Start small by recruiting mentors for the most at risk 10% of your 2012 participants
Refine the process over the next year including a feedback loop so that the mentors keep you informed about the clients and their needs
Recruit mentors for 50% of your 2013 participants
Recruit mentors for all participants in 2014
Client success and alumni engagement are important to your nonprofit’s sustainability. If your alumni receive valuable mentoring, they will be more willing to provide mentoring to the next generation. One-on-one face-to-face mentoring is best. However, with our current technology it is possible to almost achieve that level of personal connection when thousands of miles separate the two people.
The process of providing mentoring for each client takes a long time to produce meaningful, measurable, and durable results. Everyone would prefer a quick solution but quality takes time, commitment, and patience as well as a little coaching from the right person.
You care deeply about your clients. Providing each one with a mentor is one more way to show how much your care.
One of the ways to add new vitality to your programming is to reinvent the game. If you were going to reinvent your programming, what would it look like?
One way to reinvent programming is to change it from a service provided to those in need to a process for enriching people’s lives. Services are still delivered. However, services become the activity that occupies the client’s time while their lives are being enriched.
Many nonprofits enrich lives. However, those same nonprofits have underutilized capacity. The clients who experience the enrichment, quality of the programming, etc. provided by the nonprofit receive the value they want. If you have the capacity to serve more clients, it implies there are potential clients receiving more value elsewhere.
Finding a way to add depth or breadth to the enrichment you already offer is easier than it sounds. Imagine in your town that teen pregnancy is above the national average but among your alumni teen pregnancy is below the nation average. Obviously, your clients are enjoying richer lives after completing your program because they are able to avoid the responsibilities of child raising until they have laid a solid foundation for their own life.
If reducing teen pregnancy fits with you mission, you would take the next five steps:
Determine how to improve your programming to reduce the pregnancy rate further among your alumni
Determine which families in the community are likely to find your low pregnancy rate a compelling reason to enroll their children in your program
Determine the level of financial support the interested families are likely to need
Recruit donors who are willing to provide the necessary financial support
Begin reaching out to the families who are interested in enriching the lives of their children
If you are unable to identify how your current enrichment process makes a measurable difference in the lives of your clients, the first step is to determine the life changing enrichment that fits best with your mission. The next step is to adjust the programming to enhance the enrichment process. The third step is to begin tracking the effect the change is having on your alumni. Now your nonprofit is ready to begin the five-step process outlined above.
Next Step:
Determine or create the life-enriching outcomes your programming offers
Take the five steps offered in this article to promote the enrichment to the clients who will value it
Review annually your process with a goal of making your programming more enriching each year
Whatever your nonprofit does to enrich the lives of the clients brings value to your community. As your value to the community increases, the community will do more to help increase the sustainability of your nonprofit. Every community wants to ensure the longevity of organizations that enrich the community.
What is the most enriching part of your programming and which prospective clients are most interested in the enrichment you can bring to their lives?
The five steps in this article will increase your opportunity to serve and retain clients.
Successfully leading a nonprofit is a complex and difficult job. One way to make it easier and simpler is to share leadership.
Shared leadership offers several benefits for you, the mission, and the clients. Shared leadership lowers the stress level, broadens the ownership, lowers risk, improves decision-making, provides fresh perspectives, and makes the transition to the next leader easier.
Luckily, you have a qualified staff and board to help you. The board exists to help with the big decisions such as setting strategic direction, mission related issues, and establishing policy.
Joint decision-making is more than asking the board to approve the new financial controls policy. Approval is different than making a decision. Approval is the process of accepting or rejecting decisions someone else made.
Including the board in the process of determining what to include in the financial controls policy is an example of joint decision-making. Instead of making the decision about what to include in the policy, give the board or the finance committee a list of potential items to include. Let the board select from the list what it feels is necessary. The discussion will:
Help the board members become more aware of the strengths and limitations of you nonprofit through your board’s exploration of the options
Open the decision-making process to new ideas, deeper thinking, and broader applications
Create a group of individuals who are responsible for the success of the policy rather than leaving success entirely up to you
Lower the risk of overlooking something important
The same process can be used to make operational decisions. It is impractical to call a staff meeting before making every decision. However, it is possible to include a select number of staff members in many decisions.
There is a temptation to include the senior staff members (most mature, experienced, and longest tenure). The wisdom of age is tempting and also valuable. So are the insights of youth.
Young, recent hires also have something to offer. They are closer in age to some of your clients. They have fresh ideas from the latest academic thinking. They are unburdened by ‘We always do it this way…’ thinking.
While there is a possibility this collaborative approach to leadership will slow the process down, it is unlikely. It does mean that the decision-making part of the process will take longer. However, with a little foresight and planning it is possible to be collaborative and make timely decisions. The planning and preparation required by the collaborative process will help to improve the quality of the decisions and reduce the number of times a decision must be revisited.
Next Step:
List the important decisions that must be made in 2012
Set a deadline for making each decision
Decide who to include in the decision-making for each item on the list
Ask each group to decide how its decision should be announced and who should announce the decision
Broadening the decision ownership increases sustainability. Besides creating better decisions, it also creates a better informed leadership team. It helps you transform your nonprofit to become an ideal place to work.
In theory, collaboration is a great idea. How do you increase the effectiveness of your collaborations?
How many times have we heard the adage, “It’s not what you know, it’s who you know that matters”? That is certainly true when one collaborates. If you know the right person with whom to collaborate, it is a marriage made in heaven.
There is a difference between a service provider and a collaborator. A service provider is someone who has a transactional relationship with your organization. They provide services and receive compensation. Service providers are necessary and sometimes we need to be service providers.
A collaborator also receives compensation but not from your organization. The benefits they receive from your organization are intangible. However, in most cases the intangible benefits are more important than financial benefits to the collaborator.
What should one look for when selecting a collaborator?
Support – An organization (nonprofit, government agency, or corporation) that provides nonfinancial support to your organization. Examples of nonfinancial support are advice, advocacy, referrals, or volunteers.
Purpose – An organization whose purpose aligns in some way with yours. For example, they touch your clients’ lives in a way that enables or facilitates your mission. They might provide pre-services, post services, or parallel services.
Accountability – An organization that is more than coincidentally involved (more than donates yesterday’s unsold newspapers to a literacy program). When providing services, they have goals and expectations of themselves and your organization and they are willing to be held to goals and expectation your organization has (mutual accountability).
In other words, there is a symbiotic relationship. Both organizations care about the other’s sustainability and well-being. The loss of the other organization would matter. There is an incentive for the two organizations to help each other succeed.
Until the partnership meets the three preceding criteria it is only trending toward collaboration. One of the reasons collaboration is seen as more work than it is worth is because people mislabel their relationship. They refer to something less than collaboration as collaboration.
Next Step:
Make a list of organizations (nonprofits, government agencies, and corporations) where a synergistic relationship might be possible
Prioritize the list based upon the greatest benefit to your clients and mission
Develop a process for qualifying and selecting potential collaborations
Rigorously evaluate each prospect before beginning to work together
Collaborations are more work to create than service relationships. However, collaborations usually lasts longer, are more beneficial, and harder to dissolve than a service relationship.
Collaborations provide the community with a solution. The greater breadth and depth of the impact of the collaboration provides significant benefits for the community and encourages broad and generous community support.
Collaborations provide mutual sustainability. Which of your current synergistic relationships would be easiest to transform into a collaboration?
The better you are at talking about the intangible value of your services, the more positive information people will have about your nonprofit. Talking to clients and donors about the intangible value, gives them more to talk about. Your nonprofit benefits from the word of mouth when the clients have something to say.
The things we are unable to touch, smell, or taste are the tangibles. Many of the intangible can still be seen (acts of kindness) and felt (love for example). It is easy to measure tangibles. It is harder but necessary to measure intangibles.
You must articulate the intangible value of your services and be willing to do it often. In addition, you must share the value in ways that resonates with clients who have very little time to think about what you are saying. You must periodically provide the clients with the thoughts that they would think if they had time to reflect on the value of your services.
Even when clients think about the value, they seldom think deeply about it. In addition, most of their family members lack the experience to make all of the connections necessary to appreciate the full value of your mission.
If you are unable to express the intangible value of your mission, there is a risk you will lose clients and the support of their families. You may have an excellent program, but if the family members are unsupportive, your outcomes will underperform your potential. In addition, you will create an opportunity for other nonprofits to attract the attention of your clients, their families, and your donors.
All of the preceding is true for donors. It is harder for the donors to see the intangible value. The family has an opportunity to notices changes in their family member. Donors only have what you tell them and what they hear.
The better you are at talking about the intangible value, the more everyone will hear about your mission. Talking to families and donors about the intangible value, gives them more to talk. Your nonprofit benefits from the word of mouth when the families have something to say.
Next Step:
Make a list of the things that give intangible value to your mission
Determine how to express the intangible value so that it resonates with clients and their family members
Determine how to express the intangible value so that it resonates with the donors
Develop a way of listening to determine if your expression of the intangible value is being shared with others
Make adjustments in the message to ensure it is accurately shared
Sustainability depends more on the intangible value than the tangible value. It is very difficult to have compelling tangible value. If it is tangible, everyone is aware of it. Other nonprofits can and are copying the tangible value or working hard to eclipse it. When the tangible value is similar, it is the intangible value that determines where the clients go for services and who the donors support.
A compelling presentation of your nonprofit’s intangible value is the best way to increase the number of clients served (capacity building) as well as donor generosity.
The economic recovery we all want still seems to be on the distant horizon. What can your nonprofit do until the recovery arrives?
Don’t wait!
There is only one reason why you should act now rather than wait:
The need for the services your nonprofit offers has never been greater.
There is risk associated with taking action in a weak economy but consider:
Waiting to make a change increases the risk that potential clients will suffer and someone else will emerge to meet their needs. The only way to serve the unserved in your community is to do something different.
Founding your nonprofit was a risk. If your founders could find the support needed to start something, you can find support to grow it to capacity.
If the economy slips, you will probably have more demand for your services. How many can you turn away before someone opens a competing organization?
What you do to increase capacity may be ineffective. You will benefit in many ways from the effort and it is doubtful it will reduce your capacity to serve.
There are nonprofits who are increasing their capacity to serve. The formula for success exists. The only way to find your formula is to change what you are doing. The two ways to discover what will work for your nonprofit are to experiment (a fresh idea or copy someone else) or hire a consultant to guide you.
How do you increase capacity?
A right, yet counterintuitive answer is to add depth to your current programming. Doing more for your current clients is a great way to draw in new clients.
Donors want meaningful, measurable, and durable change in your clients’ lives. When the donors recognize the change you are making in the lives of others they will provide the support you need to increase your capacity to serve. Your referral sources will reward you with more clients. New donors will be easier to recruit.
Next Step:
Determine which of the clients’ unmet or under met needs if eliminated will make a significant change in their lives
Create a plan to meet the selected need or hire a consultant to help you create a plan
Track the evidence of change (anecdotal and quantitative)
Communicate the evidence to your donors and referral sources
It is impossible to increase sustainability by waiting. Sustainability is an ever-changing goal that becomes more demanding with each passing second. You must be proactive to keep your current level of sustainability and aggressive if you want to improve the sustainability of your nonprofit.
What are the needs of your clients that fit with your mission, when meet will result in meaningful change in your clients’ lives, and will resonate with your donors?
Does your nonprofit need better marketing or is something else limiting the number of clients you served and donor support you receive?
Here are two answers to the same question “How is your niece doing?”:
1. Good. Her husband has finally been arrested for his abusiveness. She is living at home and receiving food from the 10th Street Pantry.
2. Good. Her husband has finally been arrested for his abusiveness. She is living at home and receiving food from The Good Life Pantry (TGLP). TGLP has convinced her to serve nutritional meals and you can see a change in the way the children look and act.
TGLP is creating a meaningful change in the lives of the people they serve and the community recognizes and appreciates what TGLP is doing. If the 10th Street Pantry had the capacity to serve more families, would you advise them to advertise more? Does TGLP need a marketing program or is their word of mouth good enough? Should either pantry spend their money on marketing or mission?
The purpose of marketing is to ensure the prospective customer knows you exist, have a product or service, and that the product or service meets an important need.
It is easy to imagine that TGLP is at the top of everyone’s list. Almost everyone in the community who deals with people in need of food knows about them. However, it is unnecessary for TGLP to advertise.
TGLP still needs donors. Their ability to do more than just feed the hungry makes them the clear choice among local food pantries. TGLP has a great story to tell. It is a story donors like to hear. Donors want to know that their gifts create meaningful, durable change.
By the way, at which pantry would you rather work? Which do you think has the easiest time hiring the best people available?
Next Step:
Analyze your programming or hire someone to help you determine what changes are necessary to eliminate your need for marketing
Develop a plan to make the changes the evaluation identified or hire someone to help you
Measure and document the change in your clients’ lives that result from the programming changes
It is expensive and time consuming to do the objective analysis. Missing the opportunity to deeply touch each life is more expensive.
The organizations with the highest sustainability are making meaningful and durable changes in the people they serve. They have high capacity utilization because they deliver highly valued services.
Will your nonprofit be the best one in town by the end of 2012?
The cheapest hire is often the candidate with the least experience. So, when is the cheapest the best?
The ideal candidate is someone with 40 years of experience, increasing responsibility, the energy of a 20-year old, and a great attitude. The attributes that make a great attitude are enjoys learning, service to others, innovative, constantly exploring new ideas, strives for excellence, and is passionate about your mission.
Since the ideal candidate is harder to find than hen’s teeth, it might be a good idea to prioritize the wish list. Attitude is the only ‘must have’ on the list.
With a great attitude, everything else is possible. The passion that comes with the attitude will ensure the energy is always present. The world is changing rapidly, everyone needs to be an innovator, continuous learner, and curious explorer (no organization can evolve faster than its slowest member). Service to others is a cornerstone of a nonprofit’s existence.
Almost everyone learns what the job requires after they start. Someone with a great attitude learns faster and costs less to educate. They find new uses for old information and they explore the depth of the subject beyond what is required. Inexperience is cheap and a good attitude makes inexperience good value for money.
Next Step:
Make attitude the most important criteria when hiring a new person
Circulate your opening only in the areas where you are likely to find the people with the best attitude
Limit your interviewing to the candidates with the best attitude
The attributes of a great attitude are also the attributes of a nonprofit with high sustainability. The best way to create a culture committed to having a sustainable organization is to hire the attitude. It is much easier to teach skills than it is to modify someone’s attitude.
Continuing high unemployment means many job applicants for every opening. Only interviewing the candidates with the best attitude is the most efficient way to find the best candidate for your opening.
Sustainability starts with the people we hire.
Challenging the norm is the best way to keep a nonprofit relevant. There are many norms. Which norm should you challenge?
Selecting the right norm to challenge is difficult. Most norms are relevant. In addition, challenging more than one norm at a time is usually over committing to change. The internal norms are easier to change. The external norms have a significant impact when they change.
As the senior leader, you also know that you see the organization from a different perspective. When you challenge a norm at your level, it sends cascading changes down through the organization. That is okay. Changes are sometimes uncomfortable for the staff and sometimes the staff welcomes the challenge. It depends on the challenge and its presentation. Remember, one challenge to the norm but with many cascading ripples in your pond (changes).
Picking the right challenge is the key to success. Here are a few questions to ask of your stakeholders (staff, volunteers, clients, families, donors, referral sources, and advocates):
What is the most important goal that is also proving to be the most difficult to reach?
What are the barriers our success?
How is the lack of success affecting our stakeholders?
When the goal is reached what are the benefits to our clients, their families, and other stakeholders?
What are the new processes that will enable success?
What processes must evolve or be abandon to enable success?
What must the organization do more of to enable success?
Who (stakeholders, clients, community members, and others) are most interested in our success and how can they help us achieve success?
There are two possible strategies for selecting a norm to challenge once you have answers to the preceding questions. If you are new to this process, pick an easy challenge and use it as a training opportunity for yourself, your board, and the staff. Otherwise, pick the challenge that offers the greatest benefit to the greatest number of stakeholders.
Regardless of the strategy, you will notice that the questions help you prioritize your decision making process, focus your planning, and provide you with the information necessary to motivate your stakeholders to support the step forward.
Next Step:
Solicit your stakeholders’ input before selecting the challenge
Decide which of the many challenges facing your nonprofit is most important
Create a plan to eliminate the challenge
Engage the stakeholders to help you execute the plan
The stakeholders are stakeholders because they believe in the mission and want the mission to succeed. Therefore, they will willingly lend a hand with success as long as they understand what their role is and how it will help to achieve success.
Relevance is part of sustainability. Challenging the norm keeps a nonprofit relevant. The process of continuously challenging relevance becomes a process of continually increasing sustainability.
How much better than normal will your nonprofit be by the end of the year?
Final point: Let your stakeholders choose the norm to be challenged even if it is less important and valuable than the one you would have chosen. Their enthusiasm for change will ensure success. In addition, after using this process 2 or 3 times, the stakeholders will see the wisdom of your favorite and provide it with the enthusiastic support that will assure your success.
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