The Sustainable Nonprofit 10 Strategies to Grow a Successful and Exceptional Organization
DEBBIE WILDE
Š Copyright 2013 by Debbie Wilde All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any written, electronic, recording, or photocopying without written permission of the publisher or author. The exception would be in the case of brief quotations embodied in the critical articles or reviews and pages where permission is specifically granted by the publisher or author. Although every precaution has been taken to verify the accuracy of the information contained herein, the author and publisher assume no responsibility for any errors or omissions. No liability is assumed for damages that may result from the use of information contained within. Books may be purchased by contacting the publisher or author at: Canyon Creek Press 46099 Hwy 6 Glenwood Springs, CO 81601 970-618-0949 DebbieWilde@DebbieWilde.com Cover Design: NZ Graphics (Nick Zelinger) Cover Art: Denise Reynolds Interior Design: WESType Publishing Services, Inc. (Ronnie Moore) Publisher: Canyon Creek Press Publisher Logo: The Brothers Wilde Designs Editor: Editing By John (John Maling) Consultant: The Book Shepherd (Judith Briles) Library of Congress Control Number: 2012912482 ISBN: 978-0-9849752-0-4 1. Nonprofits 2. Leadership 3. Management 5. Organization 6. Organizational Change First Edition Printed in the U.S.A.
4. Business
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments Foreword
xvii xxi
Introduction
1
Chapter One: Creating the Sustainable Nonprofit
7
Chapter Two: Develop Character
11
Chapter Three: Keep Your Momentum
35
Chapter Four: Build a Strong House
65
Chapter Five: Know That It Is All About You—Leadership
99
Chapter Six: Take Responsibility
127
Chapter Seven: Identify and Evaluate Outcomes
153
Chapter Eight: Put Evaluation to Work
179
Chapter Nine: Dance with Change
203
Chapter Ten: Dwell in Possibility
231
Chapter Eleven: Get Out of Your Own Way
259
AfterWord
281
About the Author
283
Working with Debbie Wilde
285 xv
Chapter One
Creating the Sustainable Nonprofit Existence is a strange bargain. Life owes us little; we owe it everything. The only true happiness comes from squandering ourselves for a purpose. —William Cowper, Eighteenth Century poet
picked up the newspaper one morning and saw a story about a town using wind to power their school finances. This organization was pulling money out of the air! I was intrigued—the possibilities to fund other community projects flowed through my mind. Based in Colorado, one of the small communities located on the eastern plain was in the grips of financial crisis with its education budget. School officials in the town of Wray, population 2,500, had cut $750,000 out of a $5 million dollar budget. That’s a huge chunk of cash, and they were stuck. When they asked their staff to suggest ideas for saving money, the agriculture teacher stepped forward with the idea of putting up a wind turbine to generate electricity. This suggestion resulted in a project that would generate all the power for the school district and 20 percent of the power needs of Wray. It was the ribbon-cutting for the turbine that 7
The Sustainable Nonprofit
prompted the article that beckoned to me. The full story was rich in lessons for the sustainable nonprofit. The eastern plain of the state is not the Colorado that may be in your imagination or displayed in a movie about the West. It is flat with extreme weather and the wind blows constantly. I lived in this part of Colorado, and I hated the wind. But instead of moaning about the wind, the people of Wray are celebrating their good fortune. They took what many, myself included, would consider a liability and turned it into an asset. They are turning wind into dollars. They are pulling money out of the air! The reporter found other evidence of a progressive spirit by the fact that Wray boasts a new aquatic center, a state-of-the-art physical rehabilitation center, a golf course and a new hospital. All for its population of 2,500 enthusiastic residents. As well as being optimistic, this place thinks big. The $1.8 million dollar turbine is far beyond the contraption first imagined by the teacher. This is a big idea. And wait! How can people who are working on cutting a budget imagine that the answer lies in something that costs nearly $2,000,000? After all, $750,000 was whacked from the original budget of $5,000,000. Too often nonprofit thinking sounds like: We can’t do anything more than try to keep up with the daily demands of our budget. We can’t raise new money for better services. There is no sense wasting our time in creating big ideas because we don’t have the staff, the time, nor the money to pursue them.
Nonprofit thinking is too often impossibility thinking. However, the people in the town of Wray clearly think of possibilities not impossibilities. They could never have achieved financial success had they not imagined the possibility. 8
Creating the Sustainable Nonprofit
Nonprofit Thinking Wray can teach two more important lessons to nonprofit leaders: First, never lose focus. The article quotes the teacher whose idea started this whole affair. He had just visited a kindergarten class. “It helps to know that in the end it all comes back to education … it’s not about anybody else, it’s about those dang kids in there.” Second, build a team. Fundraising started with the local service clubs and the chamber of commerce and grew to include federal grants and local endowments and the pre-selling of electricity to an energy company. The town donated the land, the county scraped out a road, and people from as far away as Belgium and Holland made important contributions. The end goal was what mattered. The town didn’t try to undertake the project on their own. The team did.
When YouthZone, my nonprofit, survived a period of intense fiscal challenges, funders, colleagues and friends encouraged me to record the strategies behind that success. My initial focus was on sharing my experience of leading the organization through that time. I know that keeping our focus and building a team were key elements in our positive outcome. But much like the town of Wray, YouthZone’s story turned out the way it did due in large part to the attributes the organization possessed before a crisis hit. You know about Wray’s character. I want to tell you about YouthZone’s character and my part in shaping it. I also realized that I had a bigger story to tell than just creating an organization that can survive. The ultimate aim of an organization is more than survival. The ultimate aim is significance. Significance implies meaning, purpose and impact. Survival creates a foundation for that higher goal. In order to be sustainable in this new economic climate, a nonprofit must go beyond survival or mere existence. It must be successful. 9
The Sustainable Nonprofit
However, the exceptional nonprofit goes even further and demonstrates effectiveness. This is the organization that has deep roots for sustainability. Many organizations do good work and that is swell. But the truly sustainable organization is making a measurable impact and that is a WOW! The Sustainable Nonprofit is all about sharing lessons and strategies that will take your organization from swell to WOW!
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