How the Nonprofit Lifecycle Model Clarifies What to Do Next
How are you? These are enraging times. Between the images of ICE raids around the country and the threat of 42 million Americans without SNAP benefits starting this weekend, it is a bleak time.
To fight despair, every single day I think about ways to be part of the solution. I am making a donation to my local food bank this week and doing everything I can to protect the rights of immigrants in my local community. I hope you are also asking yourself, “Today, how am I building a world in which all people thrive?”
One way we, The Ross Collective, support thriving is by leading and sharing processes that help nonprofit leaders do better work. Toward that end, this week we are starting a series on the Nonprofit Lifecycle model.
ID: Dark green background, a bell curve mountain labeled Nonprofit lifestyle. The stages are Idea, Start-up, Growth, Maturity, Decline, Turnaround, and Terminal
An Introduction to the Nonprofit Lifecycle Model
The Nonprofit Lifecycle model, developed almost 25 years ago by Dr. Susan Kenny Stevens, is helpful for understanding the challenges that nonprofits face at different times. As the image indicates, there is a lifecycle to nonprofit organizations:
Organizations start as an Idea when someone notices a community need
They then become a Start-up - with no or few staff
Many organizations go through a Growth phase, including an expansion of staff, budget and activity
Organizations hit Maturity, including stability of finances, programming, and staffing
Some organizations move into Decline, when there is less activity, funding, and interest
There may be a Turnaround, moving the organization to a new phase, or
The organization may move to the Terminal phase and cease operations
The Nonprofit Lifecycle Model helps assess where you are in the lifecycle - and what to do next
There is a tendency to flatten the conversation about “nonprofits” as if they are all the same. But the small, low-budget, all-volunteer run organization has very different needs than a multi-million dollar organization with a large, specialized staff. Knowing that there is a lifecycle of organizations and visually seeing this helps talk about where organizations are and what leaders should do next.
For example, all organizations could use Strategic Thinking. But organizations in the Idea or Start-up stage do not usually need to focus on creating a formal Strategic Plan. At that point, the focus should be on proving the organization’s value and finding a consistent funding model.
In order to assess where an organization is in the Nonprofit Lifecycle, we look at the direction of funding and activity. Here are some questions to consider:
Over the past few years, has funding increased or decreased?
Over the past few years, has staffing increased or decreased?
Over the past few years, has activity (services delivered) increased or decreased?
In our work, we meet organizations that are in all of these stages. Many of the organizations that reach out to us are in the Growth stage and moving towards Maturity. This is an excellent time for Strategic Planning, in order to create alignment and focus through an expanding workload and some conflicting priorities.
Moving through the Nonprofit Lifecycle - Where are you?
An organization may not be wholly in one stage of the cycle. In other words, Program and Finances may be in a Growth stage, Board Governance may be in the Start-up stage. Some of the work of strengthening the organization may include getting all parts of the organization in the same stage.
Based on this chart and what you have learned so far, which stage is your organization in? What questions do you have about this?
Future posts in this series will go into more detail about each stage and what leaders should do in each stage.
As we find our way through this new political landscape, we have to discover methods of being helpful and productive. For me, focusing on this work while also finding outlets within my community and ways to unplug and rest has been therapeutic. I understand that not everyone is able to do that, so exploring resources near you to find ways that you can be engaged in safe ways for you and your family, the Legal Defense Fund has a tracker to see what it’s doing to Stop Project 2025. Every locale is different, and this is a way to see what’s going on nationwide where you may be able to plug in and help. Of course, it’s not the only way - there are many wonderful organizations that need support at a grassroots level. I encourage you to find one and to do it in a manageable way.
Inclusive Strategic Planning for Nonprofits book update
Work on the book continues. The second round of beta reading has concluded with almost 400 (!!!) reactions in the manuscript. The comments are so thoughtful – thank you friends, colleagues and generous nonprofit community members! I am feeling gratitude towards those who took the time to read and share their feedback.
I am revising the manuscript to create a third draft for another round of beta reading and will be sharing with more beta (gamma?) readers soon. I have also been learning more about book production, launching, and marketing.
If you want to sign up to be a beta reader or for the launch team, the form is here.