How to face the current moment - and organizational growth
How are you? One of our foundational principles of facilitation is name what’s in the room. So I’m not going to pretend that we’re living in normal times or that this is business as usual. We have written on this blog about what to do in these dispiriting times. Check out three strategic, powerful steps for leaders in this hard moment and with authoritarianism here, will your organization have the courage to speak up and lead?
Compassion and love are our superpowers
If I were going to summarize all of that, it would be: don’t look away. Feel your human feelings of sadness, rage, concern, compassion and love about the violence by ICE towards other humans that is taking place in the streets of Minneapolis and around the country. I appreciated this essay from Rebecca Solnit where she talks about the power of love: Love, and its ability to motivate action, care, connection, and power, are a force. That’s what we need to tap into now. What is your role in the ecosystem of care: protesting, speaking up, writing, donating money? None of us needs to do everything. Each of us needs to do something. I want to affirm the thousands of protestors in Minnesota and around the country. We need to celebrate and affirm courageous actions and people - and find ways to be courageous ourselves.
In these times, hope and meaning can come from the good work we are doing. In the face of violence, we imagine and build a future in which all people thrive.
With that, we are continuing our series on Nonprofit Lifecycle by exploring the Growth phase.
ID: Dark green background, a bell curve mountain labeled Nonprofit lifestyle. The stages are Idea, Start-up, Growth, Maturity, Decline, Turnaround, and Terminal. The third stage, Growth, is lit up orange.
Most of the organizations who reach out to The Ross Collective for strategic planning are in the Growth phase. Here’s a description, excerpted from my forthcoming book, of the situation of Youth Alive, a community-led violence prevention nonprofit based in Oakland, California whose programming and staff had grown over the years:
While some of the growth took place slowly, the organization had expanded rapidly over the previous five years. Understandably, Youth Alive experienced “growth pains”:
The team was spread out among several offices, straining collaboration.
Communication among fifty people is significantly more complicated and time intensive than communication among ten.
The nonprofit sought to find the right organizational structure to be responsive to staff, community, and client needs.
This change and growth led to a desire for strategic planning. The Inclusive Strategic Planning process aligned with their values of incorporating the perspectives of all staff and board members into their work.
Youth Alive is typical of organizations in the Growth phase. As “growth” indicates, often the staff has grown, the budget has grown, and with increased organizational visibility, there is increased demand for services. Often the board structure is becoming more standardized, sources of revenue have expanded and accounting procedures are being formalized. In this stage, organizations find that systems must be created or improved to meet expanding demands for services and compliance.
In the case of Youth Alive, some of the work was creating time and space to slow down after so much growth. The daily work of many staff members—of preventing and interrupting violence—was intense, sometimes including vicarious trauma as they supported victims of crime. What they needed was some breathing space apart from their intense day-to-day work to reflect on their accomplishments and acknowledge the challenges they faced so they could gain clarity on setting achievable goals together.
By the time the strategic plan was created, Youth Alive had greater clarity about the focus of their work, leading to at least one new large financial contribution. The staff had plans to move to a new office space that would support better collaboration across the team. They had greater clarity about the administrative and fundraising needs to support the organization and had a hiring plan in place.
Is your organization in that confusing area when budgets and headcounts are growing but things are getting to be unmanageable? Well, you’re in the Growth phase - and are ready for planning to create energy, alignment, and opportunity. Reach out, we would be happy to discuss your needs.