Help NGOs Be Great (Part One)
4 steps to achieve more
As the year was winding down, a friend asked me to contribute to what looked like a worthy nonprofit organization. I was happy to consider a gift. I hugely admire the nonprofit sector, and I’m grateful that I’m able to help good organizations by making donations.
It was clear the org is trying to do good things. But there were a few matters I wanted to better understand. Namely, how it set priorities and held itself accountable and exactly what big outcomes they aim to make happen. So I took a careful look at their website.
To my (only partial) surprise, none of these points were well addressed. This was disappointing.
Nonprofit organizations are one of the brightest shining lights these days. For the most part, they are staffed by great people who work very hard to accomplish important outcomes. We should do everything we can to help them succeed.
Personally, one of my favorite professional activities is advising NGOs on strategy. I also advise donors. I serve on several non profit boards too. And I used to run one. So I decided I would draw from these experiences and address the topic of NGO performance in a series of brief newsletter posts.
Let’s start with the 4 things I always recommend that NGOs try to do.
Set big, inspiring, but doable goals over a 5-year timeframe. Be very clear about exactly what you’re trying to accomplish. Five years is not an entirely arbitrary number. It strikes a balance between allowing enough time to achieve something meaningful but not so much time that it’s hard to see what is being accomplished. Five years ought to be enough time to achieve some very important outcomes. Tell everyone what they are. Be bold.
Set clear milestones for the interim years. If you want to achieve maximum impact, you’ll need guideposts to ensure you’re on the right path. Be upfront about how you will rigorously monitor progress toward clearly specified annual targets. Do this as transparently as possible.
Over the course of the five years, if something goes poorly, you can adjust your strategy or conclude it wasn't a realistic goal and revise it. Or if something goes better than expected, you can double down and do even more. Show everyone—your team, your supporters, your donors—that you pay close attention to results and that you respond seriously to what happens in the real world.
Determine the capital requirements of your endeavors. You've got to be tough minded and realistic about how much capital your big initiatives will require and how likely it is that you can raise it. You won’t be able to reach your goals if you don’t have the capital you need. Remember that it's often easier to raise capital to get an initiative started than to sustain one over time. Talk to prospective donors—tell them about points one and two above (they serve as great sales points). Find out now whether or not they will support you.
Get the full team on board. Nonprofits can get overwhelmed with worthwhile initiatives that they could take on, and good people are always serving up new ideas and opportunities. That’s okay, but if you go down too many roads at once, you will likely spread yourself too thin and accomplish less. Don’t let the team get distracted. Keep everyone focused on the big goals.
It can take a lot of time and require a lot of listening and negotiation to get the full org to reach consensus on what those big goals are. Spending time on this is a very good investment. Afterwards, a good test will be to see if everyone on the team (again—leaders, employees, board members, donors, partners)—is able describe the org’s goals in the same way. If so, you are well positioned to succeed.
I went back to my friend who sits on the board of the org she asked me to donate to and said look, I’m happy to give, but I have some concerns. I detailed them for her. She was very appreciative and admitted she had not been thinking in such “outcome-oriented terms.” But she said it immediately clicked why thinking this way would be helpful for her organization and was eager to go back and discuss it with the team.
And that’s my ask to you. Please ask your favorite nonprofits to carefully consider the four steps noted above. Each action is intended to help organizations achieve big and positive outcomes.
I think the world will be a better place if we all help nonprofits be as great as they possibly can be. I’ll have a lot more to say on this in future posts. And, as always, I’d love to hear what you think.
Onward,
