Do you know what stage of growth your nonprofit is in? At the Non-For-Profit Leadership Summit VII, Don Crocker and John Brother of the Support Center for Nonprofit Management explained the stages:
Idea Phase: Imagine Inspire
Start Up Phase: The Labor of Love
Growth Phase: Ground & Grow
Maturity Phase: Produce & Sustain
Decline & Turnaround: Review & Renew
Terminal: Merge or Close Gracefully
They first discussed typical characteristics for each stage. For example, in the Idea/Startup phase, organizations are seeking to build a board, including forming a steering committee as a first step, producing an initial event to attract people, and leveraging members’ social networking.
One of the most compelling challenges for all nonprofits is in marketing and branding. Here’s a short list of key challenges:
- Differentiating your organization from others.
- Investing in fundraising and marketing infrastructure.
- Using the internet to build your nonprofit’s brand, create visibility, attract a donor base, and develop a community.
They suggest that it is possible to work with other organizations as resources towards addressing these challenges.
Then we learned more details on the profile of each stage in a nonprofit’s lifecycle, in the areas of Operations, Governance, Leadership, Obstacles, and Opportunities. I better understood the needs of organizations in the Growth/Maturity phase, which is a typical client of ours. Some characteristics include:
Operations: 7- 20 years in operation
Governance: Board turnover policy and strategy is in place, and power is shared between Executive Director and board
Leadership: Since there are many managers on staff, Executive Director must possess good management and communication skills.
Obstacles: Remaining client-centered rather than policy-bound, keeping staff motivated around mission, building strong financial footing from endowment or reserve, maintaining a programmatic edge, based on a continued relevancy
Opportunity: New staff and board introduce new ideas, organization is known in community, adequate resources enable some risk-taking
WAKE UP CALL: Understanding your organization’s lifecycle stage can help you head off issues before they become major problems and to leverage your strengths to take advantage of opportunities.
