Understanding & Leveraging Your Nonprofit's Lifecycle Stage

Howard Levy — Mon, 11 May 2009 21:20:55 +0000

I attended the Organizational Health and Nonprofit Lifecycle seminar, held by Don Crocker and John Brother at the Support Center for Nonprofit Management.

Understanding the life cycle is essential to any nonprofit’s continued success, no matter what stage it’s in (Idea/Startup, Growth/Maturity, Turnaround/Terminal Phases).

They first discussed criteria for board development and gave specific advice on steps that a nonprofit in the Idea/Startup phase could take 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 the audience learned more details on the profile of each stage in a nonprofit’s life cycle, in the areas of Operations, Governance, Leadership, Obstacles, and Opportunities and my realization is that I tend to work with nonprofits in the Growth/Maturity phase.

Here are some specific characteristics of the Growth/Maturity phase:

• 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

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.

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Understanding & Leveraging Your Nonprofit's Lifecycle Stage