Why we need to be prepared to close our organisations down
(and a how-to guide on how to go about it)
For a number of years, I worked on a mental-health-system intervention called Lifehack. It was a project brought to Aotearoa New Zealand by Enspiral, a network of social entrepreneurs, and the Ministry for Social Development.
For a number of factors, the funding for this initiative was not renewed after five years of operation. Upon hearing the news, we planned to shut the organisation and legal entity down. (Keep your eyes peeled for further blog posts on the topic)
When speaking to people, the main reaction was one of disappointment. Oh, it should have continued. Oh, don’t you miss it? Oh, how sad.
Sadness and success aren’t mutually exclusive.
Yes it was sad. But it was also a success.
Over the time I worked on Lifehack, I shifted my view on the project from an organisation, to an intervention.
An organisation continues—and intervention stops, when its goal is achieved. Lifehack existed as an intervention, to shift the understanding, capability and conditions for meaningful and ethical co-design in Aotearoa. By no means was it the only thing that to the popularity of co-design in this country (quality pending), but it was a positively contributing factors. In that sense, it’s achieved its purpose—so why shouldn’t we wrap it up? Yes, we could have done more. Evolved the kaupapa, its reach, its scale. But what we did was good.
There are so many organisations in the world. Realistically, there’ll be some of those that shouldn’t exist. Their purpose may have shifted, their team moved on, the conditions changed. And yet so often we cling to our projects for validation of our sense of self-worth and success. How do we reframe a ‘finishing’ of something as success?
We need to stop assuming that projects are a failure, only because they stop operating. We need start celebrating the end of a project, and congratulate those involved.
Our (small number of) employees went on to work for other amazing organisations. The Lifehack website and resources are still in operation, and will be for another ten years.
Jody Connor, co-founder of Pocketknife and once Lifehack’s operations lead, put together this useful step-by-step guide on how to shut your organisation down. Please share it far and wide—and invite me to your project’s end-of-life celebration!
Worst-Case Scenario and Wind-up Process Template
“With every call of life, the heart must be ready to part and start again, in courage and joy, surrendering to new, otherly liasons, as in the core of every beginning lives magic. Magic that protects us and helps us live.” Excerpt from Herman Hesse’s Stufen / Phases
