Nonprofit Builder: transforming the way the nonprofit sector learns

When I left my job as executive director of a nonprofit last October, I went into a three month soul-search, figuring out what to do next. I had no concrete idea, except that I wanted to remain in the nonprofit sector.

I had been working at this nonprofit (HURIDOCS) for 10 years, and 10 years before that at the ICRC, and that led me to realise that my next challenge would also be a 1o year journey, so I’d better choose an engaging and worthwhile one.

So I started reflecting: what is the biggest problem that affects most nonprofit organisations and limits their capacity to succeed? And the answer was: financial sustainability. Its that elusive holy grail that seems to evade many nonprofits, to their consternation and that of the foundations who fund them.

Reflecting further, I realised that a nonprofit’s financial sustainability is part of a wider sets of features that constitutes a healthy organisation, and includes good leadership, governance, strategy, fundraising, financial management, people management, technology, and so on.

And how does an organisation get healthy? Well by being a learning organisation and continually building its capacity. Seems like common sense.

Then why are not all organisations healthy and thriving? Whats holding them back from learning and improving themselves?

To answer the question, I looked back on my own experience. I remembered that the single most transformative experience was a leadership course, organised by the Resource Alliance. It was an eye opener, it helped me to understand that I was not the great leader I thought I was, but showed me the way to improve. I also learned that I was more of an early-stage entrepreneur than a manager of the mature organisation HURIDOCS had become, and it was becoming time for me to leave. On my return, I set up a management team, learned how to delegate, and organised my succession.

So what led me to this amazing leadership course? Well, I was lucky. HURIDOCS was funded by Oak, an insightful foundation that believes strongly in helping its grantees build their capacity, and had equipped itself with an organisational development specialist, in the person of Adriana Craciun. She understood my need for this course, sent me there, and paid for it. Had she not done that, I never would have gone because:

• I had no clue what leadership training was, or that I so desperately needed it.
• Had I known, I would have had trouble finding a provider I could trust.
• Had I found one, I would have been totally turned off by the price.

Zooming out and looking at the bigger picture, I realised that the nonprofit sector doesn’t learn effectively as neither organisations nor donors invest in the capacity building support that is needed:

• Still too few donors give capacity building funding as part of their support .
• Many regions of the world are underserved by capacity builders.
• Nonprofits are not aware of capacity building solutions and benefits.
• Nonprofits have difficulty in finding the good/right consultants, it is often word of mouth.
• There is a gap between what a nonprofit will pay and what a provider needs to charge.
• Each organisation learns for itself, there is little collective sharing.

As a result, nonprofits do not use services they often desperately need, and capacity builders find it hard to thrive while servicing the sector.

The solution… Nonprofit Builder

This led us to the concept of the Nonprofit Builder, to transform the way the nonprofit sector learns, making it simple, efficient, affordable, continuous and collaborative:

• The idea is to build a community of consultants, coaches and capacity builders with profiles on the platform, including ratings of their past interventions and lessons learned from these.
• Organisations would be provided with tools and support to define their OD needs, their goals and who could best accompany them in these efforts (be it consultants, peers or relevant resources).
• They could also ask their donors for financial support for their OD efforts through a standardised and straightforward process which provides all the information that the donor needs to decide on this.
• Thereafter, the organisation and or the consultant can report on the progress of this intervention to the donor, and certainly at the end of it.

We’re currently testing the validity of this idea and our assumptions, through consultations with nonprofits, consultants and foundations. Comment below if you are interested or email us.