#1 of a Series: At What Point Does Your Nonprofit Deserve Support?
Existence is not an answer; try the Christmas Tree Test to determine why your nonprofit matters (or if it doesn’t matter at all)
If your nonprofit suddenly vanished, why would your community care?
Most charitable organizations have an easy answer to that question. People wouldn’t eat, for example. Black lives would never matter. Battered spouses would have nowhere to go. The homeless population would die off, increase, or do both. People with cancer — or AIDS or COVID or diabetes — would simply and hopelessly die.
You get the idea.
To answer the question for an arts organization — especially a performing or exhibiting arts organization — the organization has to choose which societal need requires the kind of support that the arts can provide. And to do that, the organization has to take a moment and scour all its activities and concentrate on the programs that help people.
Putting on art, either on a stage or at an exhibition, is easy. Anyone can do it. It might be amateurish. It might be provocative. Benign. Entertaining. Slick. Gorgeous. Excellent. Awful.
But it’s easy to put on a piece of art.
What separates a nonprofit arts organization from someone putting on a piece of art is not a question of quality. It is a question of purpose. And, following that road, it is a question of impact. The charter purpose of a nonprofit organization is its charitable impact.
To get to the heart of your organization — why it matters — try the Christmas Tree Test. Gather your company’s stakeholders, including members of the community who are not on the board or staff.
Start with a naked fir tree.
Decorate it, using Post-It notes with every single program and activity that your organization does. Every department should be represented. Every regular task. When in doubt, put it on the tree.
If those notes were ornaments, it might look like this:
Now, painstakingly, remove one note at a time, turning to your company’s stakeholders and asking, “If this thing is removed, is the company still having an impact?”
The point here is not to delete those activities. Just take those notes and put them up on the side, next to the tree.
After a short time, the tree will thin:
At some point, someone will get angry that their activity is not considered “core.” Continue anyway. If you have explained the test properly, they’ll become aware that a core activity speaks to the center of why the organization exists, not how it exists or what it does.
Thinning continues. The equivalency test is this: at what point does the Christmas tree stop being a holiday celebratory symbol and just becomes another fir tree?
Is this still a Christmas tree? Do the 4 core “ornaments” define your company’s reason for being? What impact happens when you try to remove any one of those ornaments? Does your company lose its impact? How would you know — do you measure that charitable impact?
Take nothing for granted.
Keep nothing on the tree that does not forward your impact. Sometimes it’s easy to forget that the arts, while they have the potential to expose and engage, often are not used by nonprofit organizations for their nonprofit purpose — which is to transform a community into a QUANTIFIABLY better place.
Merely putting on a play, concert, exhibit, or ballet is easy. Making it matter is much more difficult — and far more important.
There are going to be a passel of provocative columns coming up that are based on this Christmas Tree test. You may be surprised, upset, or thankful. But these columns are meant to support you in your quest for impact on your community. With impact comes sustainability; with sustainability comes funding.
If you’d like to implement the Christmas Tree test and want guidance — or, alternately, if you’d like me to run your Christmas Tree test — please know that I will make myself available to you. I’ve performed this test dozens of times in my consulting and it works. Email me at alan@501c3.guru.
Based in Kirkland, Washington, Alan Harrison is a writer and speaker specializing in nonprofit organizations, strategy, and life politics. His columns appear regularly in major publications. Contact him directly at alan@501c3.guru.
If you’re feeling generous or inspired, just click on the coffee cup above. Every little bit of caffeinated karma helps.
Alan is always looking for good opportunities to write and consult for nonprofits that need a hand. And, of course, that elusive Perfect Opportunity™.
