The premise of the workshop was that nonprofit leaders who think like venture philanthropists will be more successful in maintaining and growing sustainable organizations.  The mindset that marks venture philanthropy include the following core concepts: a) nonprofits and donors need to embrace a long-term partnerships to address significant needs, b) that donors can have significant involvement in the organizations operations & management, c) that organizations should focus on performance measurement & outcomes, and d) nonprofits should think about scaling efforts to create significant change.  To help create this thinking, the workshop presentation and discussion reviewed several practices that support venture philanthropy thinking.  I summarize five key points below.

1. Strategic planning must be the intersection of strategy, capacity, programs & outcomes, and a sustainable business model.
While many nonprofit organizations embrace the concept of strategic planning, the practice of strategy is often reduced to scaling programs, services, and agency capacity in response to the projected revenues for the next year. As the funding trends continue to mover towards the  demonstration of outcomes and accountably such reactionary planning is inadequate. Proactive and intentional strategic planning needs to become the core and substantive focus of nonprofit organizations.  Such planning must recognize and embrace the concurrent consideration of capacity, programs, outcomes and a supporting revenue strategy that addresses both capital needs and operational needs.

2.  To exist, your agency must be clear on your social impact model.
I have written elsewhere about the concept of social impact planning (see here) and during the workshop, we spent some time considering a version of a social impact model that I often use in to help clients clarify how their mission, vision, programs, revenues, and capacity work together as a coherent whole.  A clear and compelling social impact model answers the fundamental question of what justifies your organization’s right to exist. Your impact model is your manifesto of what you contribute to solving compelling social needs.

3. It is a struggle to grapple with true cost of operations and it is critical to develop a strategy to fully fund those true costs.
Perhaps the section of the workshop that caused the most provocation was when we began to discuss the need to clearly articulate for and begin to use the “true cost of operations,” as a basis for growth (for more on growth see here). The palpable frustration for several participants was that “considering full costs of services sounds great but such exercises always encounter the reality that funders and donors don’t like to pay overhead –so why think about true costs when we are stuck living with the overhead rates we are handed?”  There are sufficient studies to suggest that such a viewpoint is hazardous to a nonprofit organization’s health to underestimate true cost.  Performance inefficiencies, higher turnover, and hidden costs stymie organizational effectiveness. In short, the “nonprofit starvation cycle” is detrimental to organizational stability.  Indeed, from a venture philanthropy mindset, it is unacceptable to “starve” organizational capacity because nonprofit success is dependent almost entirely upon the strength of the organization rather that the strength of the program.

Coincidently on the point of true costs, I was speaking to a program officer from a foundation on Friday at the conference.  This program officer told me that she was telling a group of conference participants, “As nonprofit leaders, you need to drive the overhead conversation with foundations.  Convince me with data that your overhead is justified and most of us will listen.”  True indict costs matter and armed with data your nonprofit will be in a position of strength when talking with foundations and other donors.

4. Creating clear thinking around business models must balance autonomy, reliability, concentration and the type of growth that is being considered.
While the workshop introduced the concept of building a strong revenue model that distinguishes between capital needs and operational needs and balances the dimensions of autonomy, reliability, concentration of revenues.  While I have written on revenue models previously (see here), the workshop session did not allow for more than the introduction of the concepts.  In the attached resource reading, however, there are several important articles that allow for further study of business and revenue models.

5.  Without data, it will be increasing difficult to gain support whether that support is money, volunteers, or community engagement.
The final conversation of the workshop focused on the need for nonprofits to implement strong performance and outcome evaluation. Again, I have written about evaluation elsewhere (see here).  In the presentation be considered how venture philanthropy thinking is concerned about three dimensions of evaluation: how much, how well, and does it matter.  Nonprofit leaders must thinks strategically about evaluation if they are thinking about long-term sustainability. In a donor world that is increasingly self-organizing, resources will increasingly gravitate towards nonprofits capable of credibly demonstrating results.  The evaluation question is no longer counting beans -how much did you do? but increasingly funders are asking how well are you doing your work? and, more importantly, are you making an impact?

Summary
Venture philanthropy, for all that has been written on the subject, still occupies a very small place in the world of foundations and giving.  With the exception of the network of Social Venture Partner Chapters and a small number of national foundations, venture philanthropy funding is rare and outside of the reach of many nonprofit agencies.  There are too few (and too difficult to access), venture philanthropy dollars that makes venture philanthropy funding not worth the time and energy for many nonprofits to pursue. However, the point of the workshop presentation was to illustrate venture philanthropy thinking is critical as a systemic way for nonprofit leaders to think about nonprofit strategy and strategic planning.  Nonprofit organizations that pursue such strategy with rigor and discipline will find themselves in a stronger position to growth, thrive, and truly make a significant social impact in the communities that they serve.

As always, your thoughts are welcome and as always, if you are looking for a partner to assist you in your strategy, I hope you will consider Facilitation & Process as your partner in success.

Short Bibliography of Materials on A Venture Philanthropy Mindset  Download (2 pg PDF)

1. Articulate a vision, 2. write, rewrite a mission, 3. conduct an environmental scan using unscientific tools, 4.  choose priorities & set goals, 5.  develop action steps, timelines, roles and responsibilities, 6. draft a formal plan, 7.  pronounce it very good and 8. repeat the process every three years.

As strategic planning models became routine and accepted as a standard of practice, those who excelled in project management and repositioning content developed a consultant industry of strategic planners who emerged to bring expertise to “help” organizations create high impact plans.  The secret that few consultants want to admit is that strategic planning is often reduced to a cookbook that illustrated with overused “fill-in-the blank” prescriptions that result in an unimaginative plans.  Quite often, strategic planning is a simplistic reordering and renaming of existing strategy and approaches. Such a focus diminishes the value of strategic planning. This premise of the declining value of traditional strategic planning was identified over a decade ago in the seminal Harvard Business Review article titled, “The Fall and Rise of Strategic Planning” by Henry Mintzberg.  Mintzberg’s main criticism is that strategic planning often stymies strategy. He argues that “sometimes strategies must be left as broad visions, not precisely articulated, to adapt to a changing environment” (p. 112).

Since the appearance of Mintzberg’s article (and subsequent text that reverses the title ), strategic planning has been broadened somewhat to include the concepts loosely termed adaptive planning, opportunity management, or “real-time” strategic  planning.  In essence, the “innovation” of the adaptive strategic planning models is to build into the process  strategies that allow organizations to be responsive to sudden shifts in the operating environment.  Yet the methods employed to get to this more “flexible strategic plan” still reflects the pedestrian process described above.  In other words, the revamped strategic planning model looks more like this:

1. Articulate a vision, 2. write, rewrite a mission, 3. conduct an environmental scan using unscientific tools, 4.  choose priorities & set goals, 5). develop action steps, timelines, roles and responsibilities, 6.  insert opportunity matrix 7. draft a formal plan, 8.  pronounce it very good and 9. repeat the process every three years.

The economic meltdown of recent years that still haunts many nonprofit organizations has been a wake-up call is that business in no longer usual.  The rapidly changing environment require more than a strategic planning process focused on rearranging the deck chairs and adding one more lifeboat christened “opportunity management.”  As Mintzberg suggested over a decade ago, we must liberate strategy from the confines of a constrained and defined planning process and foster a culture that encourages strategic thinking at every level of an organization.  Strategy needs to be unbound from pedestrian and conventional thinking, which many strategic planning consultants fail to recognize and build into their practice.

Let me illustrate.  I was recently reading the retreat notes from what was billed as an adaptive planning process that written by a consulting group, which a nonprofit agency had contracted with.  It is stunning how pedestrian the results were.  Day opens with the typical icebreaker, pages of brainstorm lists are then sequenced and the conclusions are listed as key….yawn…. findings.  these included …yawn… diversify your funding, increase your communications, and invest more in …yawn…(excuse me)…  capacity…  No wonder strategy and strategic planning are undervalued, if not ridiculed by so many nonprofit leaders.

Force marching an organization through a strategic planning process is not the same thing as stepping back and asking the hard questions related to how nonprofit operations are organized around solid business thinking that is resilient and tenable over the long term.  For example, going back to the …yawn… adaptive strategy notes review, one of the most non-strategic statements of the document was this:

“Key Finding #2 – Financial stability/funding is the greatest challenge facing XYZ agency as it plans for its future.” Open-ended answers provided by staff and board focused on identifying XYZ’s greatest challenge included, long-term sustainable funding, limited funding resources, identifying alternative funding sources, lack of diversity in funding.”

This statement is non-strategic on two levels.  At face value, this key finding lacks any basis for action. Every nonprofit’s greatest challenge is to develop long-term sustainable revenues.  So what.  Where is the strategy?  Second, pulling up the most recent IRS Form 990 for the agency shows a revenue pattern that is represented in this graph. This agency not only weathered the downturn but doubled revenues in five years. Indeed, portraying revenue as the greatest challenge for an organization with this revenue profile borders on malpractice.

To me, strategy would be to ignore the economic angst of the board and staff and build on the organizational strength of the funding model.  Indeed, during a period where many nonprofit agencies were hammered by steep revenue declines, this nonprofit held its own. As a facilitator of such a process, I would be asking the questions, how do we replicate, or at least maintain, the stable revenues patterns that we held through the economic crisis.  How do we build upon the revenue spike of 2009?  What drove the break-out revenue for that year?  What lessons can we learn from how we brought in the additional revenues?

I almost titled this post, “What is Needed Now?” because I am convinced that this is the single most important question that nonprofit leaders must be asking today. For me, the answer to the question, “what is needed now” is not strategic planning but strategic thinking that is supported by clear and strategic program plans. The fact that strategy needs to be a cultural value does not negate the need for strategic planning and the development of clear strategic written program plans. The shift that needs for agencies to think strategically and support strategy with programmatic planning.  This is not a mere nuance but it means abandoning the two million images of a senseless strategic planning model and embrace, focused planning based on strategic thinking.

Elsewhere I have written about the layers of planning and approaches to nontraditional strategic planning and will not belabor the point here. Rather I want to point to three areas where focused planning needs to occur.

Core Social Impact Strategies: A clear and focused organizational model and theory of change, leverage, and scale is the core strategy for an agency.  Without a shared conceptual approach to how an organization fulfills its mission nothing else matters.  Previously, I have explored social impact (here) and social innovation (here) in more detail.

Revenue Strategies: There has been a tremendous amount of recent research that goes beyond the irrelevant and oversimplified model that all agencies need diversified revenue streams and that the board of directors should play a major role in revenue development.  Revenues  strategy should include a customized strategy carved from the careful study of autonomy, reliability and the opportunity costs of diversification. Such strategy planning also includes thinking about investment capital, earned income, and policy approaches to revenue development. Having a clear revenue plan is a second core document (more here).

Operational & Capacity Strategies: Often undervalued in strategy is a clear articulation of the operational capacity that is really required for successfully creating significant social impact. Such strategy requires the consideration of capital investment, breaking the tyranny of starving overhead costs, investing in technology, staff development, building outcome measurement systems, and expanding key staff and external partnerships (more here).

Other common areas that require strategic thinking and planning  include communications and marketing, program evaluation, and board development, to name a few.  The point of this post is not to list every possible strategic planning focus but to point out the fallacy of trusting the arcane strategic planning process while missing the opportunities for strategic thinking and focused programmatic planning.  As the current year ends, and a New Year opens with equal uncertainty, the role of strategy becomes more important than ever.

As Mintzberg, concluded, “Three decades of experience has taught us about the need to loosen up the process of strategy making rather than trying to seal it off by arbitrary formalization (p. 114).”  We are yet a decade and a half beyond Mintzberg’s words and yet many nonprofits continue waste time and resources executing ill-conceived strategic planning sold to us by some book or consultant group. As we reflect on the year past and look forward to the year future, let us commit to thinking strategically first and allow formality to unfold driven by need.

As always, your thoughts are welcome.

At the same time while conservation may temporarily preserve the status quo, in the face of an every growing demand for nonprofit services and solutions, a conservative strategy is untenable in the long-term.  Senior nonprofit executives and nonprofit boards engaged in operational planning may find comfort in budgeting to “known” revenues but “revenue-driven” budgeting may undercut growth and undermine the long-term health of an agency.  Under-investing in administration and infrastructure, leveling or reducing salaries and benefits, underfunding reserves, or a host of other conservative fiscal moves, can amount to the proverbial “death by 1,000 cuts,” where the cumulative effects temporarily deferred, may suddenly manifest as an organizational crisis or  an  inability of the agency to meet the organization’s mission.

This post is part of an ongoing series related to strategic planning.  As a precursor to strategic planning, I believe that an agency needs to cultivate a culture of courage.  So here is one take on the outlines of  principles that embody organizational courage.

Be Authentic: More than once I have interviewed an executive director or board chair who has confided that the constant adapting to changing funding streams shapes and reshapes in subtle (and not so subtle) ways, the organizational mission and vision. One exasperated director shared, “Some days I’m not even sure if I am walking into the right building.”  While mission-drift often starts unintentionally, such incremental creeping is prevented by a myopic focus on authenticity.  Every program, every funding decision, every grant application,  must be guided by a clear mission and vision in the context of the compelling need(s) it seeks to address.  Authenticity provides the focus an agency needs to envision a future that is greater than the current economic reality.

Be Intentional: Too often boards of nonprofit organizations get mired down in the operational details of the current agency operations.  The mundane and immediate, such as a year-to-date 10% revenue shortfall, adding a new policy or procedure to the organizational canon, or figuring out how to improve the computer network, while all important, can impede and intentional strategic focus.  When a focus on the operational becomes a cycle routinely eclipsing the strategic, it becomes harder to be intentional about the future.  To be successful an agency needs an intentional focus on strategy that is clearly palatable throughout the organization.

Be Large: With a conservative mindset, many nonprofit organizations are constantly engaged in fundraising, grant writing and trying to keep together a patchwork of revenue streams.  Messaging to the community and potential funders is “we are worthy of support because we are doing good things on virtually no overhead.”  Large, turns such thinking upside-down.  Large re-frames the message from “we are worthy “ to “there is a compelling community need and we are catalysts to effectively address that need.”  Fundraising becomes resource development and in a coordinated strategy, an agency seeks investors interested in creating a social return on investment. Being large supports the  assertions of being a catalyst with clear and measurable outcomes as well as benchmarks for quality and continuous improvement.  There is little question about the presence and leadership of the organization in the community.

Be Radical: While being conservative can preserve the core, being radical can expand the core.  Yet, radical needs to be defined.  While radical may carry the perception of risk or polarization, radical is simply the ability to ask the hard and profound question “what if?”  The “what if” questions spawn radical ideas that can be translated into strategy and action.  Questions like: “In the context of the compelling need, our mission and vision, what if we could do things differently to create a larger impact?” or “If we were to fundamentally rethink our relationship to our community and our supporters, what new models for service delivery would emerge?” need to be asked. Creating a culture that thinks radically is one that expands the agency’s horizon even if when the current economic clouds partially obscure the view.

Authentic, intentional, large, and radical are four terms that illustrate a strategic organizational culture that is applied rather than an abstraction.  Such terms provide a base that an executive team and board can use to measure progress and be accountable to. By operationally defining a strategic culture, an agency enters into the process of strategic planning from a position of strength, opportunity and aspiration, which are prerequisites of a results-driven process.  So it bears repeating – Be authentic, intentional, large, and radical.

As always, your thoughts are welcome.

Linking compelling social needs to the ideas of innovation creates the construct of of social innovation. Social innovation is the “holy grail” of nonprofit, philanthropic or government in search of finding new ways of creating community level solutions for social needs. As a contemporary overused buzzword, social innovation writers, consultants and scholars emphasize social innovation as the process of inventing or creating novel approaches to social change. Unfortunately, we too often hear words such as “catalytic” or “disruptive” to magnify the scale of the implied change. This “shiny new object” focus only on disruptive or catalytic social innovation distorts social innovation because it emphasizes only one point on a four point matrix.

In this blog, I want try and bring dimensions to social innovation to remove it from the abstract buzzword category. In this way, I hope to offer the starting point for strategic conversations within and across organizations about innovation.

It is not a new thought to think on innovation across two continuum (see reference 1). So if catalytic or disruptive innovation is at one end of a change continuum then the other end of the spectrum is process innovation that day-to-day work of continuous improvement for organizations. Positioning social innovation as adaptive or disruptive/catalytic is a very useful way of anchoring the basic dimensions of the social innovation concept.

Process innovation and disruptive/catalytic innovation need to be considered against the continuum of leverage or scale. For example, the Obama administration has developed a new partnership between government and philanthropy heralded under the banner of the Social Innovation Fund. The purpose is described as targeting millions of dollars in public-private funds to expand effective solutions across economic opportunity, healthy futures and, youth development and school support. The approach is to “create a catalog of proven approaches that can be replicated in communities across the country.” (see reference 2) The Social Innovation Fund clearly provides leverage by aggregating philanthropic and government dollars and uses that leverage to scale programs. However, given that the Social Innovation Fund requires grants to be based on existing programs and services that meet an “evidence-base” criteria, some have argued that true innovation is missing from the initiative. For example, one can read in various opinion blogs, statements such as this one:

“The central mission dissonance of the Social Innovation Fund has always been the question of what its real objective was. Was it meant to be a fund that really pushes an experimental agenda and deploys capital in favor of new approaches to social change that have both high risk and high reward? Or was it alternately a chance for the government to get a hand in on organizations whose models started as innovative and who were reaching an inflection point where new resources and government support could help them achieve the scale their proven model demanded.” (see reference 3)

So considering the larger context of social innovation, we can see that the two dimensions of the construct include the dimension of continuous verses discontinuous innovation and the second dimension of leverage and scale. Placing the two dimensions across each other, the concept of social innovation can be represented as four typologies as illustrated in the figure one.

The patterns and practice describing innovation that emerge when we consider the degree of change coupled with the degrees of leverage and scale can be described as follows:

Process Innovation: When the degrees of change are low (as in consistent and continuous) and the resources available for leverage and scale are inadequate, social innovation is largely consists of process improvements. This category of change is not simply trying “doing more with less,” but it is the sum total of the intentional, systematic, and strategic efforts of an agency to improve its processes largely within its existing structure, programs, and services.

Growth Innovation: When an organization is focused on innovating within its existing structure, programs, and services, in the context of collaborative relationships or increased financial resources (leverage and scale), the innovation results in program growth. Typically this growth is driven by intentional program expansion, program replication, or program dissemination. It is in this quadrant that innovation might be opening branch operations in a new geography, training others in an affiliate or dissemination model, or expanding service hours. Innovation is typically about about scaling systems to serve more people, creating value chain efficiencies, or creating rigorous evidence-base that encourages the adoption of program or service models by others.

Adaptive Innovation: Going back to an operating environment of constraints (in relationship to leverage and scale), adaptive innovators are those willing to move ahead of or beyond its existing structure, programs, and services to achieve a higher degree of social impact. Innovators in this might move out of preventive or secondary program and services and begin devoting limited resources to working upstream on policy or advocacy. In this quadrant, innovators do not simply ask “how can we improve what we are doing” but rather ask, “could we be more effective if we moved outside of our existing strategies, programs and services?

Catalytic Innovation: The final quadrant of innovation is where large-scale change is sought and is supported with ample leverage and scale. It is not seeks to grow and scale an idea but also seeks to amplify innovation by considering discontinuous ideas in addition to continuous ones. As suggested previously, Disruptive innovation is pursed as if it were the holy grail of social sector. Indeed, catalytic change can create powerful change (see reference 4) but giving disruptive innovation an unequal weight compared to the other three quadrants can skew with meaning of social innovation and actually be a disservice to the field. Disruptive innovation is the current concept with cachet and gravitas relative to the “mundane” work of systematic program improvement and hence, there is the potential that solid process, adaptive, or growth strategies might be overlooked.

The point to be underscored is this. We need to create a shared understanding of social innovation as a critical foundation for building a local perspective for social innovation. Common language is essential to creating a local social innovation approach to compelling social needs. In this overview I have proposed a more robust seed bed for considering approaches to innovation. By broadening the dimensions of social innovation, we can now turn our attention to creating a social innovation framework. It is not about catalytic innovation or adaptive innovation as if it were either/or. Rather social innovation is about both/and. The community needs the investments and strategic thinking to create catalytic innovation that disrupts business as usual. The community also needs the skills and tools to engage in process, adaptive, and growth innovation.

Thinking critically about when to focus on innovation from a process, adaptive, growth and disruptive perspective and how to combine such innovations will result in a stronger social-citizen sector addessing compelling community needs. It is my perspective that only with a broader view of innovation can nonprofits, philanthropy, and government organizations can engage individually and collectively in more thoughtful and strategic conversations about social innovation.

As always, your thoughts are welcome.

References

1. For a useful policy overview see:  “Social Innovation”: What is it? Who Does it?

2. Source: Corporation for National and Community Service – Social Innovation Fund

3. Source: The Social Innovation Fund Grants Focus on “What Works”

4. See as an excellent example: Catalytic Philanthropy

My experience cemented in my practice, the relationship between the system (or ecology) and social change. As illustrated in the figure (see reference), the socio-ecological model is used by academics and theorists to describe the complexity of social change. In short, the model suggests that there are a number of concentric circles of intervention required to create social change. I like this representation of the socio-ecological model because it evokes the imagery of a pebble being dropped in a body of still water creating larger and larger ripples of change.

Starting with the core of the individual, and rippling through social relationships, families, institutions and community, a socio-ecological approach to change ultimately creates a new understanding of community norms and social policy. In my work with nonprofits, philanthropy, and government, I often see organizations excel in one, or perhaps two, circles of the model but rare is the organization that thinks about its programs and services across the entire socio-ecological system.

At the same time, the word performance continues to gain momentum among nonprofits, philanthropy and government agencies. The performance trend is moving at an accelerated speed and suggests that attention will increasingly focus on impact and outcomes across nonprofits, philanthropy, and government organizations. The democratization of data coupled with the proliferation of options to invest philanthropic resources will force the social-citizen sector to become savvy about tying their need for capital to the outcomes that they produce. So theory of change and performance collide. Organizations that can lead from a position of articulating a theory of change that is based on social ecology will be better positioned to approach donors for resources. Rather than asking for funds to “keep the doors open” a nonprofit can approach donors as investors, inviting them to invest in the nonprofits programs and services that will create social impact at the community level.

So the question that emerges is, “how does one think about creating a socio-ecological change?” I believe that there are several strategic domains of action that an agency should explore to build a social systems – social ecology approach.

Create an Audacious Goal: Jim Collins in his infamous books and articles related to the “Good to Great” research, popularized the concept of the Big Hairy Audacious Goal (BHAG). In short a BHAG “is clear and compelling, serves as a unifying focal point of effort, and acts as a catalyst for team spirit. It has a clear finish line, so the organization can know when it has achieved the goal; people like to shoot for finish lines. A BHAG engages people – it reaches out and grabs them. It is tangible, energizing, highly focused. People get it right away; it takes little or no explanation.” (see reference) The social-citizen sector is in desperate need of nonprofit leading willing to embrace BHAGs and, I believe that it is only when an agency embraces a BHAG does a social systems – social ecology approach become compelling.

Create a Clear Social Impact Model: Elsewhere I have fully described several approaches to developing a social impact model (here, here, & here). In this post it is important to simply reiterate that an intentional model of social impact is one of the core organizing documents for every nonprofit. Whether you use a logic model, social impact framework, pathway model or some hybrid approach, any external funding agency, donor, or social investor should be able to see your model of impact.

Create a Network: When considering the concentric circles of the socio-ecological model it can be intimidating, if not overwhelming to think about. I have had nonprofit leaders say, “there is no way our agency can embrace such an ambitious change agenda.” My response is to agree with the premise that socio-ecological change is beyond the reach of many individual agencies but that organizations as a network have tremendous power. In fact, creating a socio-ecological network holds tremendous potential to address compelling community needs. When a network of agencies are committed to the core processes of communication, coordination, and collaboration the network effects magnify individual contributions of the network members.

Create Accountability: With a goal, model, and network in place, the next strategic domain to consider is describing how the agency will be accountable to the goal. The three standard measures are process (did we deliver what we said we would deliver?), quality (how well did we deliver what we said we would deliver?) and outcome (did what we deliver make a difference?). Evaluation, is essential to s socio-ecological approach because without evaluation, there can be no confidence in the program impact. Stories and anecdotes are increasingly ineffective in justifying the support for social-citizen sector programs. Evidence matters.

Communicate the Results: Finally, completing an organizational focus on the social ecology, it is important to build effective methods to help others understand what you are doing. Communications planning should begin early and continue as an ongoing story. The better the community understands how your mission, vision, programs, services and outcomes connect with a systemic model of change, the more successful you will be in building lasting support for your organization.

Placing these action areas together, the contours of a strategic process become clearer. Without a robust and organizing theory of change, many nonprofits string together related programs and services as opportunities emerge. While in the past, a patchwork strategy may have served the social-citizen sector, such a strategy is less sustainable and durable in today’s increasingly performance-based context. By focusing myopically on a the social ecology and systems-change, nonprofits have the opportunity to strengthen its internal mission, vision, programs and services as well as strengthen the community that supports it.

As always, your comments are welcome.

References
California Tobacco ControlUpdate 2009
Image Adapted from: Centre for Addictions Research of BC
Collins, J. C., & Porras, J. I. (1996). Building Your Company’s Vision. Harvard Business Review, 74(5), 65-77.

Acknowledge but don’t feed the Weaknesses and Threats: In my experience, one risk of a SWOT analysis is that a team that is processing weaknesses and threats can inadvertently pull the conversation down towards pessimism and defensiveness. The resulting strategies from such conversations can focus on “defending the gains” rather then “expanding opportunities.” One way to avoid “planning from deficits” is to rethink the framework. Elsewhere I have written about appreciative inquiry as a facilitation process and I have often used a related framework of Strengths, Opportunities, Aspirations, and Results (SOAR) as an alternative to a SWOT. A good contrast between SWOT and SOAR can be found here – (external link).

However, if a team is committed to a SWOT analysis, it is critical that there is a shared understanding of the purpose in looking the variables, especially, the Weaknesses and Threats. The assessment of weaknesses is the chance to a team to identify and reflect on internal operations and capacity that are the “rate limiters” in moving forward. The assessment of threats is looking at the external environment that could negatively effect the organizations success. Often, the threatening forces that can impact and agency but might be beyond the control of the organization. Combined, the purpose of looking at weaknesses and threats is to give an organization a realistic understanding context in which they are operating. However, strategic plans should rarely be developed in relationship to weaknesses and threats.

My bias has been a source of many conversations with clients over the meaning and power of words. In suggesting that weaknesses and threats are not the foundation of strategy, I am not suggesting that an an organization deny the reality of either. Weaknesses and threats exist and need to be accommodated in the planning process, however, in the planning process, they equally  should not be “fed” by giving them inordinate power.  In the end, all strategy should reflect an understanding of the environment but be focused and be framed in the context of the opportunities ahead.

Collapse the Quadrants: It is my belief that a SWOT analysis is most useful to a team as a broad surveillance tool rather than a planning tool. A completed SWOT matrix allows a team to view the scope of possibilities. As weaknesses and threats are identified a team should then turn them upside-down. Weaknesses and threats are the flip side of opportunities and should be viewed as such. In other words, as a SWOT analysis is completed, the traditional four quadrants of the SWOT matrix should be collapsed into opportunities. If a team is clear on this point, then it will prevent them from getting lost in simply “defending gains” rather than engaging in strategic planning. Again, Strategic planning occurs when a team distills the SWOT data into opportunities. So, for example, the threat of “pending budget cuts” becomes the opportunity of thinking differently about revenue diversification or the opportunity to advocate for policy change around funding. A facilitator working with a team on a SWOT analysis should help the team move towards the opportunity quadrant. Again, the purpose if not to ignore weaknesses and threats but to help a team channel the potential and energy into creating aspirational strategies and goals.

Create Scenario Screens: A third way to assist a planning team move through a SWOT analysis is to help the team create “scenario screens.” In short a scenario screen acknowledges that the variables identified in a SWOT are not static and often only partially understood in the planning process. To help a team plan for the changing landscape (incompletely captured in a SWOT) a scenario screen creates a way to teams to measure opportunities in the context of the organizational mission and vision. Others have referred to the scenario screen process as an “opportunity matrix” or “strategy screen.”  A simple web search of any of these concepts will yield a number of relevant example of such tools.

A scenario screen is a way to evaluate and prioritize opportunities. Typically a scenario screen lists criteria that need to be met as an opportunity is assessed. For example, some potential criteria might be that the opportunity is a) compatible with the organizational mission, b) meets one or more strategic priority, c) has a reasonable timeframe, d) has acceptable costs, and e) there is capacity to execute. A scenario screen may also “rank” or “weigh” variables (such as low fit, medium fit, or high fit) to create a a more multidimensional assessment of the opportunity.

Again, while some conflate a SWOT exercise with strategic planning, it is important to recognize that a SWOT analysis is only one tool or exercise in the strategic planning process. However, when facilitating a SWOT exercise as part of the strategic planning process, it is useful to connect the three steps as a process. This facilitation process includes: 1) the broad study and recognition of the SWOT forces internal and external to the organization, 2) the narrower focusing of the conversation around the “unpacked” implicit and explicit strategies and opportunities that emerge from the SWOT, and 3) the creation of scenario screens that help the team manages the shifting dynamics of the SWOT variables, strategies, and opportunities over time.

I believe that strategic planning in the nonprofit setting does not lend itself to the direct application of corporate for-profit strategic planning models. Nonprofit business models are more complex than defending or advancing market share. A SWOT analysis for nonprofits run the twin dangers of either oversimplifying strategy or narrowing strategy into the four unnaturally parsed quadrants. To create a robust strategic plan, facilitating a nonprofit SWOT analysis needs to move beyond the four quadrants and provide an organization with a strategic understanding of the environment, its opportunities, and more importantly the tools to manage the opportunities of the environment over time. Facilitated well, a SWOT exercise can strengthens a nonprofit strategic planning process.

Based on literally dozens of conversations with nonprofit leaders, I find that many organizations are looking for a simpler framework for strategic planning.  In this post, I want to outline a strategic planning process that is versatile enough to guide an organization or team as they seek to engage in the thoughtful work of strategy.   In summary, the framework that I most often follow, is the process of 1) establishing the critical social need, 2) creating a compelling vision of how your agency can create a positive social impact by addressing that social need, 3) developing a relevant organizational mission, 4) developing system’s focused program strategies, and 5) creating measures and  outcomes to guide the plan implementation.

Establishing the Critical Social Need:  Every nonprofit should exist only in response to an unmet critical social need.  Unlike the private sector where the market may support companies selling consumables that may have little value, no value, or even a negative value, the nonprofit sector can only afford to support organizations that are positively impacting compelling social needs.  As a result, strategic planning begins by defining the unmet social need.  Such a community needs assessment can be based on existing data, expert opinion, surveys, a systematic environmental scan, or ideally some combination of these data points.

Creating a Compelling Vision of Tomorrow:  I have written before about the relationship between vision & mission and critical social needs.  Within the nonprofit sector and the philanthropy community that supports the nonprofit sector, there is an increasing trend towards defining and working towards a compelling social impact.  The focus on social impact makes it  increasingly less tenable for agencies to simply run “good programs” without creating social change. In this context of strategic planning,agencies should ask themselves, “what is the better, more just, and equitable tomorrow we are tying to create?”  A vision, in essence is the BIG WHY that defines the reason for the existence of an organization.

Developing a Relevant Mission:  An agency’s mission statement should represent a the “tactical  orientation of the organization that is closer to the social need being addressed address.   The questions that get to the heart of an agency mission might include ones such as: What programs and services is our agency trying to excel at?  What qualities of culture and community are we seeking to create?  How do we want to be known in the community? If folks seek us out, what are they seeking us out for?  By creating a clear mission you are answering the fundamental questions of the “What and How”  of the agency.

Designing System’s Level Strategies:  In between your vision of tomorrow and the mission you declare today is the “white space” of programs and services.  Strategic plans are not intended to the entirely fill the white space by fully designing programs  but rather is the space where an organization declares its commitment to strategies designed to create its vision of tomorrow.   The strategy “challenge” is to think systematically and systemically about the opportunities to foster change at the individual, community, and policy level to create a synergistic effect that magnifies the benefits of each individual program. It is also important for an agency to develop capacity strategies that will grow the organization’s ability to create a larger social impact.  For many organizations that implement “programs” the shift to thinking about community impact and public policy can be an exciting process of discovering new potential.    Indeed, the creative energy of designing solutions to compelling social needs has the potential of giving renewed inspiration and aspiration to an organization.

Creating Performance and Outcome  Measures:  It is only worth the time and energy to create a strategic plan if an agency is willing to ensure that the document is living, breathing and is used as the organizational compass guiding and anchoring decisions.  Ideally, as program strategies are created, the organization also takes time to establish  corresponding performance and outcome measures.   Answering the question of how an agency will monitor progress toward the objectives should be integral to strategic planning.  Similar to developing program strategies, the purpose at this level is not to create the actual performance measurement system (i.e., dashboard or report card) but to establish the benchmarks that will help provide assurance that the agency activities will stay focused on the strategic design. Later you can fully develop programs and outcome measurement more precisely based on further study and design.

I purposefully presented in this post a simplified strategic planning process. Unfortunately, on more than one occasion, I have seen (and heard from frustrated potential clients) how an overly complex process of strategic planning gets in the way of successful strategic planning.  Too often the textbook approach to strategic planning is cumbersome and emphasizes precise sequential steps, prescribed analysis measures (i.e., SWOT), meaningless revenue projection exercises and other artificial exercises that constrain thinking.

Don’t get me wrong, I believe that strategic planning is a process that requires intentionality, reflection and analysis –none of which are easy. However, I am a firm believe that social sector strategic planning requires a simpler more aspirational framework as represented by the five slightly imprecise and  iterative steps identified above.  Unlike a standardized corporate strategic planning approach Nonprofit and social sector agencies requires a social impact planning model that can dynamically address a wide range of social needs and accommodate a variety of organizational cultures.

A strategic plan that reflects the process from need to to vision and offers specific strategies and measures to guide implementation, will establish a framework to help an agency achieve success.  To be useful in creating such a strategic plan, a facilitator needs to, as Simon Sinek (external link), so clearly articulates create a compelling why, a disciplined how and a consistent what.  Applied to a strategic planning framework it suggests that a simplified approach to strategic planning coupled with a systemic facilitation process can assist nonprofit agencies to improve the social impact of their organizations.

As always, your thoughts are welcome.

This week I had the privilege of attending a community lecture for regional Arts organizations by Michael Kaiser, President of the Kennedy Center.  His topic was the economic challenges being faced by arts organizations and framed the lecture as the Arts in Crisis.  I went into the packed theatre expecting to hear the fairly familiar terrain that corporate donations are down, retaining major donors is more important than ever, diversifying your funding base is critical, and board involvement is key.   Some of that familiar ground was covered but Kaiser left the road and rose like a kite into the air. He first caught the gentle breeze and higher up leaped onto the mighty winds.  While he never directly said it, his is message was clear.  The crisis in Arts Organizations is not an economic crisis but it is a “crisis in thinking” and leadership.  He argued that strength and stability during these challenging economic times comes through transformative creativity and not through cutting budgets (For an awesome summary of the entire presentation check out Lisa Radon’s excellent blog).

As a performance improvement facilitator who works with a wide range of nonprofit agencies, I have seen this “crisis in thinking” over and again. Many nonprofit agencies are in their second and third consecutive years of budget cuts. Increasingly stressed staff (who can vaguely remember the concept of pay raises or benefit increases) are being asked to do more and more with the proverbial less and less. The gap between service costs and traditional revenues continues to widen and the compounding effects of sequential years of consecutive 3, 4 or 5% budget cuts are fracturing the integrity of many organizations.  Senior management and Boards of Directors in these organizations are becoming equally fatigued by constantly responding to an anemic resource environment.  So it is understandably challenging to walk into an organization and say, “stop trying to defend the gains you have made and start thinking using transformative creativity.” Yet this is the critical message for the nonprofit sector today.  Trying to reduce your way fiscal health undermines the organizational core and is the equivalent of burning your furniture to keep warm.  Unless you have lots and lots of furniture, in the end, you will be both cold and have nothing to sit on.

At the same time, I am not suggesting that conservative management of expenses is imprudent.  Indeed, I have seen innovative nonprofit agencies, gain efficiencies by renegotiating leases on space and/or equipment, outsourcing back office functions, and redesigning technology expenses at a considerable savings.  However, there comes a time and place where program effectiveness and, more importantly, the larger social impact of an agency is undermined by a myopic and relentless focus on reduction.  A theme that continues to serve my clients well is that success looks beyond the crisis at hand and stakes out ground in the future social impact of the organization. As I have written before, envisioning social impact requires intentional design of the “tomorrow” that an agency wants to create.

Helping nonprofit organizations get beyond the “crisis in thinking” requires a facilitator to work with teams across several domains that include the following:

Focus on Participatory Leadership:  My guess is that is that if I searched the web for the term participatory leadership, I would find that some consulting group has probably trademarked the concept.  However, what I refer to is not something out of a box or training program but is a the commitment to the ongoing study of leadership from the perspectives of vision, equity, culture.  Transformative creativity (or getting beyond the crisis) requires a compact between the layers of an organization where there is cooperative ownership, participatory systems and a learning culture.  I was recently reading a study by McKinsey & Company on successful transformations that described the critical role of balancing top down leadership with a culture of participation, equity and ownership across the staff and board.  Such cultures need to be seeded as a “big idea” and then cultivated by skill development and supporting systems. Indeed, I have facilitated more than one board-staff retreat where the primary outcome was to begin the development of a participatory culture.

Focus on Outcomes:  One of the revolutions within the nonprofit sector and philanthropy is a growing discontent with producing good results.  Philanthropists and leading nonprofit organizations want to make a larger social difference.  The coming wave of change (that will swell to a tsunami) is an increasingly myopic focus on social impact and outcomes rather than program impact.  This week I read a fantastic article by the Board Chair of Venture Philanthropy Partners (this article is the third article in a series he has been writing). In this article he minced no small words as he wrote: “Let me say this as bluntly as I can to nonprofits and funders alike: The challenge of managing to outcomes has little to do with systems, processes, or technology. The real challenge is that organizations cannot hope to manage to outcomes unless they have in place an engaged board; leadership with conviction; clarity of purpose; and a conducive, supportive performance culture.” The organizations of tomorrow are those who are focusing on creating social change that is larger than the results generated by programs.  A focus on outcomes asks, “How can we create a sum that is greater than the total of our parts?”

Focus on Mission, Vision and Margin: In my last post, I detailed the concept of mission and vision in strategic planning and in creating social impact models.  The point that I was making in that post was was underscored in an article on the Acumen Fund’s blog that discussed the role of mission, margin and mandate as levers to scale interventions and create social impact.  If you want a much lengthier discussion on the relationships of these concepts, I highly recommend the study of the book Strategic Giving: The Art and Science of Philanthropy by Peter Frumkin.  While I will warn you that Frumkin’s book is over 400 pages, it provides a depth of understanding about social impact and is a must read for any organization serious about transformative creativity. By focusing on the larger vision and placing mission and mandate in the context of a clear vision, organizations will, by default, move into strategic thinking rather than crisis thinking.

Organizations in the social sector face unique challenges in this lackluster economy.  Agencies that are focusing on defending their core also need to make room to think about how to increase capacity and effectiveness.  In seeking to navigate the twin challenges of maintaining and being strategic, facilitators need to realize that leadership, outcomes and the design process (in between the leadership and outcomes) comprise the foundation for transformative creativity.

At the risk of over generalizing, many references and books discussing vision and mission have the tendency to describe the two concepts as if they were distinguishing between goals and objectives.  I have written about the differences between goals and objectives and suggested that a goal is the “upstream activities” necessary to create “change that matters” and that an objective is the work in front of you that gets you to start moving towards your goal. While there is a parallel short-term and long-term thinking associated with the discussion of vision and mission, it would be a mistake to use the paired concepts interchangeably.

There was a time when a vision might have been thought of as nothing more than a lofty goal.  In the business sector such a mission might have been something like, “We want to be the first choice for luxury cars purchased in America,” or in the social service sector such a vision/goal might have been, “We strive to be the preeminent substance abuse treatment provider in the region.”  However, I firmly believe that equating a vision with a lofty goal is inadequate to clearly define the aspirations of an organization today.  In the private sector “vision” is increasingly framed in the language of a triple bottom line, “people, profits and planet.” In the nonprofit and social service sectors, a vision of organizational success must give way to the larger “upstream” thinking that boldly proclaims the deep social impact created by the agency.

As a result, a facilitator needs to assist the organization of today in identifying a clear and compelling vision statement.  Such a vision is the response to the social need and context in which an agency operates.  For example, if an agency is working to decrease the “youth violence” then a vision statement is about more than providing youth diversion activities because the prevention of youth violence inherently is not only about youth “behavior.”  In addition to behavior, youth violence is also about many socio-economic and geopolitical disparities which also need to be within the organization’s “field of vision.” I have written previously about strategies for facilitating the development of a social impact model, but the point applicable here is that  a compelling vision starts with a current and urgent social need and tells the story of how the social need of tomorrow will be different than it is today.

So if the function of an organizational vision is to declare the future social impact of the organization, what purpose is served by the organizational mission?  A mission is also connected to the social need but is the proximal response the changing landscape.  While the core of a strong mission is grounded in the principles and values of the organization, it also references the strategies that are used to confront the compelling social needs. A mission statement is the head and the heart of an organization and serves as the lens through which organizational programs and strategies are viewed.  As such, a mission statement should be closer to the social need rather than the visionary social impact.   A mission statement evolves as the social need evolves while also remaining anchored to the vision. In this context, a facilitator also has a role for helping an organization understand its mission as well as its vision. This need to clearly define and differentiate between the concepts of vision and mission becomes apparent when one introduces program strategies.

In between the mission and vision, is the “white space” where the organization builds its program strategies.  The following illustration creates the linear process:

Social Need ==> Mission ==> Programs/Strategies ==> Vision of Social Impact.

While a bit oversimplified (there are feedback loops and outcomes in the model), the point that I wanted to make is that there is conceptual “distance” between a vision and mission.  For those engaged in strategic and business planning, this spatial relationship is entirely practical.  By situating the mission close to the social need and anchoring the vision to the social impact, a facilitator has the room to help an agency orient its programs and services more strategically. The program strategies become the link between the organizational mission and the organizational vision.  By placing program strategies between mission and vision, the strategies can be more effectively assessed relative to how they well they serve as a the causal link between two. In other words, it is only if you are clear about the social need, the mission and the vision, can one assess the appropriateness of the program strategies.

Again, as I scanned some of the blogs and websites that discussed the differences between Vision and Mission I was struck by how often the differentiation between the concepts was ignored or oversimplified. I have contended in many of my posts that the highly effective nonprofit organizations think systemically and strategically. Facilitating meaningful differences between Vision and Mission is a critical dimension of a systemic and strategic facilitation process. Mission, supported by strategic programming moves an organization towards their true vision and, in the end, such movement is the core of a strong facilitation process.

As always your feedback is welcome.

Define your Funding Model:  It likely comes as no surprise that the agency budget framework for many small to midsize nonprofit organizations is simply the amalgamation of the individual program budgets that have been built in response to specific grants and/or contracts received by organization.  Unfortunately, even some larger organizations fall prey to this “Lego Approach” to budget development.  As new grants, contracts or donations are obtained, the resources are snapped into place to fill budget holes or to expand programs as required by the funding restrictions tied to the new revenues.  Agencies that would raise their hands if asked if they use the “Lego Approach,” would do well to consider convening their board for a strategic conversation about developing an intentional framework to guide the budget process.

In recent years, there have been a number emerging perspectives in nonprofit fiscal management and philanthropy that, taken together, help nonprofits develop a strategic perspective for long-term revenue development.  Several articles and books are referenced at the end of this post, however, some of the key concepts that form the basis of the conversation should include: a) a review of Pratt’s funding archetypes and the ten funding models recently presented in an article in the Stanford Social Innovation Review; b) exploration of revenue autonomy, reliability and concentration, and c) operational overhead.  The goal of this conversation is to develop a working understanding of the concepts and prepare the board to apply these principles to creating a strategic framework for their organization.

Assess your Overhead Costs:  One unfortunate legacy that plagues nonprofit organizations is that efficiency is often measured by overhead cost. The assumption is that nonprofit overhead is a proxy measure of efficiency, in essence, suggesting that the lower the nonprofit overhead costs, the more efficient the nonprofit is assumed to be.  This perspective is reinforced by many funding agencies who cap operational overhead at an arbitrary number (like 8%, 10% or 15%) when awarding grants and contracts.  However, over the last few years several studies have begun to challenge this conventional thinking with a growing chorus of voices suggesting that the antiquated approach to efficiency actually sets up a nonprofit “starvation cycle.”  Creating a strategic approach to resource development and budgeting will require boards to develop an accurate administrative overhead budget. This exploration by the board will need to account for both current administrative costs and costs associated with capital investments that need to be made in such areas as human resource, technology, fiscal, that have been deferred expenses.  The resources listed below offer several good starting places for developing an accurate administrative overhead budget.  Having a realistic understanding the true agency overhead costs will help your organization develop realistic plans to align revenues with true costs.

Value your Staff:   A third component of a strategic budget process is to create a compensation system that values and rewards staff.  Much akin to the under-investing in agency overhead and infrastructure, under-investing in staff is another strategic hurdle that nonprofit agencies need to understand and overcome.  Again, conventional wisdom suggests that nonprofit employees work for intrinsic rather than extrinsic value, which translates into lower salaries and benefits.  Unfortunately, when a critical mass of nonprofit agencies operates under this assumption it creates a market that supports under-compensating staff.  On more than one occasion, I have heard a well-intentioned board member say, “Our employee pay and benefits are at the market rate.” Unfortunately the benchmark should not be “market rate” but should be oriented around the equity of a living wage and incentives that foster the recruitment and retention of high performing employees.  Again, the goal of building a compensation model is to create a resource development goal for an organization that can be supported by intentional objectives to be pursued in a priority sequence.  For example, I know of an agency that laid out a strategic agenda to sequentially develop a living wage structure, strengthen the insurance options, increase retirement contributions and add an employee assistance program and educational benefits.  The organization is supporting this strategy with a specific multi-year resource development plan focused on strengthening compensation.

Start from Zero:  For those organizations locked into program grants and contracts, many budget decisions were established when the grant or contract proposal was submitted. For those programs that have been funded over multiple funding cycles, the budgets (and ideally work scope) have expanded or contracted based on available funds. However, even if a program budget is set, it is a very productive exercise to start from zero and rebuild a program budget.  In other words, suspending the current program budget, if you were to create an ideal budget for the program services being delivered, what would that budget look like?  If staff compensation was fully loaded and the appropriate overhead was charged to the program, how much money would it really take to run the program?  Creating a zero-based budget allows you to compare where you should be (relative to the revenue and expenses) to where you actually are today.  The variances identified are the program budget gaps that are being absorbed or ignored at the peril of your agency’s fiscal health.  Creating zero budget comparisons across program areas would help bring into focus the gaps between revenues and expenses and would become the groundwork for a facilitated discussion about program priorities and where your agency is appropriately investing, over-investing and under-investing in programs that help the organization meet its social goals and objectives.

Think About Governance:  Another part of the process is to be intentional about governance.  At the most basic level, governance asks the big three questions is a) is it allowable, b) is it approved and c) is it something that will advance your mission?  In more detailed thinking about governance, your board needs to create a process to ensure that the budget process protects donor intent, appropriately allocates expenses and ensure the agency’s fiscal and legal advisors review the budget strategy for accuracy and legality.  Finally the governance component of budget planning requires attention to risk management and contingency planning, to minimize disruption of programs and services should budget projections not be met.

Taken together, these five facets of strategic budget planning suggest a staged process that includes:  a) coming to agreement on a funding model for your agency that serves as the organizer for strategy, b) being clear about the true cost of your services, c) recognizing your resource gaps, and d) creating a strategic resource development plan to address the resource gap.  It is important to recognize that re-engineering an agency’s approach to resource development will take time and the first iteration of a strategic budgeting process will likely yield two working documents.  The first document is the strategic resource development plan is a long-term (3-5 years) that defines how your agency will reshape its approach to growing revenue streams over time.  The second working document is the short-term “compromised” budget to address the coming programmatic year that juggles the anticipated expenses with your projected committed and likely revenues.  However, this initial mixed result of “the  pragmatic” and  “the strategic” will only be a temporary stage as the subsequent iterations of the strategic budget process will be oriented more and more toward the strategic goals and objectives of your plan.

What is becoming clear in the social service sector of today is that that nonprofit organizations can’t simply rely on the momentum of the past.  Strategic thinking and systems thinking need to be core competencies of the leadership and boards of nonprofit organizations.  Even as I write this blog, a new resource came through a “tweet” that made this statement, “Leaders who are determined to have their organizations thrive in these new and challenging times must reevaluate their potentially outdated ways of thinking, prioritizing, investing, and acting. (external link)”  For budget planning and the larger concept of strategic resource planning, I could not agree more.

As always your thoughts are welcome.

Resources:

• Kramer M. (Fall, 2009) Catalytic Philanthropy. Stanford Social Innovation Review
• Landes Foster, W., Kim, P., & Christiansen , B. (Spring, 2009). Ten Nonprofit Funding Models. Stanford Social Innovation Review
• Pratt J. (Summer 2004). Analyzing the Dynamics of Funding: Reliability and Autonomy. Nonprofit Quarterly
• Companion spreadsheet to Pratt Article
• Raymond S (2010) Nonprofit Finance for hard Times. John Wiley & Sones, Hoboken, NJ.
• Sussman C. (N.D.) Building Adaptive Capacity: The Quest for Improved Organizational Performance.
• Goggins &  Howard (Fall 2009) The Nonprofit Starvation Cycle. Stanford Social Innovation Review
• Urban Institute & Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University.  Fundraising and Administrative Costs Website