From Your HSC

"BRIGHT IDEAS!"

2012 Annual Meeting

Prince George's Ballroom

2411 Pinebrook Avenue

Landover, MD 20785

9:30 AM - 1:30 PM

June 13, 2012

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Greetings! 

Grappling with Growing Pains!

"You have to do your own growing no matter how tall your grandfather was."  -- Abraham Lincoln

Marti Worshtil with NBC4's Pat Lawson Muse

 As the founding executive director of a 21 year old nonprofit based here in Prince George's County, I think I am qualified to talk about life stages of a nonprofit.

The Prince George's Child Resource Center has hit them all -- good, bad and ugly! We rode the waves of the robust economic times and downsized, albeit reluctantly, when needed. Combine that roller coaster with the typical organizational stages of growth and maturity, and I can truly say that the Resource Center is now leaner and better able to deal with change. But, it hasn't always been easy.

Executive Directors, especially founders, often resist change. We all get comfortable with our successes. I think that the one thing this volatile economy has taught all of us is that change is just around the corner. So how do we embrace change and move to the next stage of organizational development gracefully instead of dreading it? One thing that may help is understanding that change is inevitable. Unless your nonprofit is still in its first three years of operation, you know - the honeymoon is over. Funders know you, the community is relying on you and you are no longer the newest flavor of the week.

Now is the time to solidify your reputation and build your infrastructure. Is your strategic plan current? Is it sitting on a shelf or used consistently by board and staff members? I don't know anyone that enjoys the process, except maybe the consultants we hire, but a solid strategic plan is worth its weight in gold. All my strategic plans talked about our need to increase outreach and awareness of our services in the community. As a direct result, we applied for and received several awards that built our self-esteem, our community image and our service capacity. We found it was harder for funders to reduce support for the "Nonprofit of the Year."

Growing up can be grappled with or it can be embraced. New and expanding programs keep leadership and staff from becoming bored, expand the community we serve and present new and exciting challenges. With a positive attitude we can lead our organizations through these growing pains with energy and enthusiasm.

Stages of A Nonprofit Organization's Development

by Anne Hays Egan  

Many nonprofit organizations go through predictable life cycles. Like other living organisms, they start live, grow, develop into adulthood and mature. For each stage in the life cycle, there are certain challenges, successes and developmental issues. This article is a short overview of organizational life cycles.
 

Start Up
 A group of volunteers has a vision and a passion, and develop a project. This model is called "Founding Board." The work is done by volunteers. Volunteers do the program work, and many of the same volunteers govern the organization by serving on the board. This can become confusing, especially as the organization starts to grow, and core volunteers become stretched by the combined workload of program activity and board service. Critical to early success is the

vision of the founding group, and the power of that small core to both carry the work and invite others to become involved. Usually, after a year, or two (or more), the founding group will become tired and burned out, and it will find it cannot sustain the work or the momentum. If the organization is to be successful, it needs to expand the level of support for its project work so that it can hire staff. The organization needs to build a few core sources of financial support. 

Or, the charismatic leader builds the organization. The work develops because of the way the founding leader articulates the mission, describes the program, and draws others because of the power of the leader's personality. This model of development is called "Founding Leader" or "Founding ED." The program is often strong and to the community and funders. They are sometimes less skilled at organization building and developing systems. Founders can compelling, and the founding leader is able to draw funding and other support to the program. Most founding leaders are exceptionally gifted at building the programs, articulating the case serve from a few years to decades. Organizations will usually hit a crisis point where a certain level of structure is needed, and the organization has outgrown its earlier framework. If the organization is to be successful, it will look at its paid and volunteer leadership, analyze the structure, and make changes that might be required in order for the organization to continue to grow.

Organization Building 

As an organization builds, the staff is going through a change process similar to the board's. Whether the organization is working with its first, second or even third Executive Director, there are a few key developmental challenges. Programs have developed and are usually strong. However, funding at this point is often a challenge, and many organizations find that their program growth has outstripped the budget. The ED must manage the budget, with the board's oversight; and the ED and Board Chair need to focus on building board fund raising capacity to bring in new revenue that will diversity the budget. This can be a challenging dance. The ED is working to build and manage programs, which often means developing a staff. Nonprofits nationally struggle to pay competitive salaries, and often face high turnover rates. The ED and staff usually find that they are working many long hours to handle the different programmatic and administrative tasks. Critical to short and long term success will be the ability to outline goals, define tasks. Identify responsible parties, and prioritize the workload. Here, organizations learn the skills of deferring much needed projects and activities, and saying "no" and "not now."
 

Successful organization building results in an effective, well focused policy board; strong board leadership; successful fund raising activities that include board, staff and volunteers; strong ED leadership; a skilled staff, effectively managing programs; a diversified budget with some cash reserves; and good planning that guides decision making and anticipates areas of concern.
 

Organizational Maturity