Most editions include sections from one of two longer articles I'm writing.  Why Organizations Thrive  and Why Organizations Go Off Course detail lessons I learned while growing the Oregon League of Conservation Voters (OLCV), buttressed by my observations of dozens of other groups both in Oregon and across the country.

Collectively, I believe these lessons are a very useful set of principles that any Executive Director can use to improve their organization's capacity to fulfill its mission.

Why Organizations Go off Course Lesson Six is: Don't rehash past decisions.

Organizations that develop a culture of continually reopening decisions that were previously made almost never thrive.

This may seem like a no-brainer to many, yet I've seen it crop up time and time again in my interactions with nonprofit organizations over the last two decades. I've seen boards revisit big-picture strategies and one-time tactics. I've seen organizations make a fundraising decision at one meeting and then seemingly have the same fundraising conversation two meetings later. No topic seems off-limit to this failure.

Two questions come to mind:

Why is this damaging? And how can you develop a culture and set of practices to minimize the risk to your nonprofit?