My friend and colleague Laura Manning, Executive Director of
the Lyle S. Hallman Foundation recently tweeted a comment that jump started me:
“How do you know where the edge of your capacity is if you never fail?” Innovation always entails risk, but as so
many nonprofits have learned, selling risk in today’s environment is very
tricky. Funders want innovation, but
frequently the solution to failure (or to the inevitable short term fall off of
regular funds that can happen during the development phase) is that
organizations cut back to “live within their means.” Since so many organizations have been cash
starved for years, cutbacks to find room for innovation can mean that core
services are dropped and people aren’t served.
As services drop off, funding becomes harder to get. It is not an environment conducive to risk or
innovation. It is rather like suggesting
someone who is homeless should go to college and cut back on food to afford it;
nonprofits have their noses pressed against the window and can see what’s
inside the store, but they can’t possibly afford to buy.
Our current nonprofit models are being disrupted by social
finance and social enterprise, but concrete living examples are in short supply. We have a long way to go to have our
nonprofit “corporate culture” and funding models catch up with this
vision. As my grandmother would say: our
eyes are bigger than our stomach.
In the short term, we need more leaders and funders of direct
service nonprofits to start talking about fostering a culture where dreams are
not only possible, but encouraged. Front
line social workers have known for years that clients who tell us that they can
no longer dream of a better future are unlikely to ever have one. Why would we think nonprofits are
different?
To some degree, we need a leap of faith, a sort of “if you
build it, they will come” mantra to help us imagine a world where we might grow
rather than incrementally creep along. A
world where the outcomes really will matter more than how many paper clips we
bought. And yes, a world where you truly
go big or go home and are prepared to innovate to the edge of your
capacity.
