The Life of a Nonprofit

[amenirdis]

I thought now might be a good time to share some observations about the life cycles of nonprofits from the perspective of someone who spent fifteen years working in nonprofits large and small, including three years' work for a "troubleshooter", a consultant hired to help small nonprofits with their crises

Comments

[bwinter]

You know, that sounds interesting from a business perspective. A business usually gets through the first crisis by either remaining a sole proprietorship with an assistant or three, or having outside guidance (also known as debts to repay...). The second, I think, is more connected to the rigid framework/professionalism than paid employment. We're dealing with that in my department currently - it used to work on an everyone-knows-everyone basis with 100-150 people, but with staff changes and 400+ this is not feasible anymore!

[amenirdis]

It's a lot like business -- something that many people involved with nonprofits look down on. After all, business school is the "soft option" for people who aren't smart enough for academic subjects! Learning anything about business or management puts you in an inferior position, just a paper pusher rather than someone with brilliant ideas! But it's a lot like the transitions from small family business to medium sized business, for many of the same reasons

[bwinter]

business school is the "soft option" for people who aren't smart enough for academic subjects

...and sometimes, I love living in a post-communist country where everyone had to learn business all of a sudden 21 years ago, and knows exactly how fun that is. Balcerowicz's our national hero, and that means economists and businesspeople are respected.

We took over several teams from competitors, and oh, it's a shock. I'm talking about things Everyone Knows, like that lady in admin who knows everything, or a support team we've had for years who format documents for us, and the new people are clueless. They had induction courses, but courses don't cover how the company actually works!

[amenirdis]

The Republican reverse, of course, is that everything should be run on a business model. Kids should get the education their parents can pay for. Roads should be built where private businesses want them. People who can't pay shouldn't see doctors.

But the left's counter is that business is really rather lower class! Thinking people are artists or academics and never soil their hands with filthy money! And of course never think about how to actually execute a plan, rather than simply think of it!

Also, of course, throwing out the rules. I'm all for throwing out rules that don't work, but we love to throw out all the rules and then reinvent the wheel by discovering that there was a reason those policies and rules existed. They do something valuable or they safeguard against something catastrophic.

[amenirdis]

Well, I'm talking about mainly academics in the salient case! :)

The root of the problem may be people who consider themselves too smart to need experience and too smart to need the rules. After all, surely the wheel we invent will be better than the old wheel! Only there are reasons why other people abandoned using a square wheel, and it might be instructive to learn them....