Organizational Growth: Taking Your Nonprofit to the Next Level

If you make the choice to become “a program of one,” you can expect it will absolutely impact your vision and desire for growth. Nobody said the growth wouldn’t be respectful to donors. Just different.

4. The mix of talent, employees and skill set. This one is very hard and cuts against our compassion and hearts, which brought us all to this world in the first place. But we have to acknowledge that there may be a time in which the team you start with, no matter how good the members were at being a small nonprofit and how much they know about your organization, does not translate into the next generation of leadership.

It’s uncomfortable just hearing it and no need to elaborate. It is why we train, offer conference opportunities and hope the people we value the most elevate with us. Good visionaries and blockers make every opportunity available for that to happen. But if there is a time that comes in which those difficult and painful changes aren’t made, it either falls to one or two to carry it all, or the vision falls short.

If any of this sounds familiar to you, and you and your organization find yourselves stuck at any of these points, you know how frustrating it can be. The beauty of growth and change is you never know what role you may serve, so whatever presents itself — if you remember first and foremost to serve your mission — the rest is easy.

Good luck! There is a whole world of need out there waiting for the next big nonprofit. Hope it’s one you work for!

Jo Sullivan is executive director at Save the Chimps and a member of the FundRaising Success Editorial Advisory Board. Reach her at josullivan@hotmail.com