Sacred Cows: Battling Ourselves

Sometimes I reach out to friends in the industry and ask, “What’s running through your mind these days?” Often that’s how I end up with a blog topic. This week’s topic happened just that way. A colleague of mine had a conversation with me about how her organization seemed to be more interested in making decisions that are best for the organization and not best for the donors.

Yep, it happens. Even worse, sometimes it is very obvious the nonprofit is choosing itself versus choosing the donor. So as we compete to drive the greatest donor experience, create the best offers for our supporters and communicate to build the best relationships, sometimes our own sacred cows get in the way.

We’ve all been there or seen organizations go through these challenging times. Sometimes sacred cows are obvious, and other times they are not. But we all have them. Heck, we even have them in our personal lives. Most people prefer some type of routine. Those routines create patterns, and before long we’re all saying, “Well, that’s the way we do it.” So an organization that has some sacred cows is not a bad organization. Also, not all sacred cows are bad. But there is a time where all sacred cows need to be examined, and yes, sometimes it’s time to put them to rest.

Below is a view into the most common reasons nonprofits choose their own interests over what is best for their supporters — and, of course, some ways to think through these issues and come out with the right decision.

Programs
Whether you are a health charity, social services, arts and culture, or another mission type, we can all agree that the world has changed over the last 20 years, 10 years and in some instances five years. Science has advanced, community needs have changed, knowledge has improved and, perhaps most importantly, consumers have changed. So if you are still doing a program that you created 20, 15, 10 years ago, how do you know it’s still working? How do you know it is still meeting the need?