Three Actions to Transform the Social Impact Sector Post COVID-19
Before we begin with sharing our thoughts, we want to first extend our support to you. We are here to help in any way that we can - at absolutely no cost. We are here to be your thought partner, open-minded and creative ear, and to see how we might connect you to any of our local and nationwide thought leaders and clients for additional inspiration and support. Hello@PauseForChange.com will reach us and we will be immediately in touch.
Over the past few unsettling weeks, we have been listening and learning with and from our past and current clients and engaging with national thought leaders about what they are seeing, feeling, and needing. Three key themes have emerged from these conversations that will not only serve communities in crisis but will hopefully last long after the virus has disappeared.
1. Shift from an EGOsystem to an ECOsystem
This verbiage from Exponent Philanthropy CEO Henry Berman truly captures what we see hold communities back and what we want to move toward. What we need to harness right now is collective leadership and collective power. We know now more than ever that we are globally connected and we live (or die) within tightly connected community ecosystems. Ego-driven solutions and ego-driven leadership do not serve ecosystems and limit their power.
We have been inspired to see communities that shift away from focusing on who “owns the change” to how they can share power and unite in a shared voice. What this looks like in practice includes:
Organizations and funders joining together to conduct one short and simple nonprofit survey to better understand and prioritize community needs
Funders joining together with their network of other funders to purchase massive quantities of supplies and to streamline rapid giving by using one joint grant application and communicating about who will fund which needs to avoid over duplication
Nonprofits that do very similar work partnering to address different aspects of their shared challenges
Nonprofits and other community organizations identifying how they can share unused resources with one another
Funders breaking down the barriers between themselves and nonprofits they support by having frequent, honest, and empathetic conversations that lead to immediate support
Ecosystems now have the opportunity to transform and accelerate progress. The time is now to engage with others in your ecosystem and prioritize rapid relationship building, increased trust, and enhanced communication. When your ecosystem shares collective power, it increases the power of the impact you create.
2. Rethink resources and value
As organizations heartbreakingly hemorrhage funds, caused by cancelled annual events, disappearing earned revenue, or dwindling donations, communities can look beyond cash to examine what other resources they can access and share.
Communities are not just looking at financial resources, but every organization is examining the non-financial resources they have. We are hearing about organizations that are:
Utilizing unused space used to accept and disseminate large supply deliveries
Providing space to house community members who were evicted from hotels and are now staying at summer camp facilities
Deploying volunteers and employees to use their own vehicles, and freeing up unused vans and other transport vehicles, to deliver supplies to homes and to other organizations
Sharing staff across departments and across organizations to lead programs and efforts, many showing their absolute professionalism and adaptability as they perform roles that are very different than their traditional duties
Opening relationships and seeking expertise from diverse community leaders to help more hidden community members currently experiencing refugee and/or undocumented status and unsheltered homelessness
In addition to creatively shifting to abundance thinking around all potential resources, now is also an opportunity to shift thinking around the value of diverse and smaller organizations. Every community has a few or several large and powerful organizations that often drive the nonprofit agenda and have more financial resources than many of the other smaller organizations. Beyond considering cash as the most important resource, rethink size of organization as an indicator of power or value. Often organizations that are small and that have lower budgets are seen as less valuable and their leaders as less important, which often leads to less engagement and lower philanthropic investment. Overlooking these organizations is one of the easiest ways to weaken your communities’ collective power. These smaller organizations have unique and diverse ties to the community, they have some of the most visionary and creative leaders, and their contributions to the fabric of each community, while often get less “air time”, are absolutely essential. These are key considerations when emergency funding is being disseminated and when communities activate their authentic and thriving ecosystem of support.
3. Now is the time to experiment
We cannot think of a better time to experiment than right now. What a crisis does is it illuminates the current human-made policies, practices, and procedures of how we help and carry out our missions. Just as the status quo has been thrown out the window, now is the absolute best time to try something new and untether from your “usual practices”.
We have seen impressive and inspiring examples of how funders and nonprofits are shifting their usual practices to activate what many admit have been ideas on the backburner, or were inspiring potential opportunities that they have lacked the courage and prioritization to pursue. We are seeing:
Funders join together to create one grant application for all organizations to request funding. Many are seeing how streamlined it is and are considering continuing this practice post-COVID.
Foundation boards are bypassing their usual decision-making pathways to empower the Foundation CEO or Executive Director to make direct funding decisions.
Funders are extending funding for an additional year without reapplication while others are making across the board $15-$20,000 gifts to their existing grantees, regardless of budget size and with minimal paperwork.
Nonprofits are rapidly testing program ideas to serve new populations of people in need and improve the efficiency and effectiveness of their current services.
Nonprofits are leaving their offices and waiting rooms and creating service hubs that go directly to neighborhoods to provide essential services.
Foundation board trustees are showing up in new ways and feeling more connected to their giving as they make rapid decisions and see the immediate impact of their increased giving.
Funders are rethinking the 5% minimum distribution as the floor and not the ceiling of their giving, and more Donor Advised Funds are being released by individual donors.
Organizations are using experimentation to break down the silos that used to divide departments and organizations to try new approaches. There is no better time than right now to:
Form cross-functional and diverse staff teams that include managers/leaders with front line staff
Use these teams to brainstorm and explore dream and back burner potential solutions
Rapidly deploy quick and small tests of new approaches and look for evidence of impact or lack thereof
Share what is working AND what’s not with your staff and other sector professionals so that we can elevate and maximize collective learning to reach impact more quickly
While these are unprecedented and extremely difficult times, these are also the most inspiring and motivating times for change and action. We must take advantage of this opportunity to harness this level of unprecedented uncertainty by:
Uniting to drive collective impact
Rethinking and reallocating resources
Breaking free of how we used to work and exploring new opportunities to streamline impact
While our journey to a new normal is just beginning, we can utilize these strategies to guide our work and bolster our ability to weather the untold struggles to come. This is the time that the social impact sector can truly shine and show the world the power and impact of our role in communities as we change the lives of those most in need each and every day.
Just as we shared before this post began, we are here to support you. We are here to help in any way that we can - at absolutely no cost. We are here to be your thought partner, open-minded and creative ear, and to see how we might connect you to any of our local and nationwide thought leaders and clients for additional inspiration and support. Hello@PauseForChange.com will reach us and we will be immediately in touch.