Kevin Essington

Plastrik, Taylor, and Cleveland in their book “Connecting to Change the World” describe the value of networks and network-building in affecting social and environmental change. In it they suggest “Three Rules to Live By:”

1. Trust the network,
2. Serve the network, but don’t wait for it, and
3. Embrace vertigo.

In 2024 I helped launch a state-wide network of groups that are adding nature to urban sites in several small, post-industrial cities: Bloom Rhode Island. Plastrik et al.’s advice served as a touchstone for me. Access to their wisdom felt like a “life hack!”

In building the Bloom Rhode Island Network, we recognized that “embracing vertigo” is a brave principle in striking the balance between network order and chaos. We managed that balance through a “fail fast, succeed sooner” approach (as Peter Manzo describes in his 2008 Stanford Social Innovation Review piece).  In Bloom Rhode Island’s initial year in 2024 we prioritized action over analysis. I lead a lot of strategic planning projects, and I do a bit of theory-crafting around it. That is a cerebral practice, so it was exciting to lead with action in creating Bloom Rhode Island.

Based on our experience I would add a fourth rule to the excellent three listed above:

4. Hypothesize and test often.

Our actions in launching Bloom Rhode Island were designed to test a hypothesis: that urban “greening” groups could grow their capacity through participating in a network. We tested that hypothesis through grant making, building personal and professional connections between groups, and hosting a lot of discussions about capacity needs. We constantly asked questions. We did this within the “node” of this nascent network while doing the work. It required doing, learning, then thinking. 

Here are some suggestions for using a “Hypothesize and test often” approach in building your network.

1. State your hypothesis: Be clear about what you are testing before you build your network. Be clear about the “value add” that you think the network will create. This will, at a minimum, ensure that you do your work in a spirit of inquiry.
2. Plan for self-assessment: Build in multiple, almost constant opportunities for feedback from the network. What is helpful to them? What is missing?
3. Push the “null” hypothesis: Probe hard for the answer that your hypothesis is “wrong.” This will help reduce confirmation bias and help you recognize where the network does, and does not, have utility.

If you are wondering, we found that Bloom Rhode Island did indeed add value to the network we created. Initially, we rarely mentioned to our colleagues that we were building anything. We made some grants, gave away some planting materials, guided some organizational development projects, and hosted several meetings. We talked to partners, we visited dozens of sites, and we connected groups who needed something with another group who could offer it. Now after a year, participants are, unprompted, describing their enthusiasm for this network. They are suggesting ways to grow it next year. They are asking for more opportunities to connect with each other. They are making plans to do more with their work and their projects in 2025. In short, we grew their capacity! 

Perhaps the best measure of success for this new network is the results on the ground: 

– 50 new urban nature projects arose in six cities, 
– Hundreds of volunteers (including dozens of young students) contributed to their community,
– Thousands of people are now within a ten-minute walk of a joyful new natural site, and
– Hundreds of thousands of dollars went into the local economy.

Networks really can drive change! Just use the three rules listed above, and consider my humble suggestion for a fourth. Check out Plastrik, Taylor, and Cleveland’s website to learn more and share your stories with me about what has worked for you.

Last week I was excited, and a little nervous, to present at the Land Trust Alliance’s 2024 Rally, the national land conservation conference. I have attended six Rallies, and they are professional, inspiring, and fun! I have learned so much from experienced professionals at Rally over the years, could I rise to the challenge in sharing my ideas about “Impact Cycles?”

The 25 folks that hung around until the last of six sessions to join me had a lot of fun and a lot of insights into the value of using cycles for designing our work. I have taken Jim Collins’ brilliant “Flywheel Effect” from the Good to Great book series, and centered impact as a way to grow, build momentum, evolve, and increase your impact over time.

I am glad to share my hand-out from the session, below. I would love to talk with you about how this might be useful for you, and how you might improve the presentation or thinking. Thanks to the great folks at the Land Trust Alliance for the opportunity to share this model, and to get some insights into it, and thanks to the folks who joined my workshop to learn and share!

Download the “Impact Cycle” handout here.

I have worked with several nonprofit organizations to create a new strategic framework since I started my practice a year ago, and part of my work includes reviews of peer organizations’ financial information and strategic direction. I have reviewed the goals and impact of about 25 United States-based nonprofit organizations in this time, and I am struck by one goal or strategy that appears in about a third of the organizations’ goals: financial sustainability.

Here are some examples of this:

• Secure stable and robust funding

• Build a sustainable and enduring organization

• Improve the [organization] by increasing and diversifying funding

I wonder what value there is in creating a financial sustainability goal, making it public, or in making it so vague? Unless you recently went through a multi-year period of running operating deficits without delivering impact, creating a goal that says “We will be financially sustainable” is just a throw-away line.

Imagine if these strategic frameworks also included goals of “We will serve our community” or “We will use volunteers.” Most staff, board, or funders would wonder whether the framework was strategic at all.

Board members and donors often believe financial “sustainability” is paramount, though, so we see it again and again. I wonder whether this helps any organization grow, evolve, or serve their mission, for several reasons.

1) “Financial sustainability” will not inspire anyone to join you in meeting this goal, or any of your goals. Donors and policy makers support “winners” who can demonstrate impact, who get things done. Goals to essentially “survive” look tame compared to growth and evolution. Instead of “stability”, project growth in your impact.

2) Stating “We will become stable, financially” is wishcasting. How will you do this? Financial goals like this imply the staff and board will simply run harder, faster, and longer. Instead, be specific. Are you shifting to a major donor funding model? Will you build an endowment? Build out your earned income? Launch a campaign? Be specific here, add metrics or measures, and explain why it is important.

3) Financial strength is not a measure of impact. There are plenty of nonprofit organizations with generous endowments and boards, who have a very narrow view of their role, their mission, and who they serve. Instead of assuming that financial stability is some measure of your impact, start with your impact and model how it will generate momentum in your organization, using the Jim Collins-inspired “Impact Cycle.”

4) Sustainability does not always have to be a goal for your organization. Which is more important, solving the problem you were created to solve, or existing forever? The community problems that we face, need urgent attention and investment now. The fixation on “perpetuity” or “sustainability” is a reflection of how so many funders and foundations operate: doling out 5% of their assets annually instead of pushing their funding out now to immediate effect. Vu Le and others write brilliantly about this showing how it leaves resources on the sidelines while communities and the planet face crises now.  Be clear about why financial sustainability is critical to achieving your mission.

So, the next time you are creating a strategic framework for your organization and a board member or staff leader pushes for “financial sustainability,” take advantage of it! Carve out time or a small team to clarify this idea. Why is sustainability important? What would success look like? How does it fit into an “Impact Cycle” if at all? Instead of a financial sustainability goal, do you need a business, development, or campaign plan? 

Running and growing a nonprofit organization is hard, and money helps drive impact and get more things done. So, treat it seriously in your next strategic planning process and go beyond wishcasting and dig into thoughtful business development instead!

Nonprofits need clear and inspiring strategic direction to motivate community, donors, staff, board, and decision makers. But what if that is not enough? What if clear outcomes, strategies, measures, and tactics move most of the team forward, but not everyone?

Building a successful nonprofit initiative or program takes time, perseverance, optimism, and hustle. With success comes reassuring momentum and progress (see: the Flywheel or Impact Cycle). That success may not propel the entire organization, but on its own it is a great place to be. So, why get behind new directions, ideas, or goals?

John Kotter’s “Change Management” courses and books tell a story that repeats after every organization’s strategic realignment: the story of team members who refuse to join their colleagues in pursuing new goals. These colleagues might display aggressive or passive-aggressive behavior to their colleagues, “quiet quit,” or undercut ideas to donors or board members. In short, they will defend their “turf” threatened by new directions or investments.

Kotter studied successful change initiatives of all kinds and in all kinds of sectors. His research informed his books and now a thoughtful institute and source of knowledge at https://www.kotterinc.com/  

Kotter’s approach is a good one, below are his often used Eight-Step Process for leading change:

For nonprofits to evolve, grow, and achieve their mission, new directions are sometimes necessary even if teams or individuals refuse to adapt. How can Kotter’s model be useful? I have helped lead change management processes using Kotter’s model, and I want to suggest these nonprofit-oriented interpretations of Kotter’s Eight Steps:

1) Create a Sense of Urgency: Assuming your organization is not in a financial crisis, lean into the challenge presented by your mission, and the need to address it, now. Unilike for-profit entities, your mission is truly who you are. Banish the scarcity mindset and demand excellence in the face of your mission.

2)  Build a Guiding Coalition: Create a small (three to five) team of creative, questioning, knowledgeable, solution-oriented colleagues to lead the next couple of steps, especially. I recommend the Executive Director/CEO be excluded from this team and that members cede authority within the group. 

3) Form a Strategic Vision: Led by the guiding coalition, think of this as a strategic planning process, creating TIMER (Time-bound, Inspirational, Measurable, External, and Realistic) goals and a “Flywheel Model” or “Impact Cycle.” You may want a good facilitator or strategic planning partner for this step.

4) Enlist A Volunteer Army: Assign a “captain” to each strategy in the strategic vision. This will expand the guiding coalition by giving responsibility to people, conditioned on driving the change outlined in the vision. Then use adaptive management principles to adapt your work. This will grow the coalition even further by showing that the organization is listening and learning to feedback..

5) Enable Action By Removing Barriers: Update your systems to reflect the new strategic vision, especially performance management. Creating and aligning performance management practices with the strategic vision will “bend the curve” towards change even among the reluctant. 

6) Generate Short Term Wins: A good strategic vision or plan will include measures of progress that move you towards your bigger, longer-term strategic goals. When you move the needle on those measures, celebrate! Your annual report is a perfect place to reinforce these wins, internally and externally.

7) Sustain Acceleration: Your readiness for a fundraising or “capital” campaign may vary, but this may be the perfect moment for a fundraising campaign to enter its public phase. Asking the public to help you close out (or blow out!) your fundraising goal will drive impact, growth, and change. Alternatively, this may be a good time to launch the quiet phase of your campaign, motivating key donors and staff.

8) Institute Change: Change typically involves staff and board turnover, so to institute change for the long-term at your nonprofit, focus on succession planning and board recruitment to ensure that new colleagues and leaders align with the new culture and strategic vision.

I hope this helps you think of how you should think of growth and evolution at your nonprofit. What have you found to be a challenge, or a help, in driving positive change, adaptation, and growth at your organization?

I am quick to tell non-profit friends, colleagues, and clients that they need to be clear about their outcomes, as described in this blog post and this YouTube video:

Remember, you, your team, and your supporters need to know WHY you are doing your work, running your programs, pursuing your strategies. And the core element of WHY is “what problems are you trying to solve.”

Perhaps answering that question is easy. Maybe the challenge is front page news. In this part of the country, the skyrocketing cost of housing is on everyone’s mind, so housing non-profits have an easy-to-understand WHY at the ready. In other parts, where capital has left whole regions, economic development and reducing the effects of widespread poverty are the obvious WHY for your work.

But most non-profits are solving problems that do not make it on the evening news or front page of the newspaper. Environmental non-profits, which make up less than 5% of the United States’ charities, often struggle with this. Because people’s livelihoods may not be central to your mission, and because the science behind your work is hard to deliver in a sound bite, creating your WHY might take some work.

That is why I recommend that non-profits take some time to model the environmental and socioeconomic systems they are working in. Modeling these systems will help your team build a shared understanding of “what is going on.” And when you are in agreement about this, you can discuss what potential outcome-oriented goals will solve multiple problems.

Here are five things you should consider in modeling the systems you operate in, and in using them to build your WHY (i.e. outcome-oriented goals): 

1. Box and arrow diagrams are your friend.
   Systems function in all sorts of ways: linearly, networked, cyclical, etc. Map these cause and effect relationships with simple box and arrow diagrams. We recommend large PostIt notes or other two dimensional techniques you can do together on a large blank wall.
2. Start with your target systems and work “backwards.”
   Once you are clear on what your target systems are, put them on the right of a linear diagram and work backwards to the left. Start with measurable attributes of the system that are doing poorly and then add human or other factors that are contributing to that attribute’s condition. Remember, this is a cause and effect model, one thing leads to another which leads to another. Also, there can be multiple relationships between effects.
3. The content of the diagrams is more important than the architecture.
   Be happy to get as much content as possible into your model at first, and worry less about how it relates or functions. This helps create a “brainstorming” environment where everyone can contribute and unexpected knowledge can surface. You can refine the relationships in the model later using online tools such as Figjam, LucidSpark, or Foundation of Success’ Miradi.
4. Is there consensus about your model?
   A team of about a dozen content experts from your organization, board, partners, or universities is a good size to create these models. Once drafted, how do people feel about it? Does it represent their view of the system you are working in? What is missing? Who else might be able to review it to “check your work?”
5. Are there “pressure points” in the model that can inform your WHY?
   Once you have consensus on your models, what elements of them are obvious places for you to have impact in a way that furthers your mission. Are there root causes you can address that reduce multiple issues down the causal chain? Is there a central “threat” that is impacting multiple attributes of the target system? Is it best just to measure the improvement of one or two attributes and then develop “killer app” strategies that will make a difference there? This is an art, but it is also fun! 

This is a picture of a modelling discussion I facilitated this week. It may look messy but after discussion, graphical refinement, and a little polishing, this exercise will reveal the top issues for you to further analyze.

You and your team may feel like you understand what is happening where you work. But taking the time to map it out together can illuminate biases, opportunities, or unexpected challenges. Several hours spent on this can double your impact over several years, an incredible return on investment by any measure. Email us to learn more or to discuss how we can help you!

Your non-profit, no matter the size, runs on an important currency: information. Yet, interviews with staff and volunteers in almost every organization reveal a discontent with the way information is, or is not, shared. Even relatively open and transparent organizations have blind spots, secrets, hidden agendas, and personal biases that mean that not all information is shared equally with everyone. That invariably leads to team members feeling left-out, underused, and undervalued. 

We could chalk this dynamic up to human nature, an unavoidable consequence of placing a group of humans into an organization. If knowledge is power, assembling people together means they will automatically create relationships that lead to imbalances of power. But this is a passive reaction, and it might reduce your organization’s ability to reach its potential.

Almost every leader and organization thinks of “information sharing” as the movement of packets, like managing electronic files. Instead, we need to think of information as a process, and our organizations as self-organizing systems of information. Margaret Wheatley writes, “One of an organization’s most critical competencies is to create the conditions that both generate new knowledge and help it to be freely shared.” She uses the metaphor of the human body to think about information; we replace our brain cells every 12 months, and yet our memories (largely!) persist.  

Even the top-down networks of the U.S. Army and U.S. Marine Corps have evolved to allow information to move “horizontally” within and between units. Ray Dalio reveals how at Bridgewater Associates, “radical transparency” means they go so far as to record every meeting between every employee and make the recordings available to every other employee. Bridgewater became the largest and most successful (measured in profit for its investors) hedge fund in the world. How would you act, speak, and interact with your colleagues if everyone knew what you said?

What can you do in your organization to facilitate an open, dynamic, network of energy that allows information to generate and flow in organic ways? How can you create a culture that dispels older models of rigid information flows? How about weekly all-staff meetings with your executive director or CEO? How about “office hours” for top leaders, where anyone can stop in and share (and generate) information? Would a monthly all-staff email about wins (and losses) help? The time you put into building a network that shares information will prove returns of creativity, innovation, and strategic discipline.

At the start of each year, personal finance experts remind us of some resolutions we can make for a sounder financial life: calculate your taxes early, reduce your debt, and build an emergency fund. It is important to have that emergency fund and to budget for those unexpected problems that modern life might throw at you. Your roof could leak, your car’s “check engine” light could activate, or you could break a finger at pick-up basketball. 

Well-run non-profit organizations avoid bad financial surprises (more on that another day). But even well-run organizations can be ill-equipped to handle the inverse situation: assessing and acting on an exciting new opportunity that you had not budgeted for. Few businesses are as regularly tested by “market” opportunities as non-profits. When you exist not to return value to owners, but to serve the community, the way you serve your community is constantly evolving. New funds, new partners, and new elected officials are common changes that require your non-profit to pivot, sometimes multiple times each year.

As a leader, these are exciting! In my leadership roles, these were the moments that would motivate me to do more, and to “level up” my impact. Unfortunately, the resource-constrained environment of non-profits makes these moments critical decision points.

Each opportunity is a calculus of community impact, new funding, public profile, unbudgeted expenses, overstretched staff, and the squishiest problem of all: possible mission creep. How will you run this calculation?

If you have already created an outcome-oriented strategic plan, your calculations will be grounded and avoid the fuzzy math of navigating vague, vision-like goals. For example, if your strategic plan is designed in part around a goal of “reducing overdoses in Springdale by 10% in the next five years” the new partnership with an expanded health-care company will be easier to assess than a goal of “reduce or eliminate overdoses.”

I have seen hundreds of strategic plans and, by my estimate, only about 25% of them are based on measurable outcomes. The other 75% have a “we will figure out what this means later” approach. 

A good strategic plan is the basis for ongoing decision making. It is a point of reference that your team organizes their work around on a weekly and monthly basis. A bad strategic plan outlines a to-do list, or vague goals, neither of which guides you when opportunities arise.

What about you, do you have clear community-oriented outcomes for your work? If you do, you are most of the way towards good strategic discipline!

Is the direction of your work top-down, bottom-up, or…side-to-side? Bottom-up social impact spreads from the ideas, needs, wants, and often the organization of you and your neighbors. Perhaps you have banded together, or partnered with a community group. Your needs were clear, and highly motivating. Perhaps a local oil refinery’s toxic releases have led to illness and death, making its actions impossible to ignore. Together with your neighbors you sought out help, perhaps from professionals, and took action. 

Top-down social impact spreads from the science, data, and policy gaps that professionals identified in your community, region, or state. They partnered with other professionals to build a coalition to introduce legislation, apply for government funding, or coordinate activities. The needs were scientifically-supported after years of research and peer review. Perhaps particulate matter and asthma rates were definitively linked and tree canopy investments were clinically proven to reduce PM levels. Together, the professionals reached out to local communities for help with projects or political campaigns, and took action.

Side-to-side social impact operates both from the “bottom” and the “top.” In this power dynamic, the communities and the professionals find a shared problem that they all agree to act together on. The communities organized themselves over a clear, close-to-home issue (toxic practices from a fossil fuel plant), the professionals identified consensus on a scientifically proven problem (particulate matter in treeless neighborhoods leads to asthma). Together they shared their experiences, knowledge, problems, and ideas for solutions. They found opportunity for action in this space, and combined their skills to act together and improve the neighborhood.

Top-down and bottom-up are common power dynamics. Side-to-side is rare. Why is that? Are the professionals uncaring or uninterested? Are the communities unread or unsophisticated? Perhaps this is a rare issue because of generations of racial and class segregation. When scientists and professionals live in neighborhoods with other scientists and professionals, they lack the personal networks that engender trust in communities that need investments. When working class people only know other people who need to hustle daily to pay their rent and buy groceries, they lack the personal networks of people who can afford expensive and specialized educations. 

How can we start to dissolve those barriers, and promote side-to-side power dynamics that would support effective, long-term improvements in the lives of all communities? Desegregation of expertise is one solution. If relocating people is too much to ask (it is), could we mix it socially? Could a professional find a working-class park or garden and volunteer there regularly? Could a working-class resident be paid to attend meetings among professional partnerships? Both? More?

What about you, can you work side-to-side in your community to have more, and more equitable, impact?

So many community-based non-profits are staffed by hard working, brilliant, dedicated, white folks. These non-profits deliver services and improve lives for millions of people each year. Without these teams, lives would be poorer off. 

Working in these communities, equity is a central topic. When the community you serve is from around the world, with a diversity of skills, education levels, and incomes, it becomes a mirror to reflect upon who and what a non-profit is. Inclusion and representation are obvious places to self-investigate whether a non-profit welcomes all people, experiences, and ideas. But biases, structures, stereotypes, power, and culture are difficult to diagnose. These “invisible” inequities can be the root cause of some unwillingly insensitive actions. Addressing these symptoms of inequity demands honest, and sometimes difficult, self-analysis.

Recognizing and calling out the inequities in a non-profit organization is a vital, sometimes momentous, step. But it is only half of the journey. Putting new principles into practice, or praxis, is the often-unfinished work that holds many groups back. Equity praxis may evolve more fully at a non-profit that adopts these principles:

• Radical Transparency: no secrets, ever,
• Regular Reflection: annual to daily review of progress towards equity goals,
• Right People Only: ruthless retention and recruitment of the “right people” to staff and board, and
• Revenue Stewardship: tell every donor stories of equity praxis changing lives in your community .

Enter this practice with a sense of humility in staff and board leadership. Project a sense of joy and excitement about the learning and discovery you are embarking on. Seek new donors who share your enthusiasm. And accept that you will fail, learn, and go again, every day, as you build equity praxis throughout your work. 

The non-profit sector in America is massive, by any measure. In 2021 there were 1.54 million non-profit organizations, with total revenues exceeding $2.62 trillion. And this list excludes universities which would add another $900 billion. As with household wealth, or donor lists, we can think of America’s nonprofit organizations as a pyramid:

Many of the national non-profit organizations in the top tier are household names: the Mayo Clinic, Easter Seals, The Nature Conservancy, and the American Red Cross. Many of them use fees, reimbursements, and contracts to sustain them, but the thing that keeps them elevated is their connection to high net worth individuals who can make transformational gifts.. 

What does it mean to operate a local or neighborhood non-profit in this environment? How can an all-volunteer organization or a group with a handful of paid staff power their flywheel of success when others are talking to, and securing gifts from, extremely high net worth individuals?  How can a group, organized in a low-wealth setting, break out of its local financial constraints?

I wonder about the value of mergers among nonprofit organizations, as a way to scale and to present a “bigger” success story to potential donors. Donors give to “winners” and donors typically define winners as, rightly or wrongly, those with the most money and impact. Many local and neighborhood nonprofit organizations also work in communities of color but are not lead by people of color. Can a merger elevate people of color into new leadership positions? Donors may prefer to give to an organization that is authentic about its commitment to anti-racism. Mergers might also make an organization more efficient, centralizing services such as accounting or IT.

I also wonder about adding in funding arrangements into partnerships with large nonprofit organizations? They cannot usually be as responsive to local and community needs, and they require other nonprofits to fill that blind spot for them. Partnerships between large and small nonprofits without financial support in return perpetuates the imbalance between wealthy and other organizations. Or could those arrangements be another form or merger?

Finally, as a little guy throwing stones at a few Goliaths; according to the Institute for Policy Studies, in 2022 an estimated 41 cents of every 2022 individual donation going to charity went to either a private foundation or donor advised fund. Donor advised funds are on the rise, now making up roughly 25% of all gifts. The dynamic is, a donor gives a $1 million to their donor advised fund, which then sits on the money, pays some fees to an administrator, and gives out $50,000/yr. The donor takes the $1 million tax deduction even though $1M does not make it to people doing the work for another 20+ years. This parks wealth on the sidelines, but is “counted” as philanthropy. Imagine the impact these trickling gifts would have on local and community non-profits if they were made directly. Their revenue would double!

Maybe it is time to rethink billionaire philanthropy, while doing some hard work among the nonprofits to raise the profile of the work going on to make neighborhoods livable every day.