Kevin Essington

Scenario planning is central to emergency management, insurance, and military operations. Should scenario planning be a part of your nonprofit planning cycle and minimize shocks to your nonprofit organizations?

United States national elections often portend big shifts in multi-billion dollar spending priorities. The 2024 election means that Federal support for many community, urban, environmental, educational, and artistic pursuits is over, following several years of strong support.  Also, since 2000 society has been dealt more than election shocks: September 11, the 2008 financial crisis, COVID to name a few.

Through all of this, nonprofit organizations have a mission to see to. In fact, the absence of Federal investment in social needs makes your mission even more critical than before! Your strategic approach to achieving your mission needs to stay mostly intact, even if your programs or actions update annually. But how can you stay strategic when funding and policy swings can be so severe?

Scenario planning should be part of your annual work planning and budgeting.   Your mission is hopefully one built in response to generational issues that you are working to resolve. Your Strategic Goals are multi-year statements of how you will measure your progress against these generational challenges, and should be resilient to most disruptions. A good Strategy Flywheel, in support of outcome-oriented Strategic Goals should remain at the core of your work and should provide stability after disruptions.   But when disruptions occur, your annual work plans and budgets must respond, often quickly.  

I recommend two ways to run a simple annual scenario exercise annually. First, consider using City Greener Strategies’ Scenario Planning Worksheet with a small team of board or staff leaders. The worksheet, at minimum, should clarify which disruptions will lead to which impacts to you and your community. It can also help you and your planning team identify which actions and measures you could add to your annual work plan. 

Second, each small- to medium-sized nonprofit organization should plan for various budget scenarios. City Greener Strategies’ Operating Budget Scenarios should, with about 15 minutes of financial data entry, give you a sense of how your organization’s finances might perform under four different growth environments: high, medium, low, and negative. If you suspect financial headwinds next year that may help you allocate resources in the current or upcoming fiscal year.

Lastly, many consultants have suggested some scenario planning models due to the disruptions caused by COVID-19. When you are in the midst of a disruption, I recommend using Bridgespan’s “Making Sense Of Uncertainty” article and the materials they provide there. 

So while big shifts in opportunities and challenges can happen unpredictably and quickly, other fields have taught us in the nonprofit sector that we too can prepare for them. Please use and share these resources and drop us a line to talk more about what works for you!

By Kevin Essington, CEO, City Greener Strategies LLC

Radical changes are coming. You were made for this. Now get organized for what is to come.

The United States has narrowly elected a fascist and kleptocratic man and his supporters to be President until at least January 2029. The role of nongovernmental organizations under fascist regimes is a critical one in supporting the everyday needs of civil society. As public resources are redirected away from people in order to enrich private allies or preferred populations of the fascist or kleptocratic leader, public assets will degrade for many. Daily life will become more difficult for the average person.

Your role as community and civic leader has never been more urgent and vital than it is about to become. You, your mission, and your services, are a pillar in a civic structure that has at least one less pillar.  You have never been more needed, and more important to your community. Your government is not going to restore that river, feed your hungry neighbors, or house the poor. You are!

In this environment, transformative public funds are gone. Your funding model to meet the increased importance of your mission is changing. If you are a new organization, this may not impact you immediately, but if you are in growth or mature lifecycle stages, you may in fact lose funding and be forced to quickly adapt.

Despite the pressure to do more with less, there are paths to growth. Many civic organizations and leaders will also find themselves serving a role beyond their mission: inspiring broader action for a fairer society. Because of your courageous commitment to your community, and because of your impact in the face of government pressure, you will give courage to others and they will remember that you did! 

There are examples around the world and through modern history of nongovernmental organizations who successfully organized public action in the face of fascist or kleptocrat governments. For example, the Nuclear Free Philippines Coalition stopped the construction of a nuclear power plant during the dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos. Furthermore, this campaign’s success inspired action throughout the country that led to the People Power Revolution that deposed the dictator.  In South Africa, the Institute for a Democratic Alternative organized the movement for democratic representation and helped end apartheid. In the Soviet Union, while not fascist, the All-Russian Society for the Protection of Nature made nature protection a matter of national importance despite Stalinism’s ruthlessly repressive nature.

You and your organization were made to serve in this environment, even though the stress and pressure may feel overwhelming at times. To help you prepare for this environment, I want to offer three questions for you to consider.

Is your business model still viable?
Have you conducted a ruthless review of your funding? Have you built two or three financial scenarios for the next few years? Have you considered a radical rebalancing of funding and how that will affect your strategies and programs? Should you prepare to put different people to work on your programs? Should you consider entirely new labor models, such as coops, mutual-aid, or volunteer corps? Planning for all financial contingencies and imagining new ways of working won’t reduce surprises, but it will give you some guardrails to lean on as shocks occur.

Is your culture fascist-ready?
Have you, your staff, and your board acknowledged the environment you are now in? Are you going to accommodate the demands of the government or actively work against them? What are the risks of either? Do you have the right board and staff culture to move down the path you chose? These will be highly divisive times, building a shared culture will help you maintain morale and stay resilient.

Have you cultivated allies or strengthened ties to people in power?
Have you cultivated new relationships? Can you build or join a coalition that can be resilient under pressure from above? Have you made your plans clear to powerful people such as mayors, county commissioners, state reps, or even religious or labor leaders? Shifting political times may require new alliances, and you may need to rely on powerful people to protect you from powerful counterforces as well.

We cannot know the future, nor the many events that may unfold in the coming years of fascist rule of the United States. But your organization is more important than ever to your community. Preparing for contingencies, building the right culture, and being part of coalitions will help you be resilient, adaptable, and impactful in ways you may not imagine. Be brave and bold, but be prepared!

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?