Best Friends Animal Society is a nonprofit located in Kanab, Utah, a few miles outside of Zion and Bryce national parks. Begun by a group of friends in the 1970’s it now houses nearly 2,000 dogs, cats, bunnies, horses, birds and other abandoned, sick or abused animals. The animals range from forgotten family pets to cats with leukemia, from fighting pit bulls to a damaged raptor.

Best Friends has 300,000 members worldwide and employs 10% of the population of Kanab, resulting in a very pet-friendly town indeed! I had the opportunity to tour Best Friends recently and I was so impressed by both the quality of their work, the huge opportunities for community involvement, and the economic impact on Kanab, that I just had to cite their work.

These days I am often asked for advice on how to weather the current economic storm. I agree with all the “good management” type advice about operating efficiently, having good financial information, etc., that is being regularly dispensed, but I have a pointed bit of advice to add: don’t hunker down. In all the different hiccups, recessions, and local government meltdowns I have lived through I have always found these moments to be times of extraordinary opportunity. That’s right – opportunity, of the kind that comes knocking only during bad times.

In a previous recession a local United Way polled its member agencies with the question: “Do you expect your revenues next year to grow or shrink?” About 40% were expecting hard times and so the United Way and the local media reported that headline. However, the report also revealed that 60% of the agencies expected their revenues to grow – during a recession! Not a very good headline I guess, but good news nonetheless.

Why do bad times bring opportunity? First, with so many others hunkered down, mired in fear, not trying to grow or to do anything new, those who are looking to the future face less competition. Second, funders are besieged with “emergency” proposals, and nothing is less fun for a program officer to deal with than the decision to make a grant to a possibly failing enterprise. So, if you come in with a new idea, you might find an eager audience. Third, weakened competitors, those who have skated through good times with poor management, may be feeling the results of their previous poor decisions, and it may as a result be possible for you to grow into their businesses.

Of course sound management, money in the bank, and outstanding performance are prerequisites for an aggressive mindset during tough times, but then you should have been investing in those things all along.