The last few weeks have brought a flurry of requests for speaking engagements all over the country on this timely topic. At last count we have about 20 such efforts underway, in locations ranging from California, Washington, New Mexico, to Colorado, Connecticut, Washington D.C., and Ontario, Canada.

At the same time requests for consulting services on strategic restructuring are have tripled compared to lat year. What’s up? Well, the general wisdom around here is that the economy is bringing the nonprofit sector to a moment of profound reflection. Some are predicting 10% of all nonprofits will go out of business in this recession, while others are viewing the worsening economic storm as an opportunity to restructure the sector.

Recently I spoke to a capacity crowd at the World Affairs Council in San Francisco, as part of the “Power of Partnership” series, co-presented by the Craigslist Foundation, the Foundation Center, Northern California Grantmakers, and CompassPoint Nonprofit Services. For 90 minutes a room full of engaged nonprofit leaders and I discussed the options they face going forward – collaborate, merge, compete, or retrench – as well as the real possibility that some groups will grow and thrive in this climate.

How can you be one of the thriving organizations and not an organization that suffers? For an increasing number of nonprofits, part of the answer seems to be strategic restructuring and evaluating the sector’s spectrum of partnership options.

Tags: nonprofit

This entry was posted on Friday, February 13th, 2009 at 11:13 am and is filed under Consulting for Nonprofits, Mergers, Nonprofit Sector, Trends. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.