David La Piana

I was honored to learn recently that my latest book, The Nonprofit Strategy Revolution, published last year by Fieldstone Alliance, was one of three finalists for the 2009 Independent Book Publishers Association Benjamin Franklin Award in the category of best business book. The book has been selling briskly, and at least one major national nonprofit federation is about to adopt it as their official strategic planning methodology for all affiliates. The revolution has begun!

This fall, I contributed to CausePlanet.org, a great web resource for busy nonprofit professionals and leaders. The site features a range of customized information for the nonprofit leader: interpreted books, articles from thought leaders, worldwide news and resources. The new year will begin a series of articles by La Piana Associates. Once a month, we will present a topic related to our consulting work in nonprofit leadership, strategy, and organizational management. Read the articles at www.causeplanet.org and let us know what you think.

With bad economic times here to stay for the foreseeable future many nonprofit leaders are thinking about reduced funding, resulting in program cutbacks, but what other options do they have? Here are a few ideas:

Find a way to link your work to the negative consequences of the downturn. For example, if you provide crisis intervention, credit counseling, emergency food assistance, or similar services, emphasize the link between the growing need for these services and the down economy in your communications to donors.

For theatre groups worried about patrons with limited discretionary dollars, lower some show prices, and emphasize escapism and fun in your shows – think comedy over drama! In bad times people love a deal, and they need a laugh.

Convene others in your community or field to discuss the current economic situation and seek local support for the effort. Position your organization as a resource for the community as it tries to deal with the consequences of the difficult times. Being seen as a leader will help to make your organization even more indispensible to the community.

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.

Traditionally, strategy engagements are about business models and finance, challenges and opportunities, choices and execution.

Evaluation is a tool used to assess both the learning and the outcome of a particular initiative. However, it is now clear that there is much to learn from the discipline of evaluation that can be applied to the process of strategy development.

For example, a theory of change process can help a nonprofit to develop and think through its emerging strategies, the creation of a logic model can be a key piece in documenting the strategy, and if it is built-in from the outset, it can make both formative and summative evaluation work more meaningful. We have been using these tools for some time and are looking at ways to further incorporate this perspective into our consulting work.

Our publisher Fieldstone Alliance announced that The Nonprofit Strategy Revolution: Real-Time Strategic Planning in a Rapid-Response World, has nearly sold out and needs to be reprinted. The book’s first six months have been a hit.

Not only is it selling, but requests for speaking engagements have come in from all over the country.

In October we will be speaking on strategic planning at events sponsored by Mid-Atlantic Network for Youth and Families, BoardSource , and United Way in Houston (now postponed to November, courtesy of Hurricane Ike).

If you live in any of these locations, please check out the links and consider attending one of these events.

The new book is out and the Nonprofit Strategy Revolution seems to be getting a warm response.

People are buying 6, 8, or 11 copies to distribute to their boards and management teams, which is certainly a switch from my previous books.

And that makes sense.

The merger books are very much niche focused: if you are contemplating a merger you need them, otherwise you don’t have time. Play to Win appealed to those with a special interest in nonprofit competition, which is not everyone in the sector. But everyone is interested in strategic planning, and specifically in how to do it better.

Our brisk early-sales figures are the proof of that. The new book is out and the Nonprofit Strategy Revolution seems to be getting a warm response.

People are buying 6, 8, or 11 copies to distribute to their boards and management teams, which is certainly a switch from my previous books.

And that makes sense.

The merger books are very much niche focused: if you are contemplating a merger you need them, otherwise you don’t have time. Play to Win appealed to those with a special interest in nonprofit competition, which is not everyone in the sector. But everyone is interested in strategic planning, and specifically in how to do it better.

Our brisk early-sales figures are the proof of that.

The arrival of my new book, The Nonprofit Strategy Revolution, came just in time for a series of scheduled workshops in the Midwest.

In fact, the book arrived at the Kellogg Foundation in Battle Creek, Michigan about the same time I did.

Battle Creek is not easy to get to, especially the way I did it. I started in San Francisco, sat on the runway for 2 hours, then missed my connection from Chicago to Kalamazoo. Luckily United rebooked me on the last American flight out and I arrived in Kalamazoo late at night, then I got a ride for the last half hour of the trip into town.

The reception in Battle Creek was warm and enthusiastic, with a capacity group of local nonprofit leaders and consultants. I had a panel discussion in which three local leaders described their own experiences with strategy and planning, and overall it was a success.

On to Detroit, then Minneapolis.

I am eagerly awaiting the appearance of my newest book, The Nonprofit Strategy Revolution: Real-Time Strategic Planning in a Rapid-Response World.

It is due out in time for this year’s Grantmakers for Effective Organizations’ conference, which will be held in San Francisco beginning March 10. Vance Yoshida and I are giving a workshop for funders on this new approach to strategic planning.

After four years of research and testing, and a year of writing, RTSP is ready for prime time. We need funders to get behind us though, since they often require traditional strategic plans form their grantees. If a few forward-looking funders can support the new approach, we may be able to begin to break the lock the old approach has on strategy, and the nonprofit sector will be freed from its deadening effects.

For information of the new book – contact the publisher, Fieldstone Alliance (formerly the Wilder Publishing Center), using this link.

We often undertake client engagements that lead to some pretty significant changes in how the organization is structured, operates, or even how it conceives of itself. For the most part clients can readily understand the benefits of a more streamlined model or a less bureaucratic structure, but the real difficulty comes in asking them to change how they think of themselves in relation to the organization.

"Ownership" is a double-edged sword.

We love (and need) the engagement, dedication, and often lifelong commitment many nonprofits garner from their board, volunteers and staff. But this ownership often brings a stubborn refusal to change methods, behavioral norms, and similar understandings shared among the organization’s leaders.

We hear much about the evils of "Founder’s Syndrome," but the same dynamics, seeing the individual’s own needs and preferences as inseparable from the organization’s requirements,are often played out well beyond the corner office.

Analysis, modeling, even discussion, debate and compromise, are often insufficient to move "the old guard" from no longer functional positions.

It can be as simple as setting a norm that once the board has decided an issue, it is decided, not open for further debate, or as complex as restructuring how budget decisions get made, whatever the issue (and there are an infinite variety to choose from) emotions flare, ad hominem arguments are declaimed from soapboxes, and the change effort is framed as a test of good vs. evil.

It is odd to contemplate that it is often the most socially progressive groups, those committed to social justice and social change, which fight internal change the hardest.

I have taken to labeling the don’t-change-my-favorite-dysfunctional-practice faction as the "conservatives," in an attempt to bring some perspective to the discussion. No one n these groups wants to be labeled a conservative, and doing so sometimes brings a bit of self-awareness to the conversation.

There are no silver bullets, however, it take lots of hard, patient work to move a conservative-progressive nonprofit into a progressive-progressive framework.