Social Start Up Success:
How the best Nonprofits launch, scale up and make a difference
In the Beginning
The first thing is an IDEA. It begins with one person but is quickly shared with a core group, and then presented to a larger group of stakeholders. Feedback is rapidly integrated to revise the IDEA. Initial failures are perceived as opportunities for learning; initial successes are perceived as best practices to build upon.
Measure Impact
Successful Nonprofits have developed a compelling ‘theory of change’ that they can easily articulate to stakeholders. Mechanisms are developed to collect data to support outcome measurement. Staff resources are deployed to help the data ‘tell a story’. It is valuable to select just a few data points that are easy for people to understand.
The theory of change needs to answer the question:
How will you know if you are successful?
Fund Experimentation
One thing that separates the more successful from other nonprofits was the development of an earned income strategy. Earned income is easier to develop in some sub-sectors such as education and health, and more challenging for others, such as environmental protection and human rights.
Organizations that want to scale substantially should drive one or two reliable sources of ongoing revenue such as membership dues, government grants or annual events. Diversity has value but may divert energy in too many directions.
Recommended reading:
Strategic Tools for Social Entrepreneurs: Enhancing the Performance of Your Enterprising Nonprofit J. Gregory Dees, Jed Emerson, Peter Economy
Lead Collaboratively
Reverse the organizational pyramid – think of your customers/clients as being the wide part at the top. These are the most important people: the reason your organization exists. The people who interact most with your clients are direct service personnel [educators, caseworkers, clerks etc.] What attitudes, information and authority to they need to give the very best service, to every client, every time?
Build an Active Board
Fast-growth organizations leveraged talent by engaging board members with valuable connections and expertise and drawing actively on that expertise for strategy as well as fundraising.
The annual nomination process should begin with the question “Who do we need?” not “Who do we know?”. Set clear expectations for board members participation in meetings, committee work, personal
financial contribution and attendance at key events. Consider negotiating a “board engagement plan” with each board member.
Tell Compelling Stories
Good stories require passion, preparation and practice.
Check out the short virtual reality video Clouds Over Sidra and the TED Talk by Nadine Burke Harris How Childhood Trauma Affects Health Across a Lifetime. These are not happy stories, but they effectively engage with audiences.
Effective story telling is a valuable skill to develop. A few tips:
- Know your audience
- Share your personal connection/motivation
- Connect the story to a popular narrative
- Stay alert for current news hooks
- Strengthen your story telling muscles with practice
- Teach all your people to tell the story
- Ask your beneficiaries to tell their stories
Conclusion
Bill Drayton, founder of Ashoka and often called the godfather of social entrepreneurship lives by the mantra that “everyone is a change maker”. https://www.ashoka.org/en
Technology and communication strategies [Website, Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter etc.] need to be aligned with your organization messaging strategy.
Notes from Social Start Up Success: How the best Nonprofits launch, scale up and make a difference by Kathleen Kelly Janus; Hachette Book Group, Da Capo Lifelong Books © 2017. First edition: January 2018.
This book looks at several contemporary Nonprofits engaged in social change work to identify elements that distinguish the more successful from the less successful.
