A force for good - Part 1

At the start of winter break, I read a book called “Forces of Good” as part of my effort to make up for not reading at all during the past semester. The authors, Heather McLeod Grant and Leslie R. Crutchfield, describe six best practices of high-impact nonprofits that they distilled from an extensive analysis of thousands of organizations across the country. They choose 12 “model” nonprofits who best exemplify these 6 principles and begin each chapter with a case study of how these exemplary organizations utilized these strategies to maximize their social impact. This was the first book that I read in a long time that I just could not put down, not because of the stellar writing, but because I kept thinking about how I could apply the advice in the book to Refresh Bolivia. In this post (which will end up being several parts), I want to talk about the main points in the book and how they apply to RB. In Part 1, I’ll talk about some important myths of nonprofit management.

Common myths about nonprofit management

1. Perfect management

Many organizations are run by executives with a formal background in business who employ certain textbook management strategies to lead their companies. The authors say that many successful nonprofits are not run by business-savvy executives with degrees in management or leadership. Instead, nonprofit leaders are often more focused on impact and getting things done than on meticulous planning, documentation, and management.

This totally applies to RB (and is reflected in the name of our blog). None of us have a formal business background – we’re learning by doing. This can be a stressful process at times. Sometimes I feel in over my head, but emerging from those moments of stress is the key to growth. I remind myself that it’s better to make mistakes now when I’m 20 than when I’m a well-established medical professional.

2. Brand name awareness

Many impactful nonprofits often have weak marketing or brands. This is because they are more focused on serving their constituents than creating a brand or image. While building a brand is important for any organization, it does not make or break the success of a nonprofit the way it might for a for-profit company.

RB is definitely much more focused on getting stuff done than promoting our brand. This has its pros and cons. We do immensely satisfying work, but it can be difficult to garner attention because our social media presence isn’t that strong. Lately, we’ve been talking about looking for someone to help us get our marketing and publicity game up to par…

3. A breakthrough new idea

Not all successful nonprofits have a novel innovation that disrupts the industry. The authors argue that it is not necessarily the novelty of an idea that is most important, but rather how well the idea is executed. Several nonprofits have achieved success simply by modifying or improving upon existing systems.

RB definitely leans towards the “improve existing systems” side of things, and that’s perfectly fine. Improving healthcare doesn’t always require fancy technology or groundbreaking innovations, especially in developing countries.

4. Textbook mission statements

This ties into the brand name awareness I think. Many nonprofits don’t have beautifully worded mission statements because they are too busy living their mission! Honestly, I don’t really agree with this point. I think that if you are running a nonprofit for a cause that you care about, you should be able to articulate well what it is that you’re trying to accomplish. If not, you probably have to think some more.

5. High ratings on conventional metrics

By conventional metrics, they refer to things like overhead and percentage of revenue going to advertising. I believe there is a double standard in the for-profit/nonprofit landscape, where nonprofits are expected to achieve as much or more than for-profits while not paying their executives too much and not spending too much money on marketing, advertising, overhead, etc. I think these conditions placed on nonprofits by society ultimately hinder progress and overall impact; a big theme in this book is “doing good by doing well”.

6. Large budgets

You don’t need a million dollar budget to have a large impact. Many successful charities accomplish a lot with less than $100k budgets, or even less than that. Take RB for example :)

- Akshay