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Nonprofit Mastermind Podcast
4 Questions To Help Your Organization Stay Stable In Crazy Times
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- [00:00]
Brooke Ritchie Babbage
External chaos is a given when you're running a nonprofit. The key to navigating it without coming apart at the seams is to learn to stay focused on what's strategically necessary and let go of the rest. This week I'm going to give you four questions to help you do just that. Conversations to have with your team and your board to help you assess your risk and build a resilient organization as you navigate whatever is happening externally.
- [00:29]
Welcome to the Nonprofit Mastermind podcast. I'm Brooke Ritchie Babbage. I've been in the social impact game for 25 years as a social justice lawyer turned two time nonprofit founder and leader turned growth strategist and coach for leaders around the country. I grew my nonprofit from me and an intern in a tiny closet to a high impact seven figure organization. And along the way I learned so, so much about how to build an organization that has real impact and how to do it without burning out. In this podcast I share the nuts and bolts of all of it so you can do that too. We dive into the mindset, strategies and tactics of how to scale a high impact organization and how to do it in a way that's truly sustainable.
- [01:15]
So I've been in this game a long time. I have seen economic recessions, natural disasters, a pandemic, political upheaval. I've led organizations and supported other leaders through as many scenarios as I can imagine. And one thing I've learned is that the best way to navigate external chaos, which is a given, there will always be something happening and sometimes it swells to a fever pitch. The best way to navigate those times is to be strong inside, is to look inward and make sure that your anchors and your pillars are really strong. And in order to do that, you want to make sure that you're asking the right questions at the right time. There will always be more things to focus on than you have time, energy and money to focus on. And that's okay. That's always going to be true because not everything is of equal importance. So you have to get good at recognizing what's strategically necessary for you to focus on the right questions at the right time and what is essentially noise, the noise around us that we really can and should begin to block out. And that is not to say that the noise, those things that you do not focus on, are not important. The key, particularly when you're navigating times of external chaos, the key is that certain things are more important. They are strategically necessary for you to focus on. And those are the things that you want to invest your time and your money and your energy on. So today I want to give you four questions to ask to help you do that. And specifically, these are four questions to help you assess what where you're vulnerable and where you might want to develop some scenarios to address potential challenges on the horizon. By doing that, it doesn't mean that you have to actually map the scenarios now, and you definitely don't have to play them all out, but it will make you conscious of those areas in your organization where you should anticipate needing to be a little more nimble, needing to be on higher alert. And that's how you know where to focus. That's how you decide what is strategically necessary, what you can or should begin to see as noise or distractions or simply less strategically relevant. Also, I am focusing entirely on this question or this issue or topic of organizational resilience this year. It's really, really important that organizations focus on building their strength from the inside out. So if you want access to my most targeted tools and resources on this topic for helping organizations stay stable and strong as you navigate turbulence, you should definitely grab my resilience Ready toolkit. You can get it@brookerichybabbage.com ResilienceReady so a couple of things I'll note up front before I get into the four questions. First, you'll get the most out of these if you ask the questions, the four questions in four arenas within your organization. So you want to look at your organization as a whole and you also want to look at your strategic goals for the year, right? What have you said you want to accomplish and ask these questions. You want to look at your programs specifically. And then when you, you want to look at your partners and particularly the partners that are really integral to your work. And you want to ask these questions. So you're going to have ideally four distinct lines of analyses. These do not have to be for full day conversations. They shouldn't be. But by separating out these questions into these arenas, you make sure that you're really thinking about scenarios at a level that they can be strategically helpful to you. Okay? Second, I recommend asking these questions as part of a discussion with your full team and we're relevant with your board. So you definitely want to discuss the goals and the programs, the questions through the lens of your goals and your programs with your team. And for the overall organizational and partnership analysis, those conversations are really ideal with your board, you'll get really important perspectives to note if and when you actually have to map out scenarios in different areas. This is particularly true if you do advocacy work or right now. And if you're listening to this in real time in early 2025, DEI work. So advocacy and DEI work, it's really central to your work or messaging, then I think it's important to bring your board at least into your thinking around these questions. Finally, and this is really important to note, these are questions to ask whenever you feel like the external environment is getting or feeling chaotic. Again, if you're listening to this when it airs in early 2025, there is a lot going on in our country right now that makes our sector vulnerable in particular organizations and areas of focus within our sector vulnerable. So definitely ask these questions now and keep them in your back pocket because they're a roadmap for navigating any kind of external chaos. Again, whether it's political upheaval, an economic recession, hopefully not another pandemic, et cetera. Okay. So as part of my Resilience Ready toolkit, I actually have draft agendas for guiding discussions around these questions. Here are the four questions. So the first is what are our funding risks? Do we receive federal funding? How might shifts in federal funding impact access to state and local funding? This is particularly relevant now. But irrespective of what the external situation is, you want to look at potential funding risks. How might what's happening around us impact our corporate funding or our access to corporate funding? How might it impact corporations and corporate funders of comfort with our work or accessibility? Might our institutional funders be thinking about shifting their focus? So during the 2008 economic crisis, I was about two years into my second into running the second organization that I founded and we did not do direct service work. And then 2008 happened and it was awful, particularly here in New York and, and a lot of the funders that I had been cultivating and that I had great relationships with shifted from supporting system level longer term change work, which my organization did, to direct service support, which was very important at the time and also had a huge impact on my financial projections. So these are questions that you want to ask now and where relevant, begin reaching out to your funders, potential and current, to corporations that you have partnered with or were thinking about partnering with and just talk to them.
- [08:29]
Co-host or Guest
Right?
- [08:29]
Brooke Ritchie Babbage
Understand your vulnerability here. So here is how to apply this question in these different arenas that I mentioned. So overall organizational analysis, you're really looking at how potential funding shifts might impact your mission, your organizational focus, particularly, again, if you work in sensitive areas. Right now, those areas might be advocacy Immigration, dei, et cetera. As you're looking at your goals and your programs, those distinct arenas, you want to ask yourself, how might funding shifts impact our ability to achieve our identified goals or to run our programs as planned? And finally, when you're looking at the partnership arena, you want to ask how my partners that are integral to our work be impacted.
- [09:19]
Co-host or Guest
Right.
- [09:19]
Brooke Ritchie Babbage
Even if we are not directly impacted by shifts in the external environment in terms of funding, the partners that we rely on or work with might be.
- [09:30]
Co-host or Guest
Right?
- [09:30]
Brooke Ritchie Babbage
So if a partner loses funding, will that impact our ability to recruit for our programs or sustain our programs or evaluate our programs? So this is sort of two layers out in your ecosystem, looking at how those people around you, those institutions around you, might be impacted in terms of funding and what the ripple effect for your own work might be. So question two is, what are our regulatory and legal risks? Here you want to ask, is there increased scrutiny on organizations like ours, our tax exempt status? Right. Do we do a kind of work or move through the world in a way that makes us vulnerable? Vulnerable? Are there compliance issues that we want to think about? This is something that I spend a lot of time or provide a lot of resources around in the resilience ready toolkit, because this is an area that particularly smaller nonprofits don't think too much about. So this is where you want to pause and ask, are we vulnerable here in terms of compliance, tax exempt status, do we do any lobbying? Are there new or pending regulations, the local, state or federal level, that could change how we operate, how we are expected to report our financials, who our donors are, how we communicate, how we engage in types of advocacy or systems level? And then finally, for organizations that do work that might be under greater scrutiny, are we vulnerable to potential litigation, particularly in areas where laws and policies are shifting? Right. And so this is really about keeping an eye on what's happening externally to see, are there shifts that might impact your work, how you hire, how you pay people, what you report on, how you report, et cetera? This is a great place to, to engage your board, right. To do some of that research and analysis more externally. So you can apply this question across these different arenas by thinking first for the overall organizational analysis, does our board need to be prepared for shifts in compliance expectation? Are there anything, is there anything that's happening that might impact our audit? For example, are there regulatory changes that could impact how we operate? Right. Our operations or our funding? These are great board level conversations to be having, particularly if your mission or the kind of work that you do might make you vulnerable. When you're looking at partnerships again, you want to ask sort of the second layer out, are any of our key partners going to be under greater scrutiny? So this is a conversation that has come up quite a bit in my coaching program with organizations that do not do advocacy or systems change work, but they are part of coalitions.
- [12:35]
Co-host or Guest
Setting the right priorities and goals and focusing on the right activities is the only way to make sure that you're not wasting time and money as you grow. That clarity is what we do inside the next level nonprofit.
- [12:48]
Brooke Ritchie Babbage
You get a step by step growth.
- [12:49]
Co-host or Guest
Plan for how to grow your budget, build a strong team and increase your impact in the next 12 months. Plus you get expert guidance, thought partnership coaching and hands on support to execute from professional development for your team to discounts on work with incredible consultants. Apply and let's see if we can help you build a stronger organization in the next year. Brooke Ritchie Babbage.com backslash Next Level nonprofit.
- [13:19]
Brooke Ritchie Babbage
They are partnered with other organizations that might be under greater scrutiny. And so the question that we've been talking about inside the coaching program is what might the ripple effect of that scrutiny on your partners be for your work?
- [13:36]
Co-host or Guest
Right.
- [13:36]
Brooke Ritchie Babbage
For your communication, for your programs, for your access to those partners? Right. Are they going to go into a sort of strategic retrenchment? Right. Are they going to pause? Could their legal or regulatory risks impact your organization? And then with respect to your goals and programs, you want to ask do our goals or programs put us in potential risk zones? Right. Are there kinds of programs that we run? Are there target populations or communities that we work in that might make us more vulnerable to legal or compliance risks? And are we taking necessary steps to mitigate those risks?
- [14:22]
Co-host or Guest
Right.
- [14:22]
Brooke Ritchie Babbage
So that's how you want to think about question number two. Question number three is what are our reputational risks? So this is, you know, if the legal and compliance question is really tactical, this is almost more. It's going to feel it. It might feel more amorphous, but it's very important because it affects some of the other ones, funding, scrutiny, et cetera. So the questions here are really about whether there is a chance of increased public or media scrutiny from the general public, from our donors, from our community based on our work?
- [15:09]
Co-host or Guest
Right.
- [15:09]
Brooke Ritchie Babbage
Are people going to be paying more attention to what we do, how we do it, et cetera, because of what's going on in the external environment, Are we engaged in any work or issues that might attract the negative attention? And if so, what do we think about that? How do we feel about that? Right. Sometimes negative attention is bad. Sometimes negative attention from people you don't care about is fine. But understanding your vulnerability here is important because then you can be proactive in addressing misinformation or negative attention from people where actually you want your response to be, we like what we're doing, right? We stand behind what we're doing. We want to be proactive and intentional about that. Do we have clear proactive messaging in place that we've thought of? If we need to respond quickly to scrutiny, to questions from donors and stakeholders about our work to negative attention, do we have those talking points ready for our staff, for our constituents, for our community members and for the board? This is another really important place to bring the board in and make sure they feel prepared to talk about your organization and your work. So you can apply this question in these different arenas by asking, right, so if we look at the organizational analysis overall, is your board prepared? Does your leadership team have the right media training or crisis communication training? Or if you are a small organization and that sounds like a resource that you don't necessarily have the energy or the money or the time to invest in, do you have a go to that? If these issues come up, you can, you can get the training you need, you can get the advice or the support, right? Like I said at the beginning, you don't have to map all these scenarios out and do all the training now. But understanding where you might be vulnerable allows you to say if, if and when this is an issue. We have the phone number to call. We know who we're going to reach out to. As you're looking at your partnerships, this one's pretty simple. Are you aligned with organizations whose reputations could impact yours? And what do you think about that?
- [17:29]
Co-host or Guest
Right?
- [17:29]
Brooke Ritchie Babbage
Is that a good thing or a bad thing? What are the implications of that and how might you respond or navigate? And then finally, as you're looking at your goals and your programs, are you running any initiatives or launching any initiatives that might attract reputational scrutiny? Do you have a way to talk about your mission, your work, your theory of change, your value proposition to your community, your impact? These are really central things to be able to talk about. Are you good at talking about them?
- [18:06]
Co-host or Guest
Right.
- [18:06]
Brooke Ritchie Babbage
So that people are reminded of what you do and you are being proactive about building and or maintaining a reputation of having impact right in the space. So then the last question is operational. What are our operational risks? This is internal, right? So we've looked at sort of tactical questions. We've looked at funding questions, the reputational risk is really external. This last question is internal. So you look inwards. Are there threats to our staff safety? These might be physical. I work with a lot of organizations that do organizing work and policy work. And so there are protests, there are ways in which their staff is very visible in their community. Does that put them at risk?
- [18:58]
Co-host or Guest
Right.
- [18:59]
Brooke Ritchie Babbage
This is also where you want to ask about operational risks to your data, right? Are you at risk of data breaches? Is your information about your program participants or constituents or donors, Is it safe? Have you paid attention to data security? Do you have key partnerships that, if lost, would significantly impact your ability to operate effectively? So this is partly why I say asking these questions in these different arenas separately allows you, at this point, you've asked, you know, you've looked at these other arenas and questions. Now you can come and say, based on our conversations about the impact of funding or reputational risk on our partners, are there partnerships we might lose?
- [19:49]
Co-host or Guest
Right.
- [19:49]
Brooke Ritchie Babbage
And what might that mean for us operationally? This is also where you want to look internally at over reliance on single sources of funding, single sources or limited types of technology. Is all of your data in one place? And if so, is that place vulnerable?
- [20:10]
Co-host or Guest
Right.
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Brooke Ritchie Babbage
Will you. Can you lose access to that place? This is a big one for organizations that have a lot of their communication and context on social media. So the safest place for your contacts, just as an example, is your email service provider. Once you have a person's email list, unless you sort of proactively do something to get rid of it, you sort of own that asset. That is your asset. Anything that sits on a social media platform, LinkedIn, Instagram, TikTok is not yours. It can be shut down, it can be taken away at any time. It may feel like yours, it isn't. And so this is a great time to ask, are we vulnerable here, right? Do we have, do we own these assets that we need in order to build and maintain a strong community? So you apply these questions, these sort of intersect with the other questions. But if you're looking at organizational analysis, right, arena number one, is your board helping you think about long term sustainability, risk mitigation, development of policies and shoring up your compliance, Right. As you think about the scenarios that you might need, is your board helping you with that? That's sort of the overall organizational analysis to be asking. And if the question is no, do you have access to other sources of support?
- [21:38]
Co-host or Guest
Right.
- [21:39]
Brooke Ritchie Babbage
If you don't have a board, that's going to help you with that, as you Think about your partnerships. We've, you know, we talked about are any of your key partnerships at risk?
- [21:46]
Co-host or Guest
Right.
- [21:46]
Brooke Ritchie Babbage
And if one of those has to be put on hold or falls apart, what is your operational plan to respond? Right. Do you have alternatives? What might that mean internally for your organization and for your staff for goals and programs? This is where you want to look at your operational structures and make sure that, that you are set up to be nimble, to pivot if needed, to adjust so that you aren't overly reliant on any single sort of point of breakdown.
- [22:20]
Co-host or Guest
Right.
- [22:21]
Brooke Ritchie Babbage
If one thing shuts down, if your programs have to change in some way, you can respond organic, like operation. You have your evaluation infrastructure set up. If you lose staff or staff is vulnerable and they have to change how they move through the world, are you set up in a way to continue to support them? So you really look at your systems around goals and programs and make sure that no matter what happens, you are able to continue to do the work that creates impact in the world. So as a recap, those are the four questions that I recommend you ask. What are our funding risks, what are our regulatory and legal risks, what are our reputational risks, and what are our operational risks? These four questions are designed to help you stay grounded in what actually matters, what is strategically necessary. It protects your organization's stability and allows you to continue to move in the direction of long term impact so that you aren't sort of swaying in the winds of external chaos. If you want more guidance on how to have these conversations, model policies, draft agendas, etc. There's a risk assessment worksheet, real world examples of scenario planning. You can grab my Resilience Ready toolkit at brooke richie babbage.com resilienceready as a final thought, I will say, and I sort of started with this point. Those of us who've been in the game for a long time know that external chaos will always exist.
- [23:54]
Co-host or Guest
Exist.
- [23:55]
Brooke Ritchie Babbage
Your job as a leader of your organization is to build an organization that can withstand anything that's about internal strength and resilience. I hope that these four questions serve as as a guide for you or maybe as a starting point to start having the kinds of conversations that will ensure your stability in the long run. That's it for this week. I will see you back here next week for more Mastermind.
- [24:22]
Thanks so much for joining me this week. If you enjoy this podcast, I would love for you to leave a rating and a review. I read every single one and they really do matter. I also share extra tidbits and resources building on what we talk about here in my newsletter, Leadership Forward 321. You can sign up by texting the word impact to 66866. And finally, definitely check out the links and resources that I mentioned in this Episode@brooke richiebabbage.com backslash podcast see you next week.