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Welcome to the Successful Nonprofits Podcast. I'm your host, Dolph Goldenberg. Friends, today's episode is an incredibly important one about contingency planning for a second Trump presidency, with a very special focus on the first 100 days. This is a solo episode and let me just say, if you only listen to one episode of the this podcast this year, this is the one I want you to listen to. Sometimes we see a storm coming and we just don't prepare well enough. Or in some cases, we don't react fast enough. Some folks believe that the reason we don't prepare is due to fear, dread and procrastination, but I believe so often it is because we don't know where to start. And for a lot of nonprofit organizations, that is definitely true. As we Prepare for Trump 2.0, this is normally the point at which I introduce the guest, but again, this is a solo episode, so let me just share a little bit about me. I'm Dolph Goldenberg and I bring three decades of leadership and consulting experience, building, growing leadership, leading and yes, repairing organizations. I take this experience and use it as a consultant, a coach and a confidant for leaders at small and large organizations all across the country. And as I said today, we're going to be talking about contingency planning and I'd like to start by sharing a real life contingency planning success story. Over four years ago, as the COVID pandemic first hit North America, we're talking late winter 2020, I was at the tail end of a strategic planning project for a performing arts organization. We knew that shutdowns were likely going to be inevitable. But at the time, the common consensus, the media experts, everybody agreed that the world would shut down for six weeks and and then returned to business as usual. And you know, my performing arts client was hopeful that this would be true because Covid would cause them to lose the revenue from their spring season. And that was going to hurt. But my client needed the fall season to be a success financially in order to make it. Now. In all of my strategic planning projects over the last few years, we have included some contingency planning. And so I asked the question, what happens if the stay at home orders last for months and there isn't a fall season? And what happens if people still aren't comfortable gathering in person a year from now and next spring there isn't a season as well. At first, everyone around the table, they shook their heads and they said we just couldn't survive dolphins. And that's when I knew we had to work together to make a contingency plan. We rolled up our sleeves and we asked ourselves how they could survive a 15 month shutdown. And the group did a great job. They made a contingency plan just in case in person performances weren't possible for the next three seasons. And you know, in a performing arts world, that's a long time. That fall came and guess what? Turns out they could not perform in person, but they created two fully digital shows that were groundbreaking and amazing. I know because I subscribed and I loved the shows. And that spring, we're talking now, spring 2021, while vaccines were starting to roll out across the land. Not everyone was vaccinated, but. And a lot of people were still not comfortable with in person performances. But yet those same people were hungry to get out safely and do things. And so my performing arts client, they had this plan to use an outdoor venue that they had access to. And their Spring 2021 performance was at an outdoor venue. And let me share with you, friend, they not only survived the pandemic, but but they thrived as the vaccines made in person events happen again. And over the course of the next 18 months, people got more and more comfortable gathering in person. Other performing arts organizations were trying to pick themselves back up, dust themselves off and get back in business while my client was preparing to move into an even larger space and expand that. My friend, that is the power of contingency planning. It helps you turn mere tactics into a comprehensive strategy, because just having a series of tactics to string together isn't enough. As the great Chinese philosopher sun Tzu said 2600 years ago, tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat. Here's how I view it, though. Today it's not unlike March 2020 in that we have about two months to prepare for seismic change that will impact those you serve, will impact your communities, and will impact your organizations. In just about two months, Donald Trump is going to be inaugurated president again. And many of his promises will will impact your mission. And this is true whether you are serving low income folks, immigrants and refugees, members of LGBTQ communities, members of bipoc communities, women returning Americans, and many others. If Trump fulfills on those campaign promises that he has made, it will impact organizations that are providing education to youth, like charter schools and after school programs. It will impact health care and public health organizations like NonProfit clinics providing HIV testing, PrEP or reproductive health care. And of course, for the many nonprofits working on the forefront of the civil rights, environmental justice and workers rights movements, they will be impacted as well. Now, if you have heard this list, and it's a long list that I just shared, and you still don't feel like Trump's plans include your organization, let's not forget Schedule F that he implemented in the last final days of his first term. Schedule F allowed him to convert career federal civil servants into political appointees. And doing that will likely cause mass chaotic departures within the federal bureaucracy. And those departures will result in those federal departments not functioning as efficiently and also not processing grant funds as well. That those are grants that are issued to states and municipalities that might get passed through to nonprofits and also directly to nonprofits. And don't forget, while we're talking about this, Trump has promised some really steep tax cuts. And chances are the Republican Congress and Trump are going to use this as an opportunity to cut spending that'll be spending in the Department of Education, Housing and Urban Development, Health and Human Services, Department of Justice, many of the areas, many of the departments that grant money to nonprofits. So again, even if you feel like you're not impacted by the list of folks and movements that I just mentioned, you could still be impacted by budget cuts and a less effective federal bureaucracy. So if your organization is not ready for day one, or perhaps not not ready for day 100 of the Trump administration, then now is the time for you to engage in contingency planning. In the rest of this episode, I am going to outline the five steps in contingency planning and I'm going to share the secrets of a great contingency planning session. And by the way, I'm also going to give you some templates to get you started. Now, I've led contingency planning with a number of my clients, and let me share with you the incredible thing about it. Even if your worst case scenario does not happen, you will have exercised your crisis response muscle and you, yes, you and your organization will be better prepared for the next crisis to come your way. Now, let's get down to the nuts and bolts of contingency planning by starting with the five steps of of contingency planning itself. And I summed these steps up with an acronym, react. The R is recruit the right participants, E envision realistic scenarios, A adapt agenda and materials for your group, C conduct your session and t transfer insights by documenting and communicating. Now, you might be thinking, dolph, that sounds great, but how do I do each of those five things? So here is a breakdown of each step in the REACT acronym. The R is recruit the right participants and Choosing the right participants is truly the foundation of any successful contingency planning session. And for this activity, you want to look to one of three groups. Your staff, leadership team, your executive committee, your board of directors, or some combination of those groups. So that should be pretty easy for you in terms of, hey, who am I going to recruit to be a part of this contingency planning process? The next is envision realistic scenarios. Crafting scenarios that might actually happen, that feel realistic are essential to having a meaningful contingency planning session. These scenarios have to be specific but plausible and flexible to really kind of stimulate a range of possible options. Now, it will be helpful to read about Trump's campaign promises. And by the way, it's easy to find those. Literally, if you Google the top 25 campaign promises of Donald Trump, you can get a list of them and then ask yourself, how will this impact the people or communities we serve if these promises are kept? And also ask yourself, what direct impact will this promise have on us as an organization? As part of envisioning these realistic scenarios, you also have to write them down. And when I write scenarios, I like to draft them as a fictitious news article. Literally, I'll create like a fake masthead and then go through and create something that looks a lot like an article. It has a headline. I have fictitious quotes from the executive director and the board chair and civic leaders, sometimes maybe the city's mayor or maybe the leader of a consumer advocacy group. And this helps the scenario feel more realistic for the participants that are doing contingency planning. And I almost always close the article with a sentence assuring readers that the media outlet will continue to follow the story as it develops. And this gives our planning participants a sense of urgency because you never know when the newspaper is going to publish its next article. Now that you've recruited the right participants and you've envisioned and written down those realistic scenarios, you're now going to adapt the agenda and materials in the show notes. And by the way, you can access the show notes on your phone. You also can Access them@successfulnonprofits.com In the show notes, I am giving you the agenda and a couple scenario templates that you can use to structure your session. But you're going to want to take the agenda and modify it to make it right for your contingency planning group. As an example, I a small leadership team of just four or five people would likely take an entire two and a half hour planning session on just a single scenario. While a board of 15 people might divide into four groups, with each group exploring its own scenario. So that's why you're going to really have to think about your agenda and modify it for the size group and what you're hoping to accomplish. You also can download two example scenarios, so two fictitious newspaper articles. I am doing one for organizations that might be impacted because they serve immigrants and refugees, and I'm going to do another for organizations that might be impacted because they get federal funding to serve youth. You can download either of those as examples. And I realize that neither of those examples might represent your organization or the way it might be impacted. And that's why, once again, you might need to go back to, to the previous step of envisioning and writing realistic scenarios for your organization. And don't worry, you might say, dolph, is that all you're going to say about the agenda and how I run the session? It's not all I'm going to say about it. Once I've finished explaining the REACT process for planning and implementing your contingency planning session, I will share an outline for running the session itself. So the C in the REACT acronym is conduct your session or sessions. I have just a few words about this because again, I'm going to go more in depth in just a few minutes. But let me underscore that I said conduct your session or sessions, plural, because a small group such as a leadership team or an executive committee might need to hold three or four sessions of over an eight week period so that it can plan for multiple sessions. And the last step in the REACT process is to transfer the insights from your session and the action plans by documenting and communicating them. So in that final step, it is essential that you document those key insights and solutions and agreed upon, not next steps. Because the unfortunate fact is this session is typically only two and a half, maybe three hours long. And you're not going to have a full fledged plan at the end of it, but you will have an outline for a plan and then you can assign specific individuals to continue to work on specific areas of the plan. And by making sure that you transfer those insights and you assign the next steps, you ensure that your contingency planning session has a lasting impact and that it will equip your organization to act decisively if any of the scenarios that you anticipate actually come to life. So this approach to REACT offers a structured, yet flexible framework to create impactful contingency planning sessions. And you might be thinking, okay, I, I've told you about the components of a good session, but I've only teased you with an agenda and a scenario template that you could download. Well, friends, that's the next part of this episode. And the acronym that I like to use to outline the components of a good session is Create. And when you download the agenda, you're going to see create there. You're 100% going to be able to see each but primary bullet in the agenda and go, oh yeah, I see where Dolph's using Create. So the first thing you're going to do is you're going to check in with a generative question and then the R in Create, review the session goals and the structure. And so, for example, if you're in a larger group, explain how that group is going to divide into smaller subsets that will consider different scenarios. E is examine the scenario by reading it. A is to align on 4 to 6 prioritized values. T tackle strategy questions that are provided for that specific scenario and then E establish triggers for action and outline the next steps. Let's jump back up to the top of Create. So as you're thinking about your agenda, you're going to start it with a check in that is a centering or a generative question. I've always believed that it's critical to start with a generative question or a centering question because it helps participants focus on the session's purpose and it connects them to each other and the discussion at hand. It is also very important that the question directly relate to the topic at hand and that the question is asked in a limited way with a limited amount of time to respond. I'm going to share a few questions with you and then also just share. Okay, this is a good opening question or not a good opening question. And why? First possible opening question. What is everyone's Thanksgiving plans? And honestly, friend, that's a terrible check in question for this type of a meeting because while it builds community and rapport, the question literally helps people imagine making being off duty and with their family, not imagining how they're about to roll up their sleeves and do some specific work. Another possible question in one minute or less, share the top impact you believe the incoming administration will have on those we serve or on our organization. This is a good question because you're limiting the answer to one minute and you're asking for just one impact. And oftentimes a I will say single. That means one and only one. So you're asking for one impact, not every impact that someone can think of. This question, however, could potentially open a Pandora's box in A small group that is only considering one scenario. Especially if no one in your group mentions the scenario that you all are about to discuss. Last question, I'd like to share in 90 seconds or less, share the single top impact you believe the incoming administration will have on the immigrants and refugees we serve in our legal program. This friend, this is the perfect question. If, and this is a big if, if your scenario relates to immigrants and refugees you serve in in your legal program. Now, this first part of the agenda, the check in generative question, it should take about 10 minutes or less. The next one is review the session goals and purpose. So before dividing into groups and giving everybody their scenario, walk through the agenda. Walk through what you're going to do that day. Say, okay, look, first of all we're going to give you scenarios and you're going to read them and then you're going to align on values. Then I'll give you some strategic questions to think about and to discuss. And finally you're going to create a follow up plan and it's going to be a documented follow up plan. So that's what you're going to do when you review the rest of your agenda. This part typically takes about five or 10 minutes and it reinforces the importance of each step. What I'll then do is I'll hand out the scenario to everyone. And that's essential. Examine the scenario by reading it thoroughly. It's been my experience that most people like to read the scenario silently, but I always encourage groups to discuss really quickly, a minute or less. Hey, do you want to read your scenario silently or would you like to read it out loud as a group? Letting them make that choice gives them more agency in this because agency, everyone loves a choice. Now the scenario they read is probably going to be two to four pages long. So most folks will need five to seven minutes if they're reading it silently and probably 10 to 15 minutes if it's being read aloud. And that will allow them to fully read it and digest the scenario. The next step is a align on 4 to 6 prioritized values. I'll share with you friends. Once a group reads the scenario, they always want to jump in and start talking about ways to address the situation. And that's why I don't provide the strategic questions to them yet. And I'm also very clear I say that to them up front. You will want to start talking about how you're going to address it. But before you do that, before you dive into the strategy and the tactics, I need you to establish the values that will guide the rest of your discussion on this scenario. So the group should first take normally about 20 to 25 minutes to collaboratively identify four to six values that will serve as the lens through which participants view their potential responses. Now, I also ask them to write those four to six values on a poster board and then tape it to the wall. And that ensures that the values are front and center in each conversation. Because without clear values, we are rudderless. This is true for us as human beings, and it's also true for us as organizations. And taking the step of prioritizing our values helps our participants better prepare to address the strategy questions in a way that will be true so to your organization's guiding principles and mission. The T. The T stands for tackle strategy questions using that chosen value lens. So once again, with the values established, your group's going to dive into the strategy questions that are developed ahead of time. Again, I typically don't hand out those questions until after they've identified their values. Then I give them their questions. Most groups take about 50 to 55 minutes to talk about those strategy questions, and that normally means about three to maybe five questions. Much more than that, it's really hard to have a healthy, robust conversation about each question. And these questions. They're designed to help your participants think creatively about the issue and start to discern the outline of a plan. This part of the session, this is the meat and potatoes. It's where in depth discussion occurs and allows participants to critically evaluate options and collaboratively design solutions that are both strategic and values aligned. Now, the E. The E stands for establishing triggers for action and outlining next steps. So conclude the session and this last part of the session, probably 10 to 15 minutes. Conclude the session by identifying the specific triggers that would prompt action and also help outline the next steps should those triggers occur. And for example, a trigger might be, I don't know, President Trump tweets that something is about to happen. Or a trigger might be a law is passed or there's a proposal on the table to cut funding. But it's important to have a sense of what the triggers are that will prompt you to act. Documenting these triggers and the next steps, that's the outcome of this session. You aren't going to have a full fledged plan, and I've said that before, but the outcome is to say, okay, this is our trigger, this is what we think the next steps will be. And then, as you close out the session, assign participants roles in researching, testing, and finalizing the plan. And ensuring that you have owners for that part of the planning process will mean that you will have a roadmap for moving forward. As we wrap up, let's remember that contingency planning isn't just about preparing for specific scenarios. It is about building resilience into the fabric of of your organization. And by going through this process, you're exercising your crisis response muscles. And the thing about working out our muscles is the more we do it, the better able we are to use them when we need them. So just a quick recap. The steps we covered are React and Create, and the REACT acronym can help ensure that you structure your process effectively, recruit the right participants, envision realistic scenarios, adapt agenda and materials, conduct your session and transfer insights by documenting and communicating and Create. That's the acronym that offers a framework for building your agenda and ensures that every minute is purposeful. This ensures that you go from a generative question to to actionable next steps that are grounded in the values that define your organization. So as a quick reminder, create, check in with the generative question, review the session goals and structure, examine the scenario by reading it, align on four to six prioritized values, tackle the strategy questions provided and establish triggers for action, and outline the next steps. I know that doing all of this over the next couple months, and maybe if you're doing it with your senior leadership team or your executive committee having to do this three or four times around different scenarios over the next two months, that can seem daunting. But I want you to imagine the confidence that will come from knowing that you have the outline of a plan along with the next steps for for ensuring the plan is thoughtfully developed, strategically tested, thoroughly communicated, and helps you be ready for the changes that will undoubtedly come next year. That way you're not just reacting, you'll be responding with intention and foresight. And as I've already mentioned, if the scenarios you plan for don't come to pass, the process will still leave you stronger, more, more aligned, and better prepared for whatever challenges may come your way. As I've already mentioned, friend next month I'm going to be hosting an online contingency planning session that nonprofit staff, leadership teams, or executive committees can participate in. I'm going to be offering it to my clients first, but will offer any remaining spaces to friends connected to to successful nonprofits. So if you would like to be on the waiting list, please please contact me@dolphuccessful nonprofits.com I also have a contact link in the show notes and I've said this to several clients over the last week. I know the next few months and the next few years can feel kind of scary, but we're going to get through this. We're going to get through this together, and we're going to emerge stronger and more vibrant. That, my friends, that's the show for this week. I hope that you have gained some insight to help you and your nonprofit thrive. And I wouldn't say it, except the lawyers make me. I'm not an accountant nor an attorney, and neither I nor the consulting practice provide tax, legal, or accounting advice. This podcast is for informational purposes only. You should not rely on it for tax, legal, or accounting advice. If that's what you need, please find a licensed, qualified professional in your area and get the help you need.