In this Series, Toni Jackson has shared her insight into a wide range of non-profit sector issues. In this post, she offers four (4) steps to take when an individual is planning to launch a non-profit organization that succeeds.
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Toni Jackson
First, find out what is needed in the community you hope to serve. You have to do your research; there are no shortcuts. None. Therefore, doing a needs assessment is an important first step that a prospective non-profit Founder must take. To put it simply, to successfully launch and run a non-profit organization, you must do your homework. Yes, we all have passions and things that we believe are necessary and needed. However, please make sure your pre-launch research and needs assessment sufficiently supports what you see your non-profit doing.
Second, regarding your prospective non-profit’s Mission Statement, I believe it should be in line with your personal mission. In my experience, where these two clash, a Founder/Executive Director will encounter problems down the road. As well, keep your missions in mind when you envision and build your first Board of Directors.
Third, select the right name for your non-profit organization. It should be one that different groups of people can identify with well, namely: Your donors; your volunteers; and those you’re seeking to serve in the community. Choosing a name which some (or none) of these groups can relate to can cause challenges for your future success.
Lastly, identify and fulfill all the legal requirements of establishing a non-profit organization. Getting a legal professional to do the paperwork involved in meeting these legal requirements is a move you’ll rarely regret.
LEARN
- Do a robust needs assessment to accurately determine what the community’s needs. Perceived needs may not line up with real needs. Meeting real needs that too many other non-profits are already meeting may position an Executive Director for a tough time in achieving sustainability.
- Make sure the Mission Statement of your prospective non-profit does not clash with your personal mission.
- Select a name for your non-profit organization that sufficiently satisfies different groups of people – donors, those who your non-profit serves, and volunteers.
- Do the paperwork to fulfill the legal requirements of your organization.
GROWTH
Michael Gerber, in The E Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don’t Work and What to Do About It (1995), offers a view of those who launch a small business. Launching a non-profit organization is, in many ways, not that different. As he described in the book: “Everyone who goes into business is actually three-people-in-one, The Entrepreneur, The Manager, and The Technician.”
The Technician is generally “the doer”. This is at the core of the three dimensions that can be found within someone launching an enterprise. As stated in Gerber’s book: “It is the tension between The Entrepreneur’s vision and The Manager’s pragmatism that creates the synthesis from which all great works are born.” [Emphasis added] The challenges that are faced come from how much of the managerial and entrepreneurial dimensions a Small Business Owner or Non-profit Organization Founder possesses. As stated by Gerber, who has over 35 years of experience:
“And if they were equally balanced, we’d be describing an incredibly competent individual . . . Unfortunately, our experience shows us that few people who go into business are blessed with such a balance. Instead, the typical small business owner is only 10 percent Entrepreneur, 20 percent Manager, and 70 percent Technician.” [Emphasis added]
If you are planning to start a Non-profit Organization, the same three dimensions are clearly in force. Moreover, the same typical 10/20/70 mix of these 3 dimensions is very likely to be found in Founders/Executive Directors. The lack of balance is at the root of many of the problems and challenges that non-profit leaders face.
Toni Jackson offered four considerations for a person when starting a non-profit. Your self awareness, using Gerber’s 3-in-1 concept, of how well you wear the Entrepreneur hat and the Manager hat is essential too. If a Founder/Executive Director can‘t be more than a doer (wearing a Technician’s hat) they are going to be very prone to running a lackluster organization, not one that thrives and endures it’s growing pains.
It’s possible that something a new Executive Director choose not to do, when planning the non-profit, will come back to haunt them. For example, Jackson states as her first consideration the importance of doing a Needs Assessment. If you skip this you may, to put it simply, be doing something that doesn’t need to be done. As Gerber states in The E Myth Revisited:
“Since most entrepreneurial ideas don’t work in the real world, The Technician’s usual experience is one of frustration and annoyance at being interrupted in the course of doing what needs to be done to try something new that probably doesn’t need to be done at all”.
As it relates to a prospective Executive Director, being a deeply passionate Doer who can’t also comfortably wear the Entrepreneurial hat and the Managerial hat isn’t a strategy for success. To win the marathon that is being a Founder/Executive Director, to run a small non-profit well, you can’t simply wear just one hat – the Technician’s hat. That isn’t going to suffice!
Like an individual who launches a small, for-profit enterprise, one launching a 501(C) 3 or a social enterprise is three people in one too – as Michael Gerber puts it.
If you keep Toni Jackson’s considerations in mind, and appreciate Gerber’s three-people-in-one perspective of small business owners, you will be well positioned to plan, launch, and run a successful non-profit. Be keenly aware of the true needs of the community, as Jackson rightly encourages, so you’re really doing what needs to be done. Be self aware of the managerial and entrepreneurial requirements of succeeding in a new venture – as set forth by Gerber in The E Myth Revisited.
