Nonprofit sustainability is the ability of a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization (or one of its programs) to continue to meet the needs of the community on an ongoing basis - beyond the life of specific grants or with diminishing support. For many nonprofits, their view is narrow and sustainability equals fundraising to them. However, fundraising is only one component of capacity building and sustainability. There are four key strategies to consider when building organizational capacity and, ultimately, the sustainability of your organization and its programs:
1. Recruiting and managing community volunteers
2. Partnering with community members and organizations
3. Marketing and promotion
4. Increasing and diversifying resources
I remember clearly going to one of my first Business for Social Responsibility Conferences years ago as I was starting to get more involved with corporate social responsibility and working with businesses, as opposed to nonprofits. I went to a session with sustainability in the title thinking I could glean some new tips or strategies to share with my clients. I sat there feeling totally lost – people were nodding their heads in agreement with the speakers’ comments all around me but what they were saying did not match my nonprofit definition of the term. As I talked to more business people, often they were using “sustainability” to mean environmental considerations such as how not to pollute or use up all the planet’s resources in the course of doing business to leave the planet as healthy as possible for future generations. However, what I find is that increasingly, when business people use the term sustainability, they are referring to the “triple bottom line” of profitability, environmental and social issues in business operations.
So while both types of organizations are looking at issues related to insuring their own success over the longer term, the specifics are quite different in many respects. So beware when you are talking with business people about your nonprofit’s “sustainability”. Their minds may be elsewhere and it would be in your best interest to explain how you are using the term to avoid any miscommunication.
My new blog will deal primarily with issues of resource development for nonprofits including developing strategic partnerships with businesses. I will also get into ideas in the other three areas, as well. However, I really want to catalyze a dialogue that gets nonprofit leaders out of the traditional paradigm of writing grants and asking for donations and inspires them to tweak their resource development efforts to maximize returns.
