How Nonprofits Can Truly Advance Change
What would it take for the nonprofit sector to realize its full potential to advance systemic social change?
It’s time to acknowledge that there is no one-size-fits-all solution to realizing our full potential. Instead, in every facet of charity work, structural transformation is required. And now is the moment to make that adjustment.
When people make decisions and take collective action concerning challenges in their personal lives, progressive societal change occurs. The following examines how nonprofit systems may appear if founded on principles like equity, relationship, trust, sufficiency, and potential.
Organizational structure and leadership: Relationships inside organizations would resemble communities and natural ecosystems if social change organizations mirrored the society we wish to see—networks of mutual support devoted to a shared vision and values. This is how social movements form, and it is at the heart of their success when they do. Organizational “walls” would be porous, allowing ideas, people, and resources to flow freely outside those “walls.”
People from affected communities would be recognized as change agents, with organizations actively assisting their development. Those community leaders would wield power and make decisions, with organizational employees as backups. Boards would consider themselves support to all those individuals, not as leaders, as necessary by law or regulation.
Planning and program design: Community members would define goals and plans for their communities to achieve a more equal and humane future. The planning process would be conscious of privilege, sexism, colonialism, and racism, which are too familiar in planning procedures, including decisions about who is invited to which table and who conducts the discourse. That planning would be future-oriented, with visionary outcomes as a realistic goal. From there, community members would design programs based on their current capabilities, with organizational professionals assisting just as needed.
Evaluation as learning: If evaluation reflected the society we want to see, those reflections would be shared throughout the community and across entire sectors of work—for example, learning from one food bank would be shared with all food banks worldwide. Learning and assessment would focus on tales of the relationships that caused the change, with quantitative data as merely one approach to show those stories because humans learn through stories. As a result, learning would be a powerful, open-source, collaborative endeavor, with funding commensurate with its value.
Communication and engagement: The purpose of communication would be to generate collective power toward achieving the community’s goals to help community members in their change efforts. Instead of the marketing mandate to differentiate and compete, such activities would promote everything that we can accomplish together as allies, which none of us can achieve on our own.
Accounting and accountability: With such a focus on co-creating change, a nonprofit’s primary obligation and stewardship would be to the people it serves. Suppose the care and loyalty duties are still legally intended at the organization. In that case, they can only be viewed as possible if the organization is upholding its fundamental obligation to the community.
Human resources and compensation: Human resources’ job would be to live up to its name by providing the resources people need to be their best. Compensation that represents the worth of the labor would be one of the requirements for employees’ success. In addition, such compensation would be ample for employees to not worry about finances, freeing staff to be at their best both at work and at home.
Resourcing and funding systems: Resourcing social change must mirror an organization’s vision and principles, including people being appreciated for who they are rather than their monetary status. Those efforts, which are based on sharing, relationships, equity, and trust, would embody the stone-soup ethos of collective enoughness, which holds that we have all we need when we work together. As a result, in-kind resources and volunteers would be appreciated more highly than cash because those in-kind offerings are the actual resources required.
Most importantly, prioritizing people and communities over money would necessitate a substantial adjustment in foundations’ roles. Foundations’ duty would be to ensure that appropriate funds are available to accomplish what communities believe they require, rather than acting as self-appointed arbiters of what reform warrants backing.
The Time is Now: If there was ever a period when the nonprofit sector was ready for change, now is it. And the first step in that transition will be to ask and answer a variety of questions regarding every part of our work.
1) What creates change?
Nonprofits frequently act as though they know how to solve problems like hunger and poverty, literacy, and social justice. Given that those issues still exist, we would be wise to follow Einstein’s advice and rethink the assumptions that underlie social change efforts. This will necessitate the replacement of the “expert” role with a humble attitude and practices based on inquiry, listening, and learning.
2) As a nonprofit organization, what might our role be in supporting change (rather than leading change)?
What do the people in your community truly want? Have you asked them about their vision for the future? Do you merely inquire about problems and needs, treating them as inadequacies that must be addressed? What are the responsibilities that your organization is capable of filling to assist those efforts? Instead of leading such community-driven efforts, how might you use your access to people and resources to help them?
3) What would alignment look like?
First and foremost, do no harm in order to produce what is possible. Accounting and human resources, which appear to be benign functions, are frequently used to stifle change. Consider: What methods of completing this task will best reflect our community’s aspirations for the future?
4) Ask funders to do the same.
While nonprofit leaders may feel powerless in the face of foundations with financing, anyone may invite a new discourse by asking alternative questions, allowing them to harness the ability to set the table rather than waiting to be invited to “the” table.
Conclusion.
To fully realize our potential to make a more imaginative difference in the world, we must make fundamental changes in every facet of our work in the nonprofit sector. And, because change requires collective action by real people, the most crucial question we can ask is: Are we willing to change if it turns out that we are the ones who must change?
Author: Hildy Gottlieb https://nonprofitquarterly.org/how-nonprofits-can-truly-advance-change/