Video · Finding your purpose: Casting a bold vision for 2021 and beyond
By Toni Koch
For nonprofits, purpose can take on many meanings. For us, as Anne Wallestad has said, “purpose is where our mission and values come together in pursuit of our vision.” The converging crises of the past year have forced organizations to reexamine their sense of purpose and think authentically about why they exist and what they bring to the table.
Purpose is the heart of philanthropy. Our donors are not giving to our organizations. They are giving to why our organizations exist. When we are simultaneously aspirational and honest—with ourselves and our donors—transformational opportunities emerge.
Last week, Aperio and the NYUSPS George H. Heyman, Jr. Program for Philanthropy and Fundraising convened a conversation among nonprofit executives to discuss Finding your purpose: Casting a bold vision for 2021 and beyond.
Our panel shared their insights and experiences on two pertinent topics:
How can we leverage learnings about strength and resilience in order to drive change coming out of the pandemic?
How can donors play a role in creating this impact?
Panelists included:
Joe English, Founder and Executive Director, Hope in a Box
Leslie Gordon, President & CEO, Food Bank For New York City
Lisa Gurwitch, CEO, Delivering Good
Michele Hall-Duncan, CEO, enCourage Kids Foundation
The challenge—and the opportunity
For organizations on the frontlines, the past year has been one of both unique challenges and surprising opportunities.
Leslie Gordon shared that Food Bank for New York City was forced to rethink how they do their work. When she joined the team on March 20th, 2020, she had to focus on building trust with colleagues quickly. Leslie learned that her staff had incredible heart, and as essential workers in the fight against hunger during COVID, she had to ensure they were protected. FBNYC became ‘media darlings’ overnight and had to be really good at telling their story on a national stage, speaking on behalf of all food banks during this time of crisis. Leslie also saw more donors telling the Food Bank story and watched individual contributors step up as the need itself did.
When retailers were forced to close their doors, Lisa Gurwitch and Delivering Good were able to meet the needs of more individuals than they had ever served because of their committed partners. They worked around the clock to redistribute excess retail inventory to provide over 60 million relevant items to people in need including frontline workers. This was made possible by years of deep engagement with these donors and partners, reflecting their commitment to the mission.
Michele Hall-Duncan was about to host enCourage Kids Foundation’s 35th Annual Gala on the day the World Health Organization declared a global pandemic. Despite having to cancel their event and halting the delivery of their programs in hospitals, the pandemic provided an opportunity to press pause and think critically about the work they could continue and what would need to be done differently in the future. Michelle found her donors showed up in big and small ways. One donor even helped give the organization a purpose by supporting the delivery of COVID Coping Kits to isolated children in hospitals.
Hope in a Box’s LGBTQ-inclusive curriculum is delivered in schools, and when students and teachers shifted to remote learning, Joe English wondered how to adapt their programs to still feel helpful and relevant. Based on conversations with teachers, they adopted a hybrid approach to program delivery, meeting the needs of the schools and students that they serve. Even though Joe was hesitant to compete with the life-saving work more directly related to the pandemic, the toll of remote learning, especially for LGBTQ students, soon became evident, and Hope in a Box was prepared to support schools in being a refuge.
Learning from the past year
Reflecting on the past year, nonprofit leaders have been asking: how was our organization affected by this crisis, and what did we learn about our purpose?
Our panelists shared that the pandemic challenged their organizations in different ways, yet it provided all of them with the opportunity to evaluate their purpose in the context of this crisis.
Things happen at the speed of trust. Being a nonprofit leader means building trust quickly among staff, beneficiaries, and donors. Giving these constituents the opportunity to see leaders as humans goes a long way in fostering trust.
Stay resilient. Having the capacity to recover quickly from challenges is essential to meeting the moment and fulfilling your mission. Staff play a key role in delivering an organization’s purpose – recognize their heart and commitment, especially during times of crisis.
Stay relevant. This year there have been more people in need than ever before. Focus on how your organization can meet the unique needs of your target beneficiaries in this moment.
Know what your purpose is and how to deliver it. If needed, take the time to press pause to understand how you can best meet the needs of your beneficiaries. Perhaps their needs remain unchanged, but your access to delivering services is significantly limited. Finding creative solutions to limitations on program delivery is key to realizing purpose during a crisis.
Keep in mind who you serve. What you think your program recipients need and what they actually might find helpful may not align. Take the time to talk to who you serve and do so in ways that make it easy for them to let you know how you can help.
Moving fast and scaling quickly can cause mistakes. Take time when you can to do an after-action review of your work and evaluate the impact on internal infrastructure and systems.
Approaching what comes next
After a year of working in ‘crisis mode’, it’s time to transition into what’s next. Defining a vision for the future that feels meaningful, relevant, and urgent to stakeholders is all about aligning mission and values.
Our panelists shared how they are thinking about the future and what this means for fundraising:
Convene a team of experts. Your purpose may have changed, and whether your organization has narrowed or expanded its vision, now is the time to understand what this change will mean for your impact long-term. Create a task force of internal and external experts to advise you how to realize this new vision.
Focus on strategic planning. Think beyond this year to the next 3-5 years, evaluating your current plans to see if they are still relevant. Do this by having strategic conversations with board, senior leadership, and other staff and stakeholders.
Keep communicating with your implementing partners. You’ve talked to your program implementers and beneficiaries about how their needs changed at the start of the pandemic. Now is the time to have those conversations around how they anticipate needs to change again. While the immediate crisis of the pandemic is subsiding, the residual challenges are coming to the forefront. Be prepared to address challenges, new and old, as the world begins to re-open.
Create a culture of ‘thinking big’. Give staff permission to think bigger and model this at the leadership level. Good ideas come from every level of the organization, so create the space for stepping outside of the work that we do today and encourage and empower people to be curious.
Tap into your donors evolving motivations. More donors, especially individuals and companies, are willing to cast a wider net and invest in projects that can make an immediate impact. Grant funders have made unrestricted funds more available to organizations, recognizing that organizations have needs that they might not be aware of.
Lean into your why. Be transparent with your donors and don’t be afraid to respectfully tell the ‘grittier’ stories of why your work is essential, now and in the future.
Words of encouragement
Staying inspired during times of transition can be difficult, but our panelists left us with some words of advice.
Lisa found that sharing your experiences from the past year with colleagues has helped. It was important to her to bring new voices to the table and encourage honesty and candor. This was when she got the ‘straight scoop’ on how to deepen their impact. Lisa urged us to “make an impact, whether it’s personal or professional, think about how you can make an investment of time or resources and bring others with you.”
Joe reminded us to focus and remember our north star. It’s good to be flexible and nimble as long as you don’t lose track of your core purpose. “Clearly define your north star and figure out what you want to focus on.”
Michelle encouraged us to go out there and get it done and keep rising to meet the occasion, shuffling around resources as needed. “Take the time to look at the past year and be extraordinarily proud of yourselves as fundraisers for what you have had to endure professionally and personally and know that better days are definitely ahead.”
Leslie advised us to think outside of the box. COVID has “helped to accelerate opportunities to think about and do things differently and to give all of us the opportunity to work collaboratively in new ways that we might not have previously explored, rather than working in silos.”
