Want to save your non-profit?

Non-profits need to set aside egos, work together to survive and help others in the community

Want to save your non-profit? Team up with others before it’s too late.

Some of my best memories arise from times when a community of people really came together.

The roar of the crowd as Petes players entertained us right to the end of the season.

The night that fans packed the stands at Trent University to see Team Canada on the opening night of the World Lacrosse Championships.

The laughter and buzz of conversation from the Be a Goddess fundraising event for the United Way at Peterborough Square.

However, in quieter corners, some people are dividing into silos.

Primarily, I’m hearing from nonprofits who have fewer donor dollars as they try to meet a growing demand for their services. Over recent years, they have shuffled or cut staff to try to cover the key work that needs to get done.

On the donor side, companies and foundations report receiving three times as many requests for donations as before. The pool keeps shrinking as people choose to invest in their groceries and housing instead. They are also bolstering their own savings to protect themselves.

So, where does this leave us? In better times, people could come up with an idea then start a non-profit with their friends and other supporters. Over time, hundreds of them popped up in the region to address a variety of problems.

However, as budgets tighten, many of them worry how they will survive. So do I.

This fear is leading people to scramble for the same dollars which others pursue — some win and some lose.

Yet, if we could foster more collaboration, the programs and services we truly need would endure. We just need to let go of the outlook that we have to continue to work within the same frameworks we have today.

The groups who are already working together are thriving. That is the future for non-profits, whether they want to accept it or not.

Some are championing efforts to support other groups. For example, the Community Foundation of Greater Peterborough runs VitalPtbo.ca, sharing priceless data about our population and various issues. It’s free for all to use and is especially helpful for research and grant proposals.

The people who are resisting are acting out of fear and hubris. One leader who has lost her key program funding doesn’t know what the future holds. When we talked about an exit plan, such as folding in with another organization, she balked.

“I don’t want to be the executive director that closed up the shop,” she said.

Meanwhile, others are convinced they are the smartest or largest, so others should acquiesce to their will. They are also the ones that haven’t evolved or learned from the upstarts who have challenged them to think differently.

In my day job, I work with opensource programmers who welcome the best ideas to create the greatest software possible. They set aside their egos and embrace changes that suit the current market.

It’s simple, yet so brilliant.

Why can’t non-profits do the same? Some of the most inspiring innovation has come from this sector. Its workers constantly find creative solutions with limited resources all the time.

However, the more they burn out, the less this happens. The more strain they feel from tight budgets, the more that fear makes them freeze.

When we started Volunteer Peterborough, one astute leader looked me in the eye and said, “If you duplicate anything another group is doing, I’m out.” Since then, we’ve lived up to that promise.

I see others still fighting for their turf — perhaps to the death. Then we all lose.