Latest / Nonprofit Launch Plan Podcast for Startup, Small, and Growing Nonprofits / Simplicity Beats Complexity: How to Stop Overcomplicating Your Nonprofit
Transcript
- Matt Stockman: Simplicity beats complexity every time. Complexity is actually quietly choking a lot of small nonprofits and large ones too. It creeps in through spreadsheets and planning documents and software subscriptions, all of it in the name of getting organized, but the actual secret is the best run. Nonprofits aren't the ones that are more complicated. It's the ones that are simpler. And in this episode, I'm breaking down where most organizations kind of over complicate things and how to strip it back to what actually works. And if you're still in the planning phase and the launching phase of your nonprofit, hopefully I'll give you some things to think about to make sure you start more simply and not allow complexity to start to creep in. That's what's coming up on this episode of the Nonprofit Launch Plan podcast for startups, small and growing nonprofits. Welcome in and thanks for being here. This podcast is here to help you build your nonprofit from the ground up on a strong foundation. So every episode we give you frameworks and tools and the personalized guidance that you need in order to. Be able to create lasting impact. I'm Matt Stockman. I'm a nonprofit growth coach and the host of the podcast, thrilled You're Here at Nonprofit Launch Plan. We believe that every nonprofit has gotta be operating at peak performance in six key areas in order to be successful in those six areas. Our leadership, fundraising, marketing. Programs and services, operations and finances. So on every episode of the podcast, we talk about a topic that is core to at least one of those six areas. Now, before we dive in, if you or somebody you know is still in the dreaming phase of launching a nonprofit, I've got a special freebie for you. It's a PDF resource I've created. It's called From Dream to Action, your nonprofit pre-launch checklist, 10 Essential Steps. For moving from nonprofit idea to impact, it's 10 things to think about as you start to crystallize your dream for a nonprofit. This tool will take you through 10 easy first steps to move your dream for a nonprofit towards a launch plan that will actually get your dream off the ground. It's a checklist that will walk you through your why. We will help you consider your first teammates. In other words, your board. We will help you hone in on exactly who your beneficiary is, choosing your nonprofit name, your IRS application, and a whole lot more. And with each step, there's an easy to do action step that I want you to consider that will bring your dream for a nonprofit into a whole lot clearer focus when you've completed it. If you'd like the free PDF, it's called From Dream to Action, your nonprofit pre-launch checklist. 10 essential Steps for Moving from Nonprofit Idea to Impact. Just email me at matt@nonprofitlaunchplan.com. MA tt@nonprofitlaunchplan.com. Or you can look for the pop out on the website and that's nonprofit launch plan.com. Alright, let's dive in. Today we're tackling a topic that every small nonprofit leader, including me. Wrestles with, and that's complexity. Most of us don't set out to create complicated systems or big bloated plans that are bigger than they need to, but somewhere along the way, good intentions turn into spreadsheets and then other spreadsheets attached to the first spreadsheet. And then meetings and meetings before the meeting and meetings to plan the meetings and tools that steal our time and our focus. You get the idea, right? It's a lot of trying to get things done, but not really sure where we're going. So in this episode, I wanna walk you through a couple of ways that I've seen nonprofits that I've worked with make things more complicated than they need to be. And the goal would be to make sure that your nonprofit isn't falling victim to these areas of unnecessary complexity. And if you do see some similarities in what I'm talking about and what you are experiencing in your nonprofit. I will show you some ways to kind of simplify each one of these things so you can actually see results faster. Alright, so let's jump in. The first way we overcomplicate things is in planning. This begins with the story. I met with the strategic planner for a non-profit just last week that was looking for wisdom on what KPIs to prioritize and track. KPIs are key performance indicators. And this individual pulled out the spreadsheet that had over 100 choices on it of different things to measure. And there's no way to make all 100 of those things simultaneously go up into the right. So we had to really break it down and go what's really, really important to pay attention to? And by the time we were finished, we boiled it down to like three or four key performance indicators. Here's the truth. Most nonprofits don't need a 30 or 40 page strategic plan. What you need is a two or three page action plan, and I'm gonna help you sort of. Build it, and I really want you to get specific about what's on these two or three pages in your action plan. And when it comes to creating these plans or a roadmap, I actually see a lot of nonprofits do this backwards. In other words, the way they start is they make a list of all the things they're trying to get done, maybe in the next 90 days, and then they look out a year and go, Hey. If we're here, maybe in a year I'd like to be here and then, and then they kind of get fuzzier and fuzzier the farther out they go. And by the time you get to the, you know, what's our nonprofit look like in 10 years, it's cloudy, it's fuzzy, it's pie in the sky, dreaming, and there's no real clear path from where we are today to how we get to that 10 year mark. So my plan is to encourage you to flip the script on that whole idea, and let's get clear about what our nonprofit is gonna look and act like in 10 years. And in other words, start to reverse engineer what we need to do today in order to be where we want to be in 10 years. To begin, we gotta get really clear about what 10 years out from now looks like. So here's what I'm gonna encourage you to do. Uh, first of all, get your vision statement out because this is gonna really be tied to that 10 year target. And if you've listened to this podcast before. You know, earlier episodes, I talk about two things that are core to any organization. One is a mission statement, and two is a vision statement, an aspiration of the good that you'd like to be able to do in the world 20, 30, 40, 50 years, somewhere in the future. That's probably beyond you personally. So get your vision statement out, gather your team together, however big that team is, get everybody together. Start to dream about what 10 years into the future looks like for your nonprofit. Now, I want you to dream with wisdom, and I want it to be in alignment with that vision statement that you've created. How much staff are you gonna need in 10 years? How much money are you gonna need in order to make all of the impact that you're dreaming about? How many people are you serving 10 years in the future? How many locations do you have any other. Ideas that are pertinent to what you believe your nonprofit is going to look like in 10 years. Now, if you're saying to yourself, this is really hard to predict, I understand that, and I built in some things on an annual basis to sort of reaffirm all that, and I'll talk more about that in just a second. But, so I really want you to get clear about what 10 years looks like. And then what I want us to do is to sketch out if we need to be at this place in 10 years, well then where do we need to be in five years in order to sort of be on track and based on getting to where we see ourselves in 10 years. Where do we need to be in five years? How many staff members do we need? How much money are we gonna need? How many people are we serving? We're just sort of painting the five year picture, and it's based on kind of the halfway point between now and what the 10 year picture looks like. So once we have all of that, the third thing I want you to do is look, looking at where you need to be as an organization in five years. Then where do I need to be? In one year and write all of that out. And then on the last page of this plan, this action plan that we're building, given where you believe you'll need to be in one year, which again is gonna lead to the five year mark, which is gonna lead to the 10 year mark, but where you believe you need to be in a year, what needs to get accomplished? In the next 90 days, and this is where I want you to get super detailed and very specific. I want you to set some 90 day goals that are very specific and achievable. Let's make sure those 90 day goals are smart goals. Remember, smart goals are specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time bound. S-M-A-R-T SMART goals. So every 90 days, then you gather your team together. You review how you did on the previous 90 day goals, and you set the next 90 day goals based on the one year picture that you've painted. Now, every year on about the one year anniversary of that strategic planning that you did with your team, you get back together, you pull the entire team in, you pull out the whole plan, the 10 year, the five year, the one year plan, and you review the whole thing. And ask yourself some hard questions. Is the 10 year target still relevant? Does it still make sense? Have things changed in our mission or our vision? Has that shifted slightly and we need to revise the 10 year target? Have things externally in the community or in the. People that you serve, have those things changed so that somehow or other we need to adjust that 10 year goal. And every year on that anniversary, you are gonna adjust that 10 year goal, but you've gotta have it mapped out and sort of. Uh, pictured in your mind in order to be able to create the steps that you need to take today, that will eventually lead you from today to a year, from now to five years, from now to 10 years from now. So that simplified strategic planning, so important. Most nonprofits make strategic planning a lot harder and a lot more complicated, and I get it, like everything kind of drifts in that direction and we have to actually work harder to simplify things, but simple beats complexity every time. The other way I see complexity creep in a lot is an operations and in technology there are tons of really excellent tools. Software apps all designed to make your life easier, your workflows easier, your file storage easier, your communications process between your staff, your volunteers all make it easier, et cetera. But when you're just starting out. Every new app promises to either save time or energy or make you more streamlined or productive, but pretty soon, and, and this is the reality for me, and I'll explain more about that in just a moment. The reality is pretty soon I've, you've got one tool stacked on top of another tool. You've got Asana, and you've got Slack, and you've got Trello, you've got Google Drive, you've got Monday, you've got all these things that are all supposed to be saving you time in the moment. But we never actually paused to see how much overlap there might be in the tools that you have, and if there's a simpler way to keep things as productive as possible. I'm raising my hand right now and saying I am going through this reality, especially when it comes to producing this podcast, uh, because I think I have too many tools. I'm paying for all of them. And I think a lot of the tools all do the same things. But like in the, the reality is in the process of building the podcast, I was like, I need something to help me with transcription. So I went and got a tool and then I, Hey, I need something to help me with video. So I went and got a tool and then I need something to help me do this other thing. And I went and got a tool and, and I'm pretty sure, and in fact, once this podcast is done. My next task is gonna be to dive into all the tools, because I think I'm paying for all of them, and I think they do pretty much all the same thing, so I don't need all of them. So my encouragement to use every year to pause and audit all the tools, the platforms, the systems, the applications, the workflows that you're using, and ask yourself, do we really need this? Or are we inviting more complexity into our processes than we need to? If you can't explain to a volunteer how to use your system in five minutes, it's probably too complicated. And remember, simplicity beats complexity every time We overcomplicate things when we don't need to. And when you simplify. Your team, your volunteers, they know what to do. Your donors have a clearer understanding of why you matter and your mission, your impact. Everything just moves faster. Simplicity is not being lazy. It's excellent leadership. I normally don't do a lot of, uh, strong pitches on my podcast. I will offer some free resources from time to time, but occasionally I wanna pause and say for both of these areas of complexity that we've been talking about, one with strategic planning, and then the other one with the use of technology in your processes and in your systems. You can do it yourself. You can. Develop your own strategic plan. You can look out into 10 years and create a picture of what it is that you want 10 years to look like, and then five years and back. The whole thing. Reverse engineer the whole thing. And on the technology side, like you can look at your tech, stack yourself and figure out where the overlap is. But this is a time when I would strongly recommend you bring somebody in from the outside to help with that, especially when it comes to the strategic planning. Somebody who's an objective third party. Who can ask you the right kinds of questions, who can encourage you in the right directions, who can help you understand and get a real good, clear picture of what 10 years is gonna look like, and then what five years needs to look like, what one year needs to look like, and what the next 90 days need to look like. That's really hard to do when you're in the. Thick of it and having somebody as an outside resource to help guide you through that process is really, really important. And whatever you have to pay for that, I think you will find will be absolutely more than worth whatever you pay. And then on the technology side. Having somebody who's a little bit more knowledgeable about all of the systems and automating systems and things like that is, is, is, uh, is a really great choice as well. In fact, on an earlier episode of the podcast, uh, I had a guest named David Waters, who's the CEO of an organization called Simple and Engaging, and his company helps nonprofits. Automate systems and processes and use technology to simplify rather than make things more complex. I'll put how to get in touch with David in the show notes of this episode. Uh, but I would highly recommend that you reach out to him if you need help, sort of looking at all your systems and processes and all the technology that you're using and trying to figure out whether or not there's an easier and better and simpler way to do all of that. All right. That's all for today's episode of the Nonprofit Launch Plan podcast for startups, small and growing nonprofits. Thank you for being here. Now, before we wrap everything up, if you are tired of the constant stress and worry about money, where it's coming from, how you're gonna cover the cost of all the impact you wanna make, it means that fundraising. Is a struggle. You're not alone. Fundraising is a struggle for everybody and we're here to help you with that, I want you to take a quick moment and head over to my website and get the free Fearless Fundraising mini course. It's a workbook and five short videos that go along with them that will walk you step by step through a game plan to build your fundraising messaging with clarity. I a hundred percent believe that most nonprofits struggle and a lot fail. Not because of lack of funding, but actually because of lack of clarity. If a potential donor doesn't understand right away what you do and how their gift can help, they won't give. And I meet up with nonprofits. All the time, every day, different size and shape organizations that it's really next to impossible to know for sure what they do and how they actually help people. So the Fearless Fundraising Workbook will help you get that clarity that you need and get you more donor dollars quicker so that you can make more impact. Get the Fearless Fundraising workbook and the videos that go along with it right now for free on my website@nonprofitlaunchplan.com. And don't forget about the other free opportunity that PDF Resource. From Dream to Action, your nonprofit pre-launch checklist, 10 essential steps for moving from nonprofit idea to impact. You can either email me at matt@nonprofitlaunchplan.com to get that or just look for the pop out on the website. At nonprofit launch plan.com. Now, that's all for today's episode of the Nonprofit Launch Plan podcast for startups, small and growing nonprofits. Thank you so much for being here, watching and listening. Don't forget to hit the subscribe button so you don't miss out on the next episode. And if in any way you found this episode helpful, please share it with another nonprofit leader who you think might benefit. Until next time, keep making a difference. And thank you so much for being here.