Building Successful Programs
Non-profit organizations are nearly always resource-challenged. There is never enough money to do all the good that they want to do. As a result, programming can end up being patched together. Irregular programing can still be effective. Here are three tips on building successful programs with limited resources:
1) Articulate what you want to accomplish: Make a list of objectives for your program. Is this a program to further the institution’s mission? How will it do that? Or is this a communications program that will help you tell the world about the organization’s work? Are you trying to drive traffic to your website or to your actual georgraphic location? Is this a program to raise money or cultivate donors? Or are you trying to hit the golden ticket and accomplish many of these objectives with one program? What are your benchmarks for success.
Spend some time writing down answers to these questions:
1) How does this program serve the mission of this organization and this (fill-in-the blank) objective?
2) What do I need to do to make this program happen and what is my time-table?
3) What are the resources available to me (staff, time, money)?
Be honest about the resources and remember to include administrative time. You may not have staff to run the program, so consider whether you should hire a consultant to manage it. Most importantly, keep your programs mission-centered and doable. It might be great to have a local rock band give a concert at your institution, but does that really serve your mission?
2) Collaborate with other non-profits. Joining forces with another non-profit can bring surprisingly good results in public programming. An environmental organization I worked with wanted to drive traffic to its new building, located out of town in a nature preserve. At the same time, a mental health organization in town was finding it hard to get people to attend meditation and group therapy sessions because their clients were concerned about the ‘stigma’ (hopefully a thing of the past) of being seen walking into a mental health clinic. I connected the two organizations and suggested that the meditation and therapy sessions be held at the environmental center’s new building in the nature preserve. Both organizations were able to use the growing body of research on the essential connections between mental health and nature to market the program. This collaboration created
a new audience for the environmental organization, driving visitors to its location and
freed up office and meeting space at the mental health clinic, while also increasing attendance for its meditation and therapy programs.
One caveat to this type of collaboration; it rarely works well to collaborate on fundraising events. Keep your fundraising events separate from other non-profits, and specific to your organization’s mission.
3) Use volunteers. Volunteers are a non-profit’s super-power. To be sure, volunteers need to be directed and managed and they can be a double edged sword; on the one hand they are not paid and therefore can be less dependable. On the other hand, they are not paid, and can be a cheaper way to provide staffing. It is important not to discount the ideas and contributions of a volunteer task force just because you are not paying them. In addition to board members (the ultimate volunteer workforce), many organizations depend on highly intelligent, committed and talented volunteers to drive programmatic success. In fact, a number of effective non-profits are run almost exclusively by volunteers — think Habitat for Humanity, Lion’s Club, Rotary Club, garden clubs and municipal commissions. Tasking volunteers with running a program can bring diverse insights, deeper community engagement and connections to talent and capital that your organization might not otherwise be able access.