The Tree of Success

I like to think of non-profit organizations as trees. Trees, like non-profits, provide us with myriad services — oxygen, shade, and carbon sequestration to name a few. Non-profit organizations, like trees, provide us with services that are critical to society — delivering health programs, preserving open space, telling our stories, and providing us with scientific research, education, and care. Where would we be without them?

Let’s take this idea a step further and think of your non-profit as a tree that needs to grow in several directions at once, bend in response to external pressures, weather unforeseen storms, and send connective roots into its communities.

For mission success, you will need a deep and broad root system of supporters — this will include your board, your volunteers, your donors. This root system should keep you anchored in the community with enough funding and connections to support the core of your organization. Think of the core as the trunk of your tree where your executive team and your governance mechanisms provide stability, direction, and resilience at the same time. Too rigid and unchanging, and the trunk will snap under stress. Too weak and bendy, and it will collapse before it has a chance to get its programs up and branching out. The trunk supports the crown or programmatic branches that reach out into the world. These are the realization of your mission. What you are aiming for is a large and glorious crown that is a dynamic reflection of your mission.

A strong two-way communication system will help your tree grow. Make sure that program managers are sending news back to the executive core, and that the core is communicating with the roots. But also make sure that information from the roots — from your board, funders and supporters — is making its way up to and through the trunk, so that that the whole tree can continue to thrive. If your organization needs help in this area, an outside consultant can help.

Finally, some funders want to eliminate or reduce funding for the ‘trunk’ or administrative core of your organization. Try using this tree analogy to help frame the importance of executive support for mission growth. Although each part of your tree — roots, trunk, and crown — functions in a different way, they each serve each other, and only together can they help your organization live up to its mission.