Webinar Recap: Managing (or Initiating) Rapid Growth

If you haven’t yet discovered Nonprofit Learning Lab, they offer content on a wide range of topics - including….Collaboration! Last week, I got to record a session for them on collaboration as a tool for managing growth in nonprofits. During the workshop, we explore why collaboration is an underused growth strategy, how organizations can move forward with collaboration and talked about some examples of organizations learning into collaboration for greater mission impact. Here’s a quick recap: 

How do you get where you want to go?

Once we decide where we want to go, we need the right vehicle to get us there. We need to evaluate the size and structure of our organizations and understand if we can realistically achieve our missions alone, building it up brick-by-brick or if we should turn to others. Connecting with other organizations who share a vision and mission is one of the best ways to achieve growth… so, why aren’t more organizations doing it?

As I’ve alluded to in an article at the beginning of this year, the number of organizations in the nonprofit sector is increasing, but substantially outpacing funding for the sector. There are complex and persistent social crises that still need to be solved, but adding to the number of organizations is not helping us accomplish that. So let’s partner up!

The collaboration continuum, breaking stigma, and how nonprofits merge

Throughout the webinar, I break down the Collaboration Continuum, looking at the various ways in which organizations can come together, because even “mergers” exist on a spectrum. We also take a look at the nonprofit life cycle and the ways in which collaboration can occur at every phase, from start-up to growth and renewal. We also discuss why it is so important and valuable for organizations to connect across different phases of the life cycle to benefit from new people, ideas and innovation, filling in the gaps and building each other up. 

Finally, we talk about how nonprofits merge, starting with a shared vision and focusing on the importance of communication and evaluating a few cases of nonprofit collaborations to learn from.

If you’d like to see the entire webinar, I encourage you to register here for free to get access to the recording and a copy of the slides. You will also get access to the entire library with all of the other awesome webinars that Nonprofit Learning Lab has to offer!