Have you noticed? The economy has turned to soapsuds, challenging individuals and organizations throughout the world, including many of our own nonprofit associations. Association members, customers, staff, and business partners are all feeling the pinch. Everyone is under pressure to try to do what we have always done (or more) with less. But this could be a mistake.

Why do more when you could be doing less? For nonprofits, this is the perfect time to do what we seldom do when times are good: review our existing programs, products, and services and identify which ones have been hanging on for years, with little or no measurable contribution to either organizational mission or financial margin. Use this economy as an opportunity to reassess legacy programs, products, and services, identifying which ones effectively support the organizational mission, provide essential capital for organizational operations and reinvestment, or both.

Look Forward, Not Back

Almost every nonprofit organization has a substantial proportion of these legacy programs, started enthusiastically many years ago. Many consume large amounts of volunteer and staff time, not to mention financial capital. Despite a lack of measurable results, such programs are routinely budgeted and delivered year after year after year, without question.
Such legacy activities have a double negative impact for nonprofits. They consume critical annual resources, without demonstrating a commensurate organizational return. And because they consume valuable resources, they preclude forward-looking organizational investment in innovation and new market development.

Many nonprofit organizations have virtually all annual resources tied up in the production and delivery of legacy programs, leaving little or no resources for annual organizational innovation and new market development—the vital research and development that is so critical for success. Where for-profit corporations will put significant resources toward investigating and investing in new opportunities, nonprofits, caught up in the production and delivery of the same programs, products, and services year after year, find themselves locked in an unenviable situation: business operations geared to maintenance of the status quo, despite a constantly changing social and business environment.

Our current economy provides an excellent opportunity to critically identify ineffective services and redirect a portion of annual resources toward the innovation and new markets necessary for the continued health of every social and business organization. But to take advantage of this opportunity, you must invest first in change leadership. The good news is that the economy is offering you an advantage in leading change, as well.

Leading the Charge for Change

Why do many nonprofits (and other organizations) do what they have always done, year after year, and fail to innovate and develop new markets? Why is change leadership so difficult? And what about today’s economy could make it easier?
Professor John Kotter of Harvard Business School is arguably one of the most knowledgeable researchers on change management and business leadership. In his list of the stages required for successful change in the classic book Leading Change, the first step is to “establish a sense of urgency.” When times are good (and complacency is high), critical analysis and the drive for change is difficult at best, and impossible most of the other times. During good times, many people are more interested in continuity, not working on the “change problem.”

Thus, our current economy is an opportunity too good to miss.

Of course, even in our current economic situation, one can find complacency. Have you heard anyone say, “As soon as the downturn is over, we will be in good shape again”? These “just hang on” philosophies may be due to legitimate past organizational successes and to a common human desire to maintain the familiar and predictable status quo. But “hanging on” is based on the assumption that everything will be the same, once the economy turns north. Unfortunately, in our competitive world, almost nothing remains the same as it used to be.

Our current economy can be the perfect time for successful nonprofit leadership. Experienced volunteer and staff leaders will use this opportunity to capture people’s attention, focus on the level of urgency, work with teams of key volunteers, customers, and staff to critically review existing services, set ambitious new organizational visions and goals, communicate the new vision and strategies, and empower implementation. This is a time of great opportunity. Let’s embrace it!

Virgil R. Carter is the retired executive director of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) and a consultant with Plexus Consulting Group.