For Impact

Blog

Going Out of Business

Change, Attitude | | Tom Suddes

A lot of “wailing and gnashing of teeth” going on in our sector right now. We hear about a lot of ‘not-for-profits’ worried about all the budget cuts, drops in giving, etc. We have both heard directly and read the “Please help us survive, we won’t make it, we will have to close our doors” lament.

Some (many) of these organizations probably should go out of business. They are duplicative of hundreds of other organizations, a lot of times in the same geographical area. They are poorly run. They have relatively little IMPACT.

In the real world, this happens all the time. Nick always uses the term ‘correction‘. This is a naturally occurring event in the world. Organizations, companies, people come and go.

I just heard a story about three ‘ARTS’ companies in Ireland being told that they will no longer be individually supported… but that they had to combine their programs and resources into one large NATIONAL organization… which has the potential to be in the BITW (Best in the World) category. Personally, I think this makes great sense.

P.S. Positive Note. ‘Going out of business’ can also mean reinventing yourself. You can literally go out of business today and reopen tomorrow as a different kind of organization. (Can you say ‘General Motors’? I’m an Atlas Shrugged guy. An entrepreneur. Don’t like government involvement in anything. However, you’ve got to love the fact that General Motors ‘re-invented’ itself by forming two entities… one with all the good stuff and one with all the bad toxic stuff… and then dumped the bad one.)