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Changing Context for Impact and Income

WOW Email | | Nick Fellers

Last week I wrote about the Five Mindsets To Help You Think in “These Crazy Times.” Building on that email, we started offering ‘Sorting Sessions’ – conference calls to help our past clients, Boot Camp alumni, and WOW readership sort out everything. We will continue offering sorting sessions to help social sector leaders on a no-cost, first-come, first-serve basis. To sign-up just email me directly nick@forimpact.org).

In this post, I’m sharing selected concepts and framing people have found helpful.

These nuggets can appear to be unrelated and disjointed. However, they all speak to CONTEXT. Context is what gives meaning to everything. One common thread to all the advice we’re giving is to examine everything in a new – and changing – context.

  • Disruption Innovation is the context for impact. Clayton Christensen introduced the notion of Disruptive Innovation. But right now we’re all seeing something different: Disruption Innovation. Entire business models (for-profit and not-for-profit) were disrupted overnight. Look at the disruption + innovation happening in food-service-delivery, online education, and late-night television – last week alone!

    I truly believe these next six months will be the most innovative of my lifetime.

    Implications:
     
    • Disruption + Innovation. Depending on what you’re doing and what day it is, this can be fear-filled, or hope-filled. It can be surrender or starting anew. I think all emotions and reactions are normal right now.
       
    • Disruption. Much of the world is not like it was two weeks ago. This doesn’t mean we should stop fundraising, for instance, it just means that everything lives in a new and still-changing context.
       
    • Innovation. There is enormous hope and opportunity for the work we do, for the populations we serve, for the problems we’re solving. New tools and new norms will emerge in the coming months. Be ready to test new ideas… move fast… inspire others and be inspired by others as humanity innovates together. 
       
  • COVID-19 *is* the context for funding.

    When you talk to funders, don’t wonder if COVID-19 is going to come up. It will.

    Generally, our advice around a fundraising approach has been falling into a few categories. (There is no one-size-fits-all. I was on a call this morning where I encouraged someone to use these as three different approaches for three different prospects!)
     
    • Urgent Impact: The ‘Now More than Ever Category.’

      If you’re in relief services, helping vulnerable families. Don’t be bashful. Engage. Ask. NOW MORE THAN EVER!
       
    • Timeless Impact (but not COVID urgent)

      Whereas our usual ForImpact mantra is JUST ASK, there are times this week when we’ve said, “JUST CONNECT! Don’t focus on the close, or trying to figure out how to secure that gift by April 20. Time is standing still right now in the world of the funding conversations you’re having. Funders will be there for you, just let them sort everything out.”

      We’re not saying you can’t close gifts. In fact, we have many examples of closed gifts from this week. What we’re saying is, right now – this week/month – let the close come to you. If you need help with a specific language around this, sign up for a sorting session. I’ll also try to write up several examples on our blog at forimpact.org.

      Remember: “Sales is not a business transaction. It is first and foremost the forging of the human connection.” – Bob Burg
       
    • Recovery Opportunity Impact.

      I spoke with one entrepreneur who runs an ‘innovation lab’. He wanted to know how he should talk to funders about helping him to make his Q2 goals happen. My advice was blunt. “Don’t. Throw those goals out the window. Take a deep breath. We’re going to need you on the other side of this. Today, your quarterly numbers are just noise. Tomorrow, I can’t think of a sector, a city, or a company that won’t stand to benefit from the impact you can provide.”

      We put together strategy and messaging to connect with funders today in the coming weeks/months, but we’re focusing our conversations around the ‘recovery opportunity impact’, not urgent crisis. The strategy doesn’t stop fundraising activity; it’s just realistic and prudent.
       
  • Shared Humanity is the context for all-of-us.

    Impact Drives Income is our point of view. It’s also a great way to think about managing a conversation (with a funder) starting with the impact and then driving toward the income. During this time, we’ve been advising social sector leaders to envision a ‘shared humanity’ – transcendent to Impact and Income. Start with that. Then you can move into how your organization is having an impact IN this shared humanity and – in the COVID Context – talk about funding.