For Impact

Blog

No More Not-For-Profit

Daily Nuggets | | Tom Suddes

Why do we define ourselves in the negative? It makes no sense.

Does your organization exist to not make any money?

Or, does it exist to save lives, change lives and impact lives?

Anyone who has barely even touched the surface of our For Impact thinking knows that right under our Controlling Insight of IMPACT drives INCOME (not the other way around) is the idea that this is NOT about not-for-profit, 501c3, tax-exempt, charity, etc.

We are the only industry/sector which defines itself in the NEGATIVE! (It is the equivalent of Starbucks calling themselves a ‘Not-tea’ company or Southwest saying “We’re in the ‘not-train’ business.”)

Stop defining yourself by what you’re not.

Start defining yourself by what you are for: IMPACT.
 

More than a shift in language we need a different way of being.

This shift is about attitude. It’s about your purpose (the WHY). It’s about re-thinking an entire sector (or two).

In 1950, Earl Nightingale wrote The Strangest Secret. The secret (common to many beliefs, all sectors, and all definitions of success): We become what we think about.

What becomes of us when our entire thinking is about ‘nonprofit’?
What if we think, instead, about changing the world?

 

The For Impact Movement

We’ve been sharing this message for the last 15 years and living it for longer than that. The past few years has given rise to an incredible conversation around this VOCABULARY and CHANGE.
 

Think not and be not about:

Charity, 501c3.

Tin Cups or Begging.

Not-for-profit OR for-profit.

Think about and be about:

An organization that is Changing the World.

Selling your Vision.

For Impact!

 

Note: Here is some great thinking from Peter Drucker:

Every organization has to abandon almost everything it does.

No ‘some’ orgs… need to ‘tweak’… some ‘things.’ What if you abandoned:

Direct mail. Lengthy Case Statements. Feasibility Studies. Volunteer Solicitations. Survival Pitches. Small thinking. Cultivation. Special events (that aren’t special and don’t raise money). Letters that read “We are a 501(c)3” (who cares?). Committee Reports. Etc.