What’s the Cost of Bad Decisions?

I have a new post up at the Change.org Social Entrepreneurship blog about the cost of making bad decisions in the nonprofit sector. Here is an excerpt:

There is an economic concept that is beautifully profound in its simplicity, but often overlooked in the nonprofit sector. Opportunity costs are the cost (financial, time, resource, other) of what you have given up in making a choice between two or more options. Understanding the opportunity costs of decisions is particularly important when resources are scarce, as is the case in the nonprofit sector. Key to the concept of opportunity costs is that you are consciously analyzing two or more options and what you must give up in choosing one over the others. Because the nonprofit sector is undercapitalized, money is king. A driving motivation in many nonprofits is to preserve money, or go after money, at all costs. So the idea of opportunity costs is often thrown out the window…

You can read the full post here.

Tags: Change.org, nonprofit, opportunity costs, Social Entrepreneurship

The Social Capital Markets Conference 3.0

I just registered for this year’s Social Capital Markets Conference held in San Francisco in October. It is my favorite conference in the social innovation space for a number of reasons, and I think this year’s conference (the third) may just be even better.

The Social Capital Markets Conference brings together social entrepreneurs (both for-profit and nonprofit, although the latter have gotten less airtime in past years) and those who invest, or would like to, in them.  Last year it really felt as if the conference and the incredibly talented and visionary people attending it were at the beginning of something pretty amazing, new ways of providing sufficient capital to social solutions.

This year promises to go much broader and deeper exploring the financial tools and vehicles that social entrepreneurs need and how we create them. For starters, Sean Stannard-Stockton of Tactical Philanthropy is addressing the conference’s tendency in past years to downplay nonprofits and philanthropy at the conference by leading a new “Tactical Philanthropy Track” that will, as Sean has said:

Bring more donors and nonprofits to the “social capital markets table.” To that end, we’re building a series of panel sessions that examine the way in which philanthropy is an integrated part of the social capital markets, not a separate activity. Our sessions will give donors, nonprofits, investors and for-profits the opportunity to examine together the role that philanthropy plays in social capital markets.

Secondly, representatives from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation will be at the conference to discuss their decision to put $400 million behind their new Program Related Investments program, which I’ve discussed before as a watershed for the social capital market. The SoCap conference website explains what the Gates session will do:

Gates foundation will discuss the foundation’s PRI initiative including the rationale for charitable investment, the value of investment partners to leverage expertise and capital, and the foundation’s hopes for philanthropy in the social capital market. Remarks will be followed by a deep dive into their experience putting this PRI approach to work with Root Capital.

The Gates Foundation decision to put 1% of their capital into a fund to provide risk capital to social entrepreneurs has the potential to encourage other foundations to similarly experiment with new tools for investing in social entrepreneurs, which ultimately means more dollars in the social capital market.

It’s exciting to see what started three years ago as a small conference of less than 600 (a number achieved only at the last minute by a deluge of laid off investment bankers from the financial collapse) becoming arguably the most important conference in the social innovation space. I hope to see you there!

Tags: nonprofit, Philanthropy, Social Capital Markets conference, social entrepreneur, Social Investing, Tactical Philanthropy

What Nonprofits Can Learn From Social Entrepreneurs

It seems that the social entrepreneurship movement is taking the world by storm. In recent years tremendous energy, new ideas, and (we hope) resources are moving toward solving social problems. Saving the world has suddenly become cool.

But, as I’ve written before, we can’t forget the sector that was working on saving the world long before it was cool–the nonprofit sector.  And in fact, there is much that the social entrepreneurship movement can offer to rethink, reinvigorate, and remake the nonprofit sector.

To that end, Social Velocity has just released a new white paper, “What Nonprofits Can Learn From Social Entrepreneurs,” detailing what nonprofits can borrow from the movement in terms of financing, articulating, planning and thinking about their work. Here’s an excerpt:

Social entrepreneurship is not a panacea. But there are things to be learned from a movement that is re-envisioning the future, finding new ways to finance social impact, working towards BIG goals and turning the status quo on its head. The social innovation movement provides an opportunity for the nonprofit sector to see things in a new way and move the best ideas forward. And in doing so, the nonprofit sector–the people, organizations, and resources it encompasses–could revolutionize social change in this country. But becoming more innovative involves some dramatic changes in a nonprofit’s mindset, goals, and approach to funding.

Nonprofits need to think bigger–much, much bigger. One thing that all social entrepreneurs have in common is their predilection toward bold thinking. What if nonprofit organizations took a new approach and became bold? Really BOLD. This change in perspective, in goals can revolutionize an organization. No longer are the board, staff and funders content to add a few sites each year with no end goal. Rather, they understand and rally around their long-term goal, which is to solve a problem. And they see every effort they make, every meeting they come to, every investment they secure as getting them that much closer to that solution. It can transform an organization, and ultimately solve a problem…

You can download the white paper here.

Photo Credit: SI Camp

Tags: nonprofit, Social Entrepreneurship, Social Velocity

We Need an Ecosystem for The Bottom 80%

In response to my post last week on the Change.org blog about the Social Innovation Fund, Sean Stannard-Stockton, of the Tactical Philanthropy blog, wrote a comment that really got me thinking.

My post argued that the $50 million federal Social Innovation Fund is only one small piece of the capital the nonprofit sector needs. The fund will help the top nonprofit organizations, but will not remedy the lack of capital available to the smaller, less sophisticated nonprofits that make up the majority (80%) of the sector. Sean rightly pointed out that like the business sector, the vast majority of nonprofits are small, and as we have done with businesses, we need to create different expectations for different kinds of nonprofits.  I would take Sean’s comments even further and argue that we actually need to create a similar ecosystem of funding and expertise for the nonprofit sector, as we have done for businesses.

Sean writes:

One thing I think that people need to keep in mind when they point to how many nonprofits are small is that the same is true in business. While good revenue numbers are hard to find, did you know that 73% of for-profits have less than 10 employees and 54% have less than 4 employees? It seems to me that as a field we need to do a better job of segmenting the nonprofit market and having very different expectations for nonprofits which are “small businesses” vs those that are “public companies.”

Sean makes a critical point. The vast nonprofit sector is often lumped together as one. When in reality, the sector is incredibly diverse. And although over the past 10 years there have been some innovative strides made in providing capital, expertise, and other resources to the top 20% of the nonprofit sector (such as venture philanthropy funds like New Profit and Venture Philanthropy Partners and management expertise from consulting companies like Monitor and Bridgespan) the fact remains that the “bottom” 80% of the nonprofit sector is still very much alone.

This is one of the reasons I started Social Velocity. I saw a real hole in the marketplace in terms of capital and management expertise to the bottom 80% of the nonprofit market. A $500,000 nonprofit organization can’t engage a Monitor or Bridgespan group, and a venture philanthropy fund wouldn’t be interested in scaling them since no one will fund evaluation to prove their results.  These organizations are stuck within the vicious starvation cycle and cannot get out.

We need to do a better job, as Sean says, of segmenting the nonprofit sector and creating appropriate expectations for those different segments, but we need to go much further. We have to create an ecosystem of expertise and funding for the smaller, less sophisticated segments of the sector, which includes:

• Educating smaller, less sophisticated philanthropists that creating solutions requires funding for less sexy things like capacity, organization building, evaluation
• Providing significant capacity capital to build out revenue functions, attract and retain top talent, articulate a value add, message effectively
• Supplying growth capital to nonprofits who have a great solution and the desire to scale
• Creating realistic and cost-effective evaluation tools so that smaller organizations can prove their impact along with the big guys
• Securing management expertise to help smaller nonprofits create strategic and growth plans, articulate their impact and value add to potential investors, develop comprehensive financial strategies, etc.

I think it’s fabulous that there is a growing understanding that nonprofits can’t do it alone anymore. And I’m so pleased to see new funding vehicles like the Social Innovation Fund that are helping to take social innovation to the next level. But let’s not forget that there are many other innovative nonprofit organizations that will never catch the eye of the Social Innovation Fund, or their funding and consulting counterparts.

Over the past 200+ years America has established a fairly advanced ecosystem that supports (albeit not perfectly) the growth and success of entrepreneurs at every stage of the game.  We are starting to recognize the need for a similar ecosystem in the nonprofit sector.  But there is still much work to be done. Let’s not forget the smaller, less sophisticated nonprofits that may have tremendous solutions to contribute, but who just can’t get past the many hurdles in their way.

Tags: Bridgespan, growth capital, Monitor, New Profit, nonprofit, nonprofit starvation cycle, philanthropists, Sean Stannard-Stockton, Social Innovation Fund, Social Velocity, Tactical Philanthropy, Venture Philanthropy Partners

Will the Social Innovation Fund Really Change the Nonprofit Market?

Last week a new head of the federal Social Innovation Fund, the $50 million public/private fund to scale innovative nonprofits that came out of the Serve America Act, was named. Paul Carttar brings a wealth of experience and knowledge having worked at New Profit, the first venture philanthropy fund, and Bridgespan and Monitor consulting groups, the largest and most sophisticated consulting firms to large nonprofits. He knows how to scale proven nonprofit models.

But we need to be cautious about how much the Social Innovation Fund can do to transform the nonprofit capital market. While it will provide mezzanine funding to the best nonprofits, there are still some glaring holes in the capital available to the rest of the nonprofit sector. You can read my post “Will the Social Innovation Fund Really Change the Nonprofit Market?” at the Change.org blog.

Tags: Bridgespan, Monitor, New Profit, Paul Carttar, Serve America Act, Social Innovation Fund

A Food Fight that Could Change a Country

It seems that social entrepreneurship has come to mainstream America, at least mainstream television. ABC recently launched a new show that provides an on-the-ground look at what a social entrepreneur experiences as they work towards big change.

Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution which airs Friday nights on ABC is a fascinating look at one social entrepreneur’s journey to “create a food fight that could change a country.”  Formerly The Naked Chef, Jamie Oliver has in recent years become obsessed with changing the way people eat.  He started in his home country of England convincing the government there to completely revamp their public school food program, doing away with processed foods in favor of healthier, more natural meals for their children.

Now he’s come to America, specifically Huntington, West Virginia, determined by the Centers for Disease Control to be the most unhealthy city in America, to revolutionize how that city eats.  His goal is to alter the current trend of high rates of obesity, diabetes, untimely deaths.  He is starting with the school system and along the way waging big fights with the school cooks, the local radio DJ and many other disbelievers.

I find two things fascinating about this show. First, it gives viewers a clear understanding of the drama, the ups and downs, the process of building support for the change a social entrepreneur seeks. As David Bornstein put it:

An important social change frequently begins with a single entrepreneurial author:  one obsessive individual who sees a problem and envisions a new solution, who takes the initiative to act on that vision, who gathers resources and builds organizations to protect and market that vision, who provides the energy and sustained focus to overcome the inevitable resistance, and who – decade after decade – keeps improving, strengthening, and broadening that vision until what was once a marginal idea has become a new norm.

The social entrepreneur is the person who continuously fights through the resistance, the hurdles, the blank stares, the vehement objections until what was once crazy, becomes obvious.

Jamie Oliver is this social entrepreneur.  He has a huge vision and a methodical plan for bringing that vision to reality. He wants to change the way America eats.  And he’s starting with one school in one city in America, slowly building support for his new vision. He finds a group of high school kids who all have personal experience with the dangers of unhealthy eating and forms them into a group of evangelists building support for change among their peers, their relatives, and eventually leaders of the community.

Each week we see the struggles that a social entrepreneur encounters when they are trying to move people, communities, institutions toward big change. It is a thankless struggle, but typical of the social entrepreneur, the pitfalls energize, instead of demoralize, Jamie.  With each setback he is more and more determined that he is on the right path.

The second thing that is interesting to me is that a social entrepreneur is being chronicled in the main-stream media. The idea that someone with a big plan for solving a big problem makes it to prime-time television is really exciting. We’ll see if the ratings, and thus the profit margin, hold up enough to keep it in the mainstream. I’m  hoping so.

So, if you want to see a social entrepreneur on the front lines and be inspired by their vision, commitment, passion and ability to build momentum around an idea, check out Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution on ABC tonight.

Tags: ABC, Centers for Disease Control, David Bornstein, Food Revolution, Jamie Oliver, social entrepreneur, The Naked Chef

The Critical Importance of Financial Strategy, Recession or Not

One benefit of the recession for nonprofit organizations is that they can no longer deny the critical importance of finance in what they do. No executive director would say that fundraising isn’t critical to what they do, but I bet a majority would admit that they don’t have an overall financial strategy for the organization. And in a recession that hole becomes ever more apparent.

In flush times it is a bit easier to refrain from analyzing the financial statements every month, predicting cash flow, making hard decisions about whether to end financially draining programs, creating bold (and potentially risky) revenue streams, and so on. The financial strategy of a nonprofit organization often takes a back seat to program strategy. But the recession makes that stance nearly impossible. Because if you turn away from financial reality for too long, you could be out of business.

Clara Miller of the Nonprofit Finance Fund, has some great insights into how the nonprofit sector should be responding to the recession in terms of better financial management. Among her list of things nonprofit leaders should do to be good financial managers are:

• Create a cash flow forecast for at least a year into the future, conservatively estimating what will happen with each revenue source over time and update it regularly
• Conduct a program profitability analysis, which compares the distinct funding sources to the direct expenses of every program a nonprofit operates. When coupled with mission effectiveness this helps inform decisions about what programs to cut or to increase fundraising efforts for
• Understand the relationship between reliable revenue and fixed costs.  If your reliable revenue, or revenue that you are reasonably certain will come in on a consistent basis, is lower than your fixed costs, you’ve got a serious problem.
• Focus every conversation at board and staff meetings on strategic choices that face the organization and the financial implications of those
• Be conservatively realistic about all of your numbers

But nonprofits need much more than just good financial management.  They need a financial strategy for delivering social impact. They need to understand and analyze how program decisions and strategy affect the financial viability of the organization and vice versa.  The two are inextricably linked. It does no good to make program or operating decisions without really understanding the financial implications.  And it is not sustainable to create a strategic program plan without a corresponding and equally strategic financial plan.

Finance has for too long taken a back seat in the nonprofit sector. Fundraising staffs have been separate (physically and strategically) from program staffs. Strategic decisions for the organization (program expansion, new buildings, etc) have been made without a clear understanding of the current or future financial implications of those decisions.  Program goals have been made without knowing what it will truly cost to implement those goals and where that funding will come from.

Nonprofit leaders need to take a bigger view of how their organizations and missions are financed.  It’s not enough to manage money wisely.  Nonprofit leaders need to create a comprehensive, fully integrated financial strategy for the social impact they want to achieve and then execute on it.

Tags: Clara Miller, Fundraising, Nonprofit Finance Fund, nonprofit financial management, program profitability analysis