Planning for Sustainability: Incorporating Activities/Services in Organizations with a Similar Mission
Learn what incorporating your work into another organization means, decide when and if it's necessary, and how to choose an appropriate organization.
-
WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO INCORPORATE YOUR OPERATIONS INTO ANOTHER ORGANIZATION?
-
HOW TO DECIDE WHEN IT'S TIME TO INCORPORATE INTO ANOTHER ENTITY?
-
HOW TO CHOOSE THE RIGHT ORGANIZATION?
-
HOW TO NEGOTIATE ROLLING YOUR OPERATIONS INTO ANOTHER ORGANIZATION OR INITIATIVE?
-
HOW TO MANAGE THE TRANSITION TO ANOTHER ORGANIZATION?
-
HOW TO LET GO?
The Pearson Young Leaders Initiative (PYLI) is a pilot program: it's been funded for two years to establish a core group of young leaders and potential leaders in the community. The organization has done a great job of contacting youth and putting together leadership trainings and support groups. Because of its work, there's a cadre of youth in the community having an effect on such issues as youth violence and safe sex.
Unfortunately, the two years is up, and PYLI is about to run out of funding, with no apparent possibility for more. The staff has exhausted all the possible sources of money, and they're faced with the end of the organization. Yet the work they've done has been important, and needs to continue. What can they do to sustain their initiative in the community?
One course of action is to try to find another organization to take over PYLI's function. The Pearson Youth Development Corporation (YDC), with which PYLI has worked, is willing, and has the resources to make it happen. Furthermore, YDC seems eager to take on at least some of the key staff members who made PYLI so successful, thereby assuring continuity to the leadership initiative. This seems like a match made in heaven, but how can PYLI be sure that it's a good idea, and that YDC will really continue and build on the good work that's been done?
Community organizations sometimes run out of funding possibilities, or decide it 's time to stop operations. The state may award their contract to someone else, or they may have been funded as pilot programs, with the assumption that the private sector would take over funding at the end of the pilot period. Perhaps a community coalition has acted as a catalyst to develop a program, with the intention to fold it eventually into another agency. In all of these situations, whether or not you've planned it that way, continuing your work can mean finding another organization to take over what you've been doing. That's what this section is about.
This section will help you understand exactly what incorporating your work into another organization means; decide when and if it's necessary; figure out how to choose an appropriate organization; negotiate with that organization to make sure that the important parts of what you're doing are indeed continued; and make the transition to the new organization. Perhaps most important, the section also has some suggestions about how to let go of your organization or initiative, and walk away feeling good about what you've done.
WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO INCORPORATE YOUR OPERATIONS INTO ANOTHER ORGANIZATION?
How does one organization take over others functioning? It's often not quite as simple as it seems, and there are really a number of ways it might happen. Let 's look at two common variations, bearing in mind that there are other possibilities as well.
Another organization absorbs yours as a subsidiary, taking responsibility for overall management and funding. In this instance, your organization may be able to remain essentially as it is, with nothing but a change of administration. Some features of this kind of arrangement might be:
- Some or all of your line staff - the people who do the actual work of the organization - would remain part of the new organization, doing what they've always done.
- Your director might leave, or might get a new title (program director, for instance ) and join the management team of the new organization, perhaps as the administrator for what had been your organization.
- Your Board would probably dissolve, but some or all members might join the Board of the new organization.
Clearly, in this situation, there are few changes, and your organization can continue to operate pretty much as it has in the past. It may even keep its name.
A much different scenario is one in which your organization ceases to exist at all, and its services and activities - or only some of them - are taken over by the new organization as part of what it does. In that case:
- The name and structure of your original organization would disappear.
The name may be kept on as a program name because it's familiar to the community. This would help with recruitment, with funding, and with community support.
- Some or all of your staff may be hired on... or none may be.
If some or all of your staff members are particularly good or knowledgeable, it 's likely that the new program would try to find a way to keep them. Even in that circumstance, however, the possibility would depend on funding.
- The way things are done would probably be changed at least somewhat, and perhaps completely.
- The services or activities would remain, but there would be almost no trace of your original organization.
This second instance might be a lot harder to deal with, because it looks like all your work has vanished. If the name of the organization is gone, and all its operations are different, it might seem there's nothing left of all the effort, the hours and hours of unpaid overtime every week, the worry, the stress, and the occasional elation that all go into starting and building an organization.
It's important to remember that your goal in incorporating into another organization is to make sure that the services or activities that you offered continue to exist in the community. Even if your organization itself disappears, if you've been able to institutionalize your work in some way, you've done your job. Just as each succeeding generation has to die to make room for the next, it may be necessary for your organization to disappear so that its work can be carried on.
HOW TO DECIDE WHEN IT'S TIME TO INCORPORATE INTO ANOTHER ENTITY?
Access Checklist, Tools, PowerPoint