Planning for Sustainability: Strategies for Sustaining the Initiative
Learn an overview of strategies for assuring your community efforts are sustained over time.
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STRATEGIES FOR FINANCIAL SUSTAINABILITY
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CHOOSING AMONG STRATEGIES
Finding and keeping money for a group to do its work can be a challenge. However, financial sustainability is essential to allowing you to stay in the game long enough to accomplish your goals.
Sustainability should be planned for early on, even as your initiative is conceived. This section provides an overview of common strategies for sustainability.
STRATEGIES FOR FINANCIAL SUSTAINABILITY
MARKETING YOUR ORGANIZATION
No matter what other strategies you use in pursuit of financial sustainability, you will need to think about marketing your organization. We've all seen commercials, giveaways, and sponsorships of events by corporations, but how about marketing by and for nonprofit groups?
One of the best definitions of marketing for nonprofit organizations comes from the Amherst H. Wilder Foundation:
"Marketing is a process that helps you exchange something of value for something you need."
These kinds of exchanges occur all the time. For example, an adult literacy program offers education and skills training, which will lead to a more capable work force for employers in the community. In return, the organization that runs the program needs clients, referrals, and resources to allow the program to continue.
The concept of marketing requires you to look at everything you do as potentially helpful or harmful to your campaign. When the receptionist at your office picks up the phone, you probably don't think of that as part of marketing, but it certainly is. How he or she greets the caller says a lot about your organization: what you do, how professional or casual you are, and so on. The same is true of the follow-up to that phone call--whom the caller talks to next, the information he receives in the mail, or the visit he makes to the agency. Image may not be everything, but it probably counts for more than we would like to admit.
Marketing includes:
- Image-building
- Friend-raising
- Membership development
- Community relations
- Political activities
- Citizen education
These activities are critical for building goodwill among potential donors.
SHARING POSITIONS AND RESOURCES
Another strategy for sustaining your initiative is collaboration with other organizations. Collaboration can take place in a variety of ways, from writing grants together, to sharing such resources as space, equipment, or staff.
The important thing to remember when collaborating is to think carefully about who your natural partners are, and whether you share enough of a philosophical and practical base to work together successfully. Before you enter a collaborative arrangement, ask yourself whether and why sharing positions or resources would meet both your needs.
BECOMING A LINE ITEM IN AN EXISTING BUDGET
A line item is a part of a budget that is dedicated to a particular need. For example, line items often exist for office supplies, payroll, and travel. Parts of your initiative may be picked up as a line item by another organization, especially if your operating costs aren't too high. For example, a church or council of churches may be willing to pick up the cost of running the local Peace and Justice Coalition, if the main costs are office space, a half-time coordinator, and basic office and mailing expenses.
An organization may decide to pick up one of your programs as a line item. For example, the local school district may be willing to pay for a mentoring program your organization has started.
INCORPORATING ACTIVITIES OR SERVICES IN ORGANIZATIONS WITH A SIMILAR MISSION
Your organization may start an activity or service with the goal that, within a few years, that activity will be taken on by another community group. Ideally, the group will plan the activity with representatives from the community group that will be responsible for the program.
For example:
- A coalition might begin an after-school program, and plan for the YMCA to pick up the program after a few years.
- An organization might develop a school-based alcohol and drug abuse prevention program, with the goal of shifting its management to school health educators.
- The coalition might start a program to prevent homelessness, and work with the interfaith council to adopt it.
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