Is This Your Situation?

See if any of the points below sound familiar to you.

1.     “I am the founder of a new nonprofit and need help in growing my organization.” You are passionate about your cause and short on money. You have a small group of people who believe in your cause and now you want to increase the number of supporters. You have a board of directors because that’s what a nonprofit is supposed to have and now you have to figure out how your role and the board’s role fit together. You are hiring staff for the first time and you want to do it right. At times you feel overwhelmed with the complexity of launching a new nonprofit.

2.     “I lead an established nonprofit that needs to launch a major new program.” You’re about to hire someone or promote from within to create the new program. Given all your time commitments you don’t have the time to coach them through all the internal and external complexities of launching the new program. You need them to run with it without a lot of handholding by you. You’ve heard that big corporations contract with executive coaches and you wonder if there are nonprofit executive coaches. Maybe an executive coach is exactly what you need to looking to help your new hire keep on track while launching the new program.

3.     “I am on the board of an established nonprofit, about to hire a new CEO, and all of us on the board want this person to succeed.” You’ve selected the best possible person for the job and yet you know there are many pitfalls awaiting the CEO. As a board you have limited time to devote to supervising the new CEO. You are confident that the board will do all it can to support the new CEO. But will it be enough? You know that the new CEO is going to have to make changes in the organization and there will be internal resistance. You wish there was someone outside the organization who could coach the new CEO though the internal and external complexities of leadership transition.

4.    “I have just been hired as the new CEO of a well established community nonprofit whose previous CEO served the organization for many years.” You realize that you are going to need to make major changes in the organization to help it thrive. At the same time you know that the organization will resist since it has not been through a leadership change for more than a decade. You also follow a CEO with extensive alliances within the community and industry. You need to successfully build your own alliances.

5.    “Our nonprofit needs to broaden our base beyond grants and government funding.” You receive some funds from United Way but it’s not enough. You have tried a few special events but they are a lot of work for little return. Perhaps you do one mailing a year and that helps but you wish that you had regular stream of donations that you could budget for each year. You know other organizations that have annual campaigns and you wonder if they’d work for your organization. You have a fund raising person and you’re wondering how to use the person more effectively. You also think your organization should raise funds from wills and trusts.

6.    “I need someone who can help our staff work better as a team.” The morale is low in one of our departments. We have departments who compete rather than support one another. I’ve tried making some changes but they haven’t helped. I need a way to bring out the best in my supervisors instead of having to put out fires all the time.

7.     “Our nonprofit is caught in complex issues that are hard to deal with.” You wish you could get all the key players in one room to deal with the issues. But you hate the scenarios that pass through your mind. One person after another droning while everyone else is bored senseless can hardly wait to leave. Or one person after another passionately presents their point of view and refuses to budge an inch. Or one person dominates the meeting. You wish you could get all the key players in one room and at the end of the day or the end of two days the group is energized and has a plan.

If you find yourself falling into one or more of these situations, Evergreen Leaders can help you.

Rich Foss has thirty plus years of leadership experience and twenty plus years of fund raising experience.

He has served clients from a variety of nonprofit fields, from community organizations serving people with disabilities to national cause-related organizations, from community based youth and family organizations to an international peace organization, from secular organizations to religious organizations.

And, of course, Rich serve as a leader of Evergreen Leaders and Plow Creek Fellowship, a communal group that’s been inexistence for 35+ years. Rich practices what he preaches. He deals with these issues not only for clients for his own organizations.

But will it work for you?

Yes! Absolutely! If you’re committed to your cause, then you could benefit greatly from our working together.

Start by getting our FREE e-letter , 7 Paths of Thriving Organizations. When you do so, every other Thursday you’ll receive a brief article from Rich on one of the 7 paths that organizations use to thrive.

Also, contact Rich for your free 25-minute phone consultation. In just a few minutes you’ll be able to tell if he’s the right person to work with you. There’s no obligation, no pressure, no sales and definitely no hype. Just up front conversation about the needs of your organization and how Rich might help.

So if you find yourself in any of the situations above, contact me to schedule your consultation today.

And if you’re curious about the 7 Paths, then please, read on .