Charity: What, Why, and How

 

The Productive Pessimist's working practice is to ask 5 questions of clients whom we're helping to address strategic, systemic, and crisis challenges in their focus remits.

5 questions. No more, no less.

Asking so few questions compels everyone in the room to focus on the "real problems", and set aside their personality clashes, their fixations, their personal perceptions of "the problem", and come together to bring through meaningful responses.

The business community, once they finally accept they do have problems, engage quite well with the challenge.

The charitable sector, however... I'd like to say the non-profit sector doesn't even accept they have any problems, because that would at least be reasonable, and make a lot more sense than the real situation, which is that the voluntary sector does nothing other than complain about all the "problems" it has.  And yes, many of those problems are genuine, and valid.  But, despite all the complaints and noise from charities about the problems they have, the sector is aggressively resistant to the idea of considering new ways of looking at and addressing their problems.

For charities, the "solution" is: people need to give us more money!
Sometimes, this varies:
"There are funding organisations who are keeping money from charities!!" - many of those funders are obliged, by their governance structure, to comply with an initial endowment grant made with an assumption of the organisation "existing in perpetuity."  In. Perpetuity. That's way beyond government 5yr terms. It's way beyond 10yr plans. It's way beyond even the most ambitious business plan.

When you understand the concept of "in perpetuity", you should begin to realise why funders who intend or obliged to exist "in perpetuity" genuinely can't "just give" you all their money, however worthwhile, necessary, and socially valuable your proposed projects are.  Human beings can't really conceive of "in perpetuity", so we'll be lazy, and reduce it to 100 years.  There are humans living a little longer than that, in increasing numbers.

If one project a day, requiring "just" £20,000, came before a funding organisation, that's 365 projects a year, at a cost of £7.3million in just one year.

Even if there were only one project a week going forward, with a cost of "just" £10,000 - 7 times fewer projects, and half the cost - that's still £520,000 in one year.  Over the 100 years we're talking about - the very beginning of the concept of "in perpetuity" - that's £52million.

Let's reduce it even further; there's just one project a month, and it "only" needs £5,000 of funding; over 100 years, that's £6million.

Are you starting to see why organisations, even those who seem to have "loads of funds just sitting there!" can't support every charity and every project that comes to them if they intend, or are obliged to exist in perpetuity?

So What Questions Would We Ask the Charity Sector?

1. What is your purpose?
- Not "what are you doing?", not "what problem/s are you trying to solve?", not "who are you supporting?", not "what have you achieved?" - what is your purpose?

Your "purpose" isn't your day to day.
Your "purpose" isn't your five year plan.
Your "purpose" isn't your vision statement.

For example, our purpose at The Productive Pessimist Ltd is:

"To ensure that business and community leaders recognise all forms of talent, wherever they see it, whatever it looks like, and however it communicates its potential, and, through this vision, and the responses it demands, are ready to move quickly to act with purpose and relevance."

That's what "purpose" looks like.

2. What's getting in the way of you achieving your purpose?
- This is often the liveliest element of our work with organisations and leaders, and the part we dedicate the most time to; it takes a while to get people to move from individual annoyances to coming together to dig down to the "real problems", the actual barriers, rather than the trivial inconveniences.

The responses to this question will be deeply individual, but we often see similarities across sectors; it's very rare for every organisation within a sector to be facing unique barriers.

3. Why haven't you made the progress you most want to?
This is distinct from the barriers to achieving your purpose, and steps things down from the "mile high big picture" view to the ground-level, day to day view.

4. How are you preparing for a future of further, different challenges?

5. Other than "provide more people/money", how could someone in possession of a "magic wand", able to solve one problem, best help you to move significantly forward within your purpose?
Resources are outside your control.
That's a hard reality for many people to hear, but it's a necessary reality.

Resources are perceived as the solution to most peoples' problems, but they're not.  
Resources will only come once you have started working on the barriers to you pursuing your purpose.

You have to act without resources first.

And that's a deeply uncomfortable truth.

The voluntary sector doesn't like to hear truths, especially not those truths which involve "You can't just keep holding out your hand and stamping your feet."

So, what are charities to do if they have to act without resources?

Again, The Productive Pessimist's practice is to limit our suggestions to between 3-5. Any more than five, and it starts to feel overwhelming, any less than three, and it feels like something an organisation could have come up with themselves.

We'll offer three suggestions here; reach out to us by email for support and guidance around enacting these suggestions: theproductivepessimist@yahoo.com

. Work with other organisations who share your purpose; collaborate, don't compete.  Replicating effort in a world which is increasingly facing "attention-poverty" and "compassion fatigue" is always going to be a zero-sum game.

. Explore ways to reliably bring in your own income to support the work towards your purpose.

. Align with businesses in the for-profit sector who share elements of your purpose, for mutual benefit, not simply "as sponsors."

We have availability to provide a 3hr workshop with non-profits, for just £120 - which is a one-off payment, with no additional obligations, on the following dates in April/May for remote engagement:

. Monday 14th April - flexible start time between 9am-4pm 
(allow 3hrs for workshop)
. Tuesday 15th April - flexible start time between 9am-4pm
. Tuesday 22nd April - flexible start time between 9am-4pm
. Wednesday 23rd April - flexible start time between 9am-4pm
. Monday 28th April - flexible start time between 9am-4pm

To book your support, email theproductivepessimist@yahoo.com; payment is due upfront at time of booking.