Nonprofit leaders find that as funding requirements and client needs change, the organizational priorities must pivot. This process can be very tumultuous when leaders are not intentional or strategic in their planning during this period. Sustainable leaders, though, are able to bring order and orchestrate management strategies that result in organizational harmony under circumstances that they don’t have any external control. 

Recalibrating in the face of change, new funding requirements, a new scope of work, new board members, new regulations, new client needs, or new leadership requires strategic and systematic planning.

6 Steps to Manage Change

The following 6 steps can help you pivot while continuing to lead with your values during periods of change: 

1. Determine the human capabilities needed and build-in supports for staff. 

This means assessing the impact of new programs on staff, their workload, and whether it is ethical to overextend staff any further without reducing other responsibilities, increasing their salary, or adding new staff. It also includes building support for employees to acquire new skills, helping them manage their time, and removing obstacles that impede them from doing their work.

2. Preemptively monitor the external trends that could affect the organization and its mission so that you are not caught off-guard when changes materialize. 

This includes monitoring the tone and the quality of relationships with clients, donors, volunteers, external stakeholders, and policymakers. If you receive funding from the government, it also means monitoring and engaging in advocacy around the budget appropriations process at the local, state, and federal levels.

3. Implement decisions now in order to equip your team to manage to change in the future. 

Automate the practice of consensus building with staff in the planning and implementation process of all of your programs to carry out the work of the organization. This creates an environment in which staff can feel safe to candidly address critical issues the organization, clients, and their peers are facing. Consensus building and planning also allow you to quickly mobilize your teams without starting from scratch during periods of transition and crisis.

4. Deal with facts and face reality, even when it is uncomfortable in periods of change.

Problem-solving requires that your team is level-headed, and trusts that issues will be addressed fairly and that solutions are comprehensive and ethical. In order to achieve these goals, the team must engage in truthful assessments of situations and solutions without finger-pointing or planning based on denial. In this process, some of the questions you should be asking include, but are not limited to:

• Can we carry out this strategy ethically?
• What will be the impact on our target population? 
• How will our mission be affected?
• Does this initiative or solution fit in with our Strategic Plan and our Business Plan? 
• Is this strategy sustainable?
• Do we have enough funding to operationalize this strategy?
• What resources should we deploy?
• What new skills do we need for this strategy to be successful? 
• Do we need to hire new staff? 
• Are the expectations we are setting achievable?
• Will we need to change any organizational policies and procedures? 
• What resources will be deployed to certain activities? 
• How will this strategy impact our other programs?

5. Develop an action-oriented mindset to implement solutions. 

This means that you follow through with your commitments and assign the necessary resources to carry them out. Otherwise, you lose both momentum and the trust of the team.  

6. Design or redesign work processes and systems to support desired results. 

This includes determining what the organizational capabilities needed are, triaging priorities based on needs and obligations, and, when necessary, fundraising to align systems and business processes to produce results. 

Conclusion

Automating consensus building, facts-based planning, and keeping commitments generates buy-in from staff and also minimizes organizational turnover and risk during periods of transition or crisis. 

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Please share with us below what strategies you have used to create harmony in periods of change in your organization.

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