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Why Does Your Nonprofit Need to Exist?
Using Appreciative Inquiry to define who you are and what you do, Part 1 (of 4)

If there is one question that can be useful to grant writers, communications people, and anyone who must explain a nonprofit organization to the world, it is this: Why does your organization need to exist?

The most successful organizations (and this is true for any organization, for-profit or nonprofit) are the ones that have a strong and passionate answer. And once you've come up with that, you've already answered much of the next question, "Why should we support your organization?"

But how to create this powerful and coherent response? Who should be responsible for crafting its origins, for putting the words together? And how do you know what everyone else in your organization is saying? The chances are pretty good that in most organizations you aren't all talking with the same language, or coming from a unified idea. People hold different sets of understandings, work from diverse vantage points, and don't share the same history. It's also hard to talk with the same words when you barely have time to exchange those words.

Because the Board of Directors creates the mission statement of any nonprofit, they are the ones who must first address this question. But realistically, boards, made up of volunteers working part-time, have so many things to consider with their fiduciary and oversight responsibilities that there often isn't time to ask the big questions. "Oh please," a Board Chair said to me, "We have a mission statement already. How much time should we spend on this?"

I'd say a lot.

There is no larger or more important question. Nonprofit organizations are adapting all the time, as the economy shifts, as technology rapidly impacts our world, and as the organization itself subtly changes day to day. Just like the rest of us, an organization looks different as it gets older. Its needs are not the same as they were when it was younger. And just like us, as it grows older, it is on a path of change and adaption all the time, because it has to be.

This makes it hard to explain what your organization is and what you do. Every communication about the organization, every grant proposal, every positioning statement, should have the same overarching narrative. But who frames that narrative, and with what words?

The most successful (not to mention inspiring!) way I have found to approach this is by using Appreciative Inquiry, a process that focuses on positive change. It is based on a very different set of assumptions from the problem-solving methods that most of us are used to, because it looks not at what has gone wrong, but at what you've done right. It brings people back to the original dynamism of the founding of their organization, and generates excitement by rediscovering what has made the organization work. It creates a dialogue that keeps the organization’s staff, board, and constituencies interacting. And meanwhile, just using that positive language will create a subtle shift forward.

Instead of a language of deficit, which sees the organization as having problems to be solved, Appreciative Inquiry assumes that the organization must have had successes which can be built on. It doesn't focus on the negative: "Why is morale low?" "How can we fix the enrollment problem?' "Why didn't we meet the budget last year?" We are all so used to thinking this way that it can seem strange not to do so. Shouldn't we be trying to fix what's broken?

What happens when everyone is talking about what's wrong? What I've seen is that much of the time it creates defensiveness, anxiety, and lower morale. The focus is backwards, on breaking things down, rather than building them up. Yes, it's familiar, but it isn't always that useful.

Instead, Appreciative Inquiry takes the organization's energy towards looking at what went right and what could be. This is far more productive on every level. Grantseeking is about looking for support, but in order to explain why you should receive that support, you need to clearly define who you are and where you're going. You need to write in the language of the history of your organization, in a way that tells your story from its positive core.

If you're a grant writer, a fundraiser, or you work in communications, Appreciative Inquiry generates a goldmine of useful material. Because this approach is about understanding your history, defining your direction, and describing the steps you'll take to get there, it's much easier for the board to determine what the next set of projects should be. This way the projects are clearly defined before a proposal is written, rather than a proposal being submitted because it's available or someone knows someone.

There are many ways to use Appreciative Inquiry, from a six day summit, to just keeping its ideas in mind on an everyday basis. But a series of retreats or meetings with board, staff, and volunteers can reap enormous benefits, not the least for the grantwriter. The process can and should be used done often, because it gets the organization moving forward. It's a proven method, now taught in business schools, and it's easy to understand and adapt to your organization.

In the next three parts of this series, we'll look at how Appreciative Inquiry can be used to define your organization's need and make your proposals clear, using language and stories from within your organization and its history. We'll look at the process of "discovery": defining who you are; "dreaming": where could you be and where are you going; and "design": how to get there. Once you have been through all the phases of the process, you'll all know how to answer the question, "Why do we need to exist?"

What is Appreciative Inquiry? Appreciative Inquiry is a methodology for developmental change, created by David Cooperrider and Suresh Srivastva at Case Western Reserve Weatherhead School of Management in the 1980's. It focuses on the best in an organization, using provocative questions, storytelling and directed conversation. Find out more.

Reprinted with permission from Grantstation. From the Feb 12 issue of the GrantStation Newsletter.