 Well, I would like to say welcome and thank you so much to all of you who have joined us today for another episode of The Nonprofit Show. We have Jennifer Bonet joining us. Jennifer is with Nonprofit Lifecycles Institute and she's someone that I have had the great pleasure of talking to you and even working with. So I'm excited to share more and hear more about you, Jennifer. Before we do that, I would like to say thank you to Julia Patrick for creating this platform. Julia is the CEO of the American Nonprofit Academy. And as you notice, she has today off. So she's enjoying a much needed day. Have a feeling she might be gardening because that's one of her favorite things to do and it's essential to do that bright and early in the morning. I'm Jarrett Ransom, CEO of The Raven Group, also known as your nonprofit nerd. We also want to extend our deepest gratitude and appreciation to all of our presenting sponsors. These companies exist to help you do more good in your community. They have a great, wonderful technology presence on the worldwide web. So if you have not checked them out and you have not found them, please make sure that you do that because they literally do exist to help you forward your mission in your community. So again, thank you to all of our presenting sponsors. And Jennifer, back to you. I'm so thrilled to have you on for the nonprofit show. Again, for those of you that may not know Jennifer, Jennifer is the president and CEO of Nonprofit Lifecycles Institute. Welcome Jennifer. Well, thank you for having me. I'm so happy to be here. Yeah, I'm so glad that you could join us and to talk to us a little bit about this book and the concepts that are inside the covers of that. If you would start a little bit about telling us, let's just start there. What is the Nonprofit Lifecycles Institute? How did it get started? What is the point of it? A little bit of that background. Sure. So the Institute was started in 2015 and it was founded off the concept, founded by the author of the book, Nonprofit Lifecycles by Susan Kenney-Seven. She founded it in 2015 as a way to embed this thinking in our world and in the sector. And we exist, we're a community of people that believe capacity building is key and we're consultants that work at the sector. We're foundations that support the sector and most importantly, the organizations that are doing the work. And so we're working to really cultivate a healthy dynamic sector for all these organizations to achieve their missions and vision. And this is available nationally, internationally. How might individuals get involved with the Institute? Right, we are throughout North America and really there's no reason it couldn't be internationally. Right now we have people who are in Canada, throughout Canada, throughout the United States but we've even had folks join us from as far away as Finland for some of our offerings. So yeah, with the shift to online, it's really, there's no reason for any kind of political barrier to interrupt our work. There's no container there. Yeah, that's wonderful. Well, let's move into what is this groundbreaking concept? You mentioned Susan Kenney-Seven's, that is the author. And I'm imagining too, really the conceptual individual that created this groundbreaking concept. Share with us about that. Right, and the reason I think this book sticks for so long in our sector and many of you may not have read it but I really encourage you to go out and find it and read it. Susan took organizational development theory and put it into practical thinking terms and approach for an organization to use. And so for example, the first time I ever encountered these concepts, I was an executive director at a small nonprofit at a workshop led by Susan. And I went in, just like many of us go into these professional development opportunities thinking I'm gonna hear a couple of best practices and I'm gonna come back and I'm gonna try to put it into practice but every time it just, it would fall short or just couldn't get things going. And the difference here was I left with a weight off my shoulders because what I learned was my organization just was in a different life cycle and what I needed was not necessarily this mature practice for a mature phase but probably the practice that was necessary for where my organization was which at the time was in a startup. And so it just became a way to build that path forward for me as an executive director that was manageable and got everybody on the same page of where we are and where we're heading. I love that description and I could say ditto, right? Just so much of that. I know probably many of us, Jennifer, can relate to going to a workshop, a seminar, a conference. First of all, your plate is filled to the brim and you're thinking I really don't have time to take out of my to-do list to sit here at this conference. And now when I leave the conference workshop you name it, I now have a list of things that are added to that to-do list. So for you to really acknowledge, oh my gosh, and I can imagine huge light bulb went off probably for many others in the room just like you to say, okay, this is my organization. This is where I am, therefore not necessarily comparing apples to apples. I shared on a previous episode and I'm curious if you would agree but I've heard it said before, when you know one nonprofit, you know one nonprofit. You know, meaning you can't necessarily compare your organization to an organization that might be of a totally different maturity level as you use that word because it's really not comparing that apples to apples especially when it comes to this truly groundbreaking concept. So that's wonderful to hear. Again, I'm sure so many others kind of felt that weight, weight lift. So what exactly is the life cycle of a nonprofit? You said the word maturity and I'm a little familiar with the concept but talk to us about, you know, what is the life cycle of a nonprofit? There's several arrows over here to the left. So it's making me think maybe there's multiple. What does that look like? Right, well, yes, and actually what you said about comparing apples to apples, we often think of an organization, you know, a mature organization and another mature organization as being those might be the same two apples but even within that, if we kind of break down the organization into what are those components of it and we don't have an image of this but when we think about organizations and their internal capacity to fulfill their mission, we like to use the image of a table and just like any of us who might go to lunch with a loved one and we're getting into the juicy part of the conversation where they're about to reveal something really important and then that table wobbles just a little bit in your drink slashes, you're distracted for a moment from like, what's actually about to happen to maybe throw in some sugar packets under that leg? And so if you've used that framework, if you think about it, organizations, we like to think about that juicy conversation as the mission vision, the flower vase that we put on top of the table we showed the world and those are set on top of a solid platform which are the programs that deliver on that mission and vision but then that infrastructure, those legs that really hold up the table are four different areas, that's your governance, your systems, your business model and the staffing, the management and so each part of those can be in maybe a different life cycle and what you're working for is alignment. So kind of to get into the life cycles a little bit, organizations are growing, they're made of people, we develop just like humans, we have different stages of being when an organization first starts. It's just an idea, there's not really much of an organization there. So we talk about these life cycles as these developmental milestones within an organization and it can help you align your expectations, align, maybe see where something might be a little bit out of a line. Let's say you have really fabulous, mature programs but maybe you're a board of directors is still in the startup mode. Well, let's focus our attention there. So it helps you kind of think through your organization and these different components and align your strategy, align your capacity and so that you're fully supporting your mission and your programs. I think all of us can relate to that wobbly table and I know that this is an analogy that she used in particular with this concept and we're all guilty of, we lean in to hear the juicy details, the juicy story and right at that time, the table goes one way or the other and we sure do, sugar packets, coasters, napkins, you name it. We're just trying to like do what we can to fix it for the moment and that really is fixing it for the moment. I'm curious, Jennifer, if you would be willing, what really are the life cycles, those stages because you're talking about it and I know we've used maturity startup and I'm also thinking kind of, as you said, every individual is different. So we have the infancy, we have the toddler, we have the tweens and the preteens and things like that but you've created it through this concept and idea for all of us to identify, okay, based off of it, I'm gonna say, really using layman's terms because I love that. There are so, and again, I have my book here. We were sharing earlier in the Chitty Chat Chat, both Jennifer and I have our tabs in the book but there's so many areas that we'll say exactly if this is the description of your organization, this is probably where you are. So what are those stages? Sure, so there's seven stages and I'll just run through them really briefly. The beginning, the idea, the concepts, having an idea that there's something in the world that needs to be addressed, nobody's doing it. I guess it's me but we all have ideas all the time and so sometimes those ideas don't go anywhere and sometimes beautiful ideas move on to another stage, maybe startup. And in the startup phase, so that's the second phase, that's where that energy and passion reigns supreme and you're busy making this work and everybody all hands on deck. It's a real fire starter kind of feeling in the startup organization, trying to get people, we're open, come see our performance, use our services, come interact with us. And then from startup, there's the growth phase. Is knock, knock, we're all here and now your demand is almost exceeding your ability to serve. And so the things that you may have left for another day, things like your database system or those IT issues or we'll get that fixed or our website or we need to hire new staffing. All of a sudden that kind of pain of the moment comes together and you got to start gilding that infrastructure built because what could happen is everything could fall through. So that's, we've gone through idea, startup growth and then maturity, which most best practices are kind of designed around a mature organization is one that's known for being relevant, steady, has a solid reputation and programs that are meeting the needs of the community. Now, we can, if you get too complacent and we all know this at any point, your programs all of a sudden or your organization kind of gets a little rest like too used to doing things the way you've done, you can dip into decline. So maybe you haven't checked to see like, oh, are our programs really meeting the needs of our community still or has that changed? Look at the pandemic. You know, if you were in person, all of a sudden things had to change. And so if you're not careful, you can tip into decline. And that's a stage where status quo decision-making think we've always done it this way. So if you hear these kind of flags, you need to put your antenna up, we've always done it that way. That's, you know, and then decisions are made often about what's best for the organization versus what's best for the people you're serving. So that's a very interesting stage to watch for. From decline, you have two choices. You can turn around or you can close up and we call it terminal. So you got to decide once you, hopefully you've identified that you're in decline. If you have it, you might slip right into that, you know, end of shot sort of situation or you can take the bull by the horns and turn around and, you know, head back into your, into hopefully your growth phase. So that's a real quick run through of the life cycle stage. So seven, is that right? Seven stages? Seven, and they're not evolutionary because you can go, you can build, you know, start, you have an idea, you go to startup and then full tunnel right into decline and close up. We know organizations that that happens to. So it's a diagnostic. Where are you today? Where you were February 2020 was probably not where you were May 2020 and it's probably not where you are today. So it's a way to kind of capture a picture where we, and how do we have a shared vocabulary to build a plan about where we want to go. Wow. So true. And I love that you also, you know, said it's not evolutionary. You don't, it's not one direction and you stay at that maturity, although I know many of us would like to, but that is where perhaps the complacency does check in because we want to stay there. It feels comfortable. So how do we, how do we know where we are on the life cycle? You talked about this table. You talked about the flowers that we want to show everyone. We talked about the table being a little, you know, off kilter. So how are we able to identify where we are as an organization on that life cycle? Yeah. So, you know, there's a couple of ways that I think you can engage with this. Go online, the institute is in all sorts of social media. We have a website. There are videos you can watch and get a little bit more detail because that will help give you something to hold on to, right? To bring it to a few others to have those conversations. So engage with the book, engage with the website, engage with social media. That might be something for you to do on your own. Another great way, if you're really ready to like understand your organization at a deeper level, we have trained life cycle capacity consultants that can come in and guide you through a process like it. So there are some organizations that especially a new leader comes in and it's a great time to like really understand where is our starting point today and where, you know, so that we can make a plan for tomorrow. So that's another thing to do. But the key thing here, you can learn about it for yourself. Another level is really bringing this language and this framework to your organization. Even if you just take the framework, now people will get upset with me, take the framework and create your own definitions. What does startup mean to us? What does growth mean to us? What does maturity? And you get everybody on the same page within your organization. Like that's, that would be huge because I would guess most organizations, every person in there has a different sense of what's happening and they're not taking the time to talk through and create a shared understanding. So I was going to ask that, you know, when it comes to identifying where are we on the life cycle? How do we know where we are? I am curious, Jennifer, if, you know, your leadership team and again, comparing apples to apples, that could be, you know, you're a team of one person. Of course you have your board, but they're, you know, organizations, you could have one person that's doing all of the organizational work, but it could also be a very mature organization with a very healthy operating budget and you could have several employees, hundreds even of employees, right? So really different sizes here. So how do you get everyone on the same page? Because what if the board is like, no, no, no, I know that we are at this level, right? I'm sure there's a lot of passion that goes into deciding what level. So how do you get everyone? Maybe I shouldn't say the same page. How do we get them all on the same table? Well, you know, this is a conversation that comes up often and I think it's the exciting, the juicy murky middle that you get to work in. So we have lots of tools. We have a little booklet that you can bring back to your organization and, you know, start from there. But when you have this misalignment, maybe you have the staff think that the organization is in growth but the board thinks it's immature. That makes for really excellent conversation. Why do you think it's in growth? What are you seeing? What's your evidence here? What's making you think that? Why do you think mature? Like what do we have in common? And I think those conversations bring out a lot of opportunity for it. So it doesn't have to be, we don't need to have everybody lined up exactly perfect because those conversations create the opportunity. And a side note, a lot of organizations that actually will go through a capacity cohort program, they often will assess themselves at some stage. And then a year later, they'll take another look and they often will say, you know, I think we were a little either hard on ourselves or we were a little over rosy and we were actually somewhere else and today we're here. So it just helps give you the framework to build conversations, design a plan. What do you want to do about it? So it doesn't need to be perfect. It doesn't need to be perfect. And so I'm curious to tag on to what you just said, you know, go back and reassess, how often do you recommend, you know, that we do reassess this concept as we work on a specific leg of the table or we work on, you know, with a new leadership? How often do you recommend that we go back and assess the lifecycle in which we've identified? Anytime there's a major change within an organization is a great opportunity. Take a pulse snapshot, here's where we are. And it can be a very simple, you know, not necessarily a deep dive, deep study of this, but it can be, here's what we're recognizing today. And then other than that, these major changes, I think an annual, like even at an annual board meeting or annual having the staff kind of share programmatically annually, like here's what we're seeing. Along that with programs, sometimes what we see are programs within an organization that can be in a variety of different lifecycle stages. But what you might find by really looking at each program's lifecycle is maybe there's something in Starter that if we invested a bit more resources, time and money, that can really take off. But maybe this one over here is a little in decline. Maybe it's time for this one to, you know, kind of close up and run its course. So it also gives really robust tools for staff to think about the programs. That sunset clause, yeah. That sunset clause that we all like just, we need to sunset that, yeah. So I heard you say one of the suggestions is to really identify what does startup mean for us? And I know I use that question often when I say, what does success look like, right? And we can kind of, and I'm thinking, correct me if I'm misspeaking, I feel like we can say what does success look like when it comes to all of these areas to identify, okay, what does success look like in startup? What does it look like in maturity? What does it look like in turnaround? As well as each of the legs, I think that is an opportunity, as you said, that gives you a great ability to have this dialogue and conversation. So can you, would you elaborate a little more on maybe how these conversations go, especially if this is a new concept, you know, of people listening and saying, okay, like Jennifer, I feel like I'm sitting in this conference and this huge weight is lifted. I'm feeling that now, listening to today's episode. How do we go about those conversations? You know, one of my favorite introductory approach to this is to take an image of a table and with those labels, business model, governance systems and staffing programs and then the mission vision. And I ask people to write the strengths and opportunities in each area. Just going through that individually and then sharing it out. That's a great way. And then it's kind of fun sometimes to say, well, draw a picture of what does our table look like? This is a fun, especially staffing activity and you will see some crazy tables with like, people holding up as a leg because maybe there's no staff and they're feeling overburdened and we're relying on volunteers too much, you know, whatever that might be. But that's a great way is just to kind of walk through the table and think about the strengths and opportunities in each area. You know, and you can design your own matrix. Like what would it look like for us to be fully realized? If we were an organization and we were able to fully match and fully deal with our vision and our programs were, you know, exactly where we wanted it to be. What does that look like? And then where are we today? And then what, you know, what's the path getting there? But then there's also back to the book, there's these handy yellow pages in the middle of the book where there's some characteristics that we find throughout these different phases. And that's what I did. I went to the workshop as an ED, I came back, I brought a book, I passed it around and then we talked through these yellow pages. And what I needed to do was to get everybody on the same page, that we were not a mature organization and therefore those black tie galas were not in our equation. Like we were in a startup. And so we needed startup solutions. The yellow pages are my favorite and that is probably exactly where I go to. Any time I have a conversation is to really help to identify the organization using some of these characteristics because it's not coming from me, it's not coming from them, it's really coming from this list, right? In the pages, as again, in a book in the layman's terms to say, okay, what does this mean for us and where do we identify with that? So yes, I highly recommend this book. I feel so privileged to have you here in my same community, Jennifer. I feel privileged to have met Susan and to go through some of these courses with her. I would love if you would, we just have a little bit of time left. If you would talk a little bit about, you have consultants within the practice. And again, these are nationwide, maybe even further, but would you be willing to share with us a little bit about Twofold, how we might identify and connect with one of these consultants, but also secondarily, what if we are interested in being one of the consultants? So kind of that bifurcated definition. Well, we offer a training. So if anyone is interested in being a Lifecycles Consultants on the quarterly basis, the next one is at the end of October. And if you go to nonprofitlifecycles.com, you'll find that information. We're also on Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn. So you can find us pretty much anywhere. So we offer those trainings and they're open to folks to participate in. But if you're looking for somebody and even somebody in your community on our website, we have a directory of members who have been trained and are ready to go and you can search it by region. And again, we are throughout Canada and the United States at this point. So even, and if you have a hard time, you can always reach out to me. It's just Jennifer at nonprofitlifecycles.com or through LinkedIn or any of those other ways. And I can help find somebody. We have a large network of people throughout North America. Phenomenal, again, I know the first time I learned of the concept and sat in through a workshop. I was amazed, you know, I have the second edition book. Which one are we on now? How many are there? Second edition, yeah. Okay, so I still have the latest and greatest. I'm glad to know. Yeah. Yeah, well, this is wonderful, Jennifer. The concept is wonderful. I've kept an eye on the individuals that have joined us today for the live conversation. So many individuals have joined us. So thank you for that. And many are part of your consultancy group. So so glad to see them show up as well today. And to have your valuable time, your expertise to share with us about this concept, you know, from Susan Kinney-Steven. So really grateful to have you share this valuable information. If you would like to connect with Jennifer as she's shared, she shared her personal email which is Jennifer at nonprofitlifecycles.com. You can also check out the website, nonprofitlifecycles.com to learn a little bit more. And then the book, is that purchasable? Is that the right word on the website? Yeah, it's on our website and you can also find it on Amazon. Wonderful. Well, thank you so much. This has been a very valuable conversation. I know Julia's gonna be sad to miss it. I'm grateful to be here and to nerd out with you. I've been looking forward to this conversation, Jennifer. So thank you so much. And of course, thank you to our amazing presenting sponsors. We would not be able to have these conversations with Jennifer at Nonprofit Lifecycles Institute if it weren't for each and every one of you. And again, grateful for all of you helping us support our communities in a bigger, bolder way especially as we continue to navigate forward in this unknowing capacity. So thank you so much for the support. And we are excited that tomorrow is Friday. So today is Friday Eve. And we will have Jack Alotto here from Fundraising Academy with myself. And tomorrow is our Ask and Answer episode. So make sure you join us. And until then, we end every episode as we have almost 400 episodes before to please stay well so you can do well. Thanks for your time, Jennifer. We are so appreciative.