Greetings from Flyover Country!
As you read this, I should be somewhere in South Dakota with my family, exploring some of the best natural sights that our country has to offer.
I took the time to write this post before I left to talk about my ongoing work in Fantasy Land.
In my most recent post on the subject, I talk about how Fantasy Land’s “toxic waste” seeps into all facets of your world, whether you want it to or not.
Today, I’m going to share the reactions from someone in reality, when they discover how things operate in Fantasy Land.
Recently, I’ve decided our organization needs a new website. Most non-profits think like charities rather than view how they operate as another form of a market-driven “business” of sorts. As we solicited proposals and evaluated each vendor, we instructed that my organization views this as an investment, rather than an expense.
Most non-profits act destitute, expect vendors – like a web developer – to design the website pro bono, and as a result, they get what they pay, or in their case, DON’T pay for.
When an organization like the one I lead, comes to a web developer with a more business-like mindset, it gets their attention. They’re used to the non-profits in Fantasy Land coming with their hands out, expecting services at a greatly reduced rate or even free, so you can imagine it piques their interest.
Last week, we sat down with the technology company we selected. One of the vendor’s employees had attended the previous two rounds of meetings, so she had heard a little bit of insight into my vision and our business model. The lead web developer, though, had not.
What was supposed to be a 90-minute meeting turned into more than 2.5 hours, as she attempted to both understand our needs, but also for both of them to dive deeper into what our non-profit does.
April (not her real-name) wanted to hear what our focus is. I described our 3 guiding strategic principles that we developed about 5 years ago and have executed and adhered to with a discipline that you don’t typically see in Fantasy Land.
Most non-profits frequently update their “mission” or their “strategy” and go through that exercise about every 2 to 3 years. It’s busy work that means they’re a.) not held accountable for failing to execute and achieve meaningful results on the previous version, b.) it’s an exercise that resets to new “metrics”, which are really just measures of activities, that c.) disrupts any continuity in holding them accountable because of the constantly shifting measures of anything that they do.
It makes them look like they’re doing something without really doing something.
Not to mention that there’s nothing non-profits love more than “unfinished business”. They loathe the idea of actually completing something or solving a problem. Read my post on “The Maintenance Men and Women” to see how they prolong addressing anything.
In contrast, we’ve diligently executed with those 3 principles as our framework for years.
That was surprising to them, because they could see how everything that we do, leads back or can be attributed to those 3 strategic priorities. If it doesn’t map to 1 or more of those 3, then it’s cut out of our operation.
Next, we talked about our work.
I shared with them, that our community has too much affluence to have the levels of poverty and financial insecurity that we do. We’re the headquarters of a Fortune 500 company and have an exciting start-up that’s received billions of dollars in investment capital.
I explained to them that over the last 10 to 20 years, though, in spite of these positive economic factors, AND the fact that tens, if not hundreds, of millions of dollars in money has poured into our community to work on the problem, The Maintenance Men and Women in my community have added to the rolls of government and non-profit dependent people needing help just to live. In our case, we’ve seen a more than 70% increase in poverty over the last decade.
But for the Maintenance Men and Women, waging the war is their goal. Not winning it.
As I explained all of this, including many of the factors and data I cite in my post from 2 years ago, both women got exasperated, to the point where April blurted out:
“Why doesn’t somebody do something??!!”
Indeed.
I explained what we’re trying to do with my non-profit.
Our goal is to end the war in my community by eradicating poverty.
In essence, I’m looking to work myself and my organization out of a job.
Bet you don’t hear that too often.
I shared my vision for how we go about doing that: targeting at-risk kids that lack access or means to escape poverty, identifying skill-based certifications with our local community college that align with in-demand local jobs, and bulldozing any obstacles – financial or otherwise – that might derail their pathway to financial self-sufficiency.
We’re choking off the never-ending supply of fresh casualties for the “War on Poverty” by diverting them from this horrific “draft” of sorts.
Case in point. During a cold snap this winter, one young woman, who lived with her mom in a trailer that they had bought after renting for years, experienced a breakdown in the mobile home’s heating unit. It couldn’t be repaired due to age, only replaced.
Normally, a life disruption like this, for a young woman in poverty, would mean quitting the certified nursing assistant certification she was pursuing, and picking up another job to pay the $5,000+ dollars it was going to cost to replace it. As temperatures dropped to below zero, the situation was urgent. They got a couple of estimates, skeptical that it would result in anything from us.
I suspect they’d worked with non-profits before that didn’t actually do anything.
We contacted one of the HVAC guys and explained what role we played and how we were working to improve her financial situation. They were so impressed with what we’re doing, they knocked 50% off the price of the replacement heating unit.
That’s what we’re doing.
That prompted both of them to share that the story gave them chills.
That’s an anecdotal story, but we’re also measuring the hard data. That young woman has completed her certification and is employed in the field. Soon, she’ll be on a pathway to financial self-sufficiency and will be one more person saved in this “War on Poverty”.
Oftentimes, people in the real world are just looking for someone to do something. Unfortunately, many of the residents of Fantasy Land see that as a license to “work on the problem” but not fix it. In the example I cited, Fantasy Land would have shuttled the young woman and her mom through a series of requirements and hoops and a range of pointless activities and red tape designed to make them another casualty in the war.
Not us.
And not me.
I’m doing something.