Choosing What NOT To Do

One of the more difficult steps in making sound decisions about how to focus an organization’s programmatic investments for maximum impact is to decide what NOT to do. Early on the Endowment’s Board developed a list of “ineligible” activities to help avoid the trap of “trying to be all-things-to-all-people”—a dilemma that afflicts many non-profits.

Some Things the Endowment Always Says No To
Some of the early “Nope, can’t go there” things were the proverbial no-brainers for a national endowment focused on sustainable forestry: sporting or booster clubs or religious activity. Others were imbedded in our “organic act”: political activity and humanitarian or disaster relief (under the Softwood Lumber Agreement that activity was handed to Habitat for Humanity).

Still others were on the “do not call list” as they would divert from the Endowment’s desire to be “systemic, transformative and sustainable” in the type of change we hoped to promote. Among those were: debt retirement, capital campaigns, annual fund drives and honorary functions. While a significant donation to a single organization’s capital campaign might be transformative to that entity, it isn’t likely that the Endowment could chart an approach that would be “systemic” in such endeavors nor could it be “sustained.”

While not perfect, we’ve found that initial list of things “not to do,” very helpful in focusing our Board and staff time and the organization’s limited financial resources on areas that offer greater potential value and return.

Conferences and Forums
An additional area that we adopted early, but had not put on the “ineligible” list (although we’ve now added it), is the whole arena of conferences and forums. Not surprisingly, we get lots of calls and requests for $5,000 or $50,000 “sponsorship” of some very important conferences. In choosing not to fund this type of activity we are in no way minimizing their value. In fact, our staff pays a registration fee and attends several such meetings every year to expand understanding of current or emerging topics.

There are two primary reasons that we’ve opted not to provide funds for such meetings. First, we don’t believe that it is possible to appropriately measure benefits against our desire to be “systemic, transformative and sustainable.” Secondly, and perhaps just as importantly, given that there are so many worthwhile opportunities to provide conference support, we’ve found that it is far easier to be consistent by not supporting any rather than in trying to explain to others why their conference isn’t going to gain Endowment support if we just funded a similar one somewhere else.

The Importance of Consistency
We know that the need for financial support in the not-for-profit sector is great and growing. We know too that for every time we are able to say yes to someone’s great idea, we at the same time must say no to dozens of other worthwhile projects and initiatives. Finally, we know that we don’t have all of the answers. We welcome ideas and input. In fact we aggressively seek it via open exchanges such as our Blog, through periodic convenings of experts in a given topical area and through reading and listening as we travel across this great country. In all of this we attempt to be transparent and consistent in how we treat everyone. All the while we seek to stay true to our Board’s desire to really move the needle of change. Thus we continue to focus our actions and our resources.