Mission + Strategy

Building and maintaining a comprehensive set of plans can feel daunting, especially for nonprofit leaders balancing many priorities. From a Theory of Change and Strategic Plan to a Financial Plan, Succession Plan, and Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity Plan, the list is extensive. However, with a clear framework, approach, and mindset, these plans can become powerful tools for guiding your organization’s growth and impact. We invite you to read this week’s article, “Managing Risk: Turning Challenges into Opportunities with Design Thinking”. By embracing design thinking and shifting your mindset, you can transform the daunting task of managing risks into an opportunity for growth and innovation, ensuring your nonprofit remains resilient and focused on its mission. Link below ⤵️

In today’s rapidly changing landscape, achieving sustainable impact requires more than passion—it takes strategic collaboration and expert guidance to strike a balance between mission and business strategy. Last month we unveiled our brand refresh. As part of the refresh, today we’re excited to share a description of our spectrum of services designed to empower nonprofit leaders like you to help you strike that balance. As a nonprofit ourselves, we understand the unique challenges you face. We’re here to work alongside you as partners, dedicated to helping you achieve your long-term vision and create lasting impact in your community, and we do this through our spectrum of collaborative services: 🔆 Strategic Advising: We’re more than consultants — we’re collaborators, allies, and thought partners, offering trusted support and guidance to help you chart and stay on the path towards your long term vision. No matter your organization’s goals or challenges, we’ll work hand-in-hand with you to determine what’s needed to build capacity and ensure you’re best positioned to serve your community and advance your mission for years to come. 🔆 Mergers and Partnerships: As the largest provider of nonprofit restructuring services in the Midwest, we know how to help organizations find their synergies, create a glide path to alignment, and seamlessly implement a merger or other type of restructuring agreement. We combine our experience with careful listening and expert facilitation skills to guide you on the path to growing your impact by combining forces. 🔆 Shared Back Office: Stay focused on your mission, create capacity, and optimize key organizational functions by leveraging our robust, highly specialized shared back office platform. Through deep, ongoing engagement and collaboration, we become a true extension of your team to create and support sustainable wellness in your finance, IT, and HR operations. Are you ready to take your nonprofit to the next level? Let’s work together to build stronger, more resilient organizations that drive economic growth and social impact. Connect with us to learn how our collaborative solutions can help your organization thrive! #NonprofitLeadership #Collaboration #MissionDriven #CommunityImpact #SustainableGrowth #Nonprofits

Exploring opportunities in the face of risk was the focus of our recent session at the Axelson Center Symposium, “More Than Money: Philanthropy, Fundraising & Justice”. For the second year in a row, Mission + Strategy had the privilege of presenting. Thank you to the nearly 50 nonprofit leaders who joined Judie and Greg for an insightful and energizing conversation! We discussed how to find opportunities among the myriad risks our field faces on a daily basis. We looked at shifting our collective mindset from scarcity to abundance to address our top organizational challenges. Attendees engaged in a lively discussion of these challenges and how abundance thinking helps identify options that otherwise wouldn't have been tabled. We closed with a brief discussion of how design thinking principles provide a process within which the abundance perspective can be applied. As always, we're thankful for the opportunity to spend time with such an intelligent, accomplished, and energetic group of leaders. We learned a ton during the session and hope attendees found it productive as well. Is there a topic of interest to you that you would like to learn more about? Let us know in the comments. We value your input on our future discussions and workshop! #nonprofitleadership #nonprofits

To quote CEO, Greg Petersen, balancing mission with business strategy is more art than science. The art is about ensuring all key leaders on the team—senior leadership, board, other key managers, and team members—have a shared understanding that this balance is necessary. Shared language, deep discussions, and examples of how this balance has driven success and how its absence has hindered success are crucial. From there, this same group must feel empowered to act on behalf of maintaining that balance. On top of that, it's ensuring that all involved know that the mission can't survive long-term—without a well-designed and well-executed business strategy. However, no business strategy in the nonprofit sector can achieve its goals if it's not intentionally created to support the mission. When you get all of those pieces in place, regularly checking in to achieve ongoing, long-term balance is necessary. Being in this field is tough—the tightrope metaphor comes to mind—we need to attend to short-term mission and program matters as well as the long-term business of delivering programs in a way that's financially sustainable. And back. And forth. Until we've artfully wobbled our way to the other side of the tightrope, just to realize there's another one to cross tomorrow. How are you balancing mission with business strategy within your organization?

It’s become increasingly challenging to lead and operate a nonprofit. The rate of change, complexity, and sense of scarcity we’re experiencing is higher than ever before, making it difficult to chart and stay on the path towards our long-term goals and vision. We believe we’re stronger when we work together, that true collaboration rooted in authenticity and trust is the way forward for nonprofits to create an abundance of opportunity, navigate complexities, weather change, and advance our missions. A trusted, experienced partner, we help nonprofits develop the clarity, alignment, and collaboration needed to balance mission and business strategies. We believe that together, we’ll become a vital force to shape a better quality of life for all, driving economic growth, social impact, resiliency, and equity in our communities. We want to help your nonprofit do just that. As your invested thought partner, we balance head and heart to help you achieve alignment between your mission and business strategies, creating organizational capacity, financial wellness, and mission resilience. In the coming weeks, we look forward to introducing you to our team and our spectrum of collaborative services, to help you navigate the complexities our sector faces and the challenges your organization may be facing as a result. To learn more, be sure to visit our new, temporary webpage, for a peek into what we do and how we can help you. https://bit.ly/4edehCP

There is a growing trend of collaboration in the nonprofit world. At Mission + Strategy, we believe that together, nonprofits become a vital force to shape a better quality of life for all, driving economic growth, social impact, resiliency, and equity in our communities. Collaboration can manifest as shared services, joint programming, or even mergers. What propels an organization towards collaboration? It can be a mix of external pressures. Having an understanding of what those external pressures are and more importantly, the benefits of collective action can ignite community transformation: 1️⃣ Addressing Complex Social Challenges. A growing number of nonprofits are realizing that these challenges are interconnected and often cannot be effectively tackled by a single organization working in isolation. For instance, issues such as poverty, education, and health are all intertwined, and efforts to address one aspect can have ripple effects on the others. By collaborating, nonprofits can pool their resources, share expertise, and coordinate their efforts, thereby enhancing their collective impact and ability to address these complex issues. 2️⃣ Resource Scarcity. Consistent funding remains a primary challenge in the nonprofit sector, and collaboration can enable nonprofits to leverage resources more effectively. This allows organizations to do more with less, extending their reach and impact without necessarily inflating their budgets. Shared services, joint programming, or even mergers can lead to cost savings and increased efficiency. 3️⃣ Increasing Expectations. There is a mounting expectation from funders, stakeholders, and the communities they serve for nonprofits to collaborate. This is driven by a recognition that collaboration can yield better outcomes. Funders are increasingly inclined to support collaborative initiatives, and communities are reaping the benefits of the coordinated efforts of multiple organizations working together. More and more, funders are recognizing the value of collaborative efforts, seeing them not as a sign of weakness, but as an indicator of an organization’s adaptability and commitment to maximizing impact. This shift in expectations is not just reshaping the way nonprofits operate, but also redefining what it means to be successful in the nonprofit sector. Are you facing similar external challenges with your organization? Join us over the next several weeks as we share examples of organizations we’ve worked with that illustrate the increasing trend of collaboration among nonprofits, particularly in Illinois, their solution and end result. #collaboration #nonprofitleadership #nonprofits

We were grateful for the opportunity to be a part of a panel of nonprofit leaders at the Forefront (Illinois) Mission Sustainability Initiative (MSI) Summit on Wednesday, September 25th. Kate Piatt-Eckert, MSI's Director, moderated the panel discussion, “Business Model Innovation Through Collaboration”, and included Aina Gutierrez of Rebuilding Exchange, Jason Matsumoto of Full Spectrum Features, Dara Munson of Family Focus, and our CEO, Greg Petersen. The discussion was designed to deepen attendees' understanding of the transformative benefits of collaboration, with each leader having participated in or led strategic collaboration processes - partnerships, mergers, or other collaborative strategies. The lively 75-minute conversation highlighted the broad range of collaborative possibilities available to nonprofit leaders, and how each organization's unique set of challenges drives which, if any, collaborative path it should follow. Greg went on to describe the panel as "A uniquely fun and interesting deep dive into what drives collaborative success. Kate did a masterful job of guiding the chat, and personally I came away with deep appreciation for the creativity each of the panelists brought to their particular processes. Each of our stories touched on the patience, hard work, and alignment required to navigate mergers, partnerships, and other collaborations. Our stories also provided four cases proving that this investment of attention, energy, and resources is well worth it for the communities and people we serve." We’re excited to continue working in partnership with Forefront and supporting the Mission Sustainability Initiative! #NonprofitLeadership #Sustainability #Innovation #Collaboration

Have you registered for the Axelson Center fall conference, “More Than Money: Philanthropy, Fundraising, and Justice” happening this Friday, October 18? We’re excited to be a part of this year’s conference, and hope you’ll join us for our workshop, “Risky Business: Leading Nonprofits with Confidence in Uncertain Times." This workshop will explore the inherent risks in nonprofit operations and offer practical collaborative strategies for managing them effectively. What will you learn and takeaway from the workshop? 🔹 Understand the key (uniquely broad range of) risks faced by nonprofit organizations. 🔹 Develop strategies to manage and mitigate these risks. 🔹 Foster a collaborative approach to risk management. 🔹 Apply design thinking principles to create proactive risk management plans. 🔹 Shift from a defensive to an abundance mindset in approaching risks. There’s still time to register! https://bit.ly/4gCSoz4 #NonprofitLeadership #RiskManagement #Collaboration #Nonprofits

Today, we honor Indigenous Peoples’ Day, a time to recognize the rich history, culture, and countless contributions of Indigenous communities. It’s also a day to reflect on the historical injustices they have faced, from land displacement to cultural erasure. Acknowledging these truths is vital for building a more equitable future. Indigenous peoples have long been stewards of the land, innovators, and champions of sustainability and community well-being. Together, we can support these communities by amplifying their voices, advocating for their rights, and learning from their resilience and wisdom. Let’s commit to standing with Indigenous peoples, not just today but every day, in our shared journey toward justice and reconciliation. #IndigenousPeoplesDay #HonorAndRespect #EquityAndJustice #NonprofitLeadership

October is National Disability Employment Awareness Month (NDEAM), a time to celebrate the contributions of individuals with disabilities in the workforce and to promote inclusive employment practices. At Mission + Strategy, we believe that every person, including those with disabilities, brings unique strengths and talents to their workplace. “Access to Good Jobs for All,” this year’s theme, highlights how good jobs change lives and emphasizes that all workers, including those with disabilities, deserve the opportunity to prepare for, obtain, and succeed in them. Here are a few ways your nonprofit can show support: → Evaluate and enhance your hiring practices to ensure they are inclusive of individuals with disabilities. → Provide training and resources to foster an accessible and supportive work environment. → Partner with organizations that advocate for disability employment to expand your impact. Learn more at dol.gov/NDEAM Let’s work together to create opportunities for everyone to thrive! #NDEAM #DisabilityInclusion #InclusiveWorkplaces #NonprofitLeadership