Your organization’s strategic plan won’t work — here’s why.
Let me cut through the pleasantries and get straight to the point: the social impact world is in the middle of a deep transition.
We are nearing the end of a set of worldviews that have dominated the western world, and in particular, dominated how good happens here. This general awareness, this emerging wokeness, if you will, is polarizing the world of impact (which is not necessarily a bad thing). You may fall into one of two camps: the camp of ‘going back to business as usual’ once everybody is vaccinated, or you may fall into the camp of ‘deep personal and organizational transition’. Both experiences are painful, full of loss and letting go. The difference, of course, is that the people and teams in one camp will come out of COVID resilient and relevant, and people in the other will struggle to hang on to what’s left of the old world.
Which camp are you in? Which camp do you want to be in?
High rates of unemployment, a massively unequal K-shaped economic recovery, a rise in online hate and bullying, collective mental stress, the rapid localization of global development, weak elderly care and intergenerational relationships, a steep increase in domestic violence, changes to social determinants of health, the fight for precarious and front line workers’ rights, immunity inequality, crater-like digital divides, anti-blackness and systemic racism — I could fill a page with the problems exposed and amplified by the pandemic.
To go a step further, I’d argue that this amplification is something the social impact world didn’t see coming. They didn’t see it because they designed their institutions, programs and services to not see it.
These problems are not simple to solve. You are not going to program or grant your way to long-lasting solutions. These problems are compounded by millions of actions and inactions. They change by the day. They are complex. They are interconnected.
These problems require a fundamentally different way of looking at the world. Whether you knew it or not, many of our actions were shaped by worldviews that were colonial, white supremacist, male-oriented, and market-centred. The environment was to extract, humans were to exploit, the elderly were to be isolated, decisions were to be central, society had winners and losers, charity did no harm, and shareholders and donors mattered above all.
Now, we’re seeing that trees aren’t lumber, knowledge isn’t just western, power can’t be central, institutions are colonial, mental wellness is wellness, society is intergenerational, public policies are oppressive, the north has much to learn from the global south, humans aren’t robots, and a lot of organizations do good badly.
Old problems are being exacerbated and a new breed of economic, environmental, and social problems are emerging. They don’t respond to social movements alone. They are beyond any one sector. They can’t be analyzed with two-year-old data. And they won’t be solved by a singular program or grant or technology. Perhaps, more importantly, these problems don’t stick to organizational strategic plans.
So, what worldviews underpin your strategic plan? What worldviews is it perpetuating, moulding, and letting go? How is it responding to all that is emerging?
Allow me to share some emerging findings to illustrate a few of the critical choices that will determine your strategic plan’s and ultimately, your team’s relevance and resilience coming out of COVID.
First, in February, Statistics Canada released appalling results of a pan-Canadian crowdsourcing survey on diversity of non-profit board directors. According to the report, 14 percent of board directors identified as being immigrants to Canada; 11 percent identified as belonging to a visible minority group; and three percent identified as First Nations, Métis or Inuit. Except, according to the last census, about 22 percent of Canadians identified as a member of a visible minority group and 65 percent of that group were born outside of the country. While some non-profit boards and executive teams are actively exploring ways to address this critical finding in their strategic plans, others are going about business as usual. What have you done?
Second, last fall, the Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA) published Unconnected, the results of in-depth interviews and research on the state of Canada’s digital divides. In it, they note that, “COVID-19 has cast Canada’s digital divide into sharp relief. The debate over whether the internet is an essential service is officially over.” The digital divides show up as lack of access and affordability of high-speed internet as well as weak digital literacy and know-how. The thing is, Canada will come nowhere near closing its socio-economic divides without closing its digital divides — and that isn’t happening without digitally savvy social purpose organizations. According to the report, nearly 50 percent of people surveyed said that digital literacy is the most important area to fund. Again, while some funders and social purpose organizations decided to prioritize digital transformation in their grantmaking and strategic plans, others are hanging on to the idea that digital services and being tech savvy is a fad. Where do you fall?
And lastly, in December 2020, the Foundation for Black Communities released Unfunded. It is a scathing account of the systematic omission of Black communities and Black-led organizations by Canada’s philanthropic sector. Of the 40 public and private foundations surveyed, only six funded Black-serving non-profits between 2017 and 2018 — and only two funded Black-led organizations. Despite accounting for 3.5 percent of Canada’s population, Black-led groups received only 0.03 percent of funds in the 2017-2018 fiscal years, while primarily Black-serving organizations received 0.15 percent of funds. The Foundation for Black Communities launched a campaign to change grantmaker behaviour as well as capitalize their endowment and invited philanthropic organizations across the country to transfer 3.5 percent of their endowment (Black Canadians as a percentage of population) to ensure Black communities have agency in defining their own future. To date, the only philanthropic organizations that have done so are led by people of colour. Ask your funder how they’ve addressed this critical finding in their strategic plan. And if you are a funder, have you taken this to your board with an urgent call to action?
A challenge for you: do a quick self-assessment. How did your team action each critical finding above? Which side of history are you on right now? And — therefore — how resilient do you think your team’s future might be?
We are at the end of the current worldview of social impact. Being woke to injustice and inequality is not progress. Progress does not happen without change. Change does not happen without loss and letting go. We have to acknowledge the loss of what was, to make space for what might be — be it community services moving online or majority Black, Indigenous and people of colour on your board.
If there’s anything I’ve learned speaking with and interviewing people from across the world of impact, it’s that the future is made by each of us, every single day. Our present worldviews and inactions are compounding into the future we’ll get — two, five and ten years from now. That’s a way to think about what lies ahead in your own strategy, grantmaking, or programming. There is no uncoupling of the now and tomorrow. What you and I demand, decide, reject, work on, and vote for in meetings today determines what happens tomorrow.
Vinod Rajasekaran
Publisher & CEO
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