# Presentation: 080764

## Surviving and Maintaining a Viable Program

- When Your Federal Funding Ends!

- June 2001 -- OCD/EPD -- Dr. Rick

**Notes:**
The lead organizations of the Empowerment Zones, Enterprise Communities, REAP Zones, and Champion Communities may have as much need for organizational development as their communities have for community development.  Some lead entities have discovered ways to build internal capacity that will carry their organization not only through, but beyond the ten-year designation time.

Strategies for consistently and constantly developing administrative funds are a key element to building long-term sustainability for these organizations.  However, leadership principles, organizational development and established daily operating philosophy and vision also play a key role.

This part of the workshop will explore how organizational development techniques reinforce program support functions and result in not only a healthy organization, but a solvent one as well.

## Let’s Pick up from Last Year’s Program... Remember this?

- June 2001 -- OCD/EPD -- Dr. Rick

## The Tao of Victory 

- One who knows when he can fight, and when he cannot fight, will be victorious
- One who recognizes how to employ large and small numbers will be victorious
- One whose upper and lower ranks have the same desires will be victorious
- One who, fully prepared, awaits for the unprepared will be victorious
- One whose general is capable and not interfered with by the ruler will be victorious
- -- Sun-tzu, from The Art of War, ca. 500 B.C.

- June 2001 -- OCD/EPD -- Dr. Rick

## “The purpose of planning, like the purpose of organization and of most managerial work, is to keep building capability. Build institutional skill. Build corporate capability. Create what the theorists call distinctive competence or sustainable competitive advantage.”
Waterman -- The Renewal Factor: How the Best Get and Keep the Competitive Edge

- Waterman -- _*The Renewal Factor: How the Best Get and Keep the Competitive Edge*_

- Management Strategy

- June 2001 -- OCD/EPD -- Dr. Rick

##  In other words, 

-  In other words,

- Sustainable Community Development

- June 2001 -- OCD/EPD -- Dr. Rick

## What and Why of Sustainability

- Rural communities need someone to be with them for the long haul
- Discard notion that EZ/EC is “just a grant” & focus on your vision and your plan
- “Whole-systems” thinking
- Key is learning and innovation
- A single vision can be achieved through multiple paths

- June 2001 -- OCD/EPD -- Dr. Rick

**Notes:**
Whole-systems thinking in the sustainability movement context* 
an approach which, surprisingly, seems to more profoundly define the sustainability movement than even the concern for sustainability. What distinguishes whole-systems thinking is a keen awareness of the importance of interconnections, relationships, consequences, and feedback loops. It involves a willingness to consider all significant aspects of an issue, and not to jump to appealing (but usually wrong) simplifications

## Elbert Hubbard Was a Wise Man

- “Parties who want milk should not seat themselves on a stool in the middle of a field in hopes that the cow will back up to them.”

- June 2001 -- OCD/EPD -- Dr. Rick

## One Path - Foundation Largesse

**Endless cycles of grantsmanship**

**The Wachovia Foundation, Inc.**

**The Pew Charitable Trusts**

**Charles Stewart Mott Foundation**

**Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Foundation, Inc**

**Bert & Mary Meyer Foundation, Inc.**

**John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation**

**W. K. Kellogg Foundation**

**Gannett Foundation, Inc.**

**CP&L Foundation, Inc.**

**Ben & Jerry's Foundation, Inc.**

**BellSouth Corporate Giving Program**

**AT&T Foundation**

- June 2001 -- OCD/EPD -- Dr. Rick

## One Path - Foundation LargesseEndless cycles of grantsmanship

- One Path - Foundation LargesseEndless cycles of grantsmanship

- Your word processor is your best friend -- construction and reconstruction
- Learn the cycles
- Cultivate your contacts in this sector with tailored information
- Believe that every task in every benchmark is ripe for funding

- June 2001 -- OCD/EPD -- Dr. Rick

**Notes:**
We ran a search through the Foundation Center’s CD-ROM and discovered 110 foundations whose published field of interests are community development and who fund general or operating support.  We found 15 foundations who fund similar purposes and whose specific interest is rural development.  

(Brief commercial for foundation search feature).

## Another Path - Federal Trough

- 10.855 Distance Learning and Telemedicine Loans and Grants

- 94.016 Senior Companion Program. (SCP) 94.011 Foster Grandparent Program. (FGP)

- 93.570 Community Services Block Grant-Discretionary Awards

- 94.011 Foster Grandparent Program. (FGP)

- 94.002 Retired and Senior Volunteer Program. (RSVP)

- 14.219 Community Development Block Grants/Small Cities Program. (Small Cities)

- 10.420 Rural Self-Help Housing Technical Assistance. (Section 523 Technical Assistance)

- June 2001 -- OCD/EPD -- Dr. Rick

## EZ/EC designation is a plus for many Federal programs
The funding cafeteria -- look for ways to build capacity one small piece at a time
Stay on top of minor program changes
Take advantage of the “stovepipe”; multiply-fund projects so the admin cut is bigger

- The funding cafeteria -- look for ways to build capacity one small piece at a time
- Stay on top of minor program changes
- Take advantage of the “stovepipe”; multiply-fund projects so the admin cut is bigger

- Another Path - Federal Trough

- June 2001 -- OCD/EPD -- Dr. Rick

**Notes:**
Fewer Federal programs have money specifically directed at organizational sustainability.  Reason is probably that the federal programs are more concerned with “building projects” than with capacity-building.

## A Third Path - Co-lateral Duty

**Partnershipping arrangements mean achieving multiple goals simultaneously, sometimes by using pieces of positions **

- Volunteers and Citizen Committees

- Special Hires to City or County compatible programs

- Tribal Gov’t Business Development Office

- Program Staff in an existing not-for-profit

- County/City Economic Development Staff

- Councils of Government Staff

- “Other Duties as Assigned”

- CDC Staff

- College/University Staff

- Combinations of any or all of the above!

- Private Sector Loaned Executives?

- June 2001 -- OCD/EPD -- Dr. Rick

## A Third Path - Co-lateral Duty

- The whole can be greater than the sum of its parts
- Get it in writing! Working for free is not freedom
- Keep the letterheads straight
- Cafeteria approach works here too -- one trip down the line
- Virtual Staff and Culture  -- Invisible no longer

- June 2001 -- OCD/EPD -- Dr. Rick

**Notes:**
The Whole can be greater -- When first picking up pieces of people to contribute to the organization, be fairly selective.  Look for monomanics who have your mission in mind.  Later, when the organization is more established and has firmer culture and written procedures you may be less demanding.
Get it in writing -- job descriptions, contracts, formal split time (which days or hours you’ll be wearing which hat)
Working for free -- For it is truly written that a man cannot serve two masters, either he will hate the one and love the other, etc.  Generally and eventually, the free work gets subordinated to the paid work or the person who pays you become resentful.  There are exceptions -- like when your boss is working for the EZ/EC is working for free also.
Keeping the letterheads straight -- When you represent yourself to the public as an EZ/EC, use your title and role in the EZ/EC, not your other job.  Get separate business cards.
Cafeteria approach -- If you are building an organization out of pieces of other organizations’ time, try to match up the “critical mass” so that unified coordination takes place.  “Catch as catch can” only works for defined tasks done by independent self-starters.
Virtual Staffing -- When using co-lateral bodies, treat them as you would a permanent staff.  Formalize the informal. Build a functioning organization, but with appropriate structure.  Just because they are “virtual” doesn’t mean that they don’t deserve rewards and recognition, time and attendance, service and support, desks and space, and accountability and oversight.

## And a Fourth Path

**Entrepreneurial Outlook, but beware of legal restrictions**

- Rental from Business Incubators

- Speculative Buildings

- Niche Business Startups

- Fee-for-service

- Venture Capitalization

- Selling or Renting Your Organizational Skills

- Patents and Inventions

- Grantsmanship for Hire

- Cooperative Marketing

- Bartering skills, information, expertise

- Royalties from publishing what you know

- Angel Investors

- June 2001 -- OCD/EPD -- Dr. Rick

## The Fourth Path, Entrepreneurism

- Profitable Proceeds Plowed Publicly in Progress
- Creative local brainstorming sessions might yield unexpected results
- Find your organization’s niche in the local, regional, or national economy

- June 2001 -- OCD/EPD -- Dr. Rick

**Notes:**
Plow Proceeds -- Nip mistrust and backbiting in the bud.  Keep all your entrepreneurial transactions public and out in the open.  Issue frequent press releases (good advice whenever).  Make sure to make the connection that the proceeds are increasing the nonprofit’s capacity to return value to the community.  Show that connection whenever possible.
Brainstorm Creatively -- Find new ways to be entrepreneurial. Add some “free thinkers” to your usual cast of dreamers and doers.  Grab some young people who don’t know “it can’t be done” or “we tried it before and it didn’t work.”  Listen to these new thoughts without judgement.
Find your niche -- Throw out any old notion that to be an economic player you have to manufacture, market and sell a widget.  Today’s economy is service and the widgets it produces are mostly invisible and intangible.  Discover what your own invisible widget is by exploring what it is you do best as an organization.
Dot Com Incubators -- a niche of finding your niche.  If you have space and any kind of access to large bandwidth, you can play.  Develop the ancillary services as part of your ongoing organization, rent the space, charge fees.

## The Fun Part

**Any, or ALL of these strategies work **

- Singly, or in combination, coordination is the key
- Unfortunately, it takes time, but...
- Payoff is a self-perpetuating organism

- June 2001 -- OCD/EPD -- Dr. Rick

## The Fun Part -- Activated!

- Find out how your organization spends its time
- Inventory your resources -- physical, capital, human
- Analyze by comparing #1 against #2.  If less than about 20% of your organization’s time is being spent producing resources for your outfit, reorder some priorities

- June 2001 -- OCD/EPD -- Dr. Rick

## Discussion Questions

- Prime Question:  _DO_ you want to survive as a distinct organization?  Pros & Cons?
- How do you set your own organizational development goals and do they contribute to sustainabilitiy?
- What paths can you design that have the greatest payoffs?
- How do you claw your own way to the top of the local/state/regional/national food chain

- June 2001 -- OCD/EPD -- Dr. Rick