Olympic Mindset for Nonprofits: Are You Running a Marathon or a Sprint?
The Olympics are winding down - we know who the winners are, we’ve enjoyed triumphs, and we’ve mourned setbacks. These Olympic athletes have put endless time and effort into setting and achieving their goals, all for one glorious moment. What can we learn from them?
It’s easy to get inspired by the all-out efforts we see on display, but what I find even more fascinating is the interviews with athletes - they unravel their carefully planned routines, their habits that border on superstition, their attention to detail.
There’s a lot that nonprofit leaders can learn from these Olympians. Far too often, I see nonprofits (particularly newer or smaller nonprofits) set wild, audacious, amazing goals…but then make no actual plan to achieve them. They set the goal, and off they shoot, putting everything they have into achieving the goal in record time.
It pains me to share that far too often, these organizations eventually shut down. They ran out of steam, burned out, and arm-twisted donors. They overpromised and underperformed, losing donor confidence. Or they hustled so hard on programming that they forgot to fundraise.
So I have a question for you: Are you running a marathon or a sprint?
The way you’ll train for and run these two different races are obviously different… but we don’t put that same mentality into our nonprofit work.
Imagine you signed up for a marathon. It’s tomorrow, and you haven’t trained, prepped, or pace-planned. But… running a marathon is on your bucket list! It’s so exciting! So you march right up to the starting line with a goal of 26.2 miles. The gun goes off and you run as hard as you can, putting everything you’ve got into each stride.
How far do you think you’ll get before exhaustion sets in? How far until you can’t go another step?
This is what I see in too many nonprofits. We are trying to run marathons at a sprint pace. We’re so eager to make it to the finish line that we destroy ourselves before we’re even meaningfully in the race.
Now am I telling you to stop dreaming big? Heck NO! I encourage “blue sky dreaming” with my clients: with unlimited resources, in a perfect world, without any obstacles, what can they achieve? I’ll never shoot down your goal, and I’ll never say “can’t.”
What I will say is: Let’s figure out how to pace ourselves so that we CAN get there. By breaking a huge goal into manageable steps, you can accomplish anything. From a couch potato running a marathon, to raising a million dollars, to revolutionizing education, to building a more equitable electoral process. I believe it can all be done. But it won’t get done if you don’t plan for it properly and pace yourself to actually hit the finish line.
YOUR HOMEWORK
Name your goal.
Break that goal into progressively smaller pieces: projects, tasks, sub-tasks.
Figure out what it will really take to achieve this goal sustainably.
Include ALL costs - resources, salaries, equipment, etc.*
Build your budget accordingly
Map these plans onto a calendar: realistically, how long will everything take?
Include the time needed to fundraise
* I once asked a nonprofit CEO how much it cost to run their organization for one day. They told me $300. “You have 5 full-time employees!” I exclaimed, “$7/hour is illegal!” The CEO explained that $300 only covered direct program costs - and when we did the full tally, the real cost was over $1,800/day. This organization had been severely underestimating their need - and then underasking. The organization was struggling financially, and their funders were frustrated at the lack of sustainability.
Don’t make that same mistake! Know what it will take to reach your goal, and pace yourself accordingly. To my mind, it’s better to spend a year training to run that marathon than to wreck your body in an all-out sprint trying to run the marathon as fast as you can tomorrow. Likewise, it’s better to launch your youth mentorship program with a tiny cohort and grow over time than it is to enroll 50 kids your first year and fail them all. It’s better to raise $100,000 sustainably over three years than twist everyone’s arms and risk alienating your donors to raise it this year.
Think about your nonprofit’s mission, and what it will really take to achieve your vision in a way that won’t wreck you by mile 5.
