non-profits, charities and Social Ventures

Adding functionality to mission and heart

 

Challenges for non-profits, charities and social ventures

Non-profits, charities and social ventures have many great strengths as organizations. Just a few of these are:

  • Strong mission-focus

  • Meaningful work and engagement

  • Social ventures, B-Corps etc have innovative business models 

But too often this comes at a high cost. It’s all too common that people are running on burn out, trying to fulfill the mission in frustrating circumstances.

Poverty mind-sets and lack of funds can be a systemic problem. Leaders are under high pressure to show that funds are being used for the mission, and this can often limit important investments in people and infrastructure. Workers and leaders also may see money as a necessary evil, and struggle to generate enough funds and abundance for the organization to thrive.

Lastly despite the shared vision and passion, also too often a mission-drive organization can struggle with dysfunction and internal politics.

building mindfulness and resilience

The well-being and resilience of staff is the foundation for the creativity, innovation and compassion that is so important for genuine and positive mission impact. Yet so many staff struggle with burn-out and exhaustion. Mindfulness can help cultivate a new awareness and a behaviour of self-care that is vital for the sustainability of the committed staff at charities, non-profits and social ventures.

Mindfulness-based approaches can also be a powerful tool for change. It’s important mindfulness isn’t offered as a palliative or superficial band-aid to systemic organizational and staff issues. However, done well, mindfulness programs can create a space to breathe and explore new approaches. To foster a type of workplace environment that is both sustainable and generative for staff and the people and causes they serve.

Mindfulness-based approaches can transform how we work in many positive way. For example:

  • cultivating present awareness and a solid basis of calm is a foundation to support staff to step into difficult situations and challenges so common at mission-based organizations.

  • mindful communication is another key foundational skill for working with the complex and pressured situations, both inside the organization, and with the people it serves. Mindfulness communication doesn’t mean just being calm and passive. It means listening deeply - and also being able to stand in strongly and with compassion.

In many non-profits, charities and social ventures, there is a difficult and tense relationship to money and funding. Exploring the relationship to money is a nexus that is the doorway into greater integration and functionality.

A great strength of non-profits is that there is an understanding that money is not an end in itself, but is in service to a greater good. There is a bigger view than the next quarterly earning report.

However on the downside, often both individual staff and the organization itself, can be stuck in a poverty mind-set, systemically short of funds. Money can be seen as an evil, or sometime simply ignored.

All of us have some sort of knot around money. By going into that knot, we can free up resources and energy to focus bigger things like vision, values, priorities, and personal growth.

Therefore, alongside a mindfulness and resilience program, personal and organizational money coaching is also important work for mission-based organizations.

shifting our relationship with moneY

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