Exponential Nonprofits (Part II)

Based on the book "Exponential Organizations: why new organizations are ten times better, faster, and cheaper than yours" by Salim Ismail, in my post Exponential Nonprofits (Part I) I defined an Exponential Nonprofit (ExN) as an organization that creates more social impact, with less resources than its peers, leveraging on the power of technologies, information and community networks. And I used two of the three main concepts that Salim’s uses to define an exponential organization: SCALE and MTP. 

SCALE means using Staff on Demand; Community and Crowd; Algorithms; Leveraged Assets and Engagement. And MTP is the Massive Transformative Purpose of the organization. In Exponential Nonprofits (Part II) I will use the third main concept that defines an exponential organization, applied to the nonprofit world, it is IDEAS. 

Internal attributes (IDEAS): Salim defines IDEAS as internal attributes that include Interface, Dashboards, Experimentation, Autonomy and Social Technologies. My hypothesis on how each of these five attributes could work for Exponential Nonprofits is the following: 

• I – Interfaces: Salim defines interfaces as “algorithms and automated workflows that route the output of SCALE externalities to the right people at the right time internally… Exponential Organizations invest considerable attention to Interfaces and a great deal of human-centered design thinking is brought to bear on these processes in order to optimize every instantiation”. Very often, nonprofits have small (very capable!) teams of individuals doing a lot of different activities. This is true both for big and small nonprofits. Since this is usually a budget constraint, it also creates another problem: a lot of focus in transactional activities, rather than transformational and strategic ones. By using interfaces (technology and information), a small nonprofit can quickly multiply its impact not necessarily by investing more money on a particular issue, but through optimizing the focus of its workforce. In doing so, it is stepping up to become an ExN. Interfaces could be anything from teams’ goal setting, collaborative solution to problems, hiring, compensation and benefits, among others.
• D – Dashboards: it is the way to manage and measure huge amounts of information. In the past, nonprofits had to make a tough call: either investing their resources in reaching more people and having larger impact with their projects, or monitoring and evaluating (M&E) constant outputs, and long-term results. For those nonprofits deciding to use part of their monetary resources to do M&E, the availability to reach more people was limited by the same amount of money used for M&E. It was (and still is!) very frequent to find a few people within the nonprofit multitasking between implementation and M&E. Today, thanks to access to technology and information, particularly mobile technology, this doesn’t have to be this way. Nonprofits don’t need to divert a ton of resources (monetary or people) to do M&E. They can leverage on technology and create dashboards that help them understand the immediate results of the outputs and outcomes, and measure long-term impact. Dashboards allow nonprofits to measure not only their external impact, but also their internal performance. Goals and teams/individuals performance indicators can be tracked via dashboards in order to understand how they are using their abilities to maximize the impact of the nonprofit, and potential areas for development.
• E – Experimentation: Salim uses the definition presented in the Lean Startup methodology to explain experimentation. It is “testing assumptions and constantly experimenting with controlled risks”. I wrote a post called “A New Cycle for Social Impact Projects (Design and Lean Thinking)” in which I explain how experimenting is fundamental and more important than heavy strategic or project planning in the nonprofit world. Unfortunately, many nonprofits are still trapped in a world in which the pace of change is slow and access to information/technology is reduced. Today, while it is true that we are dealing with very similar social issues than before (poverty, access to education, access to clean water and electricity, among others), solving them requires a new level of thinking that mustn’t be static. Rather, it requires a lot of experimentation with ideas for smaller groups of people, and finding whether those ideas are scalable or not. Based on the input of each experiment, the nonprofit will be testing core assumptions about how things work and getting enough information to decide whether to change the solution in place, or to scale it. This is real Exponential Nonprofit! It might be slow at the beginning, because of the experimentation. However, once ideas are tested, scaling them will have greater impact than implementing something that doesn’t work.
• A – Autonomy: Salim defines it as “self-organizing, multidisciplinary teams operating with decentralized authority”. I’m convinced that most teams in the future will be self-managed teams where authority and power will be distributed among people, and influence will be based more on accountabilities, experience and expertise rather than on a fancy “Chief of Blah Blah” title. The social world moves at an incredibly fast pace, maybe as fast as the business world. To maximize impact with limited resources it is fundamental to empower teams and give them the autonomy to collaborate with each other, to let people gravitate towards those areas in which they find voice and expression for their potential, while giving them enough decision-making authority. Just as it is true for the business world, hierarchical nonprofits will be disrupted and replaced by the flexibility and fluidity that comes with the fresher and stronger Exponential Nonprofits. If people are controlled and their ideas have to go through layers and layers of bureaucracy before even getting a chance to experiment with them, the likelihood of death by disruption is way higher. Instead, when self-managed multidisciplinary teams are given the possibility to experiment and decide accordingly, understanding risks and also future potential, there is a high possibility for faster innovation cycles. There is no way to build an ExN without giving autonomy to teams and individuals.
• S – Social Technologies: the last internal attribute of IDEAS is using information and technology to connect, engage, generate trust and become more transparent. Today more organizations than ever are turning their heads to using social technologies to achieve that (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, etc.). However, the difference between a nonprofit advertising their work or fundraising via social technologies, and an Exponential Nonprofit, is that the latter uses it to drive deeper engagement and connection with its stakeholders. ExN levarages on social technologies to generate an emotional connection with people that will translate into more engagement, trust and transparency. Just think about the campaigns by charity:water and the ice bucket challenge. Both generate powerful traction, because they were meant to create awareness more than asking for money.

If you are working for a nonprofit, how are you using the concepts behind IDEAS?

Follow me on Twitter: @erubio_p
Visit my blog: www.innovationdev.org

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About the Author: Enrique Rubio is an Electronic Engineer and a Fulbright scholar with an Executive Master’s Degree in Public Administration from Syracuse University. Enrique is passionate about leadership, business and social entrepreneurship, curiosity, creativity and innovation. He is a blogger and podcaster, and also a competitive ultrarunner. Visit the blog: Innovation for Development and Podcast. Click here to follow Enrique on Twitter. 

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