Five Years. Ten Lessons Learned.

Five years ago tomorrow, I woke up, climbed out of bed, made my morning cup of coffee, walked over to my kitchen table, and started a social good company. As I sit in that same spot five years later, I wanted to take a moment this evening to reflect on lessons learned over the first five years of Cause Strategy Partners and BoardLead.

1. The most important factor behind mission success is the people on the team.  We call our team members "Causies" because a uniting thread we share is that we care about a wide-range of issues and work tirelessly to make sure nonprofit organizations working on them are well led. The team's exceptional talent and dedication combined with deep passion for the mission is factor number one behind our success.
2. Because the people on the team are critical, a founder should create a shared-leadership environment, allowing the team to build the culture and organization envisioned together. A few years ago, for example, one of our graduate interns, Whitley Richards, approached me one afternoon sharing that she would like the opportunity to build an internal practice around diversity, equity and inclusion. Recognizing Whitley’s passion and expertise along with the critical importance of the issue in our society and sector, I responded, “Go for it” and “Let me know how I can help.” Three years later, Whitley’s efforts — eagerly supported by other team members — have shaped the very nature of our work through this self-initiated priority. 
3. Excellence matters. Our first of six values at Cause Strategy Partners reads, “Excellence: We never take short cuts. We infuse quality into every action, every day.” This guiding principle is owned by everyone. When we fall short of that standard, we acknowledge it and we dissect what went wrong so it won’t happen again. Committing to excellence means everything takes longer. One has to proof-read each email before pressing send. One has to take the time to carefully explain something rather than gloss over the concept and hope it was understood. Every tool and resource must be reviewed multiple times by multiple people before it is ready for showtime. But a commitment to excellence is always worth it.
4. Fun matters too. Our team has a great time together. There are baking contests, volunteer days, ax throwing outings, walks around the park, and Bring Someone You Love to Work Day. We have a monthly Lunch and Learn Series in which we take turns teaching one another about our personal passions. Last week we learned from Patrick about the many wonderful attributes of Newark (pronounced Nork). My session was on the structure of the American Broadway musical. Erin taught us how to camp in the rugged wilderness, Savannah rounded out our knowledge on the Native American experience, and Alexandra taught us how to move to London. If it is true that “Culture eats strategy for breakfast” (Peter Drucker), a constant time and resource investment in creating a strong culture is vital to success.
5. Setting high expectations for nonprofit board members works. From the beginning, we defined what fully-engaged nonprofit board service looks like in The BoardLeader Way and have required that every board candidate we work with commit upfront to that level of service. Of the nearly 600 board members we have been honored to connect to a cause, most have truly lived up to those expectations: The data shows it and the glowing reports we receive back from our nonprofit partners bring life to the numbers.
6. As an organization grows, figure out what you can be 'best in the world at' and stop doing the rest. When we launched, I wrote a broad mission statement so we could figure out where opportunities might lie and take them on. After three years, we better understood that our sweet spot was matching talent to purpose through BoardLead and training professionals on what good governance looks like. It was tough to close down our nonprofit consulting practice and our Board Chair/CEO coaching work, for example, but there are many others in the field who offer expertise in those areas. As we recognized our strengths as an organization and learned how our services could create the most social impact, we started to say “no” to opportunities that would come our way. Ironically, learning to say “no” would ultimately become one of the great drivers of our growth over the last five years.
7. Ask a lot of questions. Doing something new means you have a lot to learn — and quickly. As the founder of Cause Strategy Partners, I hope I have more questions than answers. 
8. Partnership. Partnership. Partnership. People often reference the founder’s name when describing the good work an organization is doing. More than a few times, I've heard, “Rob is doing such important work at Cause Strategy Partners.” That’s natural, I suppose, but I go out of my way to counter it at every turn because it’s simply not accurate. The truth is that I do virtually nothing alone. It is only through a large and growing community of board candidates, nonprofit partners, corporate partners, foundations, strategic partners, advisory board members and, of course, Causies that any good gets done at all. The third word in our name — Cause Strategy Partners — is by far the most important.
9. Stay the course. Most days are great. Some days are meh. Every now and then, there are days when nothing seems to click and fear about the future sets in. I’ve learned to remind myself to stay the course in those moments when things aren’t working as seamlessly as we’d hoped for. With a clear vision, effective strategy and exceptional team, the problems always get fixed.
10. Be grateful. It is exciting to do something new. Something different. To try a new approach. To work on something important. On a personal level, I feel incredibly honored to be on a journey with the extensive group of individuals described in #8 above. If I were to summarize the first five years in one word, I’d choose “thankful.”