One of my favorite blogs is Nonprofit AF by Vu Le, former executive director of RVC, a Seattle-based nonprofit that promotes social justice by cultivating leaders of color, strengthening organizations led by communities of color, and fostering collaboration between diverse communities.

My favorite blog post from Nonprofit AF is “Answers on grant proposals if nonprofits were brutally honest with funders“.

In the post, Vu mentions the imbalance of power between funders and nonprofits, leading to a lack of honest communication and feedback. This often shows up in grant applications for program funding. Vu writes:

“It’s not that we nonprofits lie when writing proposals, it’s just that…we’ve been trained to tell funders exactly what we think y’all want to hear, sugarcoating everything in jargon and BS.”

When I’ve had discovery calls with client organizations who want an evaluation done on a program, we’ve discuss program and evaluation goals. The staff member usually begins with, “Our funder wants…” or “Our funder is looking for…”

This reminds me of an earlier evaluation project I conducted. The program was very popular and attracted participants throughout the city. The executive director wanted to create a trial version of the program that would only accept participants from the same area of the city. The location of the trial program was in an area that’s now very popular, but was up and coming at the time.

I did a few site visits and observed that staff (the ones that worked exclusively at this location and ones that travelled between several program sites) were frustrated with not knowing what resources were in the area as well as who the key players were in order to build community relationships. Though the participants enjoyed not having to travel far to participate in the program, staff felt their time would have been better spent in areas of the city where they already had established relationships.

At some point, I asked the executive director for the rationale for the trial program being in this area. I was told that the funder was interested in having the program there. Staff conducted a community scan of similar programs in the area and discovered that there were none. Being the only program of its kind in the area was great from a funder’s perspective, but that still didn’t lesson the staff’s frustration. When the program ended, I included in my program evaluation report that staff support, staff input on program locations, and aligning staff expertise with funder vision should be prioritized so that staff feel successful in continuing with the trial program.

Since that time, I’ve asked during discovery calls, “Who knows your community more? You or your funder?”

I don’t like flying, but I do because I enjoy experiencing new locations, plus all of my family lives in Georgia and the majority of my current client organizations are not based in Washington, DC where I’m located.

It’s already unsettling being propelled through the air at 36,000 feet in a cylindrical tube, but one of the scariest aspects of flying for me is knowing that a twin-engine aircraft can fly with just one engine, at best, At worst, that aircraft can lose power in both engines and still travel for another 70 miles before reaching the ground.

Something like this should be scary, but what keeps me somewhat calm is knowing that pilots are highly trained and can handle most mechanical and weather situations (turbulence, ugh).

Can you imagine if pilots had to figure out how to land a plane without practicing? In addition to hours of training and the lessons learned in past aviation incidents, pilots learn how to communicate the relevant information to Air Traffic Control and flight crew.

So how does this apply to implementing your programs and services?

I once had a supervisor that would tell staff, “Your Plan B should be stronger than your Plan A”.

If your Plan A is strong enough, there would be no need for a Plan B, I thought.

As I move through the COVID-19 pandemic along with my clients, I see that my former supervisor and I were both right.

We’re living in uncertain times, and this was before the coronavirus pandemic. We’re used to routine and structure (Plan A). Even if everything is going well, there’s always something you can do to strengthen your programs and services (Your Plan B).

Planes are designed that in the event one or both engines fail, you can still glide and land safely. So, how can you build your Plan B?