From Shredded to Strong: Reclaiming Purpose

Sometimes, the greatest moments of clarity come from someone else’s response to your story. They are able to bring things into focus in a way that makes everything click, in a way that makes you wonder how you missed that insight for so long. Their position outside of your experience allows them to cut through all the noise, to uplift a truth that perhaps you already knew and were subconsciously ignoring but now takes up so much space that you can never not acknowledge it again. Is this just a me thing?  It happened again last week. I was meeting with another nonprofit consultant, and we were sharing how we got here, the what and the why behind our work. And, she said something along the lines of, “That makes sense. You were shredded by your past experiences.” 

Shredded, me? No! Oh, yes, I could no longer avoid that truth. Shredded was the right word, the perfect word. When you are so consumed by the busyness of the day-to-day work, you often don’t realize how the entirety of the culture, others’ bad behavior, lack of accountability, broken or nonexistent systems, (add whatever I have missed), are slowly wearing you thin, pulling apart the threads that hold you together, planting seeds of self-doubt. You cling to your belief in the mission, the potential of what a well-functioning organization could do. You care deeply about the work and are willing to sacrifice yourself for it. You tell yourself that it will get better if you could just … Fill in the blank with the thousands of fixes that you invent to make it all worth it. Then, one day, you just can’t do it anymore. You are shredded. It takes strength to accept that something must change and you are unwilling to become collateral damage.

Despite having lived through these types of painful experiences, I still think that it can be different. Nonprofit leaders do not have to allow themselves to be battered by the constant waves of chaos that they find themselves immersed in until they break. And we are breaking. The loss of talent in the nonprofit sector is something that we should all be concerned about. Who will be left to steer our organizations through the challenging landscape that is still evolving? You are the lifelines for many of the communities who are most impacted by the multiplying inequities that are creating seismic shifts in our social fabric. Without strong leadership, organizations will falter, disrupting services that people rely on to meet many of their basic needs, silencing the voices that are advocating for fairer systems, protection of our environment and human rights, and creating gaps that may be too large to fill. I am the Nonprofit Futurist, and I fully believe that we create our futures with the decisions that we make each day. To do this, we must have a clear vision for the future that guides us; we can build strategies and make choices that lead us there.

My choices are guided by my vision of a healthy and thriving nonprofit sector that is not starving itself but anchored in abundance. To achieve this vision, I know that changes must occur for most of the systems that have allowed nonprofits to continue to hum along are broken or no longer relevant in today’s environment. Whether it is policy change, technological advancements or community shifts, what used to kind of work (because let’s be honest, nonprofits have always functioned in less-than-ideal circumstances) is inadequate for the moment that we are facing. I remember being told that being nimble and agile were critical for my organization, and I never disagreed with this advice, but I did wonder if the people recommending that we remain flexible truly understood how taped together things were. Nimbleness and agility are not possible when your systems and structures are a grade above archaic and pivoting creates a domino-effect of change that leaves your team gasping. And remember, I am saying this as a future-oriented, gently optimistic leader. I know that we can create the organizations that we need, and that they will need to look and operate differently than they do today. 

I also know that you cannot undertake the level of innovation needed when you are exhausted, have the Sunday scaries and spend hours researching careers that you can transfer your nonprofit leadership skills to. When your personal why no longer recharges your energy and fortifies you to keep going. The sheer number of problems that your team is expecting you to fix makes you feel like you will never more out of the reactive zone. So, what am I suggesting? 

The nonprofit sector will need to heal itself from the inside. We cannot wait for philanthropy, the government, corporations or even the general public, to realize that we are in crisis and that it behooves them to ensure that the nonprofit sector not implode. The calvary is not coming because we are the calvary. Nonprofit leaders, it is up to us to come together, in community, to reimagine our organizations, to find new ways to collaborate that create value add for all parties, to uplift our tired spirits by acknowledging the mess and then designing practical and tactical strategies to clean it up. So much passion, talent and brilliance exist within our organizations and the communities that we operate within, how could it not be possible to design and implement a better way?

For me, this is how I rebuild my shredded self. By creating space for people to come together, take off the masks, push each other’s thinking and find solutions that each of you can take back to your organizations. This is the intention behind my program, ElevatED. It is a leadership community for nonprofit leaders ready to reconnect to purpose, strengthen their organizations, and lead with clarity and confidence without the burnout. It is the preventative measure that keeps you from crossing into the shredded zone. I wish that I had been able to realize that I needed a program like ElevatED. Over six sessions, within an intimate cohort of peers, I might not have lost my grip on those final threads. I might not have felt like I had to do it all on my own. Let’s create something different, together. Ready to reclaim your purpose? Learn more about ElevatED here: ElevatED — Kerri Osborne Consulting