Beyond Vulture Culture: The Kind of Help Nonprofits Actually Need

Today, 9/1, I have a little less than six months until I turn 50, and apparently having a milestone like that looming on the horizon tends to put you in a reflective state about where you've been and, perhaps more importantly, where you're going.

I've been thinking about that in relation to SWAN.

From the beginning, I haven't wanted SWAN to be about me. I want it to be about what I can do with the experience, education, skills, relationships, and lessons I've accumulated over the years and, more importantly, whether any of that can help organizations doing important work.

As I survey the situation facing nonprofits right now, three things keep striking me.

First, we are operating in a time of tremendous uncertainty. Funding is changing. Costs are rising. Organizations are being asked to do more, often with fewer resources, while the communities they serve are facing greater needs.

Second, uncertainty creates a market for answers. Some very knowledgeable people are providing them. But I've also watched people appear with outdated ideas dressed up in new terminology, excessive reliance on buzzwords, and unnecessarily complicated solutions to problems that were already difficult enough.

Third, I worry about what happens when the nonprofit sector's uncertainty becomes someone else's business opportunity.

Which brings me to "vulture culture."

Fun fact about me: my favorite band of all time is The Alan Parsons Project, and I consider Vulture Culture the greatest album ever made. So I don't use the phrase lightly.

I love the album. I abhor the practice.

To me, vulture culture is circling organizations when they're vulnerable and selling expensive solutions built more around the consultant than the organization. If the recommendation requires staff you don't have, money you can't reasonably raise, systems you can't maintain, or a dictionary to understand the terminology, how useful was the advice?

There has to be another way.

Simple doesn't mean unsophisticated. Practical doesn't mean unimaginative. Sometimes good strategy begins with understanding where an organization actually is, what resources it actually has, what it actually needs, and what it can realistically accomplish.

No nonsense. No buzzwords for the sake of buzzwords. No overcomplicating something just to demonstrate expertise. And no pretending there is one formula that works for every nonprofit.

I've been thinking a great deal about what role SWAN might play in providing that kind of help.

Not making SWAN more about me. Making it more about what I can do.

I have some ideas about what's next...