Catherine Bradshaw's blog
When my friend Ann asked me to write my thoughts on this question, I tucked it away in my brain somewhere and jumped back into my busy work of serving as consultant to, right now, four nonprofit clients. The question kept surfacing in my mind, though, popping into my thoughts as I swam laps, or drove to another meeting. Every time I turned the question over in my mind, well, I know it’s cliché, but the word “purpose” kept surfacing. It certainly isn’t about money; I stopped my more lucrative for-profit consulting about ten years ago. It isn’t about comfort or ease; working with nonprofits is hard work – they’re constantly struggling to stay afloat with limited resources, always in a state of uncertainty and at risk of losing core funding. Their employees work long hours for little pay, often trying each day to help people who are victims, or struggling, or challenged in some way. It’s high stress, fast burnout.
As a consultant, I take that stress on myself. I often feel angry and sad, and unsure that my work is really having any lasting or positive impact. My aim is to help a nonprofit be stronger and more impactful, but I can’t do much about the underlying structural issues in our society that make their work so hard – increasing poverty and reduction of critical services for their clients, cutbacks in government funding, nonprofits competing for a limited and often shrinking pie of grants and donations, lack of funding for infrastructure and operations. So I spend six months or so helping an organization develop a strategic plan, or work with the board to search for and select a new executive director, or sometimes step in to be the interim executive and help the nonprofit through the turbulence of that transition. And maybe I shore them up to keep doing the important work they’re doing, but I can’t always be sure of even that.
But I keep at it, don’t I? It does come down to a sense of purpose. I worked for years as an organization consultant in the for-profit world, but as I got older – OK, so maybe it was a mid-life thing – I realized that I wanted to apply my good skills to helping people in organizations who were trying to make the world a better place, not trying to sell a product or service for a profit. So I shifted my focus to nonprofits, and haven’t looked back. And I’ve discovered that there are a number of rewards and joys to working with nonprofits. One – when the world feels like it’s going to hell in a hand-basket or often these days, attacked by evil forces, I feel I’m standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the people who are doing the good work, who are driven by a mission, not by a thirst for money or power. Two – I have met some incredibly smart, funny, and wise people in nonprofits, people who live courageous and heart-centered lives. Three – as a consultant, I get to learn a whole new world every time I crawl inside a nonprofit client organization…how the judicial system treats victims of sexual assault and intimate partner violence; how land trusts go about managing their properties; the legislative issues that service women are fighting for to ensure equal rights in the military. Finally, I do feel now – after developing a base of knowledge about nonprofits, how they tick and how to make them stronger – that I have an obligation to keep putting this stuff to good use. Maybe some of what I throw at the wall will actually stick and, in some small way, help heal the world.
Contact Catherine at cb.cadenceconsulting@gmail.com