Connections and Context

Building a non-profit human service requires focus,vision and an undying committment to those an agency serves and supports.

It's vital to be aware of having vision and more importantly, to clearly define organizational success. There must be a there there, when you get there. Without knowing what success looks like, it is very difficult to know what elements it will take to arrive at success. It may interfere with hiring decisions, financial planning, board selection and efforts to bring the public's attention to what the work is you are doing, and who it is your supporting.

So, I suggest asking some basic questions, followed by some basic decisions that are very important to reach a successful outcome.First, what is the context we are operating in as a human service? Well, good question, but what does it mean? Simply put in my opinion, most of what we do is in a contextual universe. We can not solve social problems with out knowing cause and effect and as Daniel Quinn said, with a program.Location, people involved in every step of the change of service delivery, as well as advesaries and those who embrace what your angency is doing are key elements to be aware of. We need to know what the threats are to success, what areas of the community can we find support and possible early adopters of new program developmentand its concept.

The reason context is important is to find all the possible connections to what you are doing and who are the key people you neeed to bring into the effort to help you arrive at a successful outcome. Building programs and new services is not much different than building other organizations. All good strategic planning should include the elements one may need to reach the agreed upon goals.

In order to succeed at building an organization or new program we must realize how in deed so much is connected, and it is imperative to recognize this, be aware of the connectivity by applying critical thinking skills, and realize how important it is to choose the right people for the job.

I don't worry so much about the directly related experience one brings to the job, I am more interested in what is in the persons' overall background, the values they bring to an organization in terms of those we serve and how they may be a creative member of the team. The team should be diverse in thinking, education, cultural relationship and how they solve problems.Tom Peters has said hire people who make mistakes because not much learning will take place with those who know it all, or think they do.

Its fun to build things and its important that in buidling there is joy,vision and intense drive to reach the stated goals.

JBG