To empower growth-oriented nonprofits to build resilience and function locally as collaborative resources networked globally.

"Every few hundred years in Western history there occurs a sharp transformation. Within a few short decades, society – its worldview, its basic values, its social and political structures, its arts, its key institutions – rearranges itself… We are currently living through such a time."  Peter Drucker, organizational consultant

Foundations and other nonprofit funders are caught in a time when inadequate resources can be expected to lead to adaptive new ways to meet funding challenges and changing conditions.  This is good in one respect.  A different perspective is that unless we develop the capacities among funding organizations to realize the need to utilize at least 10-20% of spending allocations to fund “processes of creation,” then there will not be the innovation needed to help communities transform how they think and work in an era of rapid and constant change. (read more on The Upside Down of Fiduciary Responsibility)

A new nonprofit funding model is emerging. How do I know this? Because of the startling economic events in 2008? Actually, little by little over the years, the old ways have become less and less effective. I work from a new paradigm developing for the nonprofit system and you can help develop this new paradigm in your organization.

Old Paradigm	New Paradigm
Exclusiveness	Inclusiveness
I win: you lose	Win-win-win
Leadership as command & control	Facilitation & cooperation
Biggest gift = best gift	Passion + loyalty = sustainability
Executive knows all	Solution is in the network.
Competition	Strength in collaboration
Nonprofits’  timetable	Donor’s vision
Leveraging one gift against another	Emphasizing meaning & impact
Fundraising pyramid	Non-sequential, non-hierarchical giving
Internal vs external (us vs them)	Stakeholders co-create
Compartmentalization	Creating core knowledge base

In a rapidly and constantly changing world, three important concepts are learning, collaboration, and intricacy. They are the new building blocks of the nonprofit system, and they overlap: Learning, Collaboration, and Intricacy.

Read more about the nonprofit funding paradigm shift