Nonprofits are frequently asked about sustainability"THIAGU" THIAGARAJAN | 15 NOVEMBER, 2020

Nonprofits are frequently asked about sustainability. Questions such as “What are your means of long term funding?; Can you monetise your products and services?; How do you scale up without new funds?” often arise. Definitely important questions.

However apart from money, there are two equally (if not more!) important aspects to sustainability. These are

Vision and Mission sustainability: Does your organization cling on to its core purpose in the midst of many temptations to be distracted and when facing major challenges? Can you stick with it and have the capacity to overcome them?
People: Nonprofits need high quality people even more than businesses – they need multifunctional talent with missionary zeal and with capacity to work in challenging environments where business metrics are irrelevant; neither are personal metrics such as compensation and professional growth. Good people are hard to come by and to retain. But they build and deliver more than just money and therefore, people sustainability is fundamental.

A Nonprofit organization which can look at all three questions together and strategize to get cogent and viable answers has a better road to success. It can go from merely filling a bucket to raising the ocean even if by an inch.

"Thiagu" Thiagarajan is with Agastya International Foundation, Bengaluru