As charities, you are likely asking these questions. If not, you should be:
- Why does the work seem endless? For every person in need, there are 10 others.
- Why does every improving situation lead to 5 more needing help?
- Why do we spend more time fundraising than helping people?
- Why are these problems so big in the first place?
- Why is there never enough money to solve issues, only to patch them?
- Could there be a better way to solve these problems?
The answer is a definite YES… if we are willing to stop and think differently.
What if:
- Instead of asking “how do we fix it this time for this situation,” we asked “how do we fix this for everyone in the world once and for all”?
- What if, instead of working in isolation, we partnered with other charities in our country to create larger solutions than we could individually, and then collaborated to implement them? For example, selecting an entire region to collaborate on and using it as an example for others to scale to entire countries.
- What if we used existing funds within a country to solve its problems? For example, by using funds more effectively to achieve our goals or by having non-profits operate like businesses for the same services they provide as charities? Then, those profits could support those who cannot afford it.
- What if we found a way for everyone to help us, even those being uplifted?
These ideas sound good, but how do we implement them?
By stopping to reflect, using creativity, and asking the right questions, we can unlock models that allow us to change the situation at its core with less complexity.
More models coming…
