As charities, you might be 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 large to begin with?
- Why is there never enough money to solve issues, only enough 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 space in the same country to create bigger solutions than we could individually, and then partnered to implement them? For example, choose an entire region to collaborate on and use that as an example for others to scale to entire countries.
- What if we used existing funds within a country to solve that country’s problems? For example, by using existing 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 pay for those who cannot afford it.
- What if we found a way for everyone to help us, even those being uplifted?
So those sound good, but how do we do that in practice?
By stopping and reflecting, utilizing a little creativity, and asking the right questions, we unlock beautiful models that allow us to change the situation at the core with a fraction of the complexity.
More models coming…
