Taking a Risk.

“Fear, uncertainty and discomfort are your compasses toward growth.”

I read this quote one morning, and it got me thinking about how, if this was an axiom to live by, this experience is lived in the nonprofit world. It seems to me that growth is the inevitable and most desired goal, but also something that doesn’t just happen. If that is the case, then it is also inevitable that growth brings a constant state of insecurity, and an exhausting existence. With cortisol levels peaking on a daily basis, can NPs perform and reach their goals, or is this state of being a detriment to performance?

Once, a few years back, I developed a concept I called Take a Risk. It was a business idea to guide and support organizations of different kinds to see, manage - and hopefully even welcome - risk as a natural part of growth development of their products and services.

The basis for this venture was my experience as grant manager for a foundation that had as a mission to develop new models to serve and support children who had been or were at risk of abuse and exploitation. Over several years, I had the opportunity to ‘take a risk’ with each of the organizations that we funded to look for new ways to work with at-risk youth, support young mothers, or develop ways to recognize and support children who were living on the streets.

Sharing one example was when I worked with a larger foundation to identify sexual abuse among young women from an immigrant population. We were tasked with pulling together a coalition of organizations to design and offer an array of remedies to tackle the problems. One of the agencies had a drop-in center for street-connected youth, and their knowledge and experience was crucial in shaping the response. So it was not surprising that this organization, with the insights of their director and a talented team, to identify that the approaches we developed would be beneficial to the teens that they were serving as well. Ultimately, a model to incorporate the strategies that had been directed at the small immigrant group, was established to also be incorporated into the entire service model of this agency.

By starting small, and learning along the way, initiatives that might not look significant, can change not only the targeted population, but be implemented large-scale. That to me is risk-funding at its best.

But the nonprofit world is rarely equipped (or allowed) to take risks, since funders in general like to know the outcomes of their investments, even in advance. I didn’t have that limitation, nor was outlining the results something that was required for receiving a grant from the foundation I represented. Instead, the criteria was to have identified a problem that was impacting their client, and a desire to go after this problem and find a solution, based on what the clients needed as part of the ongoing project.

This is a very brief summary and description of the different stages that went in to identifying, developing and working with the agency, but in essence, the process was founded on creating and continuing a dialogue and providing supportive measures on an ongoing basis.

As I mentioned, the risk taking model is undervalued and hence underfunded in most of the charitable sector. Usually, small and medium nonprofits are required to know the outcomes of their investments even before they have gone in to the field. The grant-writing process expose these requirements, and funders are guided through the process from A to Z. Naturally, lots is known in the realm of human services, and building on evidence is a sound and tried approach. But it is also important to define new ways and fund the exploration so new initiative are taken into account, without having a set objective in mind.

Funders in general look for evidence to begin and continue funding. The risk funding model I worked with, was that crucial step before verification of impact - how otherwise do we get to evidence but not to try different approaches and find out what “(s)ticks”?

There is another defining quality that the nonprofit world has developed in the quest for solutions, and that is patience. Tolerance is another word for patience, and it is dished out in abundance when you are taking a risk with an organization.

It is in this space - between the real world and the predictive segment - that we learn what works. By making sure that we are sufficiently open-minded, while controlling for factors that would skew our perception and even shield us from desired and biased outcomes, we can find real and lasting progress.

Taking a risk does not have to involve throwing yourself off a cliff, as imagined with the photo for this essay. Rather, it is taking a few unpredictable, daring steps in a direction you haven’t gone before. It is throwing old presumptions and habits by the wayside, not all of them at the same time, but one by one, in a steady pace towards the unknown, trusting that your instinct, skills, and knowledge will guide you on the right path.

Backed up by serious and deliberate considerations of outcomes that creates a new scenario, a recipe for risk is not always a success, but it is a rather exciting and even dependable way to learn not only about ourselves, but the world around us.

Not to forget, risk is also a personal journey, and anyone wanting to take a risk is daring to break out of the mold. It is not always planned, and it can be scary and unpredictable.

But for now, try it. It is worth it.

Photo by Stefano Aliverti via Pexels.com