How To Build Organizational Traction as a Nonprofit
In 2012, Gino Wickman released a book called Traction: Get a Grip on Your Business. In this book, Wickman gives six key principles for businesses to focus on to gain “traction” to succeed. Over the past decade, Wickman’s words have proven to be effective, not only for businesses but all kinds of organizations. Nonprofits in particular should take notice of the six components of Traction. These key areas are vision, people, data, issues, process and ultimately traction. Nonprofits can apply Wickman’s concepts to their organization and see a lot of success. While each component in Wickman’s book requires knowledge, communication, and varying levels of implementation, this high-level overview will help your nonprofit sustain growth.
- Vision: Every nonprofit wants to accomplish is what it envisions. There are essential questions for determining the vision of a nonprofit organization like (1) what does your organization value? (2) What is the cause your organization wants to pioneer? (3) how will you accomplish this? These questions and many more are outlined in Wickman’s book. MyCommunity would love to help your organization determine it’s vision. Click here for more information about how we can help.
- People: It is crucial that all key employees operate in the scope of their role on the team. Because non-profits are largely reliant on volunteers, this is an area that knowing what roles are needed and what they accomplish is vital. Just because your organization is mission-driven, it does not mean that your people know how to accomplish the mission.
- Data: Good data is imperative for dictating to the board of directors and donors how the organization is doing. Tracking information like donations and volunteer hours is difficult to do if you do not have good systems in place. MyCommunity looks to help organizations in this capacity by offering tracking tools for both of these items for as little as $2 a month. Click here for more information about how we can help.
- Issues: Identifying and prioritizing the issues a nonprofit organization faces helps focus the organization on what is most important. After identifying issues and problems, it is important to focus on solutions to problems and issues, monitor work, and learn from the results.
- Process: Because many non-profits lack clear processes, many people continue to work for organizations that are long-standing but are no longer actively involved or accomplishing their mission and vision. Some organizations are failing because they are not clear on their processes or who is responsible for them. It is crucial that organizations have good records, and that good records are kept.
- Traction: After achieving the five previous components, an organization begins to operate with traction. These systems help promote good communication prioritization of the most important issues and encourage organizations to try new ideas to solve problems.
Applying the Traction principles to any organization – whether it be a business or social good organization or a nonprofit – can be particularly beneficial. Having a clear vision, people in the right roles, good data, the ability to identify issues, and a process to solve them all result in organizational traction. The order of implementing these components is vital to seeing long-term success.
MyCommunity creates relationships and tools that equip nonprofit organizations to maximize their impact. Our suite of tools is designed to help organizations of all sizes focus on their mission without worrying about the logistics. We understand the importance of building strong relationships, so we provide the necessary tools to maximize impact and make a difference like our easy-to-use platforms MyDonors and MyVolunteers. Likewise, MyNonprofitCoach equips nonprofits with the training they need to be successful. Schedule a demo for any of our solutions here.
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Source: https://www.plangoals.com/nonprofit-traction/