Blackbaud in the News: Ideas that work - Commitment to change
From the Philanthropy Journal:
By: Gilman Sullivan, practice manager for Blackbaud and Amy Adams, principal for Blackbaud.
In difficult economic times, nonprofits are implementing changes to deal with the results of increased demand for services, decreased endowment value and smaller donations: downsizing, reorganizing, reducing programs, upgrading systems technology.
Impact of change
The key elements of organizational effort are people, process and technology.
Every change we might typically consider affects one or more of these elements. Changes are unsuccessful if the critical resource, people, is overlooked.
Any change to what the organization does, how it is done, who is leading and what the strategy is, affects people, who then become stakeholders.
If you overlook engaging, educating and committing stakeholders, then your change will fail.
When a major change is made, people experience that change much as they experience personal loss.
Once change is announced, there is a downturn in performance. Denial, anger, avoidance and a growing frustration with change can occur.
Decreased performance may return to a previously acceptable level but not to the level required
Read the full article.