Ready or Not
Are you ever really READY to launch? Eager, sure. Excited, maybe. Impatient, yeah, that’s me. But READY?
Ready or not, my new business is live!
Over the Thanksgiving holiday, I hit SUBMIT on one last thing I needed for all the pieces to be in place. I launched the 6+4 System on Etsy. Cray-zee! You can now purchase stickers to put in your paper planner if you are using 6 Segments portion of 6+4 to plan your nonprofit business tasks.
Whew. It’s not perfect. The photos are so-so. The write-ups could use some help. My daughter tested everything and kindly mentioned that the detailed online descriptions of the various tasks accompanying the stickers are, well, detailed. She may have even slipped in “wordy,” kindly softened by “informative.”
(I never was the best self-editor. BTW, I highly recommend the book “Writing for Busy Readers” by Todd Rogers and Jessica Laskey-Fink. Great tips for punchy, focused, effective, shorter writing - none of which I have mastered. Yet.)
But okay, room to improve. I tend to launch before things are perfect, believing that you learn most when you try in real-time to make the thing work. I like improving and fixing based on experience rather than guessing and mulling things over from the safety of my room.
Ready or not, here’s what I put out there: a community for people running small- to mid-sized nonprofits. A community of world-changers who are in the business of impact but understand that this is still a business. My point of view is simple: nonprofits are businesses, just like for-profits, and need to run like businesses if they are to sustainably impact the people serve.
I’m offering my community:
The 6+4 System that I designed after 25 years of experience working in and with nonprofits.
Regularly updated information on what it is and how to use it
Consulting services (IRL!) if you need help implementing the system
Facilitation, workshop and speaking engagements for nonprofit boards and staffs on how to think like a business
Grant writing, based on “The 4 Foundations” embedded in 6+4, for organizations that aren’t yet big enough to do that in-house
And, if you are a planner like me, a system of planner stickers now available on Etsy that help you plan for the tasks associated with the 6 Segments of the 6+4 System.
There’s more coming…but for now, I’m focused on improving what’s launched. Erin and I spent last Saturday trying it all out, managing our respective nonprofits. We’ve already got a short list of ways to get better.
I’d love to add your input to that list. Send me an email, DM on social, post a comment. Together, we can build an accessible framework for nonprofit business people, all of whom are in the business of making the world a better place.
Ready or not, here I come!
Cathy
