Common Purpose.

We’re back, with a clarified view of The Nonprofit Planner’s Purpose, Priorities, and Plan.

A few weeks traveling and a few new projects inspired me to rethink the way I was segmenting my various professional commitments. After lots of journaling and strategic reflection, I’ve decided to unite my work in one place, all under The Nonprofit Planner umbrella.

Heretofore, I had been treating my work as different drawers in the file cabinet: one for leadership development, one for management training, one for strategic and business planning, one for grant writing and advisory services, one for nonprofit management operations work. Each drawer had its own folders and projects catalogued neatly away.

But it had become unwieldy. Confusing, even to me. Different websites, business cards, blogs, elevator pitches.

I took a page from my own book and worked on my Four Foundations (Big Questions, Positioning, Ethos, and Strategy). What problems am I trying to solve? What unites all these various problems and projects that I find so interesting? Not surprisingly, a throughline quickly emerged.

Whether I am working with an organization, a team, or an individual, I am motivated first and foremost to understand the core purpose that emanates from the very center. I believe that solutions, strategies, learning pathways, storytelling, and even operational projects connect back to that center. And, if you ignore or lose that connection, you’ll be less successful trying to implement whatever you’ve painstakingly planned to do. That compromises impact.

I’m interested in purpose, priorities, and planning. My approach follows a similar path for all my clients: rediscover purpose, acknowledge context, appraise current state, review impact model, embrace priorities, describe success, create a plan. I take this journey with all of my clients, large and small, organization and individual. It works for setting strategy. It works for learning and development. It works for creating operational systems for management. It even describes how I write grant proposals.

With a common throughline identified, it became easier to unite my work under a single brand. I’m thinking about my various projects and part-time commitments across my focus areas as separate “clients” instead of separate entities. It’s a small tweak in how I view the world.

Small tweaks typically call for disproportionately large website updates. You’ll notice that here. Whereas the 6+4 System for nonprofit management had been the content driver for thenonprofitplanner.com, now it is featured as one of many systems I’ve created to help clients realize that path from purpose to impact. As it turns out - there are quite a few; something you don’t realize until you put them all in one place!

(And we’re still leaning into the 6+4 System. Note the pink-hued frame for the post’s image. Pink means marketing, which is one of the 6 Segments!)

So - same work, different wrapper. Easier to find and easier for clients, I hope. Let me know what you think!

Thanks for your patience!

Cathy, The Nonprofit Planner