"Communities are built from the assets and gifts of their citizens, not from the citizens' needs or deficiencies. Organized, professionalized systems are capable of delivering services, but only associational life is capable of delivering care. Sustainable transformation is constructed in those places where citizens choose to come together to produce a desired future."

A recently-released monograph funded by the Fieldstone Alliance and the James Irvine Foundation explores ways in which five key trends will converge to shape the nonprofit sector of the future.

Trends include:

1. Generational and other demographic shifts
2. The rise and impact of social media
3. The growing importance of networks
4. The role of volunteerism and civic engagement in society, and
5. The blurring of sector boundaries.

According to the report, "While each dynamic has profound implications for how nonprofits will do business in the future, it is their interplay that will transform the sector."

View or download the full report.

In part 1 of our discussion about the Nonprofit Support Cycle, I adapted Geoffrey A. Moore’s technology marketing model from his bestselling book Crossing the Chasm to instead describe the Nonprofit Support Life Cycle.  The model arranges nonprofit supporters along a continuum which includes Innovators, Early Adopters, Early Majority, Late Majority and Laggards. 

In this post, which is the second in a three-part series, I focus on the deep and dividing “chasm” between the Early Adopters and the Early Majority that causes many nonprofit to fail to achieve scale.  

Early Adopters: On One Side of the Chasm

Many nonprofits receive considerable support from Early Adopters who are lured by the promise of new and entrepreneurial ways to serve the community. As with technology products, the Early Adopter is fascinated with, and supportive of, the organization’s role as a change agent.  Always on the lookout for next big wave, the Early Adopters are seeking, “a radical discontinuity between old ways and the new, and they are prepared to champion this cause against entrenched resistance.” At the same time as they are excited about a chance to be a part of the new future, these supporters also understand that any innovation is going to face some bumps in the road and they are willing to stay true as the organization crosses those early hurdles as well.  They are, at heart, visionaries, who are guided by intuition.

When nonprofit organizations are at an early phase of the Nonprofit Support Life Cycle, much of their cultivation is appropriately focused on these Early Adopter “venture funders.”  Organizations that can understand and articulate the dream instinctively know how to reach them effectively. 

Language and Concepts to Consider In Your Approach to Early Adopters:

• Visionary Change/Breakthrough New Futures
• Leapfrogging/ An Order of Magnitude Difference/Leading Edge
• Ambitious Planning/Pilot Projects With Rapid Milestones/High Expectations for Fast Turnaround
• Celebrating Every Success As Heralds of the New World to Come
• State-of-the-Art

Early Majority: Across the Great Divide

In contrast to the Early Adopters, the Early Majority seeks “a productivity improvement for existing operations.”  In Moore’s words, “They want evolution, not revolution.”  By the time they support an organization, they want to know that it is actually capable of taking established services and programs and enhancing them, and they want proof that it can do so, in spite of the hurdles and bumpy roads they have encountered.  They are above all, pragmatists, who use logic and data to drive their support decisions.

Language and Concepts to Consider in Your Approach to the Early Majority:

• Percentage Improvement/Incremental, Measurable, Predictable Progress
• Carefully Calculated Risks/Standardization, Scalability, Replicability
• Solid Infrastructure/Mature Leadership and Expertise
• Strategy/Business Plan/Financial Stability and Sustainability
• Leverage
• Becoming the Industry Standard

Although both Early Adopters and the Early Majority may pledge major support at the same levels, they give their support for completely different reasons. Unless nonprofits can tailor their approach to both audiences successfully, they simply won’t be able to conquer the divide between these two groups of supporters and will likely fail to scale.

Crossing the Nonprofit Support Chasm: A Laser-Like and Unwavering Focus is Key

For most nonprofits, the key to crossing the chasm successfully is far more than just the positioning changes described above, and must include the definition of a specific market niche where the organization can take a dominant leadership position.  In other words, rather than deciding to save the entire world all at once by doing a multitude of things, organizations must find and focus on a single, highly leveraged entry point.

• For the Harlem Children’s Zone, the focus was wrap-around cradle-to-college services for children and families living in a 24-block section of Harlem. Today, they have expanded to more than 100 blocks and serve more than 10,000 children and 7,000 families with a budget in excess of $75 million.
• For Teach for America, the focus was 500 well-trained teachers working in 6 low-income communities across the United States. They have now become one of the nation's largest providers of teachers for low-income communities (28,000 teachers and counting).
• For D.C. Central Kitchen, the focus was on using donated food from local restaurants to feed the hungry.  They now “recycle” more than 750,000 pounds of food per year and feed more than 4,000 people a day. They have also expanded their services to help create jobs for service recipients via culinary training and catering. 

Paradoxically, it is this early and strategic laser-like focus that is actually the key to creating an entry point into a larger segment and opening the doors to the Late Majority down the road.

Developing Your Organization’s Focus – A 10-Question Checklist

If you're getting ready to help your organization cross the chasm, below are ten quick questions to consider when choosing a strategic focus for your organization.

1. What vision do you have for your community?
2. How does your passion for achieving this vision resonate with others? When you talk with people from varying backgrounds, do they all “get it” right away?
3. When you describe the vision, is there a “natural” starting point that intuitively makes sense? Are there opportunities to expand in multiple directions?
4. Can you inform your intuition with data about the need for services and programs in the potential area of focus?
5. Can you easily reach the beneficiaries or service recipients in your area of focus?  In other words, do you have ready access to your target market for services?
6. Can you define your focus in one or two easily understood sentences?
7. Are there donors or supporters who are already focused on your target market or do you have a fee-for-service strategy that will keep your services affordable?
8. Are there any organizations that have tried and failed? If so, do you know why they failed and can you use that information to your advantage?
9. Do you have valuable expertise and experience to offer?
10. Can you identify a sustainable funding stream to support your activities in just this one area of focus?

In the final part of the three-part series (coming soon), I’ll focus on how organizations who have successfully crossed the chasm can continue to build momentum with supporters to position themselves as the leaders in their field. (We’ll make this a live link when Part 3 is published so you may want to bookmark or follow us on Twitter or Facebook so that you’ll know when it’s ready!).