If you’re attended many meetings with nonprofit consultants, the phrase you get used to hearing is, “If you’re not growing, you’re not succeeding”. At the risk of being rude, may I say, “Baloney!” Beware of talking heads who want to give you their pearls of wisdom. Unless you know that the person giving the sage advice has and is running their own nonprofit and getting their own hands dirty, don’t be too quick to take their words as gospel truth.
There are too many “consultants” who want to apply business management principals to the nonprofit world. Guess what? It doesn’t work. Just as there are hundreds of specialties a new doctor can opt to become an expert in, there are hundreds if not thousands of opportunities in the world of service and they don’t lend themselves to being boxed in by cookie cutter wisdom.
Serving more just means you’re serving more. It doesn’t mean you’re doing it well. There are several fast food burger chains that can put the number of burgers they’ve served in the billions. So what? Does that make it a better burger? Probably not. Just as assembly line cooking doesn’t lend itself to excellence, neither does assembly line serving of clients.
