Strategies for Creating and Navigating Massive Nonprofit Growth
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Jonathan Bechtle is the Chief Operating Officer and Counsel at the Foundation for Government Accountability (FGA). As COO, he specializes in implementing systems that scale for the organization’s rapid growth and making sure FGA is in compliance with state and federal laws in their 38 states of operation. In this episode, Jonathan highlights the business breakthroughs and tools FGA utilizes to help creativity thrive, connect their remote team, and take their annual revenue from $2 million to $13 million in six years.
Understanding the Importance of Fundraising
After graduating from law school, a friend connected Jonathan with a job at the Freedom Foundation, a think tank in Washington State. He made the cross-country move from Virginia and eventually became COO, then CEO of the organization. This role gave him a strong understanding of how important fundraising is to a nonprofit’s success. After several years, he made another cross-country move to Florida to work for FGA.
How to Plan a Big Vision
In his new position at FGA, he realized how crucial a big vision and clear structure are to achieving your fundraising goals. This pushed him to create systems to scale their fast-growing organization from $2 million to $13 million in annual revenue over just six years.
5:14 “Really, my secret to any kind of success in operations is I’m good at stealing ideas from other people. I read a lot, I listen a lot, and I talk to a lot of people. And when I see good ideas, I grab them.”
Business Growth Breakthroughs
Understand the different ceilings of growth, or pivot points, where you need to adopt a new structure to empower your team.
Pull ideas from the for-profit space.
Understand the problems. Identify the gaps that exist. Then, look for a solution.
Remember, everyone you hire does not need to be an individual superstar. Rather, try to find people who work together to make a team of superstars.
Must Read - Traction: Get a Grip on Your Business
Jonathan shares that Traction: Get a Grip on Your Business by Gino Wickman is one of the best business books he has ever read. What sets it apart from others are the simple tools that help you define a vision, build trust, and get your team on the same page.
Defining company “rocks” is one of the most instrumental tools outlined in the book. The concept of “rocks” comes from Stephen Covey’s book 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. These are the steps you need to take to accomplish company goals. Then, what the book Traction: Get a Grip on Your Business suggests, is to look at the 3-5 rocks you need to accomplish within a 90-day window. This provides a clear structure for tackling those top priorities and solving issues as a team.
16:03 “We implemented that four years ago; everyone on the team, we all could see them. It was very transparent, and it was transformational in our ability to just know whether we are on track… and it always brought us back every 90 days to that big vision. It created this great rhythm of execution.”
Lack of Structure Kills Creativity
27:37 “One of the things that I see that kills creativity the quickest is people feeling like things are arbitrary and uncertain and chaotic. And I find when I talk to people and they just have this big uncertainty of how things work and where they fit in, that’s when they tend to shut down and not bring things up.”
Jonathan shares how the meeting structure that Traction: Get a Grip on Your Business provides is another tool that keeps his remote team connected, on track, and able to focus on the important things. The weekly check-ins help address issues before they become big problems.
Jonathan’s Advice for Getting Started
Read Traction: Get a Grip on Your Business.
Ask your people about your organization’s vision. Do they know what they need to do to achieve the vision?
Do a survey.
Have a conversation with your leadership team.
Build a 90-day system and implement company rocks.
To connect with Jonathan for more guidance on building systems to scale your business, email him at jbechtle@thefga.org. Also, you can watch a video of Gino Wickman (author of Traction: Get a Grip on Your Business) describing how to have a “Level 10 Meeting”, which Jonathan talked about as a template for a great weekly team meeting. Finally, to start implementing your own 90-day system, download this pdf Jonathan provided on “Creating a 90-Day World.”