Opinion | When ‘just carrying on’ is no longer an option: regenerate, transform, compost

Every day you work hard to help your organization flourish. Sometimes it is difficult: finding resources, responding to a changing world, challenges within your team... that is normal. And sometimes it is extra difficult and you wonder: can we still continue with this organization, in its current form? But no matter how difficult it gets, we usually prefer to push that question aside. In this piece, I want to invite you to make room for it. Because by considering all possibilities in good time, you sometimes find exactly the breathing space you need.

Make room before it becomes unavoidable

An organization is never an end in itself. You set it up to achieve a certain mission. But over time, once there are employees, commitments, and expectations, the organization itself increasingly becomes the goal. 

You then prefer to postpone thinking about alternative paths until you really have no other choice. At the same time, you make the best choices at the moment when all possibilities are still open and you still have matters in your own hands. If you feel that the question ‘what if it stops?’ is hanging in the air, it is therefore wise to make room for it.

After all, ‘stopping’ affects every layer of your organization. It is a strategic, a human, a legal, and a material (financial) matter. The better you shape that, the more the impact of your organization can continue to resonate. Even after the activities have stopped or the form has changed.

Transforming, composting, regenerating

Rather than speaking of ‘stopping’ and ‘endings’, I actually speak of regenerating, transforming and composting. Just like everything that lives, organizations have a life cycle, in which an ending can also be a new beginning. You can regenerate into something new, or compost as nourishment and inspiration for other organizations.

This may concern the end of your entire organization, but also of part of your operations. A service you have provided for many years, a regional department, a core mission … Here too, it pays to consider all options without taboo, and to carefully shape any endings. This prevents knowledge from being lost or a still relevant mission from fading away. You can pass on important lessons and find the right place for valuable expertise. 

A strategic story

Your organization was once founded in response to a concrete need, in the context of that time. From this emerged a mission that made your organization flourish. But the world is changing. Ideally, you move with it; some organizations are still relevant after a hundred years. Their rich past actually works to their advantage. But sometimes the needs and the times have changed so much that your mission and relevance become increasingly unclear. Or you can no longer find the people, the resources, or the right answers to achieve them.

A logical and human reaction would then be: can we reinvent ourselves once again? Can we come up with another activity for which we do receive funding? Something that does appeal to today’s audience? Some organizations keep taking new paths, but in doing so drift ever further away from their original mission.

What if you used the energy you now put into keeping your organization afloat to pass on your mission and expertise to other organizations? Perhaps parts of your work are still relevant, while others are no longer, and you need to focus on what still has a future?

So, continue thinking strategically about what can best achieve your mission. Then even a stop in subsidies does not have to mean that your mission is lost.

A human story

That brings us to the biggest obstacle to having the conversation about ‘stopping’ or ‘transforming’: people. People have to say goodbye to something into which they have poured a great deal of themselves, or they may even lose their jobs. The sense of loss and failure that comes with this is undoubtedly painful.

But that is precisely a reason to work in good time and very carefully on the future after your organization or your project. Especially if you are not in control of the ending yourself, for example because a funder is threatening to pull the plug. A sudden stop leaves no room to honor what has been, to grieve, or to think about who can go where. On the other hand, an organization that still has resources but exists only to keep its people employed will find things increasingly difficult. An organization without a purpose eventually becomes rudderless and powerless, like a giant with feet of clay.

Those who think in good time about guiding employees, board members, and volunteers toward a possible ending retain control themselves and can give people the care they deserve. 

Moreover, you then also have room to look back with gratitude and to provide the necessary rituals or celebrations for that. This makes an enormous difference for the people involved. After all, an organization is so much more than its ending. It is good for everyone to be able to see and feel that.

A material (financial) story

If you are thinking about stopping or transforming for financial reasons, then the right question to ask yourself is: what is the minimum we need to be able to make a difference as an organization, without burning out our people?

In the current climate of shrinking, trimming, and cutting, many organizations are confronted with that question. If you stand behind your mission with great passion, the temptation is strong to always go that extra mile: a few extra overtime hours here, a few more volunteer hours there. We cut a staff member, but not any tasks. We count every penny until the end of the month, or we stumble from temporary solution to temporary solution.

At a certain point, that runs out. People drop out, internal tension rises, and you have the feeling that you are always falling short. When is it no longer worth the effort? 

If you know the business side of your organization well, you can gain clarity on this more quickly. Do you know your actual costs? For the different parts of your operations? Map that out properly. Agree with each other on what the lower limit is. 

There is also another possibility: that you are thinking about stopping, but still have reserves or perhaps other assets (e.g. a building, the rights to a methodology…). Then you can think about the best way to allocate those resources. Which partner can be your ‘heir’? By doing that carefully too, you can make your organization’s legacy as great as possible.

A legal matter

Finally, the end of an organization is also a legal matter: a legal entity is wound up. The GA must dissolve the organization, respecting the correct decision-making procedures, so that this can be published in the Belgian Official Gazette. But debts also have to be settled, obligations to funders followed up, bank accounts and other contracts terminated, assets allocated... There is much more involved than you might think. Mergers also involve non-profit associations, foundations or companies that have to be wound up.

That is all work that still has to be done after the last employees have left. The directors and the GA are then the ones who have to close the door. The organization only legally ceases to exist once all debts have been settled and obligations fulfilled. There are specific procedures for bankruptcies and voluntary dissolutions, for small non-profit associations, large non-profit associations or other organizational forms. 

Tip: make sure there is a team ready to handle this. It is best for that team to have various skills: legal knowledge, financial insight, but also people skills. 

If you do not have all that expertise in your organization, look for additional support in good time. Various support centers offer checklists and advice lines on the procedures to follow. Perhaps you can still set aside some resources to call in external help. That makes a big difference in those final months, when everyone actually already wants to be getting on with life after the closure.

Oxygen and compost

And what about that new beginning? Ideally, the question ‘what if it stops’ can provide oxygen. Because everyone already sensed it, but didn’t dare say it out loud, and finally naming it brings relief. Because there are still many possibilities when you say: ‘this stops’. 

You can think about a merger with another organization. You can give people a good place and safeguard expertise, so that it remains accessible for the future. Or perhaps you can even shed your skin and become a new form, a different story, in which many things are possible again. By allowing yourself to let go of your organization in its current form, you can see new possibilities. 

And finally, very important: thinking about ‘what if it stops’ does not have to mean that it will stop. It is also a question about the core and foundations of your organization. What makes us continue? How long do we think it is worth continuing to exist? What are the conditions? Sometimes you need precisely that question to strengthen the essence and become resilient to the storms of the future.

It all sounds good, but that is easier said than done? That’s right. Letting go and transforming is difficult. We should not make light of that.

Would you like to talk about it by phone? We are happy to listen.