The Real Solution is "It Depends"

Last week I went to see the Nobel Prize winning economist Amartya Sen speak on global poverty.  I thought, "Noble prize economist' and 'global poverty' now this guy is going to have some answers."  I sat there squirming in my seat for 45 minutes waiting for some concrete solutions when he called me on the carpet.  The entire point of his talk was how westerners feel compelled to create a formula for everything and the real solution is "it depends."

Despite my discomfort with his vagueness, the more I thought about it, the more I knew he was right.  Solutions depend on many things:

• getting a child ready for kindergarten depends on the particular set of risks that child faces 
• deciding how to fortify food in developing countries with vital nutrients depends on the food system of each country, 
• how much an organization should spend on overhead depends on the desired outcomes.

I also realized it tied into the takeaway from my last post which was to ask more questions about the challenges the nonprofits you support face.  We expect nonprofits to have created the formula for helping, and especially a formula that involves no overhead, and we are let down when their formula doesn't work perfectly.  Reality is, within their own cause the solution for helping depends on many things.

In fact, there is a yearly meeting in Santa Barbara with local foundations and nonprofits called State of the Sector.  At last year's State of the Sector, facilitator Ken Saxon emphasized that funders wanted to have more straight talk with nonprofits.  His point was, "For every real conversation not being had, there’s a cost... and that means real costs for the people organizations serve – and that’s unacceptable."  Saxon's point was funders honestly wanted to know more about a nonprofit's challenges, not in a punitive way, but as a concerned partner that wants to help find solutions.

You can be that concerned partner that wants to help find solutions.  Most likely you know someone on the board of your favorite nonprofit, maybe you even know the Executive Director.  Call them up and ask them to coffee or the next time you are at a social event with them take the time to ask them meaningful questions.  In order to find real solutions we have to be open to "it depends" and not just settle for some formulaic response.