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One of the biggest challenges in the non-profit
world is understanding how well you're doing.
Going to for-profit,
there are conventions consistently applied,
universally understood,
often legally required that enable leadership or
anybody in a large enterprise or small enterprise
for that matter to know how well they're doing,
and typically those are financial metrics.
And a non-profit organization don't have any consistency
in the metrics to determine success or progress towards
a mission and frankly one of the biggest shortcomings of non-profit
organizations is that they begin to think of success in terms
of tactics and activities, not end results.
I have an almost obsessive focus on outcomes, and I always have.
I remember when I started The Nature Conservancy,
which again has been characterized by - it's
I think very successful tactic of buying land.
I started there as a lawyer.
And transactions were always in the pipeline,
negotiated by very able field representatives,
typically who had a business degree,
I started in 1977, it's 14 years old.
Just I was really - just more or less out of law school,
but all these transactions,
each one of which was a very fine consequence in its own right,
I couldn't see how does it add up,
how is this individual transaction contributing to some larger outcome
inasmuch as the mission of The Nature Conservancy is to preserve,
in essence this is a little bit of simplification,
the diversity of life on earth,
there seems like it would be a lot of transactions to get
enough diversity of life on earth to satisfy our mission.
So I'd say in any enterprise that you go into large or small,
keep your eye on the ball, what is this enterprise all about?
What do I want to accomplish and if I'm in a leadership
role or if I'm in an entrepreneurial role,
what is my compass head towards?
What do I - what am I trying to get done and it's so easy.
Any of you who have worked in any kind of enterprise
realize that day-to-day the noise can distract you.
And you lose sight and I see that a lot in non-profit organizations.
How many of you have worked for a non-profit, even as a volunteer?
A lot of you, okay.
So that means I can't lie too much about non-profits
or you're going to catch me on that.
But I think you'd agree,
anybody who is working in a non-profit that keeping
your eye on the prize is a challenge.
Again, because, in part,
it's hard to define what that prize is in ways that are simple,
understandable, and measurable.