Have you ever noticed how much nonprofit programming is purely cyclical? 

    "It's February, and we always do this in February, so it's time to do it again." 

I've worked with clients who literally could not break free from that pattern.  They were driven to repeat this year what they'd done the year before, and the year before that, and so on.  The only standards of evaluation brought to bear on their performance data were comparisons to the same period a year ago.  They remind me of the job applicant who claimed 20 years experience, when what she really had were two years' experience ten different times.

Cyclical programming reveals tactical thinking, which is nearly always reactive.  It lacks the ability to see the organization from 5,000 feet.  Without a clear vision of where they're going, organizations feverishly triy to recreate where they've been.  Take a look at the current U. S. military campaign in Afghanistan, for example, now the longest conflict in our national history, largely because we keep losing and retaking the same ground, over and over, and trying to call that victory.

Strategic organizations know who they are , why they exist, what they believe and highly value, where they're headed, and how they intend to get there.  In a contracting economy and rapidly changing culture, they're the only ones sure to survive.  The others, the "repeaters," will go the way of hand-crank telephones, iceboxes, television aerials, wind-up watches, photographic film, cassette tapes and most daily newspapers.  Clinging to a familiar and predictable past, they will be outfoxed by the future.

At Hewett Consulting LLC we are skilled at helping nonprofits regain passion about their forward trajectory.  Our work is never more joyful, or more productive, than when clients are on the edge of their seats remembering their original vision and recovering that stunning sense of energy that led them or their forebears to birth something new.

It's all about vision.  If yours is getting a bit blurry, call us.  We can help you recover the joy.