As the world changes at a rapid pace our organizations must be agile.  We need the ability to respond to sudden changes, to anticipate those that can be seen coming, and to know when to lean into strengths and when to pivot in new directions. Here are some strategies. Some of them may be ‘reminders’, others may be new ideas to consider, or resources to enhance your own approaches.

A changing world and unpredictability

• Strengthen relationships – as the African proverb goes: if you want to go fast, go alone; if you want to go far, go together. It has never been more important to have partners and focus on nurturing those relationships.
• Know your and your organization’s moral compass – when an organization is faced with a lot of competing pressures, having a strong consensus among leaders and staff will make the job of those who speak for the organization easier, and enhance its credibility.
• Strengthen ‘sense making’ skills – In a hyper-divided world, thoughtful conversation starters can help build desperately needed bridges. This is not new (It’s all about the questions) but an even more important strategy in the current moment. Irene Gujit and Judy Oakden provide some examples in a recent article: What are you seeing? What are the exceptions to the generalizations? What is surprising about what we are seeing or not seeing? Read more here.
• Use scenarios as one tool to take your organizations through the process of anticipating trends and strengthening the organization’s agility. Here are some examples: Scenarios Impact Works Associates – INGOs to 2038 and Thrive scenarios for resilient leaders Deloitte 2020

Pressures to redefine ‘political’

• When politics push to the forefront of daily life, even ‘staying out of politics’ as a leader can come across as a political choice. Writes Noa Gafi “The question isn’t whether to engage with politics — it’s how to do it authentically, in alignment with your business strategy and values.”  That’s why knowing your organization’s values and moral compass is so important.

Re-orienting how we see the world and our potential collaborators

• Reflecting on her 10 year journey with We Robotics Sonja Betschart shares: “I had to let go of many of my underlying urges to control, to interfere, to “right the wrongs”. I had to remind myself how to always first take a step back, listen, and re-think.I had to learn to fully trust the infrastructure and always be true to the directionality set, even if they defeat my pre-set certainties and realities.  You can see more of her 10 year learning posts here.
• Finding yourself a peer group sharing similar challenges or some ‘accountability buddies’ can help you to stay on a new path when the old habits try to pull you back (as they inevitable will :).

I have had an evolving relationship with the concept of ‘scaling’. I first started using the term (pivoting from ‘international outreach’ into the business realm of ‘scaling’) via an Ashoka conference in 2010. In 2011 I started a Global Scaling Community of Practice on wikispaces. (When wikispaces went out of business I continued to curate articles on re-envisioning the concept of Scaling on my website here).

Around this time Roxanna Samii provided a useful and simple definition that still holds, although we don’t always focus on what this sentence is actually saying: “Scalability is taking something good and adapting it to context and circumstance.”

In May 2014 I wrote a piece on Scaling Deep. I re-envisioned the concept to focus more on relationship building that would encourage roots to go deep before they spread wide.

Some of the key concepts I outlined in 2014 still hold. They include:

• Context – Instead of starting with the approach that something worked well in one place, label it a ‘best practice’, and look for ways to scale it, let’s start first with an analysis of why it worked well in a particular location/context and try to identify what aspects might be replicable (and what might not).
• Partnerships/Collaborations (co-creation) – For something to successfully transfer from one location to another, and be sustainable over time, it needs to work in partnership from the very beginning with those in the area we might hope to transfer it to.
• Customization – What is core and what can be customized? The historic approach to scale up focused on trying to transfer most of what worked somewhere else. We are now seeing that allowing for maximum local customization will make the reiteration more sustainable.
• Time and Sustained Commitment– Effective scaling in my experience always takes longer than we think.

“In 2015, the J.W. McConnell Foundation in Canada decided to wade into the murky waters of scale to provide some depth and clarity. They delineated three types of scale as important parts of the social change process: up, out and deep. This was an excellent contribution and gained currency in some parts of the social sector, such as with evaluators. However, eight years after it was developed, McConnell’s frame remains little in use today with the field.” This quote was taken from “Words that Shape Social Change” – exploring the evolution of the scaling concept. ~ Jara Jean Coffey and John Kania

Where are we more than a decade later?

Although as noted in the above quote, re-envisioning scaling still hasn’t received much ‘mainstream’ traction, after around 2017 we started to see even more focus on questioning the traditional concept of scaling as ‘bigger is better’. Here are some examples:

• It is a truism that the scale of India’s problems requires solutions of commensurate scale. However, prioritising scale over every other consideration—equity, justice, dignity, even relevance—has innumerable costs. Questioning Scale as We Know it ~ Ingrid Srinath
• Achieving scale that is sustainable and impactful is an emerging, interpersonal process, not a solution. Success is only possible when the power to choose, to shape the systems and processes of the program, and to hold others accountable begins with those closest to the problem. The solutions lie with them. Scaling Up is a Process Not a Solution, ~Tom Murphy
• The importance of the work being rooted in context, having an awareness of power and working with power dynamics. ~ Scaling Deep report based on interviews with Ashoka fellows and others working on systems change

And in 2025 we see some of the following discussions clearly focusing on local customization, control and impact:

This report advocates for a shift toward decolonial scaling practices that prioritise local values and challenge colonial dynamics in humanitarian innovation. This means moving beyond one-size-fits-all frameworks and embracing community-centric indicators like collective wellbeing and relational impact over purely quantitative metrics. ~ Reimagining Scaling, Start Network

“The path forward isn’t about scaling faster. It’s about deepening our roots—together.
Let’s co-create funding practices that are not only effective—but ethical, inclusive, and grounded. Let’s make space for movements to breathe, adapt, and lead on their own terms.
We’re honored to walk alongside others in this global shift. The future of resourcing is not only about how much we give—but how deeply we listen.” ~ Sita Supomo LinkedIn post

“Anyone involved in impact programming knows that even the most scalable programs need just the right political, geographic, social, cultural, [insert human dimension] conditions to thrive.” ~ Oluwatamilore Oni LinkedIn post

I am looking for an alternative to scale. Maybe the word is something like impact “density” but overall, I am looking for wellness. Stronger organizations producing on the ground impacts that are dense – committed to ongoing learning about their wellness. Ten feet deep rather than a mile wide. ~ John Brothers LinkedIn post

In a world obsessed with scaling, we forget that transformative change happens in relationship, not just replication… When we prioritize reach over depth, we bypass the slow, relational work of accountability. Depth asks us to stay close to the histories we inherit, the communities we affect, and the responsibilities we hold. ~ Sahibzada Mayed LinkedIn post

In conclusion, the basics I wrote about in 2014 still hold (context, partnership/collaboration, customization and time) but some things have also changed or taken root for the better in the past decade:

• Scaling for growth – bigger is better – is not always as assumed as it once was but is being questioned more broadly in the ‘scaling ecosystem’ and being re-envisioned in positive ways.
• Ways to evaluate progress, that is not just about quantitative metrics, are being developed including community-centric indicators like collective wellbeing and relational impact.
• There is a greater focus on power dynamics and how effective partnerships and guiding structures need to be developed at the very beginning stages of a scaling effort and time then given for building and nurturing trust.

As effective change always takes place over multiple years, a review of scaling efforts that have been initiated over the past few years with re-envisioned approaches could be a useful addition to our collective on-going dialogue and learning.

 

I recently participated in two discussions on the important topic of organizations maintaining financial sustainability.  Here is some of the learning shared:

Internal work

• Having a ‘north star’ (especially when times are tough) helps to keep everyone on the same team and maintain focus.
• Know your ‘know’ and ‘no’ – what is your expertise and where are your gaps?
• Be clear about who you are as an organization. What position do we occupy and what do we offer? What can’t or shouldn’t we do? How do we align with others? Be strong in your ‘why’s’
• Know the stage your organization is at re: the type of funders you approach (eg big funders have bureaucratic check lists that may be hard for smaller organizations to navigate).
• Good internal work is needed to prepare the organization for effective partnerships – financial or otherwise. Last minute consortia to apply for funding can have a hard time sustaining themselves.
• Strengthen your story and storytelling skills – recognizing the importance. How does oral storytelling fit in? Board members can be helpful storytellers
• Recognize that it takes money to raise money (third party validation might help board to understand this) – how much do we set aside for this?
• Bring staff from different areas into proposal generation and conversations with funders. It’s good teamwork and helps internally, but funders also notice.
• Be careful of fundraising for the sake of fundraising – what impact do we want to have? How do we bring impact about? And for how long do we continue?  Worth discussing your ‘end game’.
• Learning to say no – not all money is a good match.

Building and nurturing relationships

• It is never too early to build relationships – funders are people – they like stories that resonate with them and do business with people they like. Relationship building needs to be authentic.
• People don’t focus on how much you know until they know how much you care.
• In cultivating potential donors, seeing work first hand can be incredibly important.
• Ask early funders to introduce you to others.
• Know when to ask in a relationship – the timing is often key (especially for a potential large donor).
• Appreciation goes a long way.
• If you need funding quickly, focus on funders who can turn around funding quickly.
• If it’s not currently a good alignment for potential funding, ask who they recommend you talk to.

With thanks to: Cynthia Appenteng, Jacqueline Asiimwe, Dana Francois, Amanda MacArther, Rashida Petersen, Olasimbo Sojinrin and Megan Sparks

Although collaboration is always an effective approach (as the saying goes: “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together) in times of disruption like we are currently living through, collaboration can be not only an effective strategy, but a lifeline.

There were three workshops during Skoll Week in Oxford that I attended where the benefits and challenges of collaborations were discussed.

In a session focused on a re-imagined democracy participants shared some lessons learned from a collaboration of traditionally risk adverse funders:

• There can be safety in collaboration allowing participants to take risks they wouldn’t take on their own;
• Collaboration among those that have seen each other as competitors doesn’t come easy, but some early successes can demonstrate the value.

From a session on pathways to sustainability:

• Know your ‘know’ and ‘no’ – what is your expertise and where are your gaps?
• Be clear about who you are as an organization. What position do we occupy and what do we offer? What can’t or shouldn’t we do? How do we align with others?

And at a session that week that I co-facilitated we discussed some practical challenges to collaboration and shared some lessons learned:

• With disruption also comes opportunities for new collaborations;
• The importance of articulating the value of collaborating to key stakeholders;
• Expand your networks and where you look for partners;
• You may have some false tries before finding the right partners;
• Clarify expectations;
• Stick with your own organizational values even as they may be challenged;
• Put effort into ways to keep the collaboration together and maintain momentum;
• Not all support is financial – the knowledge exchange and transfer between collaborators has a value as well.

Participants in all these sessions emphasized that collaboration can be hard and efforts have to be intentional and sustained, but with effort and some risk the benefits can be great.

We are indeed living in challenging times.  The covid pandemic challenged us and our organizations in one way, the current change in the US administration is challenging us in another.  External changes (eg political shifts, global health emergencies, natural emergencies, AI and other new technologies) are coming at an increasing pace and there is a growing need to balance planning with agility to deal with external factors.

It is hard to change.  We are used to traditional ways of doing things. Among those is having strategic planning as an item ‘we check off’ rather than more regular strategic thinking time. Thus, to become an agile, adaptable learning organization it is important to be intentional about how you might do this in order for the organizational mindset, culture, and ways of operating to be more adaptable and ready to deal with change whenever it comes.

Here are some ideas for meeting the current moment:

• Stay focused – The news can be overwhelming. What is most important to your organization and the ecosystem it functions in?
• Stay practical – What in your organization needs immediate attention (eg more diverse funding, staff and stakeholder morale, better ways of dealing with external challenges, etc…) What is your organization best positioned to do to help others?
• Find and nurture your collaborators and allies – Disruptive times are not a time to go it alone. If you have good partner relationships, strengthen them.  Look for new collaborators where you may need help.
• Consider diverse time frames – Focus on the short-term as you need to but don’t neglect organizational change that will strengthen you going forward. Disruption can also present opportunities.
• Keep your organizational values – Disruptive times challenge our values, pressuring us to go in directions that may not be the ones that will preserve organizational integrity. Have the uncomfortable conversations and recommit to who you are as an organization.
• Understand the impacts of disruption on mental well being – Although external disruptions will impact some more than others, it creates stress for all of us which we inevitably bring into our work world. This makes it especially important for leaders to recognize this and provide staff with the flexibility that is needed to protect their well being.

Here are some ideas for being a more adaptable organization going forward:

• Nurture a culture that encourages on-going learning and adaptation and embraces change. This calls for intentionally allocating time for reflection and discussion, not just ‘doing’. You might want to analyze what your current culture is and perhaps co-create with your team what you would like your culture to be in order to be more adaptable.
• Allocate some regular leadership time (at board and staff meetings) to discuss changes in the external and internal environment that may be impacting the organization and/or specific goals you have.
• Leaders/managers need to provide their team members with time to reflect and learn so that this is part of their performance goals – a ‘must do’ activity, not just one that falls by the wayside when the day to day is business is too demanding (for isn’t that always the case?!)
• Make space for what may be uncomfortable but are necessary conversations. This may include developing your leadership’s comfort and skills in leading/facilitating challenging conversations.  Be open about discussing failure so you can learn from it.  When team members share their failures, be encouraging so others will feel comfortable doing the same and learning can be shared.
• Change can seem overwhelming especially if it is in a very different direction than you have been used to going, so don’t try to do too much at once. Focus on changes that the team can get behind and initially on the easier ‘wins’.
• Create some structure (even a simple one) that keeps people on a strategic learning path (and not falling back on old habits).  Empower everyone to hold each other accountable.
• And as with any change process, celebrate your successes! It will keep up your team’s morale and provide momentum for further learning and adaptations.

Some learning from the covid pandemic

For almost three decades! I have been writing about engaging internationally. There was a group of NGOs that were already operating internationally in the mid-1990’s (when this story starts :) but in the NGO world there was a burst of new energy to engage more internationally, much of it fueled by the ability to connect virtually before or after an in person visit. And for many professional societies (with primarily domestic members), international engagement was still fairly new for their organizations and happening in an ad hoc way, rather than strategically.

I believe change is incredibly important (it’s one of the reasons I like working with younger generations and in multigenerational efforts) but I also believe we have a tendency to recreate the wheel more often than we need to. This can steer our energies away from building on the foundation of what has worked in the past, to starting anew each time. With that in mind, here is some of what I (and other colleagues) have learned about what has changed and what (good) has remained constant about engaging internationally, pulling from writings over the past 30 years. Building on strong foundations can help us put our energy and resources into creatively customizing what the rest of the structure will look like.

For organizations/associations/networks engaging internationally:

I. Some Constants

The question of ‘why’ you want to engage internationally and the value you will bring to your stakeholders should always be central.

“Have clear reasons for why you are considering international engagement. What goals are you trying to achieve? Is international expansion the best way to do so? Who else is doing what you want to do that you might be able to partner with? Are there other ways to achieve the impact you are looking for?” ~ Bonnie Koenig, International Engagement for Impact in a Changing World, 2015

“An association [NGO] considering operating [or expanding] internationally should first assess whether or not it makes sense to do so…ensuring that the expansion matches the organization’s values and that the organization’s culture is ready to adapt to the changes of operating internationally is an important part of any expansion consideration.” ~ The Association Guide to Going Global, ASAE, 2024

Commitment to organizational change.

“To effectively broaden the focus, associations [and NGOs] must change their entire approach to management by adopting a global mindset.” Associations and the Global Marketplace, Kimberly Svevo-Cianci, ASAE, 1995

“Significant change takes time and it will only succeed if there is a commitment throughout your organization or network. Otherwise directions may change every time there is a leadership or senior staff change.” ~ Bonnie Koenig, 2022

Some planning – Although efforts may start ‘ad hoc’, to be effective long-term organizations need to switch to some planning and structure at some point, discussing the what, how, and when. Are you ready? What needs to be in place to maximize success? How will you implement? Evaluate?

For your organization’s international initiatives to be most effective, they must advance its general mission, meet specific objectives and strategies, and be well integrated into the overall goals of the organization. What do you hope to accomplish? How quickly should you move ahead? ~ Bonnie Koenig, Going Global for the Greater Good, 2004

Learning from others – the concept of ‘case studies’ is a long-standing one, how can we learn from each other?

“From grassroots organizing to high-level advocacy and resource allocation, leadership in the nonprofit sector can cover a range of roles and responsibilities. As such, the teaching cases in this section intersect with many of our topics, allowing students to explore all the skills and complexities of public leadership as they pertain specifically to the world of nonprofits and NGOs”. ~ Harvard University case studies, 1999

External factors (eg geopolitical shifts, political conflicts, global health emergencies, climate change, AI), although they differ, will always be important factors to consider.

Organizations that are engaging internationally need to anticipate, assess, and respond to a continuously changing world. Reviewing past trends can provide some clues to the future. And what are some of the emerging trends you might want to anticipate? ~ Bonnie Koenig, Going Global for the Greater Good, 2004

II. Some of What has changed

Balancing planning with agility to deal with external factors – timeframes for plans have become shorter to take this into consideration.

“[When] we are in uncharted waters, leaders must take decisive action to ensure their organizations are resilient.” ~ Deloitte Consulting Scenario Planning, 2020

From in-person to online communications, convenings and service offerings. (How to determine when to meet in-person, virtual or hybrid?) The 2020-2022 world wide pandemic period accelerated this movement.

“I am convinced that going forward we will be organizing more online meetings as well as those that integrate both online and offline attendees. Even though, as humans, we will still want to gather and meet each other in-person (and will periodically continue to do so), there are many advantages to incorporating virtual or hybrid meetings into our repertoire. They include: 1) Being able to include more people in the conversation; 2) Decreasing travel costs; and 3) Decreasing our carbon footprint.” ~ Tips for Hybrid Meetings, Bonnie Koenig, 2015

Redefining partnerships – partnerships are not new, and will continue to be an important way in which organizations can accomplish their goals, but how we partner has changed.

Based on feedback from our country partners, we think international NGOs can continue to add value. But this will require unlearning some of the old ways of operating, developing a better understanding of how local systems and regional contexts operate and taking on new roles and new ways of thinking. It will also require an adaptive learning mindset in which new models and approaches are tested, evaluated and adjusted — and sometimes jettisoned. ~ Gina Lagomarsino, Results4Dev 2018

Equity and power considerations – although talked about over the years, equity and power considerations have come to the forefront, especially in how global south and global north practitioners interact.

#ShiftThePower is a mobilizing force and movement of people and organisations around the world that seeks to highlight, harness, resource, legitimize and join up new ways of “deciding and doing” that are emerging around the world. Shift the Power, 2019

Learning from our mistakes and sharing them with others – as noted above, case studies are not new, but traditionally they focused on successes, leading to the fallacy that ‘success’ would often come more easily and quickly than it actually does. Over time we have gotten better at sharing and learning from tests, mistakes, failures and adaptation

It is painful for civil society organizations to acknowledge when we don’t meet our goals and objectives; it is just as painful to worry about how funders will react to such failure. The paradox is that we do everything we can to avoid these pains even though we all know failure is the best teacher and we have to be open and talk about our failures in order to learn.~ Admitting Failure ~2012

Skills needed – There is a growing set of skills that are needed to be successful in working internationally. Although basics like communication and organizational skills are on-going ‘staples’, skills like cultural competency, the ability to be a good, active listener, facilitating diverse groups, and being willing to ‘sit with discomfort’ have all increased in value.

“As a former executive director and now facilitating peer cohorts of executive directors, I’ve been thinking about what’s changed in leadership approaches over the years, what stays consistent and what resources can provide us ‘food for thought’ or practical ideas to try. The importance of some qualities such as ‘Respect for others’ and ‘Humility’ are fundamental. Other additional approaches [such as agility, empathy and comfort with discomfort] have been added.” ~ Leadership, Bonnie Koenig, 2024

 

Selected bibliography

Associations and the Global Marketplace, Kimberly Svevo-Cianci, ASAE, 1995

Going Global for the Greater Good , Bonnie Koenig, 2004

Back to the Future blog, Bonnie Koenig, 2011 https://www.goinginternational.com/2011/12/08/back-to-the-future/

International Engagement for Impact in a Changing World e-book, Bonnie Koenig, 2015

Leadership blog, https://www.goinginternational.com/2024/04/24/leadership/, Bonnie Koenig, 2024

The Truths that Remain blog, https://www.goinginternational.com/2022/05/02/the-truths-that-remain/, Bonnie Koenig, 2022

The Association Guide to Going Global, ASAE, 2024

Had a great run with your community of practice / network?  Is the momentum diminishing?  Could it be time to pivot or wind down?

Introduction:

Over the past decade many communities of practice and networks have been created and also have ended.  We have gotten better at creating these groups and nurturing them but we know that not all communities or networks are designed to go on forever.  However, while focusing attention on starting and sustaining these efforts, we have not yet focused enough attention on how we wind them down when they’ve run their course without losing the knowledge they’ve produced.

While working on the ‘winding down’ of the Testing Change project (a state of the art project when it was created at the time, over a decade ago now) I started to search for lessons on ‘winding down’.  Finding few readily accessible, I organized a discussion group on the topic, as well as researched some of the lessons from other initiatives that have wound down over the past years.  This piece is the result of those efforts.  Hopefully this learning will be helpful to others negotiating this journey.

Considerations

1. When to ‘wind down’?
2. How to ‘wind down’?
3. What can be done to ‘save knowledge’ generated?

The two most common motivation factors for winding down seem to be:

1. Momentum decreases
2. Funding sources dry up

Ideally one wants to ‘see the signs’ early enough to allow time to wind down in strategic ways.  This allows for planning to minimize the negative impacts on the people involved, share other resources members of the community can turn to, and find ways to preserve any new knowledge created.

I facilitated a brainstorming session on winding down networks to share some of what to consider.  Here are some of the considerations that were discussed:

Making the decision to wind down – if you have a choice

• What are the clues that you are reaching that stage? You need to be in touch with your stakeholders and “read the room”. Is momentum slowing down?  For what reasons?
• How to ‘let go’? Bridging to something else can help with this; Are there new role(s) for founder(s)? The experience of ‘serial’ social entrepreneurs may help.

Impact on the people involved

• Consider both individual and network-level impacts
• The importance of celebration and acknowledgement of achievements together with recognizing any sadness around the transition.
• Is there another community (or other options) for people moving forward to put their energy into next?

The importance of considering both human and knowledge “bridging” as networks wind down, to help people and information transition smoothly.

Knowledge sharing

•  How do we harvest and package the learnings?
• Which learnings are important for what audiences and what purposes? – Determining what knowledge is truly important to retain and pass on, rather than trying to preserve everything can make the task more manageable.
• There are different cultural perspectives on permanence; how some indigenous cultures see impermanence as freeing rather than a failure can be helpful.

Three examples (there are many others that could be documented)

1. The Testing Change project

At the time we started the project (2013) there were not many initiatives like this that were global and virtual across issue silos.  In the intervening years we have seen similar collaborative efforts emerge.  The project was started as a project and not a new organization as it was not intended that it would go on forever.  It functioned in many ways as a community of practice.  After almost a decade it seemed to be the time to wind it down; we were losing the momentum we once had and many of the core members were moving on to other efforts.

We have had a practice of documenting and sharing our learning throughout the life span of the project, most often via blog posts or shared google docs.  As part of our winding down we have held a virtual roundtable to reflect on our learning and have put together some summary writings which we hoped would find places to ‘live on ‘and be accessible to others starting similar initiatives in the future.  One of those places, in Candid’s Issue Lab, can be viewed here.

Some lessons learned/tips around winding down:

1. Time and/or resources put into an effort can be a barometer for how valued it is. When either start to diminish that may be a sign to consider evolving, pivoting or winding down.
2. Take some collective group time to think about what your winding down activities will be so there is a sense of closure.
3. Research platforms that retain information from similar initiatives to see where your knowledge generated can be stored. Having a number of platforms if possible may help with sustainability as various platforms change or go offline over time.

WiserEarth

Wiser Earth was an online community (from 2007 to 2014) of practitioners dedicated to environmental sustainability and social justice.  At its height it had over 80,000 members.  With its success came the growing needs of the community and challenge of maintaining a large social media platform.  Its early strengths included: initial funding, being one of the first of its kind collaborative platforms, open sourced and multi-lingual.  Over time the leadership faced the question of whether they continued to be the right platform to deliver on the mission and what a sustainable business model could be.

A special committee was created to look into what the options could be for ‘unfolding’ and a series of focus groups with community stakeholders was held.  This was a core value of WiserEarth – to listen to the community and see what they wanted and needed.  There was a focus on looking for potential collaborators or partners who could pick up some of what Wiser Earth provided ‘to ensure that all the hard work over the years is nurtured and continues to thrive in the hands of other community leaders in the field.’  Ultimately they decided to close their own platform wiser.org and transfer some of the data and knowledge created to partners who would take it forward and build on it (including TechSoup Global and Guidestar) as well as sharing recommendations of other networks members might want to join to continuing learning and collaborating communities (including Bioneers and Idealist).

Some lessons learned/tips around winding down:

1. Every 2-3 years ask ‘are we still the right ones to be doing this work?’ If you determine you are not that will give you time to find partners who might take up the work, rather than having to close down in a hurry.
2. Talk to your own community about what is wanted/needed to develop options.
3. Think about the value added for your potential collaborators in addition to what you are hoping for.

Rhize

From 2014-2023 Rhize focused on strengthening coaching for movement activists and initiatives.  Among other initiatives they developed a coaching and training model and a learning network to build scale through relationships.

When they wound down they published a 10 year look back.

As part of their winddown, they shared information about other movement support organizations for those looking for other ‘homes’ or sources of support.  They also looked for places to ‘store’ the knowledge they had generated including sites with broader content and more specific ones such as the International Center for Nonviolent Content.

Some lessons learned/tips around winding down:

1. With an intentional focus on building a community of alumni, some of the alumni were able to take aspects of the coaching program forward.

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