Unlocking an Abundant Mindset: Strategies for Nonprofit Leaders to Foster Growth and Impact
Do you have an abundant mindset? What strategies can you employ to unlock an abundant mindset? How can you develop more gratitude? How does operating from a place of abundance and gratitude affect your thinking, your leadership, your team, and ultimately your fundraising results?
It’s the time of year when we often spend time with family and friends and reflect on our many blessings.
But are you doing that at work with your team? Or are you operating out of a scarcity mindset?
Understanding the scarcity trap
You may have grown up with scarcity as a way of being. It may have been all around you and simply what you were taught as a mode of survival. But, continuing to hold that mindset may limit your effectiveness as a leader.
Scarcity mindset in the nonprofit world can show up as feeling:
competitive about “your donors” or “their donors”
envious when you see a donor give a large gift to another charity
jealous about another nonprofit’s well-connected board members
disappointment that your board or staff isn’t doing enough to fundraise
reluctance to invite a donor into a meaningful conversation about philanthropy
frustrated that your board members don’t sell enough tickets or sponsorships
overwhelmed that you don’t have enough people, technology, expertise, or other resources to do the job
pressure to focus on the metrics and blind to valuing your team for who they are and all the intelligence, humor, creativity, and talent they bring to the team
Impact of scarcity mindset in nonprofits
Scarcity mindset is like a zero-sum game. If another nonprofit wins, you lose. Resources can be depleted, so you better compete to get yours and hold on to what you have tightly.
The nonprofit model we aspire to says that nonprofits must be as lean and as efficient as possible. We’re asked to tackle huge societal problems like hunger and homelessness while keeping expenses as low as possible. Scarcity thinking.
We build revenue projections and fundraising goals and then feel that if we don’t blow them completely out of the water and raise substantially more than our goal, then somehow we have failed. Scarcity thinking.
Scarcity fuels individualism and perfectionism, two -isms that get in our way and prevent us from seeing all the blessings around us in the form of our staff members, our board members, and the donors that support us.
Scarcity prevents us from feeling safe and secure enough to experiment, innovate, be creative, be vulnerable, and admit we don’t have all the answers.
Living in a scarcity mindset blinds you to all the blessings and all the generosity around you.
Scarcity blinds you to gratitude, like the volunteers who show up regularly. The staff who apply their experience and talent to tackle a difficult problem. The people who try hard. The board members who do what you ask to the best of their ability. The donors who respond when you make a request.
If you can stop looking at the world through the lens of scarcity, you may look up and realize that it’s a world of abundance. There are great ideas everywhere. There are dedicated, talented people everywhere.
When you let go of the scarcity mindset and feel more gratitude, it begins to flow through you.
There is plenty. It’s not equally distributed, but there is plenty.
Shifting perspectives: embracing abundance
I see this so often, in organizations with $50,000 budgets and in organizations with $5,000,000 budgets.
It came up today in a coaching conversation with an executive director. She’s incredibly talented and committed to her organization, but also getting in her own way.
I empathize. It’s understandable. She has the pressure of raising a huge amount of money each year. She and her team meet their revenue goals and then a new fiscal year begins. Each new year means the pressure starts to build.
But what if she could stop for a minute and look at it from a different angle, a different lens?
What she’s putting out into the world when she’s carrying around these feelings is that it’s never enough.
The donations aren’t enough, the volunteers aren’t enough, the board isn’t enough, the staff isn’t enough. Scarcity mindset.
Her inner voice is probably telling her that she isn’t enough. Damn that inner voice! It can get us into trouble.
But wait a minute. Is that true? Is it really true that she isn’t enough?
Is it true that the board, the staff, the volunteers, and the donors aren’t enough?
What I’d like to ask her and you, with loving care & concern, is “how is holding on to that feeling helping you?”
It’s not pointing you in the right direction. Scarcity mindset is not serving you.
Lean into opportunities and transformations
Instead, if you want to unlock an abundant mindset, be aware of your thoughts and practice leaning into abundant thinking.
You are worthy of respect, love, and trust. You are enough. Abundant thinking.
Each of your staff members is worthy of respect, love, and trust as well. Abundant thinking.
Each board member is worthy of respect, love, and trust. Abundant thinking.
Each donor is worthy of respect, love, and trust as well. Abundant thinking.
There are lots of opportunities available to us and many ways we can tackle this problem. Abundant thinking.
There are lots of different people out there with valuable lived experiences, perspectives, skills, and abilities. Abundant thinking.
We can transform the way problem X is solved in our community. Abundant thinking.
Lean into optimism.
Trust that together, you and your team can create something new, practical, and innovative to tackle some of our communities’ biggest challenges. Abundant thinking.
You’re in this nonprofit sector because you believe positive change is possible.
You believe it’s possible to make a difference.
Your optimism is still there.
Staying in a scarcity mindset blinds you to possibilities. To innovation. To vision.
Lean into the trust and optimism that together you, your board, your staff, and your donors can make a difference for the people you serve.
That’s living with an abundant mindset.
Get in touch
Let’s develop an effective fundraising plan, boost the performance of your team, ensure your organization’s sustainability, and overcome your leadership challenges by examining your mindset now. Contact me today!