The Next Gen: In Search of Sustainability

Abstract

Now that we’ve lived through income tax season during the toughest time since the Great Depression, it seems appropriate to consider the future – the sustainability – of the organizations that comprise the tax-exempt sector.

Foundation executives and just about every nonprofit executive I’ve ever met share the dream of sustainability. They yearn for a business model so cleverly conceived and carefully calibrated that it can balance the books, not only today but in perpetuity. Sustainability is front and center for Next Gen social entrepreneurs who seek to create a new crop of organizations with built-in revenue streams.

Sustainability is a laudable goal. In organizations that attain it, executive directors can direct more of their talent to something other than fundraising, and board members can sleep better at night. Still, I question its importance. I worry that sustainability is as elusive as Jason’s Golden Fleece, glittery and alluring and always just out of reach. Part of me wonders about the assumption itself: that all nonprofits deserve to live forever.

David Fair agrees with me. He thinks sustainability is a lot of bunk. David is something of a philosopher and something of a sociologist, though he’s long made his living as a government bureaucrat and nonprofit manager. His distinguished career has been spent in health and human services, what he refers to as the “safety net services.” I came to David to get his take on sustainability through the lens of those agencies that serve the most impoverished, helpless, damaged and at-risk people in our society.