Author: camilleacey

One of the major goals of The Wind Down is to help shift the discourse around non-profit endings so that the immediate assumption isn’t that the organization or project closure is the result of loss or failure. Not only is it too often the case that outsiders hold this belief, sometimes people inside the organization are guilty of it too. People will dissuade themselves from even considering closing because things are “going well”.

The truth of the matter is that there are all sorts of reasons for an organization to stop existing, and the more people know about them, witness them, or take part in them, the more they can (hopefully!) move away from a knee-jerk negative reaction to sunsets. Here are a few reasons I’ve come across along the way.

SUCCESS!

This might be my favorite closure reason. If an organization accomplished what they set out to accomplish and can neatly close down, what a win for everyone! One of my favorite examples of this is the We Charge Genocide campaign that ran from 2014-2016 in Chicago. Inspired by the 1951 We Charge Genocide petition to the United Nations, they were able to raise funds to send 8 young Chicagoans to Geneva to charge genocide against the United States for protracted police violence.

Upon return they created an informative report and organized in their communities for a short time before slowly winding down in 2016. They came to charge genocide, they did, and then they stopped!

Another fantastic example is the WaterSHED project, which was created as a 10-year initiative to help expand access to clean water in Cambodia. The goal from the outset was to support capacity-building on the ground and then leave. And despite many challenges , they left when they said they would. WIN! (Seriously, read former-ED Geoff Revell’s article about it. It’s so good.)

SHAPE AND/OR PROXIMITY

Social change work is not one size fits all. If the organization is too small or too big to do the work, it might be time to either change shape or shut down. In addition, sometimes an organization — or an organization’s headquarters — are too far away from where the service is needed or can best be delivered. One example that relates well to this is EveryChild’s closure.

EveryChild was a UK international development charity formed in 2001 that operated field offices in Eastern Europe and the developing world. In 2011, the organization intiated a series of strategic changes that devolved power to local agencies and eventually resulted in the creation of a new international alliance, Family for Every Child. Thus the decision was taken to close EveryChild and all its field offices from the period between 2013 and 2016, and leave the work to the people who could more effectively make an impact in the lives of the children and families they wished to support.

“Concerns about lack of sustainability may be financial (loss of funding or a growing cost base), a loss of key people (staff, volunteers or trustees), a lack of shared direction, recognition that others doing similar things, there are duplications or inefficiencies, or a growing concern that your work is no longer viable or relevant in a changing wider context.”

– Sensing An Ending: A Toolkit for Nonprofit Leaders to help decide, design and deliver better organisational endings by the Stewarding Loss Collective

OBSOLESCENCE

Adjacent (and maybe overlapping?) with success is the idea that the organization just isn’t needed or won’t work anymore. Many initiatives and groups in the civil society space are started with the humble vision of “working themselves out of a job”. Sometimes this happens! And then sometimes the situation on the ground just changes. In this 1999 Guardian article, the writers outline how war in former Yugoslavia quickly put an end to a flourishing network of NGOs committed to growing civic society in the wake of political change. In the blink of an eye, the terrain changed and the groups could no longer function as the vision of a free and flowering Yugoslavia was no longer viable.

LEADERSHIP

Many organizations grow out of the vision of a single inspired leader or group of leaders. Oftentimes when a founder or team of founders decide to step away, they can leave shoes entirely too big to fill. Sometimes it isn’t necessarily the founder, but just a really strong leader who the board struggles or is unable to replace. Stories of such transitions can be found on Naomi Hattaway’s excellent Leaving Well podcast.

DISCHORD

So now we are getting into some of the stickier ones. Organizational dischord is certainly at the heart of some pretty epic closures. Conflicts and the inability to functionally tackle them are a big part of what led me to start asking whether these endings could happen better than I’d seen them happen.

One well-documented and notable example of such an ending was UK-charity Campaign Bootcamp’s sunset, which was sparked by difficult and, ultimately, irreconcilable issues around race, class, privilege and power. Campaign Bootcamp, an organization that had been a darling of the UK charity sector was formed to support people in gaining the skills they needed to launch successful campaigns for social change. However, when the change that needed to happen was “inside the house”, the leadership was unable to reach an equitable and just resolution.

MONEY

Lack of funds is very often a reason that an NGO will shutter its doors. Whether it is a lack of foundation funds, money from individual donors, or tuition related to enrollment (a challenge facing many US universities as of late), cash-strapped organizations struggle to meet the needs of their employees, partners, and the communities they aim to serve. Low funds and inability to cover costs are extremely valid reasons to close up shop.

In a future post, I plan to cover how this sort of ending might be managed, particularly from a fundraising and fundraiser’s perspective.

STAFF

An organization is only as good as its people and if you can’t hire and retain capable people to do the work, you will struggle to fulfill your mission and realize your vision. Non-profit staff members are frequently overworked, underpaid, and highly prone to burnout. While many non-profits profess lofty values of care, far too often they fail to realize them in their employment practices.

Even when your organization does offer great benefits and a manageable workload, competition for talented workers can be challenging when competing with opportunities in government and private sector. If your group or initiative can’t offer the sort of salaries and/or job security those others can you may struggle to hire the people you need, attract good volunteers, and/or build the capacity to drive forward your mission.

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This by no means an exhaustive list. What other reasons have you seen for NGOs to die? Lemme know in the comments!

Though closures of projects in the civil society/non-profit space are nothing new, it still can be a bit tricky to know how to be supportive and show empathy when someone is going through this life-changing experience. A few friends of mine recently went through personal tragedies and as I was thinking about how best to be there for them I got to thinking about how we might show up better for people going through organizational endings.

Some Less-Than-Helpful Personas

THE DETECTIVE

People often assume an organizational closure is the result of some big failure , blowup, or catastrophe. The thinking is often that there is some salacious story or else some agonizing tale of woe that caused the organization to come crashing down. However, the truth is that lots of groups close for mundane reasons and some even close intentionally and triumphantly (see the story of WaterSHED’s closing as one example).

Rather than getting into the details of the organization, why not meet your friend where they are and check into what is coming up for them. Do they have any immediate needs that you can assist with? Are there any milestones coming up where you might be able to check in with them? Mark your calendar and set reminders to be there for your friend and colleague when and where they actually need you.

THE NEWSHOUND

The non-profit funding landscape is tricky and getting trickier every day, but you know who likely knows that best? Your friends working at non-profits. Bringing up articles you read about how things in their industry or area of focus are “particularly bad”, is not really going to be useful when they are already face to face with the end.

Part of what lead to the organization’s demise is likely to be related to lack of support from funders and other stakeholders and was often painfully out of their control. Mentioning macro trends when someone is facing an urgent and acute issue smacks of blaming the victim.

THE CONSOLER

NGOs close in so many ways and for so many reasons. In the short time, I have been talking to people about these endings, I have heard stories ranging from the disastrous to the positively jubilant. So when you hear someone’s organization is closing, you don’t need to immediately need to go into condolence mode. Even in the disaster situations there may be people who are excited and eager to move in, and, similarly, even a well-planned, intentional program or project end can have its rough edges. When faced with news of a shutdown, be neutral, polite, and curious.

THE SILVER LINER

An organizational closure can bring up a lot of emotions, even when the ending is mostly positive. So it is better not to try and put a “silver lining” on it. Mentioning to the person going through the organization closure that at least they “won’t have to deal with [INSERT ANNOYING COWORKER NAME HERE} anymore” is not particularly helpful. If they bring it up, it is fine to agree with them, but it’s not the most helpful thing to try to put a positive spin on the situation if your friend is not feeling particularly positive about it.

THE POLLYANNA

Similarly, you don’t have to try and reassure the person that something better is going to come along. Life is long and mysterious and we don’t know what is going to come next. While it is good to be supportive and hopeful about the future, if the person you are dealing with doesn’t feel like anything good is on the horizon, allow them the space to sit with that feeling rather than trying to divert them because you are uncomfortable with the situation.

If you find you aren’t able to hold space for the big feelings that your friend is holding, you can certainly send this website along to your friend and let them know I also offer free closure calls to people closing or in discernment around closures. I’ve been through it, and I am happy to be a listening pair of ears!

Some Helpful Personas

THE GRATEFUL

The person or people who are facing down the end are likely struggling with feelings of regret about what they didn’t do or grief for the dreams and goals they weren’t able to achieve. Whether they were part of the founding team or a later addition, people who often pay the “passion tax” to join a mission-driven organization are looking to come away with a feeling that they are making a genuine impact on the planet. When their organization must close — usually due to no fault of an individual employee — that sense of purpose is abruptly wrenched from them.

Why not be the one who reminds them of all the good they were able to achieve during their time in operation? Thank them for their service and remind them that, no matter how long they existed, they did make a valuable contribution. When possible, find examples of other people thanking them for their work and let them know there is likely still more time for them to be of service on the planet.

THE HELPFUL

The ending of any type of project or enterprise is full of various loose ends (no pun intended!) that need to be tied-up. As the final days of an organization draw near, it is often the case that there are fewer and fewer people around to sort out the crucial tasks necessary to completely close out. Why not offer a helping hand? Even if there is nothing specific for you to do, sometimes just being present and bearing witness is enough.

Worries for the future coupled with sadness about the past and present can easily cloud the mind and make it hard for your friends facing closure to focus. Sometimes just being a body double is enough to lift people’s spirits, shake feelings of isolation, and assist in getting them on track.

Alternatively, your friend/colleague may just want someone to distract them from what is going on. Whether that person is generally relieved or even happy the organization is closing or if they are feeling woeful, they may find that the work of shuttering the organization is just occupying too much of their mental space. Take them out for a drink or invite them to a movie to get their mind off work.

THE EMPATHETIC

Finally, if you’ve been through a closure of your own, do share about it. So many organizations shutter every year (see our Museum of Closed NGOs for some!), and the more we talk about these organizational endings, the more we can normalize the idea that nothing lasts forever and good things can come from people gently releasing their work back into the wilds.

In addition to the free hotline I offer, I also have some self-assessment questions that I suggest people go through with a friend or colleague. You can be that friend or colleague!

These last few months of building this practice have been some of the most satisfying of my life. With every passing networking call, I feel a stronger sense that what I am doing is needed, and every closure hotline call fills me up with an almost-overwhelming sense of purpose.

The other day, as another hotline call was coming a close, I asked the person if they had any questions for me and they blurted out, “So, what are you doing?”

She was not the first person to ask this and certainly won’t be the last, so I figured I had better write this up in the hope that it would clear things up for people — and maybe also (a little bit!) for me.

Hotline Help

According to Wikipedia, the idea of a hotline or helpline originated in the early 1950s in the UK as a means for trained, caring volunteers to be available to people who may be in the midst of a crisis. Since that time they have spread around the world to address such pressing issues as suicidal ideation, assault, and drug overdose*.

I came to the idea of offering a “closure hotline” from my friends/collaborators at Stewarding Loss and The Decelerator who have been offering this service to organizations facing closure in the UK for over 5 years now. My hope was that I could use it as a way to: (1) determine whether what I was doing even made sense, (2) start to train myself in deep listening, (3) start to identify patterns in organizational endings, and last but not least, (4) hopefully say or offer something that might help someone else who is struggling with a closure.

Unlike a traditional helpline, I am not here to stop anything from happening. I am, in fact, only attending to discussions of people actually looking at endings. If people are trying to figure out how to save things, I tell them something akin to “come back when you think you are ready to die.”

My role, then, is to listen deeply, probe carefully, and reflect the person and their situation back to them in a way that — I hope! — gives them valuable perspective. So far the response has been deep appreciation.

“So, what are you doing?”

Finding The Others

In addition to speaking with people in the throws of closure, I am also chatting with people about endings gone by and also practices of winding down. Some of the fascinating people I have recently met include:

• Anna Shneiderman, who has been facilitating theater closures in California’s Bay Area;
• Erin Richardson, who supports organizations in the process of removing items from museum collections; and
• Naomi Hattaway,who is helping people design their departures from organizations.

I have also been fortunate enough to be offered the opportunity to take over the Composting and Hospicing Community of Practice under the umbrella of the Stewarding Loss and the generous funding of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation’s Emerging Futures Initiative. I have participated in this group in the past, and I am proud to now be at the helm of strategizing about its future!

Getting To How

Moving forward, I am focused on:

• ushering individuals and organizations through real closures,
• exploring how an organization’s learnings can be durably archived, and
• working with others to build out a vocabulary and praxis of closure that can be shared and grown across the world.

I plan to do this by writing and speaking about closure a lot more and trying to connect to funders and nonprofit incubators to begin instilling a stronger “lifecycle”/systems change focus in activism and movement spaces.

Longer term, I’d love to be part of some sort of ongoing “festival of endings” and bring together people who are looking at this across many different sectors. This is, by no means, a one-human job, but I am feeling increasingly confident about the magnitude of the contribution that I can make.

*If you are a fan of riveting radio, I highly recommend the This American Life episode “The Call”, which profiles a woman who volunteers at a drug overdose prevention hotline.

This month has been positively revelatory. I have had so many dynamic conversations with people who are/have been thinking through what it means for projects to come to an end. Here are some of my biggest takeaways this month.

AHA! #1: There Are So Many Things That (Need To) Close!

When I initially conceived of working on conscious organization closures, I was thinking more narrowly about traditional, staid non-profits that do things like provide people with food resources or teach children how to read or whatever. However, this month as I kept chatting with other practitioners, I realized there are so many other organizations that are included here — such as schools, museums, cooperative grocery stores, even jails and prisons! And each of these types of containers have a myriad of laws governing how, whether, and when they can close.

As I think about how I want to scope this work, I am already humble(d) enough to know that there will be no such thing as mastery across such a wide swathe of practices. There are lawyers and accountants and other people who can handle the intricacies of paperwork; that can’t be work that I do. However, I can be part of the team that ensures these things happen! Closure is probably not a one-person job — even for the smallest of closures.

When we are lucky, the idea or realization that the project needs to close comes from internal discernment, but that isn’t always the case. Sometimes the organization will be pushed to close either because of controversy or simply because the community needs to make way for something that will better serve it in the moment.

In one conversation this month, I was reminded of water and how it is sometimes ice and other times steam and other times liquid. It is still made up of the same things, but it shows up differently. Something that was something is hard to make nothing. It can dissipate, but traces remain for a long time….

In another chat, I was made aware that the Rubin Museum in New York City, announced that it would shutter its doors and become a “global museum”. The executive director’s statement expressed the organization’s desire to “effectively use our collection, knowledge, creativity, networks, and financial resources in order to best serve you, the public, for the long term and with the greatest impact.” The world didn’t need them to be a fixed location anymore; so they won’t be!

AHA! #3: Cracks Of Doubt Are An Inside Job

In his book, Endineering, my pal Joe Macleod shares the idea of the “crack of doubt” from the book Becoming An Ex by former nun Helen Rose Fuchs Ebaugh. The crack of doubt emerges when a person experiences a dramatic organizational shift and begins to feel the stirrings of burnout. The burnout leads to cuing behavior. If others around the person pick up on the cues, they will often affirm the initial doubts and widen the crack. If the issues that lead to the initial doubts are not addressed, additional events will only further stress the crack until it becomes a gaping hole.

While a crack can spell the beginning of the end for a person working in an organization, it can take many individuals with many personal “widening cracks of doubt” putting pressure on the organization — by either staying or leaving — before the organization’s leadership begins to see that the organization might no longer be viable. The amount of time this takes could be days, months, or even years. And with some organizations’ incredible ability to continue raising funds regardless of internal turmoil, some organizations can keep the lights brightly on despite their otherwise sort of walking dead state in relation to their staff and the communities they are meant to serve.

To those organizations and the people that work in or with them, I quote the great Bone Thugs N Harmony by saying, “See you at the crossroads.” The practice I am building here is not about telling anyone their organization is terminally ill. I am not an organizational Grim Reaper. I only want to work with people who want to work with me. For the others, I am here if and when they are interested and ready.

Closure consultancy is a very new field; so new, in fact, that we haven’t even agreed on a name for the practice. Some people call themselves organizational development consultants while others are transformational doulas. Whatever the name, the focus is still clear: we want to help you in the sometimes-messy process of closing up shop. Here are some specific areas we can help you think through:

• Communications Support – when you make the decision to close down, you will undoubtedly have a lot of internal and external people to communicate the situation to. Your consultant could help you think about how and when to message the upcoming changes.
• Project Management – there is always a non-trivial amount of paperwork associated with closing down a project or organization — be it closing down bank accounts or dealing with the post office or tax authorities. A good closure consultant can make sure you are thinking through every entity you deal with and how you will close up accounts with them.
• Digital Archiving – What do you want to do with your websites, your digital documentation, and all the email addresses? Will you carry on paying to keep a memorial site up or do you want to work with another organization for ongoing stewardship?
• Physical logistics – Will you need to move out of your office? Get rid of physical assets like desks and chairs? Your closure consultant may be able to help you think through selling or donating anything you will no longer need.
• Emotional Support – Most importantly a closure consultant is someone who has been through closure before and knows how many different emotions it can bring up. They will be there to support you and be a reliable sounding board as you navigate this difficult time.

When Is The Right Time To Bring In Help?

One of the things we in the “closure” space are trying to advocate for is an ongoing awareness of endings. The best thing you can do at any stage of your organization’s development (and most preferably at the beginning!) is familiarize yourself with the Sensing An Ending toolkit. There is very sound guidance there about how to design an organization that is receptive and equipped to have a healthy and conscious ending — even if that ending may be decades or centuries away!

• Early – Even if you are in good financial and organizational strength with no ending in sight, bringing in a closure consultant (like me!) to speak with your organization about the realities of endings and how to be ready for closures is a great way to instill a sense of preparedness and consciousness in your team.
  However, if you are starting to get an early sense that things may be winding down, that is also an excellent time to start engaging with someone who can work alongside you to start designing a compassionate and careful closure.
  
• During – If you’ve already started closing down and realize you are in over your head or just need an extra pair of hands, don’t fear! You can still pick up the phone and reach out for help. Accepting overwhelm is a good first step to being receptive to the kind of help a conscious closure consultant can provide.
  
• After – Even if the closure is complete, it still can be beneficial to sit down with a consultant to make sure there is nothing you forgot and also just to support you as you write your story of what happened and where you want to go next.

Other Professionals You May Need

While bringing in a closure consultant can be a big help in managing all the moving pieces of a closure, they are no substitute for some of the other roles that may be critical to a successful ending. These professionals include:

• HR administrator
• Lawyer
• Tax accountant/bookkeeper
• Moving company
• Webmaster

While no amount of spending on conscious closure can undo mistakes made at the start or throughout the life of an organization, a consultant helping you navigate the choppy waters of organization can help you avoid doing additional harm and walk away feeling proud of all that you accomplished during the life of your organization.

If you are interested in how The Wind Down can help, contact us!

(this article is inspired by Why You Should Consider a Death Doula, a LifeHacker article by Anna Lee Beyer)