InterAction NGO Futures Digest: October 22, 2020
InterAction’s NGO Futures initiative accelerates NGOs’ ability to adapt, evolve, and affect sustainable change through offerings, including Futures Digest. Nominate content to NGO Futures program director Deborah Willig. Collaboration encouraged.
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Dramatic change is shaping the sector, and achievements and goals for humanity are backsliding. Leaders from across sectors shared 2023 predictions at the NGO Futures Advisory Council gathering. The bottom line: we will operate within an ecosystem of repeated shocks and, at times, crisis. Fostering agility, resilience, and creative collaborations is vital, as is examining what major predictions would mean to your organization.
Bond’s latest financial survey of 93 members reveals grim prospects for INGOs in the U.K. The COVID-19 crisis, Brexit, recession, and cuts to official development assistance (ODA) were cited as the biggest threats to NGOs’ existence.
More than half of all Americans trust nonprofits to do what is right, and nonprofits are succeeding in encouraging nonpartisan civic engagement, particularly in getting Americans to vote, according to Independent Sector’s Health of the U.S Nonprofit Sector report. However, the COVID-19 pandemic and economic crisis have caused 7% of nonprofits to close and almost 1 million people to lose nonprofit jobs.
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Global extreme poverty is expected to rise in 2020 for the first time in over 20 years as the disruption of the COVID-19 pandemic compounds the forces of conflict and climate change, which were already slowing poverty reduction progress, according to a new World Bank report. The COVID-19 pandemic is estimated to push an additional 88 to 115 million people into extreme poverty this year, with the total rising to as many as 150 million by 2021, depending on the severity of the economic contraction.
This Factivism site makes it easy to spotlight what is happening in the world right now and take action to help reach the Global Goals for Sustainable Development.
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Development consultancy firm MzN International shares four lessons for building an agile NGO.
- Think and analyze global, decide local. Everyone is given the same rules while allowing devolved decision-making on how to achieve shared performance targets.
- Consider one operational platform that allows scaling up or down in countries without infrastructure redundancy.
- Empower teams to react to multiple futures using constant context analysis and strategy innovation rather than trusting a charismatic leader to plot the way forward.
- Trust data over instinct and let it notify when things are going awry.
Seven ways to cultivate the intellectual bravery that innovation demands:
- Take your finger off the fear button.
- Assign dissent.
- Encourage people to think beyond their roles.
- Respond constructively to disruptive ideas and bad news.
- When you reject feedback, explain why.
- Weigh in last.
- Model vulnerability.
It takes vulnerability for a leader to focus on helping an organization move forward, rather than on how the leader looks or creating a sense of invincibility. To cultivate a more vulnerable leadership style, start by telling the truth; ask for help; go outside your comfort zone; when you make a mistake, admit it and apologize; and engage others in your journey of self-improvement.
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Global Perspectives 2020, interactive co-creation of ideas to help address the world’s most pressing problems. This year’s theme is inclusion, with the cross-cutting dimensions of digitization, diversity, and futures perspectives. November 2-5 | Register HERE.
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