86: Kate Harris on Structural Change as a Tool for Social Change
It took 40 years but Kate finally figured out how to embrace change instead of run from it. After all, it's the only constant and there's some comfort in that. She loves all things salty - the ocean, margaritas, and even your saltiest board member. Kate can really get behind a lazy afternoon, a home improvement project, and teaching her dog useless tricks.
Find Kate:
LinkedIn - KHG Nonprofit Strategy
Quotes:
“When we use scary words like merger or dissolution, or the way that we soften dissolution by talking about sunsetting and winding down, it sounds great, but the reframe is that all that is structural change.”
“Your mission is important. Your vision is important. That's your destination. That's where you're going. Structure is the vehicle you're taking to get you there.”
“Mergers are an excellent tool for getting an organization to inventory every single thing that they are about. You cannot leave any stone unturned. You don't get to do that in a structural change. And that's why I love it as a tool. Because even if at the end of the day we decide that these two organizations shouldn't merge, each organization is stronger for having gone through the process of exploring that potential collaboration. They understand their unique value better. They understand each other better and where they can collaborate.”
“Mission resilience is how you actually make sure that even if the structure changes, even if the name changes, the whole reason we are here to do any of this is because of the people at the center that we care about. And we're not gonna leave anybody behind.”
“My whole reason for doing this work is that structural change is a tool. It's a tool for social change. It's underutilized in the nonprofit sector. So I want to normalize this conversation.”
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“My whole reason for doing this work is that structural change is a tool. It’s a tool for social change. It’s underutilized in the nonprofit sector. So I want to normalize this conversation.”
Transcript:
It took 40 years, but Kate has finally figured out how to embrace change instead of running from it. After all, she says it is the only constant and there is some comfort in that. Kate Harris loves all things salty, the ocean margaritas, and even your Saltiest board member, which. I love that about you and about your bio.
Kate can really get behind a lazy afternoon, a home improvement project and teaching her dog useless tricks. Kate, I am so glad to have this conversation with you. We have known each other, I think going on a year at this point, and I'm really excited to talk about the work that you do about closures, endings, and all of those things.
Are you ready to jump in? I am so ready, and thank you so much. It's just really awesome to be in this space with you. Yeah, I'm excited. Okay. My first question for you is, why do nonprofits rarely talk about the endings side of organizational life? So, mergers, closures, necessary endings. Um, why do we in the culture not talk about endings?
Period. You know, I think there's a lot that our culture tells us about what's okay to talk about, and loss is certainly not one of them. And that's because loss is really complicated, right? I think, you know, there's. Different kinds of loss, like disenfranchised loss and traumatic and sudden loss. And we don't necessarily have the tools and resources in our day-to-day lives to understand how to walk through that alone, let alone together with other people.
And so it doesn't surprise me that that translates into our workplaces where even more things are taboo. Yeah, it's such a great correlation to things like death and dying. I am always the person on social media that's reminding people like, Hey, if you do not have your estate plan done yet, please do it.
It's scary, but it's the most important gift you can leave, and it translates into workplace. And if we can't talk about death, which is the natural order. Like, we're really not set up to talk about it in the workplace either. I, I'd be curious from both and, and I'm, I'm thinking that you're gonna come from this conversation, both from your experience working with organizations and just your experience living life.
So my next question could be from both. Points. How do you discern the difference when you're working with an organization that's in a necessary evolution towards endings versus one that's kind of just resisting something that's overdue around closures? Endings? And I guess maybe too, Kate, maybe could you start us off by talking about mergers and partnerships and how that even might, 'cause people I think are used to mergers and acquisitions in the business, corporate world and maybe are like, wait, that happens in nonprofits, so maybe we should start.
Let's start there and then keep going. Okay, that sounds great. So, and I think just to your point about estate planning, you know, it is the right thing to do in your personal life. Because it's actually a gift to everyone else in your life. And so I always imposing to organizations like, what is your organization's estate plan?
Because that's actually a gift to your mission and to the people you serve. You know, a lot of people right now are talking about like business continuity planning. We've borrowed that term from the business world. But what it's really about is like making sure that you don't have some sudden interruption to what for many nonprofits is like a critical and life-saving circumstance in a lot of situations.
I'm gonna unpack your question from a couple different angles. I, I think one thing I want people to understand is that first of all, every evolution is an ending. Every evolution is an ending and a beginning. And I think the organizations that struggle the most are the ones that like pick a model, run the model, and ignore the fact that like our world is changing around us.
And so there's something about having to kind of like flow with that and roll with that, that I look for when I work for organizations and their ability to be like iterative. Like how strong is that change management muscle? I think that's a huge marker of resilience. The thing I wanna like reframe when we use scary words like merger dissolution or the way that we kind of like soften dissolution by talking about sun setting and winding down, right?
Like I wind down at the end of my workday, don't you? It sounds great, but I think the reframe is that all that is is a structural change. It. It's not this scary thing. There are ways to go through it and there are people who have walked that path. And so that's what I want people to take away from this is that it's, it's a structural change and I think to, and it's not something we talk about a lot in the nonprofit sector.
We talk about strategic planning, super important, and we talk about board development and volunteer engagement. Super important. I think we talk less about structure and I think that's a disservice to the sector and here's why. Your mission is important. Your vision is important. That's your destination.
That's where you're going. Structure is the vehicle you're taking to get you there. Okay? So for a lot of organizations, they're like. I know you and I are both like small RV people. Okay. Like when I have to go across the country, I'm taking the RV 'cause my dog fits in there. I can bring snacks. There's room for me and my wife and all of our adventure toys and bikes and things like.
That's the right car to get me where I'm going. And I think so often we ignore structure and we end up just kind of like plotting along in the wrong vehicle. That's just not gonna get us where we're trying to go. The other thing that that makes me think of is multiple vehicles. So what happens often in nonprofits is one is in the rv, the board might be in an airplane and the staff is in like the coach and the wagon, you know, like.
We're all in different vehicles too, and so the structure is so important and that that brings up all sorts of things that I'm thinking about around like how do we make decisions and how do we power share all of those things that also come in. You talked a little bit about strategy being important.
Can you talk a little bit about the relational side of the power that comes when nonprofits are ready to start talking about partnerships and mergers and dissolutions and those kind of things? Relationships are par paramount to this whole thing. Like we don't get through this without other people. And because I think structural change is a, this underutilized tool for social change, so we don't have a lot of language to talk about it with each other.
That is shared. You know, you mentioned the difference between like, you know how that's talked about in the corporate world. Well, I would argue there's an, there's a way that we talk about. Relationships and collaborative decision making and things in like social movements, right? That's all about like power building and bringing enough people to the table to like get louder and stronger and more visible.
And a lot of times, like mergers and structural changes are used in the corporate world to do the same thing, by the way, to get louder, more influential, stronger. And so what I see as this gap is like. What is the version of that in the nonprofit sector? And I think it's a little too simplified to say, well, we just have too many nonprofits.
We have too many nonprofits and they're not coordinated. And this is something I hear all the time and I really wanna like disabuse people of that notion. Because I think if you come from this like abundance mindset, you get to say, what if we have exactly the right number of nonprofits right now? But we might just need to arrange the pieces differently, and that's what structural change is.
Structural changes, arranging the pieces differently. And I do it through merger because merger is an excellent tool for getting an organization to inventory every single thing that they are about. You cannot leave any stone unturned. So the things that you can brush under the rug in the board meeting and kind of put on the back burner, you don't get to do that in a structural change.
And that's why I love it as a tool, because even if at the end of the day we decide that these two organizations shouldn't merge. Each organization is stronger for having gone through the process of exploring that potential collaboration. They understand their unique value better. They understand each other better and where they can collaborate.
So to me, this is just one tool in the toolkit. It's not for everybody, but this is way less about, we have too many nonprofits and way more about. How do we actually build power and influence within the nonprofit sector where we're not so constrained by the resources that have really limited our growth up until this point in time.
So you, I love everything that you just said, and that could be the end of the podcast and it would be rich with so much good stuff. But I wanna keep going on the power. Um, things that you started to touch on when you see the kind of backstage or the back end of these nonprofits, especially as you're doing that no stone unturned inventory.
What patterns are you noticing and what could the listener take away around power, ego, and legacy? Because those things. Are deeply attached also to nonprofit work. Um, how do, how should maybe, should is not the right word. How could leaders respond differently to the possibility of partnerships and mergers?
Yeah. Well, I try really hard not to should on anyone. Um, but I think, you know, everything you're saying is true. There's power, there's ego. Uh, but I wanna acknowledge that like, ego can be a really helpful driver. Ego is what, um, you know, is the result of all of the visionaries of the sixties and seventies who started so many of the nonprofits right now who are like trying to figure out what their next iteration is.
So like ego can be a good thing. I think where we get into trouble with that. And this gets to identity too. So many people, those founders, those visionaries, executives, even like, I think people misunderstand that some all staff have something associated with their identity, with their work. So there's a loss there and there's some grief there.
And we already talked about the fact that that goes unattended to, and I think you and I have connected on this, right? I love your, like people leave, they leave. The next sentence is, how do we deal with that? How do we deal with the way that people leave and who gets left behind? You know? And so I, the, I come into this with a philosophy that like.
Everybody is important and that everybody who cares about your mission or who your mission cares about is important to how you think about decision making. And we have to center the people who are most impacted and. As much as we need charismatic leaders whose ego might be driving them to accomplish really amazing things or whose identity might be driving them to accomplish amazing things, we also have to remember that there's no one person bigger than the mission of the organization and every time I can help clients.
Reorient themselves to that vantage point, we often will make not the right decision because I don't believe that there's only one right decision, but we will often make a right decision that's gonna best serve the people who will be most impacted by that decision. I love that you just said that about there's no one right decision and there's a whole multitude of potential and, and I would guess that a lot of those decisions start to unearth themselves as you're working with the client.
And as you're listening, I would encourage you or watching to push, pause and go to Kate's website because there are so many beautiful case studies and articles about. Really beautiful solutions and the decisions that people have chosen. Um, and it's just such a good like eye-opening exercise to see like, oh, that, that is a possibility.
I'm curious if you could talk specifically to the board member. Or the founder who is listening or watching, who is like, yeah, but our mission exists and needs to continue by ourselves because, or we are really attached to keeping the name alive. Like there's, you know, some, some tethering that happens.
Could you talk specifically to them about the possibilities that their mission and their community might be better served by a thoughtful merger, uh, or partnership? Yeah, so I have a short list of collaboration deal breakers, and on it is kind of a spectrum of things that are superficial to things that are really substantive.
The substantive things are things like mission, right? And I, you know, if you were that board member, I would say, please do tell me. Tell me all of the reasons why your mission is not done yet, and why you still have work to do, and why you're the right organization to do that. That's really important 'cause that sets the destination.
Then we have to figure out where we are. How far are we from that destination? Great. What do we need to get us there? Because it might be the structure that we are currently in. Every time I do a project like this with a client, it starts with this discovery and assessment process before we start negotiating, before we start due diligence, even we look inward.
We hold up a mirror to ourselves, and the importance of that is because you can't. Argue with another organization off of like assumptions. You have to, you have to work through this from like facts and realities. And so if we know the destination, if we know our starting point, that we have to solve for that distance.
And every time I, I, I do this, I say to organizations like. The sooner you start this conversation, and I think it's a good practice actually for all nonprofits to get a checkup every once in a while, right? Like do an inventory, do an assessment. It's good practice. But when you do that, the sooner you do that, or the more regularly you do that, the more you open up options for yourself.
So if you start the conversation soon, you might have a lot of different paths you can go down if you wait too long. All it does is shrink down the options for your organization. So I say to board members, the responsible thing for you to do to keep your mission moving forward is to inventory where you need to go, where you are now, and what's the best vehicle to get you there.
I always put as an option status quo, and I always put as an option dissolution in sunsetting. Those are realities. So whether that dissolution is voluntary or involuntary, that's always something that could happen. And status quo is a choice that we make. And so for me, putting those two things on the table, there might only be one other option in between because you waited too long to have the conversation.
But if you have the conversation regularly and you, and you start talking about that hard thing sooner. The more options you'll have. And to me that's about mission resilience. That's how you actually make sure that even if the structure changes, even if the name changes, the whole reason we are here to do any of this because of the people at the center that we care about that gets to move forward.
And we're not gonna leave anybody behind. I love that and there's so many, so much goodness there in the choice that we have. I think I've, I've talked to several organizations who get a little panicky because. One of their largest funders is either recommending a partnership or a merger, um, or is even sometimes threatening to pull funding if they don't, you know, that whole, like you what you started the podcast with, like, there's too many nonprofits.
So the beauty in having choice and being able to say we're the ones that are starting this conversation is brilliant. I'm curious, this is not a question that I was planning to ask you, but. How many folks come to you because they already have a potential partner in mind versus how many people come to you kind of more for that checkup of like, we just know this is a good thing to do.
Curious how that like plays out in the folks that you, you see and talk to. It's all of the above. And you know, some people, you know, it's kind of like, I mean, I'm a big fan of therapy. And a lot of times folks go to therapy and they don't, not sure why they're there. They just know that something doesn't quite feel right.
And sometimes people end up on my doorstep because of that exact same thing. They're like, we just have this gut feeling that something's not right. And that's where we use the assessment to figure it out together. You know? Some people are like, Hey, I had a coffee with this Ed, we are getting married. You know, like, it's like, you know, the lesbian trope of like first date, get the U-Haul.
Right. And I, I mean, so it's like I, you know, and my wife and I took three years to get married, but like, the point is. There's different things for everybody and sometimes it just feels right and you, you need to just get married, but kind of work out like whose couch is coming into the new apartment. And so it really just depends.
I think the thing about the process that I use is very principled. Like it is important that even if you decide on your first date that you're gonna get married, I still am gonna come to you and say, okay, but go write your vows separately. You know, go figure out who you are real quick and what you wanna bring into the apartment, and then we're gonna have a group conversation about how that's gonna work.
But it's like the process is the same. The on a principled stand, the process is the same, but it looks really different for those different organizations. I think they always end up in, in the, in a good place at the end of that. But the starting point is really different and I think. I want people to know that that's welcome.
That you don't have to have it all figured out. You don't have to even know why you're here. You just know something needs to shift and maybe it is the wrong vehicle you're in, or you know who you wanna get married to. And we just have to kind of figure out how to make that work. And you know, as you know, I mean the work starts the day you get married.
Right. So it helps to put some of that like pre-work in. Yeah, I love that. And I also am just thinking about. So beautiful that you said sometimes people go to therapy and they don't know why they're there, because that's the same thing that happens with me a lot with clients is they're like, we're not sure what we need you for, but we just know that we can't do this by ourselves.
So I love that. That's the same for you as well. I would love to talk a little bit about grief and loss and shame, fear, all the emotions that come up. Um, is there anything that you have to share around dignity? In transition, maybe even what grief looks like in the work and how you hold space or encourage clients to move through that.
I'm kind of merging a couple of questions into one there. Um, and I'll just let you respond and react however it feels, right? Yeah. I mean, grief is just as personal as. Anything you can do with somebody. And I, I, you know, I'm not a grief counselor, but I do think of myself as a student of grief. And when I think about like the losses in my own life, especially the ones that fit into this bucket of sort of like the ambiguous or disenfranchised losses, they go so unattended to and so unseen.
You know, it's like the loss of a pet. Okay. Like. In our society, you can now get a Hallmark card if you lose a pet. But like 10 years ago, I don't think that was true. And we still don't have Hallmark cards for workplace transitions, you know? So it just tells us something about our society and how comfortable we are attending to these things.
And so. I think there's a lot we can learn about the way that other people have moved through grief. I think one is there's a role for, for acknowledging it, but there's a role for ritual here. And I say that word and some people get a little uncomfortable, but I think it can be these really simple things of like.
How do you, you talk about this, how do you acknowledge a staff departure? How do you acknowledge a major shift? Um, there's some great examples on, on my website about dissolved organizations and how they have kind of memorialized their work. Um, there's a really beautiful one, um, of a funder that wound down and has this beautiful like, sprouting garden of all the organizations that they supported throughout.
And it's like. That's the legacy that they've left. And so, you know, you have to find these ways of. Doing it that honors the organization. You know, there was a, a theater company that had seven members and each one wanted to produce a play. They each produced a play and then shut down and had this like big party.
You know, it's like you can actually start with the end in mind, right? You can start with acknowledging that people leave and that organizations change. And when you do that, you create space to talk about it before the thing has actually happened. And then when the thing does happen, you have to acknowledge it.
And I think there's something about privately acknowledging it, but also publicly acknowledging it. Um, and so I hope people find some inspiration. I know I get a lot of inspiration from Camille AC and the wind down. I think she's done a beautiful job of creating space to talk about that and dissolution amongst nonprofits.
Um, so she's a great resource too, but. Yeah, just there's the stories are out there and they don't have to be shrouded in like, shame. This is not a conversation we need to have in the shadows. My whole reason for doing this kind of work. Is that structural change is a tool. It's a tool for social change.
It's underutilized in our sector and we gotta talk about it. So I just wanna normalize this conversation. I'm not trying to merge and consolidate every nonprofit. I just, I want us to treat this as a normal part of organizational development and moving our missions forward. I so agree, and I'm so glad you brought up Camille, because what I also love about you and me and our relationship and Camille's is that we also know that there are multiple.
Components to all of this. There's this, the team, you know, the transition that happens inside of a team and inside of the human piece, which is a lot of what I do, your beautiful structure and framework around the vehicle, and that naming it as a structure is so important. And then Camille's like composting hospice work that she does around endings.
It's just so good. And I think that's what I value too about you, is you are able to, you have a broad network of people who are like. Thanks for coming to me and this is something actually that someone else probably would better help you with and I think that's just so valuable too. And talk about collaborations and partnerships, um, being so beautiful.
So I am guessing that there's at least one person as you're listening, you're like, oh, maybe this is a conversation that, that our organization should have with Kate. Maybe you're thinking, yeah, dissolution, mergers, partnerships, even just that checkup assessment might be helpful, but they don't know how to say it out loud.
What would you say to them besides. Hit me up on my website and let's have a, a chat. But like what would you say to them about some of the next steps that they might wanna think about if they're just thinking of it internally? Yeah. Well, I mean, hit me up, but also, um, you know, I really wanna encourage people to not do this alone because there's a lot of tools out there for like strategic planning, right?
Planning your destination. There's a little less out there in terms of this structural change stuff, but the good news, 'cause everything changes, that is changing too. So I'm part of a community of practice of consultants connected to the sustained collaboration network. The network is a funder collaborative of mostly pooled funds all over the country that is growing right now that, uh, makes grants to support.
Collaboration, exploration to support implementation of collaborations, and I think that kind of funder consultant relationship is really important because. We have different vantage points on the sector. Both are valuable. No funder should be driving a, a collaboration conversation, but for sure they need a seat at the table.
And so we get to talk about those things in this group. So what I want people to know is that. You don't have to reach out to me. You can actually reach out to any of the 300 consultants on the email list who are part of a community of practice, of people who do similar work to what I do and get some help from them.
There's probably somebody in your backyard if you want me to help you find them. I'm happy to do that. You know, I, I really do. You can't be a collaboration consultant if you don't love collaboration, and I do. So it makes it easy to connect people where they need to. So I think the one thing is. Don't go this alone, reach out, ask for help.
I think that's true of every struggle bus moment in our life is like, do not do this alone. And part of that I think is to remember that you are not alone. People have walked this path. So like if you go to my website, you'll see merger announcements from other organizations telling their story. And I have found that.
Whether they were a client of mine or not, any executive director who has shepherded their mission through some significant structural change is probably willing to talk to you about their experience, what they would do differently, what they would do the same, and you know. There's, there are resources out here.
I know they're not as visible as some of the other things that we talk about a lot in the sector, but they are here and so, you know, maybe I'm just a starting point for you in accessing that, but like, please don't go this alone. There are people out here who can help. Yeah. I love that you said that. And I also love that you said, and I just wanna underline it, funders should not be driving collaboration, mergers, partner, any of those conversations funders should not be driving.
What I do think, and I wanna underscore it as well, is that you said that they should be at the table. One of the things that I hear so often from my clients is like. We didn't budget for this work. So like they're coming to me saying, we need it, but we don't know how to pay for it. And I'm guessing similarly for, for the work that you do.
And so I'm also inviting the funders that are listening to be part of that, that shift in narrative also, and start to have those conversations with your grantees. The other thing I will always en encourage folks, if you're the executive director, CEO, or other budgetary decision maker. Reach out to your funders and ask if they have capacity building grant dollars, um, if they're interested in maybe building a cohort of their grantees.
'cause it's also more comfortable to talk about these things in more like, hypothetical, let's learn more about it than this one organization is potentially closing. Um, so there's all sorts of ways to get creative about it, so I'm glad you brought that up. Yeah. And I wa I was a fundraising consultant and a fundraiser before I started doing this work, and so I.
And especially attuned to those relationships and the complexities and the power dynamics that need to be named within those. But I would also say to funders listening, like don't take my word for it. Talk to all of the initiative managers who are running these funds who understand effective grant making for collaboration.
We can maybe link to this in the notes. There is an excellent report done by Michelle Shumate that goes through case studies and walks you through some of the lessons learned about not just how to effectively collaborate, but how to effectively do grant making to support this work. And I think that's a conversation that funders are actually really ready for right now.
I love that. Kate, as we wrap up, I mean, we could talk about this for a long time and go on a million different tangents that we. Kind of started to touch on, but as we wrap up, is there anything that you want to say or share that we haven't talked about Art already, or just anything that's on your heart and your mind?
I guess it's this, you know, I know we started this conversation talking about grief and loss. That's gonna hit a lot of people right now. We are in a moment of very significant upheaval. I really wanna make space for and honor that at the same time that I wanna leave people with a more hopeful message, which is that like most things are scary until you actually look at them.
You know, the way I started doing this work was that I was part of organizations that either had collaboration built into them, some kind of like federated model, or I was working for an organization that was in the middle of an acquisition when I happened to join the staff and got brought along and that, so this was something that was kind of following me.
And I think I kept running from it because I was like, this is too much. You know, like I'm the director of development here. Like I don't need to be doing data integration for some acquired organization that I didn't know about when I started, you know? But over time, I think instead of running from it through lots of like things in my personal life and it just, I decided to like stare it in the face.
Run towards it and get curious about it and say like, maybe you're not a scary thing after all. Maybe you're not the monster under my bed, and maybe there's something we can actually do together. And it has been so eye-opening, so rewarding. It really feeds my soul. And when I work with leaders who come to me, especially in a tough situation, I mean, I have like sat and cried with board chairs, you know, like that is part of this work.
I hold space for that. And then we also just hold hands and take the next step together, you know? And it's like, I think when we can. You know, acknowledge the fear and then stare it in the face. And sometimes staring in the face alone is a little too scary. So bring a buddy, you know, and, and we'll just take the next step.
I mean, I think that's what I wanna encourage organizations with right now is like, I know there's a lot going on, and I know people wanna preserve their really vital missions, and they should. And maybe there's a way to do that. Maybe there's a way to carry the mission forward in a slightly different vehicle.
I love that you said that about staring it in the face. I'm gonna show, and I'll explain it for people that are listening, I have this little, um, chair with an octopus sitting on it. The reason, and so it's a black chair. This is so cute, y'all. It's so cute. It's a little black chair and it's from ikea. I think it's meant to be like a, I don't even know what it's meant to be.
And then a little crochet octopus. The reason that I have this on my desk is because the octopus represents, it represents a lot for me. It's the fear, it's the, it's sitting in a place where I can, it's in the corner, I can stare at it in the face. And it's a visual reminder to me that as long as I know where my fear is coming from, then I can address it.
And so I just love that you said that about we have to be able to see it, name it, feel it, and to go at it with someone, um, that we trust is, is just such a healthy way of doing it. So Kate, thank you so much for joining me for this conversation. This was so good. I appreciate you. Thank you.
If you are an organizational leader, board member, or a curious staff member, take the leaving while assessment to discover your organization's transition readiness archetype. It's quick and easy, and you can find it@naomihattaway.com. Slash assessment, it's Naomi, N-A-O-M-I, hattaway, H-A-T-T-A-W-A y.com/assessment.
To learn more about leaving well and how you can implement and embed the framework and culture in your own life and workplace. You can also see that information on my website. It's time for each of us to look ourselves in the mirror and finally admit we are playing a powerful role in the system. We can either exist outside of our power or choose to decide to shift culture and to create transformation.
Until next time, I'm your host, Naomi Hadaway, and you've been listening to Leaving Well, a Navigation Guide for Workplace Transitions.