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Those of you who love high-brow films most certainly didn’t miss the 2006 Adam Sandler classic, “Click.” In it, a workaholic husband and father finds a universal TV remote that allows him to fast forward and rewind parts of his life. Complications ensue.

While I admit I enjoyed the movie, it was the premise that captured my interest. What if we could reset our lives with the click of a button (complications not included)?

As a nonprofit leader, it is likely that building and maintaining donor trust is one of your highest priorities. Have you ever thought about embracing radical transparency as a practice to foster long-lasting relationships and build trust? An upcoming meeting or retreat could provide a perfect forum for your team’s reflection on this topic.

Paint the Full Picture

What is radical transparency? It goes far beyond reporting on finances and operations. It's about sharing your vision, challenges, successes, processes and even shortcomings. It means being upfront about where you and your organization are excelling and where you are working to improve.

No spoilers…I promise! In both the book, The Martian, and the equally excellent movie by the same name, astronaut Mark Watney (played by Matt Damon) is left on Mars after an unexpected dust storm forces the rest of the crew to abandon the planet without him. With scarce food, an inability to communicate, a living environment built to last only a month, and only disco music, as “setbacks” go, this one is colossal.

If you’ve worked in a nonprofit (or probably just about anywhere), you know that not every project goes as planned. In fact, sometimes plan A turns into plan D or E or F. Often, the setbacks are minor – like you used the wrong mail permit number on a mass mailing – and easily fixed. Sometimes, they are more significant – like a lead gift in a capital campaign changes course and decides not to give at all – and mean you need to go back to reset and re-strategize.

Just as Watney (also, luckily, a trained botanist) figures out how to grow enough potatoes to keep himself alive for four years until another mission can return to save him, there is another setback and it’s a doozey!

What does he do? He “works the problem.”

Every nonprofit organization builds its success on well-defined strategies. But what happens when those strategies, once so promising, start to show cracks? Knowing when to adjust the strategies in your strategic plan and when to give your strategy time to play out can be a critical turning point for the leadership of your organization. How can you tell if something is amiss?

I used to have a New Year's resolutions ritual. Same goals, same treadmill drudgery, same disappointing results. Someone once said “insanity is doing the same thing, over and over, and expecting different results.”* What if I turned my consulting expertise and experience toward my personal goals? Could strategic planning finally be the solution to getting healthier? With my notepad and a new insight, I explored my health goals like I was facilitating a nonprofit’s strategic planning process.