Cutting Projects

In chapter 6 Crutchfield and Grant are mentioning that successful nonprofits focus on what “not to do”. This principle is about cutting programs as often as organization adding new projects; keeping the most effective projects, with big impact.

In 2009 we were working on the development of the new strategic plan for Armenian Caritas and our facilitator divided the stuff members into two groups: a group that would suggest new projects base on the mission and strength of the organization and a group that would cut projects in case of shortage of funding. I was in the first group and while we were working on our task I was constantly thinking which projects the second team would cut. Though it was just an exercise I was really worrying and analyzing which of my projects is weak and can be potentially cut in case of funding shortage. As a project manager I was sure that the community development projects would be in the “keeping” list as they made great impact in the rural communities and the results were quick and obvious: renovated buildings, furnished rooms, big number of volunteers involved percentage of community contribution and so on. I was very much worrying about the human rights and social justice projects which had a potential but did not have very big impact yet because these were projects with individuals to change their behavior, attitude and approaches to solve issues. This type of projects needs a lot of investment: resources, time, meetings, consultancies but has very little impact at the beginning. The results of this type of the projects will be observed later. I was thinking what if these projects will not have a chance to bring may be even bigger impact in future because of being in the list of the projects than should be cut.

As future non-profit sector leaders what shall we do in this case? Shall we make a list of criteria and cut those that simply do not meet all of the criteria? Or shall we try to give chance to develop and test new approaches that may not always result into immediate results or create bigger impact?