Organizational Change Management for Nonprofits

Managing Change in a Time of Economic Uncertainty

Jul 27, 2009

Managing Change Leads to Success, Jan Willem Geertsma

With the decline of traditional financial support in the current economy, change is inevitable. Best practices in change management smooth transitions.

Today, nonprofit organizations are increasingly called upon to make dramatic changes in response to emerging needs, decreasing revenues and external pressures. Simply put, change management is the ordered approach to transitioning from the present state to a desired future state. By utilizing standard change management techniques, nonprofit leaders can ease some discomfort of change and achieve change in less time.

ADKAR Model for Individual Change Management

In his 2006 book ADKAR: A Model for Change in Business, Government and Our Community, Jeffrey M. Hiatt outlines the ADKAR model designed by Prosci Research that begins once a change has been identified:

Awareness of the need for change
Desire to support and participate in the change
Knowledge of how to change
Ability to implement required skills and behaviors
Reinforcement to sustain the change

These are the “building blocks” of change for individuals, says Hiatt, and are experienced in order. Regardless of how big or small the change is, individuals will always be on the receiving end. Giving individuals the tools to adequately fulfill each element will minimize resistance.

Kotter Model of Organizational Change

Harvard Business School Professor John P. Kotter offers an eight step process in his book Leading Change (2006):

Establishing a sense of urgency
Creating the guiding coalition
Developing a vision and strategy
Communicating the change vision
Empowering employees for broad-based action
Generating short-term wins
Consolidating gains and producing more change
Anchoring new approaches in the culture

In an article published in the March/April issue of the Harvard Business Review called “Leading Change: Why Transformation Efforts Fail,” Kotter cautions that the process of change requires a “considerable amount of time” and will fail overall without success in each step.

Change Management for Nonprofits

For many organizations, the status quo is no longer a viable option. Nonprofit organizations historically adopting a less formal approach to change may wish to consider a more structured approach such as those outlined above.

Unlike their corporate counterparts, nonprofit organizations generally benefit from a substantial commitment to their mission by employees and other stakeholders. For this reason, it can be argued that structured change management is more important for nonprofits because of the level of emotion by those involved in and affected by change.

Fortunately, a number of change management tools exist to assist organization leaders in creating a change management plan. Consultants specializing in change management offer a variety of services, and organizations may also wish to look into change management software for sophisticated changes such as those in the information technology arena.

The copyright of the article Organizational Change Management for Nonprofits in Non-Profit Management is owned by Molly Schar. Permission to republish Organizational Change Management for Nonprofits in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.