The Real Cost of Having a Scarcity Mindset
It is a question we have all been asked at least once. An inquiry designed to awaken the dreamer inside and push you to think outside of the box. The question is big and consequential, often posed during team meetings or maybe as a strategic planning prompt. When asked, you’re told no response is off limits, which manages to inspire and overwhelm at the same time. The bigger your idea, the better.
What would you do if your nonprofit had unlimited resources?
This unassuming question actually assumes a lot. It assumes we can envision a world where nonprofit pay is competitive, where infrastructure is solid, and where public skepticism about our operations ceases to exist.
But scraping by and being the underdog is the only refrain many nonprofits have ever known. Scarcity and ‘lack’ have been as central in our nonprofit experiences as the missions we signed on to serve.
When we leap outside the box to the world where resources are abundant, we do so with earnest hopes and sincere hearts. But imagining a world where our nonprofit’s mission can thrive uninterrupted is quite the jump, right? The terrain is unfamiliar and uncharted. From under-resourced to over-resourced. From scarce to abundant.
Envisioning an abundant and thriving future illuminates the goalpost but I would venture that we are missing a step. It takes more than a belief in abundance to redistribute wealth. The onus does not fall to nonprofit agencies alone to imagine a future without low pay and subpar working conditions. The inequity is systemic and it is misleading to suggest that the obstacles facing the sector can be overcome through gumption and optimism.
The scarcity mindset that has gripped many nonprofit organizations is not without cause. If nonprofits are to move beyond a scarcity mindset, we should reckon with how we got here in the first place.
Full article available on Community Centric Fundraising: https://communitycentricfundraising.org/2021/07/12/the-real-cost-of-having-a-scarcity-mindset