3 Lessons Learned from Nonprofit Fails

“Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.”

There’s nothing quite like a healthy dose of reality every now and again. Just weeks after Hands On Atlanta received the biggest gift in our 30 history, I was quickly dealt a KO punch that still stings to this day.

All was good. And honestly, I was riding that high of an all-time win, so I decided to double down by scheduling a meeting with one of the most influential foundations in Atlanta. I walked into the pitch overconfident and admittedly, ill-prepared. After a pretty brutal conversation, I walked out with a “No” for the record books and big dent in my ego. They were blunt, honest and to the point…“We don’t believe in your strategy and aren’t interested in funding your work.” Not to humblebrag or anything, but this was my biggest fail as CEO of Hands On Atlanta to date. Go me.

So, why am I telling you about my big fail? As a nonprofit and community leader, I’m not supposed to admit when I fail. It’s my job to share stories of success, so that you become inspired by our work and continue to support our efforts, right? But let’s be honest.  The truth is, nonprofit leaders (I more than most) fail all the time.  Grant requests are denied; evaluation reports show poor results; team diversity doesn’t reflect the community we serve; meetings go sideways.  And, that’s just the start.

We don’t ever talk about failure. But I think we should.

I’m a firm believer that failure is our best teacher. That’s why I founded FuckUp Nights Atlanta, an event where we ask leaders from all sectors to do the bold and brave thing, and talk about their biggest failure. If we’re going to move the needle on some of Atlanta’s most intractable problems, we have to share our failures. More importantly, we have to learn from them.

My experience coaching leaders through their FuckUp Nights talk, and as CEO of a lean nonprofit has taught me 3 things about failure: 

First, things are often more complex than they appear - Be wary of leaders who throw stones. I have learned the hard way that leading is… well, it’s hard. Start at a place of humility.

Second, be careful of hidden assumptions.  Most failures happen because we bring bias and assumptions into our work, which often undermine our best intentions.

Third, trust and communication are paramount.  My favorite quote is from Mike Tyson (yes…that Mike Tyson) who said it best, “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.” The question isn’t “if” things will go sideways, it is just a matter of “when”.  And when they do, your ability to pivot and preserver has everything to do with trust and communication. 

I could go on to share stories and examples about volunteer projects that have gone off the rails, fundraising events that didn’t raise any money, or fails (large and small) in just about every aspect of our work to make Atlanta the most civically engaged and equitable community in the world. The truth is, I’d love to learn from your fails. So, take a deep breath and get ready. Add your biggest failure and what you learned from it in the comments below. 

Oh, and before I forget, if you’re in Atlanta and want to hear more stories of failure, join the next F*ckUp Nights Atlanta event on March 19th. You’ll hear from an entrepreneur turned community leader, a CEO with a side hustle as a UGA adjunct professor, an Airforce veteran running a consulting firm, and a chief marketer with a passion for people.

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This post was inspired by a talk I gave at Emory University for a Philanthropy Labs course led by  Brian Goebel and Wes Longhofer.  Students in their class are given the opportunity to invest $50K in the Atlanta community over the course of a semester.