The sprint is underway. Time to start your marathon.

Grant applications and some business plan templates have a version of the weak question: “What is your sustainability plan?” What is it about that question that triggers organizations to spin into fuzzy logic, hand-wave about pay-for-service, wishfully forecast
government budgets, or promise magical capacity transfer? It’s not their fault.

Asking the sustainability question implies that the obvious answer is not the correct answer. The obvious and generally true answer is that the work will be sustained by charitable donations, private grants, corporate support, and government grants. Those are respectable, well-established, and successful tactics for non-profits. The question gets interpreted as ‘what will you do when our money runs out?’, or ‘how will you wean yourselves from grants?’ Those are weak questions untethered to strategy, growth, and impact.

The pointed question to answer is: “What activities (scheduled and budgeted) will ensure that you raise needed funds, develop internal capacity, strengthen partnerships, act justly, and foster political support to grow your work?” That’s the marathon – the long incubation, long cultivation, and long reward aspects of your strategy.

You’re already in the short game – putting out fires, reacting to change, hiring staff, and in the frenetic social media news cycle. Your Board and donors/investors keep you in the medium-term game of 12-18 months. The challenge is to seed the long-term investments in your team, your community, your partners, creativity, technology, and justice. When do you start? Now.

Sketch out the roadmap or pathway for those long-term elements. When do you need to act? Have you set aside budget? Is the short game distracting or running contrary to long-arc goals? Who need to become allies and what are the tactics to earn their hearts and minds? Don’t be afraid to ask your investors and Trustees about their own long-term plans and commitments. You might discover ways to align your interests and scan the horizon together to understand what scenarios are unfolding.