Recently, I received an email from my financial advisor, something about increasing my cover for severe illness. What do you think I did? Well, of course, I deleted the email! For the same reasons, anyone else would have done the same:

• I don’t want to think about something horrible happening that would mean I’d need the insurance cover,
• I don’t have any ‘spare’ money to put aside for it, and
• I don’t want to have to deal with the admin of it all

This is very much the same attitude that most NPO leaders have when you start talking about putting together a ‘doomsday scenario’ for the unlikely event that their organisation needs to close. They stick their heads in the sand like an ostrich and ignore you!

Most organisations cannot afford to responsibly downsize or restructure and must limp along hoping things will change. And few, if any, have a ‘what-if’ strategy in place.

Calculate the costs. What is the legal retrenchment package on a staff member of over 20 years? Being blind-sided can cripple an organisation.

Knowing what retrenchment and leave pay provisions you will need should the worst come to pass means that you can start creatively raising the money and holding it in reserve now. This is a sound way to build sustainability and flexibility into your organisational strategy, and especially important in today’s economic climate.

Do you have enough in reserve to make the hard choices when you need to pivot to keep the doors open?