The following information was summarized from this source: Hildy Gottlieb. Organizational Sustainability: It’s About More than Just “The Money”, www.help4nonprofits.com

In Ohio, nonprofit boards have an additional responsibility not legislated in many other states – to represent the communities they serve. So the bottom line question is what matters more – whether or not your organization survives, or whether or not the community is a better place? Often the focus on having enough money gets in the way of this bigger issue of why nonprofits exist.  According to Hildy Gottlieb, the definition of sustainability is as follows:

Sustainability is your organization’s assurance to the community that they will always be able to count on your work to make life better for them. It is about reliability and dependability for the services they count on and the change they want to see.

To change the way your nonprofit looks at sustainability, Gottlieb suggests these four steps:

1.       Refocus on the community, not your organization. What benefits do you provide; what does the community see you accomplishing? This focus supports the need to collaborate with other organizations to get the work done and strengthen the community.

2.       Share resources. Use untapped excess capacity, partner with other providers of similar services to use resources more efficiently and effectively

3.       Let your assets create your revenue stream. To do this you need to analyze what the organization does and determine how those assets might generate more revenue. This includes the basic mission work of the organization, the people connected to the organization in any way, the facilities and other equipment you own or have access to, the community assets you don’t own but have access to. You then build on those assets – the stronger your base, the stronger the mission can be, and the more the organization can accomplish.

Engage the community in your issue. Identify the people already touched in any way through the services or by the board and then see them as more than donors or stakeholders and develop caring and concern for your mission.