2020 has been a year filled with unprecedented challenges—a global pandemic, racial reckoning, deepening climate crisis, and more. And while 2020 comes to a close, we know that these will not be the last crises we will face. Social entrepreneurs exist to disrupt systems and do so while operating in some of the most challenging geographies and sectors around the world. So, in Scaling Pathways’ Scaling Through Mass Disruption series, we asked leaders of some of the world’s most successful social enterprises to share their advice on how best to navigate crisis. These tips have helped them survive the challenges of 2020 and can be used by all seeking social change to prepare for disruptions that are sure to come.
Be agile in the face of crisis by decentralizing decision-making.
“If everything flows up to the leadership it is going to be too slow. We’re in 8 countries—the leadership team cannot keep track of that and be wise to everything,” explained Ella Gudwin, CEO of VisionSpring, as she discussed how she relies upon teams on the ground to make timely and effective decisions adapted to their context. To enable this decentralized decision-making, VisionSpring’s leadership team laid out clear budgetary and programmatic boundaries—including standards for what is ‘in-bounds’ and what is ‘out of bounds’—which helped field teams respond rapidly and consistently.
Activate real-time learning across teams—and keep it simple.
CAMFED CEO Lucy Lake’s team operates across multiple countries which were experiencing different phases of the pandemic and lockdown at any one time. Lake’s team needed to find ways to facilitate real-time learning between country teams without overburdening the stretched staff. So, her team created a simple yet effective solution—a shared Google Doc that was incorporated into regular business decision-making. Using this tool, teams documented their response efforts and lessons learned; Lake and leaders from each of these teams then convened regular meetings to go through the document together to capture learnings and improve the organization’s overall response.
Don’t wait to cut costs.
“I’ll actually give advice that one of my mentors gave me,” shared Gregory Rockson, Co-Founder and CEO of mPharma. “He said, ‘Greg, imagine you are about to run out of money in a month’s time. What decisions do you make today to extend that runway? Do it.’ So, my advice, if you are thinking about financial sustainability, is don’t wait until it gets to the last minute. Instead, make those decisions right now. It may be hard right now, but you’ll be glad you did it now.” Many of the enterprises were thinking about financial sustainability and talked about reassessing cash flows, running projections with very conservative revenue estimates, cutting or slowing costs where possible, and prioritizing programs that would lead to the most value and impact.
Transparently communicate with key stakeholders.
In the midst of crisis, Pratham CEO Rukhmini Banerji admits to her staff that she may not have the answers, but she is open to hear any questions they may have. She recommends “Being open just like you’d be with your family to say, OK, we are on hard times. What is it we can do together?” Similarly, Daniel Yu, CEO of Sokowatch talked about communicating transparently with funders. Yu had conversations with board members every week and sent regular updates. He remarks, “The last place you want to be when you’re asking investors for help is to be calling somebody up who you haven’t talked to in six months. Because if you come up with a plan together and you work on it—and maybe it doesn’t go quite as well as expected, at least there is some level of shared ownership. But if it’s something that you just decided to figure out on your own and it doesn’t work out—and at the end of that you try to come back and ask for help, those conversations are going to be a lot more difficult.”
Collaborate! But focus on the areas where you can add unique value.
Asif Akram, Living Goods CTO, noted that when communities are facing a shared crisis (like Ebola or COVID-19) there is an appetite for collaboration and often opportunities to engage new partners—but each partner needs to be thoughtful about how it contributes. Akram emphasized the importance of contributing “where you can really make an impact” and reflected, “Every organization has their own niche skillset. They should know where they can contribute and how much they can contribute. The temptation to do more than what they can do is a recipe for disaster.” James Nardella, Chief Program Officer of Last Mile Health, echoed the same sentiment: “It’s simple: just fight through focusing. We’re sticking to our mission. We’re sticking to our core competency.”
Lean into your values.
“We leaned into our values pretty hard when we started this response,” says VisionSpring’s Gudwin. Driven by its “constantly adapt and relentlessly improve” value, VisionSpring quickly launched a COVID19 taskforce to help refocus teams and enable them to make timely decisions. Building on its “learn together” value, it initiated a major peer-to-peer training effort across the organization on topics to help the organization come out of the crisis even stronger. Similarly, Lebo Nke, Chief Culture Officer at Harambee described how Harambee’s organizational values, including those of having a “can-do” attitude and willingness to experiment, have helped the team to lean into pivots. “I like to describe our values as our immune system—the stuff that you don’t really see and can’t touch, but you know that it is such a big determinant of your health. It is in the moments of crisis that you can lean into this healthy system that can absorb shocks,” concluded Nke.
Stay true to your word and follow-through on your commitments.
mPharma’s Rockson reflects that, “in a moment of crisis, people want to be with others who are dependable and reliable.” Staying true to its word and following through on its commitments—even when those have been difficult—has made mPharma an attractive and reliable partner. As Rockson remarked, his company is one that people ‘pick up the phone for,’ which is critical because, “if there is one thing that got us through this [crisis] it is the power of partnerships”.
Be ready to harness the moment. Crisis can also offer opportunity. Harambee’s Surianarain remarked, “Harness the moment, because rarely do you see your agenda item, be it food security, inequality, or youth unemployment, be forced to the table at the forefront [of government and partner agendas].” She encouraged others to identify those windows of opportunity “while you have the attention and likelihood of budgetary allocation from policymakers and government alike aligned in the same direction” as you are hoping to shift the systems that you seek to change.
Find out more about these organizations, additional topics, and other advice and insights on navigating crisis by checking out the Scaling Through Mass Disruption interviews, and reading other write-ups such as Emerging Stronger From a Crisis published in SSIR.
Scaling Pathways is a partnership between the Skoll Foundation, USAID, Mercy Corps Ventures, and CASE at Duke to curate and share scaling insights from the world’s leading social entrepreneurs.
