Unlocking Nonprofit Success with Miriam Dicks

This week on Nonprofit Connect, host Matt Barnes sat down with Miriam Dicks, the Founder and CEO of 180 Management Group, to discuss her expertise in improving organizational operations and offer insights into the challenges faced by nonprofits.

180 Management Group is an operations consulting firm specializing in operational strategy and design for nonprofit organizations. Miriam is a trusted, respected, and results-driven executive with over 17 years of experience transforming products and processes to achieve optimal operational performance.

Scope Creep – What it is, and How to Avoid it

There’s always a driving force behind a nonprofit—a mission, a goal, or a philosophy. However, if the nonprofit starts to grow, the driving force behind it can easily fall by the wayside. As more and more opportunities present themselves, an organization can quickly get side-tracked, also known as “scope creep.” Miriam emphasizes the need to stay true to the original mission, explaining:

“There's this idea that you could have a singular vision or mission that you're trying to accomplish, but because you see all these different opportunities, you start widening your scope, and then you find that you're way out there as opposed to what you were supposed to be doing initially.”

Miriam cites the “wrap-around” services, which can complement a core mission. However, if too many are included, then, in Miriam’s words, “the next thing you know, you have more wrap-around than you do core!”

Nonprofits can diversify while also staying true to the core idea. Miriam highlights the need for nonprofits to think more like for-profit organizations and diversify funding sources, also mentioning the importance of partnerships and alignment to avoid duplicate services and the need to consider multiple revenue streams from the start. These avenues should all be pursued without losing sight of why the nonprofit was started in the first place. 

Miriam’s advice is simple: never lose sight of the mission.

Listen to the Full Episode!

Matt and Miriam dove into a lot on nonprofit growth and operational efficiency, so be sure to listen to Nonprofit Connect wherever you get your podcasts!