Spackle

Realizing purpose requires prep

When I was first out on my own after college, I had big ideas about decorating my apartment. Making it mine.

For some reason, I romanticized the notion of paint.

That’s right. Interior latex wall paint. Changing the color of a wall seemed to me the height of style—and proof that I could personally make a difference. I had agency to improve things.

I had never painted a wall before. My parents weren’t handy and my father always seemed to have a friend of a friend who would do this kind of thing for us when we kids were at school. So it’s fair to say that not only did I know nothing about painting a wall, but I had never even been around it to see it done.

But still—the thought of it. Going to the hardware store, choosing a great color, walking out proudly with my gallon of paint, grasping that semi-circle metal handle and those painter popsicle sticks. The possibilities!

And then, the magic. The pride. The independence. The satisfaction of knowing that I myself could do this one thing all on my own that would profoundly improve my world. I’d come home from the hardware store, put on that past-its-prime rock concert t-shirt, grab a brush and make it happen. It still gets me giddy thinking about it.

Well, it only takes one try to realize that applying the paint to the wall is the least of it.

Reality sets in quickly. Laying tarp. Cleaning the wall. Protecting the trim and ceiling with painters tape. Realizing I hadn’t even thought about painting the trim. Borrowing a ladder to reach the ceiling. Unscrewing all the outlet and switch covers. Going back to the hardware store to purchase primer—something I had never heard of before. Removing all the hooks and nails only to realize I needed…

Spackle.

Turns out the whole project hinges on your ability to apply spackle to fill holes and cracks—and then sand it down after it dries to create a smooth surface. And you can’t spackle with the plastic butter knife from last night’s take-out.

You came to change the color of the room by painting it. And now an extensive process has sprung up around it.

If this were a nonprofit, “painting the wall” would be your theory of change. Your vision is a living space more to your taste. Your point of view is that color matters and therefore your plan—your activity— is to paint. It’s all simple enough until you have to spackle.

The resources (other than the paint) and activities that support the simple act of painting the wall are rarely considered when you are starting out. And worse, after all is said and done, they are rarely acknowledged when the work is complete. When people come into your freshly-painted living room, they exclaim, “wow, what a great color.” No one ever says, “gee, did you do all the spackling yourself? I can hardly see a crack.”

And so it is with nonprofit management.

You are here to change the world—to do something important and meaningful that will create untold impact. But in the course of building that idea into a nonprofit business, you soon realize that the thing you want to do is just one part of the process. It’s probably the program or service you want to provide.

It’s the wall-painting part.

The measuring, the prep, the tape, the climbing, the tarp, the priming, the spackling—that’s the part that supports the painting. That’s the business that supports the program. That’s the part that you—or some in your organization—must also do if you really want to change the color of the walls, aka, start that life-changing program.

Once you get the hang of it, spackling isn’t so bad. Or maybe it’s not for you and you can get someone else to do it for you. The important thing is that it gets done.

Spackle is the unglamorous work that makes the painting possible. In nonprofits, that’s your business operations. Administrative Work. Human Resources. Marketing. Finance. Community Engagement. Board and Governance. Fundraising and Development. You can’t do the program work if those other pieces aren’t in place.

That’s why we created the 6+4 System of Nonprofit Management. It lays out all the parts of the process you need to do if you want to change the world.

I was with a client yesterday who bemoaned, “I started this work to have impact, not to run payroll.” And he meant no disrespect to his small team who absolutely deserve to be compensated for their work. He was simply burnt out, struggling to run a business in order to support the program that meant the world to him. But his time spent on the business left little time for direct service work. He just wanted to paint the wall, but was spending all his time creating the environment for others to do the painting.

It’s a common problem that so many nonprofit founders find themselves in. It’s also solvable. He and I are working through the 6+4 System together to document all the business elements so that he can hire, train, and delegate some of that work to others.

Next week, we’ll be launching something special. A practical tool for implementing the 6+4 System in your nonprofit. A tool to help you manage the business around the program that means so much not just to you, but to those you serve.

We can’t promise it comes with a putty knife, but we can promise it will make the painting a whole lot easier.