Run A Nonprofit Like A Startup To Move Fast And Help Things

By Ryan Seashore

TechCrunch Daily

The nonprofit model is broken.

Unless you’re part of a unicorn nonprofit like Charity: Water then your organization likely has too much overhead, too much bureaucracy, and a lack of focus on impact. Everything feels slow.

But things are beginning to change. Technology, new organizational frameworks, and alternatives to traditional fundraising are allowing new and early-stage nonprofits to consider adopting models more similar to a for-profit startup. The ways of the startup are being taken up by nonprofits — except that we’re not so much about moving fast and breaking things, as we are moving fast and helping them.

Last year I had the good fortune to be part of the first batch of nonprofits to go through Y Combinator. Even before YC, I had subscribed to the principles of the lean startup and consistently tried to apply those methods to my nonprofit, CodeNow. Nevertheless, the YC experience was transformative in terms of how I viewed growth, vision, and hustle at the nonprofit level. I’ve never been pushed harder and accomplished more in such a short period of time.

From my time at YC I’ve picked up a number of lessons that I think are worth sharing and important to think about if you’re leading, or working for, a nonprofit.

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