Dodge believes the insights in Susan Kenny Stevens' book Nonprofit Lifecycles are invaluable to those who lead, manage, and govern organizations large and small, new and old.

Susan presents a stage-based approach to organizational development, describing how all organizations go through prescribed and predictable stages, just like human beings do, with predictable challenges and needs. She helps us think about the capacity necessary to support the mission and programs of any organization at the various stages of development.

She helps us see that what looks like a solid line on the lifecycle curve, as an organization moves from idea to the start-up stage to growth to maturity, is really more like a rainbow with separate strands. Our programs might (and usually do) get out ahead of our administrative systems.

Management might be appropriate for a maturing organization while the Board is operating as if it were a start-up. Or vice-versa. The lifecycles approach provides a diagnostic tool to get all areas of organizational life in better alignment with each other, so as to increase effectiveness and allow further appropriate development of the organization.

Nonprofit Lifecycles may be ordered via www.stagewiseenterprises.com or via www.amazon.com.

Chart used with permission of the author.
Copyright © 2001 by Susan Kenny Stevens.
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