The nonprofits and social enterprises that emerge from the other side of this global pandemic will not be the same ones that entered it. Some, sadly, will close their doors permanently, and many of the ones that remain operational will need to transform their own organizational structure and how they work swiftly and dramatically.
At Educate!, we have tried our best to rise to the moment we find ourselves in and figure out how to serve youth again as quickly as possible. We don’t think anyone can say they know how to navigate this crisis which redefines “unprecedented.” We certainly can’t — we’re still learning major new things every day. But we’re taking steps to find our way forward day by day, and we’re sharing here the two key frames that have guided us so far: 1) swiftly and fully accepting the reality that exists now, and 2) focusing not just on “defense” but also “offense” — and forming teams accordingly. We hope that by using these frames, our enterprise can excel at both hunkering down to survive the short term and at proactively experimenting and taking risks, ultimately setting ourselves up to fulfill our purpose more powerfully than ever.