Roots Don’t Ask the Rock to Move

This past weekend, my wife and I spent a quick weekend celebrating our 17^th wedding anniversary hiking in the Blue Mountains.

And somewhere between “wow, this is beautiful” and “holy crap, I need to acknowledge that I have knees are staging a full-scale revolt against any additional elevation because I live in North Dakota where we don’t have hills, let alone mountains,” I stopped dead in my tracks.

There was a tree - a legit, full-grown, thriving tree - with its roots wrapped entirely around a massive boulder.

Not beside it. Not avoiding it. Around it.

The roots had found every crack, every edge, every inch of possibility, and just kept going.

The rock didn’t move. The tree didn’t die. It just figured out another way.

I stood there longer than I probably should have.

The goal of a little mini-getaway was not to think about work, so I snapped a picture.

My wife may or may not have had concerns about a grown man seemingly having an existential crisis on a steep incline.

She was particularly patient and I love her for that.

But here’s what I couldn’t stop thinking about:

That tree is every nonprofit fundraiser I’ve ever met.

I’ve been writing these distress signals for a few weeks now. Boards that only eat the chicken. Solo shops wearing 10,000 hats. Annual appeals stuck in 2019. EDs hiding behind grants. Events that lose money. Donors treated like a generic blob.

Every one of those has been about a specific tactical fire and something you can do about it this week.

This one ended up being a bit different.

This one is for the fundraiser who’s done all the right things - or is desperately trying to - and the rock is still there.

The donor who left.

The board that won’t engage.

The economy that keeps throwing punches.

The leadership transition that turned everything sideways.

The burnout that sits in your chest every Monday morning (or Sunday night as you stare into the abyss that is your bedroom ceiling wondering what you’re doing with your life or regretting having that meeting at 8:00 am and you hoping that a snow storm in May will force it to be cancelled because explaining that “yellow” on the budget spreadsheet doesn’t mean you are going to close the organization but no one on your board understands that and you can’t keep it together explaining that for the 1000^th time.)

Sometimes the MAYDAY isn’t a problem to solve.

It’s a weight to acknowledge.

So before I give you your three action steps (you know I’m going to give you three action steps, I literally cannot help myself and it’s now become my bit here, HA!), let me say something first:

You are still here. That matters more than you think.

We talk about resilience in our sector like it’s some big dramatic survival moment. Like resilience is a simply giving a rehearsed Braveheart-esque speech before a battle. Or a championship game comeback.

Or the Rocky 4 training montage where our boxing hero has to use logs and rocks and helps local villagers with tipped over horse carts to get into shape while Ivan Drago gets to be injected with steroids and use super fancy Communist technology in pursuit for revenge of Apollo Creed while inspirational music from Vince DiCola plays.

It’s not.

Resilience is what happens every single Tuesday when you show up, check your donor database, make your calls, write your thank-you notes, and keep moving forward - even when the rock is right there in front of you.

You don’t ask the rock to move. You grow around it.

The grant got denied? You find another path.

Your biggest event got rained out? You pivot.

The economy is making donors nervous? You go deeper into the relationships that already exist.

Your ED left and everything feels wobbly? You hold steady because you’ve built relationships anchored to the mission, not to one person.

That’s not sorcery. That’s you showing up on a Tuesday.

Look at this photo.

Moss growing over a rock. Roots pushing through underneath. Life, like Dr. Ian Malcom so brilliantly insinuated, finding a way to exist in a place that looks inhospitable.  

Nobody told those roots it was OK to grow there. Nobody gave them a strategic plan or a board resolution.

They just grew.

Because that’s what roots do.

Your nonprofit was not supposed to survive the last five years on paper.

Most of you are operating on a budget that would make a for-profit marketing team weep, convincing strangers to give their hard-earned money to solve problems they may never personally experience, for people they may never meet, through an organization they only partially understand.

That’s not normal.

That’s extraordinary.

And you’re doing it.

So What Do You Actually Do When the Rock Won’t Move?

Here are three things you can do this week - not to remove the rock, because you can’t always do that - but to make sure your roots are strong enough to grow around it.

1.    Name the Rock Out Loud

This sounds simple. It’s not.

Most nonprofit professionals are carrying something heavy right now that they haven’t said out loud to anyone.

Not to their board. Not to their ED. Not to their team.

Sometimes not even to themselves.

Maybe it’s: “I’m terrified that if this grant doesn’t come through, we can’t make payroll in September.”

Maybe it’s: “Our biggest donor hasn’t returned my call in three months and I don’t know why.”

Maybe it’s: “I don’t know if I can do this for another year.”

You can’t navigate around a rock you won’t look at.

Write it down. Say it to a colleague. Say it to a mentor. Say it to a therapist. Say it to me - I’m serious, reply to this email and just tell me what your rock is right now. No judgment. No sales pitch. Just one human hearing another human say the hard thing.

Because here’s what happens when you name it: it gets smaller. 

Not gone. Smaller. Manageable. Navigate-able.

The rock doesn’t shrink, but your fear of it does. And fear is usually the thing that keeps you stuck - not the rock itself.

2.    Find the Crack (Oh, There’s Always a Crack)

Those roots in the along this hiking path didn’t power through solid granite. They found the cracks. The tiny seams where soil had gathered. The edges where water had worn a path. The spots where the rock wasn’t as solid as it looked.

Your rock has cracks too.

The board that won’t engage? There’s one member who’s shown a spark of interest. That’s the crack. Start there. Coffee. One conversation.

The donor file that feels stale? There’s a mid-level donor who bumped up their gift last year and nobody noticed. That’s the crack. Call them. Thank them. Learn their story.

The event that’s draining your life force? There’s a version of it that’s smaller, simpler, and actually works. That’s the crack. Niche down and reap the rewards.

The economy being terrifying? There are donors in your community who are still giving - but they’re giving to the organizations that make them feel like partners, not transactions. That’s the crack. Go deeper with the people who are already in.

You don’t need the whole rock to move. You need one crack. 

Find it. Grow into it. The rest will follow.

3.    Remember: The Rock Is Why Your Roots Are Strong

This is the part that’s going to sound like I’ve turned into one of those inspirational speakers who just have slides of random quotes they’ve stolen from other people and you jot it down in your notebook and applaud as if it was curated from a voice up above, but really hijacked from a random chapter of a book on Stoicism, and I apologize in advance.

But I need you to hear it.

Those trees on that mountain didn’t grow strong despite the rocks. They grew strong because of them.

The resistance made the roots go deeper.

It forced them to spread wider. It made the tree more stable, more anchored, more resilient than any tree growing in easy soil with no obstacles in its way.

You are LITERALLY the same way.

The grant that got denied taught you to diversify your revenue. The donor who left taught you to build a broader base. The leadership transition taught you to anchor relationships to mission, not personality. The event that flopped taught you what actually raises money and what just looks pretty.

Every rock you’ve navigated has made your roots stronger.

And you’re still here - still growing, still showing up, still fighting for a mission that matters - because you figured out how to grow around things that would have killed a weaker organization.

That’s not luck. That’s resilience. And it’s earned.

The nonprofit sector is hard right now. I’m not going to pretend it’s not.

Federal funding uncertainty. Economic anxiety. Donor fatigue. Staff burnout. Board apathy.

The rocks are big and they are many and some days it feels like the path is more rock than soil.

But I’ve been doing this for nearly two decades, and here’s what I know: the organizations that survive - the ones that don’t just survive but actually thrive on the other side - are the ones that stop staring at the rock and start looking for the crack.

They don’t wait for conditions to be perfect.

They don’t wait for the economy to cooperate.

They don’t wait for a board that magically “gets it.”

They grow. Right now. With what they have. Around whatever’s in the way.

Roots don’t ask the rock to move.

And neither do you.

OK, Your Turn!

This one’s personal. Hit reply, send me a DM, find me on a hiking trail somewhere (I will NOT be on the main drag in Pigeon Forge, it’s horrifying) - I don’t care. Tell me:

What’s your rock right now? The thing you’ve been carrying that you haven’t said out loud yet?

Maybe you’ve already found the crack and started growing through it. Tell me that story - I’ll share it (with permission) because someone reading this needs to hear that it’s possible.

Maybe you’re staring at the rock right now and you don’t even know where to start. That’s OK. Name it. That’s step one. I’m right here.

Send me your answer: patrick@dogoodbetterconsulting.com or just reply with INFO if you want to talk about whatever rock your organization is navigating right now.

And one more thing: you don’t have to navigate around the rocks alone. That’s the whole point of what we’re building with Do Good YOUniversity - a community of fundraisers who get it, who’ve been where you are, and who can help you find the crack when you can’t see it yourself. Early access is opening soon. Reply with EARLY ACCESS if you want to be first in.

Together, we’ve freaking got this.

-Patrick

P.S. This is one of a series of MAYDAY Distress Signals - real problems I hear from nonprofit pros every single week. This one was a little different. Sometimes the distress signal isn’t a problem to solve. It’s a reminder that you’re not alone. More coming soon.