Why Nonprofits Should Take More Risks (Even If It Means Failure)

In the for-profit sector, there’s a common phrase: Fail early, fail often. To corporations, it is known that failure and innovation go hand in hand—you’ll never grow or learn if you can’t try and fail. But nonprofit organizations don't often exercise this philosophy.

With limited resources and stringent donor support in a sea of thousands of organizations, and often too-strict parameters for nonprofits, many organizations don’t have the capacity to try new programs, services or models in the same urgency and speed as the for-profit sector.

We can tie this thought back to the words Dan Palotta spoke in his popular TED talk, “The Way We Think About Charity Is Dead Wrong.”