Grow With the Flow

Knowledge management also is a useful concept in nonprofit fundraising, where managers sometimes face messy situations of a different sort.

“What do you do if you know that a donor is doing something unethical?” Ross asks. “How do you handle a donor who expresses racist views?”

You handle some of those problems in advance, he reiterates, by creating a framework that allows your managers to deal with unforeseen developments. You teach them the importance of curiosity, belief, flexibility, creativity and innovation. And you remind them that organizations with rigid mindsets are likely to be “blindsided.”