400 | What 400 Episodes Taught Me About Changing the World with Paul Zelizer

So the first thing that has come through over and over and over again is that financial sustainability needs to be part of the mission.

Revenue and profit and financial discipline aren't separate from the impact.

As a matter of fact, a lot of folks, I've noticed a pattern who lead with impact but don't really see how to sync up their impact with some sort of financial sustainability and a business model that works.

They don't tend to stick around.

It's really important to be clear-eyed and to have people on your team, if you have that background, great, if not, folks on your team that can really help you learn how to sustain a mission-driven company with a real grounded and continuing evolving business model.

A strong mission can't overcome weak operations or an unsustainable business model.

And I've seen that over and over and over and over again in the past 20 years.

What I've seen is that financial stability helps organizations retain good people and build trust with the communities they serve, make their work better over time, and survive difficult periods.

An example of a difficult period is that around the world, especially here in the U.S., we've seen real kind of pullback.

of investments in renewable energy, a lot of renewable energy technologies in the federal government, which has historically was investing in renewable energy and kind of seeing it go up year over year for many years, pulled back in the past few years as a result of a different pandemic.

you know, trajectory and different leadership, we've seen a real pullback.

And the companies that, you know, were dependent on things like tax credits and, you know, big federal grants, many of them have struggled and some of them didn't survive.

Whereas companies that have been thinking about financial stability and sustainability, they might have had to slow down or pivot or lean into slightly nuanced directions, but they were able to navigate those changes and the turbulence in a way that the ones who were not paying attention didn't have sustainability baked into their business model.

Those folks have really struggled, and that's just one example of many.

So the first thing that has come through over and over and over again is that financial sustainability needs to be part of the mission.

Revenue and profit and financial discipline aren't separate from the impact.

As a matter of fact, a lot of folks, I've noticed a pattern who lead with impact but don't really see how to sync up their impact with some sort of financial sustainability and a business model that works.

They don't tend to stick around.

It's really important to be clear-eyed and to have people on your team, if you have that background, great, if not, folks on your team that can really help you learn how to sustain a mission-driven company with a real grounded and continuing evolving business model.

A strong mission can't overcome weak operations or an unsustainable business model.

And I've seen that over and over and over and over again in the past 20 years.

What I've seen is that financial stability helps organizations retain good people and build trust with the communities they serve, make their work better over time, and survive difficult periods.

An example of a difficult period is that around the world, especially here in the U.S., we've seen real kind of pullback.

of investments in renewable energy, a lot of renewable energy technologies in the federal government, which has historically was investing in renewable energy and kind of seeing it go up year over year for many years, pulled back in the past few years as a result of a different pandemic.

you know, trajectory and different leadership, we've seen a real pullback.

And the companies that, you know, were dependent on things like tax credits and, you know, big federal grants, many of them have struggled and some of them didn't survive.

Whereas companies that have been thinking about financial stability and sustainability, they might have had to slow down or pivot or lean into slightly nuanced directions, but they were able to navigate those changes and the turbulence in a way that the ones who were not paying attention didn't have sustainability baked into their business model.

Those folks have really struggled, and that's just one example of many.