Transformation and Innovation
You are two organizations, one reaching to adulthood and one in infancy. Because they both also exist as ideas in your head, it's hard to keep them separate and treat them in the different manner that they require. An adolescent needs different nurturing than an infant.
The tax business is what makes it possible for you to think forward to the new idea of a network of organizations focused on asset development (or whatever term you eventually agree upon to describe it). But you need to maintain and improve the tax business until the infant asset building movement can stand on its own.
There are two types of thinking and skills that need to exist at this time. One is focused on organizational development, effectiveness and appropriate components of a national infrastructure to support EITC tax preparation. This includes perhaps the design of an eventual exit strategy and the gathering of partners to facilitate that. The other type of thinking has to do with envisioning and experimenting ways of growing the asset building movement and bringing the best ideas into manifestation as services, organizations and networks.
NCTC needs to play a large role now in the efficiency and infrastructure efforts for the EITC tax preparation business. It should play this role and continue this work until you are all satisfied that a large enough percentage of those eligible to receive a refund are receiving it. We recommend that as a primary measure of scale. NCTC may also play a role in developing and maturing the asset building movement, or you may find that you need another national organization to help coordinate those efforts.
Another reason that you are having difficulty thinking about how to move forward is that each of your member organization is different. Your common denominator right now is the EITC tax work you do, and for most of you there is also the desire to move forward in asset building for your customers. The diversity inherent in your membership makes it harder to move forward than if you were a single, command and control organization.
However, you may need to begin to think about yourselves
differently. You're more than just a network. You're an ecosystem of organizations.
For instance, an ant colony is a network. It's a super-organism that can
act in concert because of the connections between its members, but its
members all look the same with a few exceptions. In an ecosystem, the
species are all different, yet they are woven together in a way that makes
the ecosystem stronger and more resilient and able to more easily innovate
at the edges. If you can see yourselves from the proper perspective you'll
discover new ways of interacting that are not borrowed from command-and-control
organizations but from nature. As an ecosystem, you'll discover that you
need to preserve your diversity -- that it is your strength, not your
weakness. You'll resist becoming a monoculture. Like an ecosystem, you'll
learn how to share chemistry, trade nutrients, and wire around damage.
You'll be very resilient -- more so than a command-and-control organization
could ever dream of becoming.
Looking forward, the workshop identified numerous opportunities for NCTC and its members to continue to progress in the development of new strategies, initiatives and projects as part of their shared mission to improve the lives of lower and moderate income families. Possible future projects include development of increased shared infrastructure, training programs, and branding and outreach initiatives.
