I don’t know exactly when 2020 nostalgia will kick in, but I’m guessing it’ll take a while. It’s tough to get a handle on just how many things went wrong over the past 12 months Yet here we all are. Several people have asked me over the past month what I think silver linings may be. So, let’s take a look, with 2020 hindsight.
The Art of Reimagining was Reimagined
It’s easy to talk about the idea of envisioning new ways to do our work, alternate models for collaboration and novel deployments of technology. In the past year we all not only envisioned it, we did it. Many of us have repositioned ourselves professionally and personally. We figured out new protocols for making stuff happen. In many cases it’s worked out just fine. In more than a few, we’ve made things better. The process of learning may be more valuable than what we’ve learned.
I’ve worked with many nonprofits on financial strategy. In the past year I’ve found clients and training participants to be creative and open to new possibilities as never before. Making major changes has been a necessity and, in many cases, resulted in better strategies for years to come. This bodes well as we continue to wrestle with the economic effects of the pandemic.
Photo by Karim Manjra on Unsplash
Liberalism Met Conservatism
Liberalism is defined as “a political and moral philosophy based on liberty, consent of the governed and equality before the law.” Conservatism is defined as “a political and social philosophy promoting traditional institutions in the context of culture and civilization.” For years, these two ideologies were seen as opposites. In 2020, perhaps for the first time in 75 years, they aligned in many ways.
Consider how we depended on institutions like government, public health agencies, hospitals, the scientific establishment and big industries in order to serve the common good, bring people together around common interests and promote equal protection in a very unequal society. When institutions (for example the executive branch of the U.S. government) failed, liberals and real conservatives came together to restore order. Science came under attack, and those attacks failed—science will lead the recovery. At the same time, the fight for racial justice continued to go mainstream. For the first time in my lifetime, the idea of systemic racism may be broadly understood as a core problem that must be corrected That’s about 400 years too late, but progress is progress. (One 2020 image that will stay with me is my rural, mostly White, and fairly conservative town’s huge Black Lives Matter protests during a pandemic.)
This raises a glimmer of hope that we might be able to attack the climate crisis and other challenges together in the years ahead.
“We” Defeated vs. “I”
Ok, this was a wish more than a reality. In truth “I” did very well in 2020.
In a new book called The Upswing, Shaylyn Garret and Robert Putnam uncovered something surprising. They asked the question, “Why Did Racial Progress Stall in America?” In their research they learned that civil and voting rights legislation of the 1960s was not the start of a trend toward more collectivism, but rather a result—and culmination—of the same. Since then U.S. culture has steadily moved away from collectivism and back toward individualism. It’s counter to the popular narrative. We experienced hyper-individualism in a big way over the past four years, for example the still-ongoing fights over mask mandates; asking for even a minimal new commitment to helping the larger group is somehow a violation of rights.
This is perhaps the biggest difference between U.S. culture and those of otherwise similar countries like Canada.
It’s also interesting to note that the explosion of the nonprofit sector, which is all about “we” initiatives, coincided with the 50-year rise of “I”. What an odd correlation! I’m guessing nonprofits didn’t cause the collectivist trend to reverse, but clearly we haven’t neutralized it.
The authors suggest that a new upswing is possible, but to succeed it must be genuinely inclusive. Is it possible those seeds have been planted and we don’t realize it yet? Could the end of this pandemic, which will require a big “we” effort this year, feed a shift? And does that suggest good years ahead for nonprofits working on solutions to what really ails us? Let’s hope.
Resilience was a Vague Concept, but Now We Live It
Most of us, in the U.S. and Canada, have had pretty good lives. History books tell us about previous generations that dealt with war, famine and other catastrophes. We’re living through a crisis that came without warning. We’re not just surviving, we’re adapting. This process will prepare us for what lies ahead.
In nonprofit management, resilience is something we strive for as organizations try to prepare for changes. Resilience has many dimensions, ranging from financial position to risk management and staff dynamics. There’s an intangible personal element that many nonprofit leaders have nurtured and grown. This is why I predict many nonprofits will emerge stronger within a year or two of the pandemic’s demise.
So let’s give 2020 it’s due. We won’t miss it, but we may want to thank it later.