“Our organizations can be built to harness the full potential of ourselves. They can be built with an understanding that each of us is sometimes a visionary, sometimes an accountant, sometimes a writer, and sometimes something that can’t even be described. Organizations can be built with an understanding that we each hold multiple intersectional identities that give us powerful and unique insights that we can express and operationalize in any variety of ways.” — Simon Mont, Sustainable Economies Law Center

In philanthropy, we don’t often think about organizational structure as a critical part of meeting our mission, living into our values, and ensuring our staff harness their full potential. The truth is structure matters. How you do your work is equally as important as the work itself.

One of the many functions of the nonprofit industrial complex is to recreate the corporate model in ways that don’t allow for collective decision-making and accountability. This keeps our work siloed by way of ‘expertise’ or departments — and makes it difficult to adapt to changing conditions. This is not to say that experts don’t matter or that focused department work is always harmful. But, when the voices of those who are directly impacted are left out of decision-making processes, the organization suffers.

The staff in our organizations often have capabilities beyond what’s in their job description. They’ve developed skills during different times in their careers or have years of lived experience and practice. Tapping into these skills and expertise ultimately makes our work better. Just as the richness of a harmony multiplies with each extra note, our work is strengthened by multiple, differing voices. Building a structure that honors those voices, and moves the work forward, while building a strong culture of mutual support and accountability is the fun part.

Resist as a Worker Self-Directed Nonprofit

In January of 2018, the Resist Board unanimously approved a board resolution that helped us forge our path towards worker self-direction. The board resolution legally allowed us to implement a new dynamic organizational structure, one that moves us closer to our vision and ensures we’re living into our values. In this model, we honor the experiences and gifts offered by the staff collective members and are in greater alignment with the work happening on the ground. The level of trust and support afforded to us by our Board emboldens us to continue pushing the organization towards more transformative work.