Fortune Favours The Brave: The case for better endings

In the first of a series of three blogs, the team behind Stewarding Loss (Louise Armstrong, Cassie Robinson and Iona Lawrence) share their vision for a civil society that embraces better endings.

Civil society is trapped in a game. This is a game in which nonprofit leaders, funders and stakeholders fuelled by deep passion, belief and hope, have been led to believe that the brave, bold, ambitious thing is to start something new, to chart uncharted waters, to grow it relentlessly and to survive at all costs.

This is a game in which none of the incentives are in place within or outside of us to reflect or be honest about what isn’t working, or what has served its purpose and now needs to move aside. And resources and power move in a way that underpin and drive this growth at all costs agenda.

What if it was “business as usual” to ask ourselves what might need to end in our organisations if we are to have the impact we long for? What if we expected ourselves to attend to endings better in order to release the energy, resource and passion for the next chapter of change, renewal and impact?

This matters now more than ever as communities and societies grapple with the sustained ‘polycrisis’ — austerity, the climate emergency, the cost of living scandal, pandemics, democratic deficits, renewed austerity. Many of the organisations and movements which exist to drive change and exist to promote human and planetary flourishing are creaking under the pressure of possible endings — of organisations, of projects, of programmes, of services, of business models, of leadership tenures and of whole systems — and are being held back by a lack of support for endings and by the shame, fear, avoidance and stigma associated with them.

What if we widened our concept of bravery, courage and ambition? What if it was considered brave for our civil society to be led with energy, tenacity, ambition and vigour whilst holding the end in mind? Starting as soon as tomorrow by asking ourselves ‘what needs to end?’ Not because this question determines that something will inevitably end, but because staying open to the possibility of it unleashes purpose, conviction and a relentless pursuit of what is absolutely necessary and most impactful.

Over the past 3 years Stewarding Loss has supported 100+ organisations to consider and design all sorts of endings: closures, mergers, programme terminations, CEO / founder successions and many more. This work has shown us that with sufficient time, care and funding, these are moments of true growth: lessons are learned, transformation is ushered in and a new, bold, ambitious chapter commences.

We are interested in better endings, for better beginnings. Take Campaign Bootcamp, whose closure after 10 years and decision to share learnings with our support meant that there are promising signs that the wider sector is building on their experience. We’ve heard of countless trustee boards giving dedicated time to reflect on and discuss the learnings report which sought to capture the invaluable perspective of an organisation reflecting in its final chapter. Meanwhile the birth of the Civic Power Fund — whose strategy and vision builds directly on the learnings of Campaign Bootcamp — is showing promising signs of success.

Next in the series:

In blog 2 we sketch out what we see as the components of practical support and infrastructure that the sector needs urgently in order to steward in this new era of leadership and organisational design.

And in blog 3 we share our early sketch of The Decelerator for civil society.

Please complete this form here to let us know if you’d like to be involved with the next stage of this work, share your experience of endings in civil society or just stay in the loop on progress.