What Life Cycle Stage Is Your Nonprofit In? Understanding Growth, Maturity, and Change

What life cycle stage is my nonprofit in?

It is important to know where your organization is in its life cycle so that you are using the skills most needed at that point to create a healthy and stable environment.

While there are many versions of the life cycle model, most list the stages as:

1. Start Up

2. Growth

3. Maturity

4. Crisis/Restructuring

5. Decline/Close

Your organization may have aspects of multiple stages simultaneously. The stages are not linear, an organization can go through multiple growth stages, experience a long plateau at one stage, or reinvent itself many times.

Start Up

The start up stage has no paid staff and volunteers do all the work. The founder establishes the culture, and the nonprofit is focused on programming. This stage has lots of energy and creativity. Internal processes tend to be very informal. Hiring the first Executive Director who is not the founder is a sign the organization is moving out of this stage.

The growth stage has staff, has expanded beyond initial programs, and the early systems need to be replaced with more formal processes. Strategic planning and separating the roles of staff, board, and volunteers becomes important. The culture shifts to be more settled and formal.

Maturity

The maturity stage does not have further growth, increased accountability, strong relationships with funders, good financial management, and stable funding. Public opinion of the organization is well established.

Crisis/Restructuring

Crisis/restructuring is a major change. This could look like frequent staff and board turnover, poor volunteer retention, eliminating programs. A change in leadership style is usually needed to navigate this change and bring new energy. A successful crisis/restructuring stage can lead to a new growth stage, if unsuccessful, decline and closure follows.

Decline/Closing

The decline/closing stage is when an organization has an inward focus, board members withdraw, staff leave or give up, a major loss of funding occurs and the organization cannot replace the funding, there is a loss of public trust, programming ceases or a merger occurs.

Understanding your nonprofit’s life cycle stage helps you align leadership, governance, and systems with what your organization needs most to remain healthy, resilient, and mission-focused.

For more information on non-profit board operation, check out our other posts on various board governance topics at https://www.npgs.ca/blog