Taming the Three-Headed Monster
Nonprofits are pulled in three directions: Programs sprint for impact, Operations fight for stability, Development scrambles for funding.
Left unaligned, they clash like a three-headed monster. Aligned, they become powerful, human, reliable, and durable.
The Failure Pattern
When the Monster Thrashes
Nonprofits don’t fail because people stop caring—they fail because the three instincts fight each other.
Programs blame Development for chasing shiny money. Operations blames Programs for promising the impossible. Development blames Operations for slowing everything down with red tape.
The result:
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Programs busy but unable to show true outcomes.
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Operations stretched thin, propped up by heroics.
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Development chasing dollars that bend the mission.
The monster thrashes, staff burn out, and dignity collapses.
The Approach
Alignment, Not Turf Wars
The fix isn’t erasing differences—it’s aligning them. Each head keeps its unique strength:
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Programs guard outcomes and dignity.
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Operations guard stability and reliability.
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Development guards sustainability and freedom.
Side by side, the contrasts are obvious—today vs. continuous vs. multi-year horizons; outcomes vs. reliability vs. revenue; equity vs. risk elimination vs. growth bets.
That friction is inevitable, but when harnessed, it becomes design rather than dysfunction. With the right guardrails and cadences, the three heads stop fighting and start pulling in sync.
Tools and Methods
How We Force Useful Friction
Alignment doesn’t come from pep talks; it comes from discipline. I use simple but sharp tools that feed collaboration:
North Star & Scorecards
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A handful of outcomes set the direction, then each Head (department) gets its own scorecard—Programs measure participant outcomes, Ops measures stability, Development measures sustainability. This makes sure no one forgets why the monster moves at all.
The Scorecard Test
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Any new initiative must check at least one box in each lane—outcomes, stability, sustainability. If it can’t, it doesn’t move forward. This forces balance and kills projects that only serve one head’s ego.
72-Hour Veto Rule
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Each head can stop a bad decision, but vetoes must come with a written alternative within three days. That way, “no” doesn’t freeze the monster—it redirects it.
Integrated Planning Cadence
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Annual board guardrails, quarterly resets, monthly triangulation reviews, weekly or bi-weekly “dumpster fire” meetings. Each layer keeps everyone at the table often enough to adjust before cracks become crises.
Grant Pre-Mortems & Cost-to-Impact Crosswalks
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Before chasing funding, all three heads stress-test the fit. Pre-mortems expose hidden costs or impossible promises, and the cost-to-impact crosswalk ensures every outcome has a real, honest price tag. No more miracle math.
Portfolio Discipline (Keep–Start–Kill)
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Twice a year, we review programs and revenue streams: what to keep, what to start, what to kill. It trims dead weight so the monster runs faster instead of dragging corpses along.
Capacity as Policy
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Hard limits on caseloads, staff vacancies, and grant loads. Instead of pretending “we’ll make it work,” the system says, “we don’t take more than we can do with dignity.”
With these tools in place, Programs keep their humanity, Ops keeps its spine, Dev keeps the fuel clean—and instead of thrashing, the three-headed monster finally runs in one direction.
Take a deeper Dive, Lead with Alignment
Every nonprofit is a three-headed monster
Left unchecked, it pulls itself apart. Aligned, it becomes powerful: human, reliable, and sustainable all at once.
If you’re ready to channel friction into forward motion, let’s get started.
