Stop Asking Programs to Do Everything

Sunday Morning Coffee

There's a strange thing that happens when a program is good at something. Eventually, someone asks it to do everything.

You run a strong workforce program? Great. Can you add housing navigation?

You're good at reentry services? Wonderful. Can you provide behavioral health services, too?

You have trusted relationships with young people? Excellent. Maybe you can add financial literacy, substance use treatment, parenting classes, transportation assistance, mentoring, digital literacy, legal services, and while you're at it, could you help people get birth certificates?

Oh, and could you collect all the data, track everyone for a year, and demonstrate measurable outcomes? Preferably with the same budget.

I exaggerate. But not by much. This actually looks like a federal workforce grant my nonprofit was awarded recently.

I've spent enough years working in corrections, education, workforce development, and reentry to recognize the pattern. We identify a good program, and instead of asking, "Who should we connect to this?" we ask, "What else can we make this program do?" I think we're asking the wrong question.

Nobody Is Good at Everything

Organizations have strengths. Some are exceptional at workforce development, some understand housing or know behavioral health. Some are excellent at education while others have extraordinary relationships with employers. Some know how to navigate government systems that would make the rest of us curl into the fetal position, and some small community organizations possess something enormous institutions spend millions trying to manufacture: trust.

These are different capabilities, yet somehow we've created a system where organizations are often encouraged or financially incentivized to collect services like Pokémon. Gotta provide 'em all. The result isn't necessarily better service. Sometimes it's just a bigger organization doing more things less effectively.

Expansion Isn't Always Progress

Growth has become one of those words we automatically associate with success:

More locations.

More programs.

More staff.

More services.

More participants.

But bigger and better are not synonyms.

Every time an organization adds a service, it adds something else too: expertise requirements, staffing, supervision, policies, data collection, compliance responsibilities, quality assurance, and cost. Eventually, an organization can become so busy delivering services that it loses sight of the thing it was exceptionally good at in the first place. That's mission drift disguised as growth, and I've seen it happen, actually experienced it.

What If We Built Ecosystems Instead?

Imagine a different model.

Instead of one reentry organization trying to provide everything someone might need, we create a network of organizations that are each very good at what they do. One provides workforce development, another provides housing support, another offers behavioral health services, another provides legal assistance, another specializes in education and credentials, another builds employer relationships, and someone makes sure the person receiving those services doesn't get lost between them.

That's not fragmentation if it's designed well. That's an ecosystem, and ecosystems are powerful because every part doesn't have to perform every function. It just has to perform its function well and connect effectively to the others.

Collaboration Requires More Than a Referral List

I know what you’re thinking: this sounds easier than it is, or maybe even: we already do this. I've seen plenty of partnership lists that look impressive in grant applications and mean almost nothing in practice. Twenty logos on a page do not make a partnership. Real collaboration requires relationships. It means knowing who to call, understanding what your partner actually does (not what their website says they do), knowing who they serve, what their eligibility requirements are, whether they currently have capacity, and what happens after you send someone their way, and perhaps most importantly, it means closing the loop. Did the person connect? Did they receive the service? If not, what happened? A referral is not an outcome.

Funders Have a Role in This, Too

We also need to acknowledge how funding contributes to the problem. Too many funding opportunities encourage organizations to build every possible service into a single proposal:

• Housing.

• Employment.

• Education.

• Mentoring.

• Case management.

• Financial literacy.

• Behavioral health.

• Family engagement.

• Transportation.

• Data collection.

• Follow-up.

The proposal starts sounding less like a program and more like the Department of Everything. Organizations respond rationally: they promise to provide what the funding requires. Then everyone spends the next year trying to deliver an enormous scope of work with limited staff and resources.

What if we funded collaboration instead?

What if we rewarded organizations for identifying what they don't do well and partnering with someone who does?

What if a strong referral network counted as infrastructure?

What if shared outcomes mattered more than organizational ownership of every service?

That would require us to think differently about what a successful program looks like.

Knowing What You Don't Do Is a Strength

One of the signs of a mature organization is being able to say: "That's not what we do." Not because we don't care, but because we care enough to want the person to receive the service from someone who actually knows how to provide it. There's tremendous confidence in that.

There's also tremendous respect for other organizations. Good leaders don't need their organization to own every solution. They need people to get what they need. Those are very different goals.

Build Bridges, Not Empires

The problems we're trying to solve in corrections and reentry are complicated. Housing instability connects to employment, employment connects to transportation, transportation connects to attendance, attendance connects to supervision requirements, and mental health affects all of it. So do family relationships, education, substance use, finances, technology, and about fifty other things. No single organization is going to solve all of that, and frankly, it shouldn't try. I'd rather see an organization become extraordinary at three things and build strong partnerships for the other ten than become mediocre at thirteen.

Our communities don't need bigger organizational empires. They need better bridges.

So maybe the next time someone brings us a need outside our expertise, the question shouldn't be "How can we add that service?"

It should be: "Who already does this really well and how can we work together?" Sometimes the smartest way to expand your impact is not to expand your program at all.

☕ As you drink your coffee or other beverage of choice on this beautiful summer Sunday morning, consider your area of expertise. What are you or your organization really good at, and how can you leverage that to help others? You don’t have to be big to be impactful. You just have to be intentional.

Tallyho Sunday Morning Coffee warriors!