Kwanzaa is the annual African American celebration that honors the values and principles of African culture. During the week after Christmas (December 26-January, a different principle is celebrated each day. Each of the seven days of Kwanzaa is dedicated to one of the following principles (or Nguzo Saba):

• Umoja (Unity): To strive for and to maintain unity in the family, community, nation, and race.
• Kujichagulia (Self-Determination): To define ourselves, name ourselves, create for ourselves, and speak for ourselves.
• Ujima (Collective Work and Responsibility): To build and maintain our community together and make our brothers’ and sisters’ problems our problems, and to solve them together.
• Ujamaa (Cooperative Economics): To build and maintain our own stores, shops, and other businesses and to profit from them together.
• Nia (Purpose): To make our collective vocation the building and developing of our community in order to restore our people to their traditional greatness.
• Kuumba (Creativity): To do always as much as we can, in the way we can, in order to leave our community more beautiful and beneficial than we inherited it.
• Imani (Faith): To believe with all our heart in our people, our parents, our teachers, our leaders, and the righteousness and victory of our struggle.

As I read through all these principles, I realized that there were lessons embedded in each one that we could also learn from in the nonprofit sector. In 2010 and beyond, nonprofits will need to exhibit some very different behaviors if our organizations are to succeed and continue to impact the communities we serve. Consider the possibilities if we were to commit ourselves, as a collective to adhere to the following ideas. How much more could we grow and thrive and do more to improve the world?

Umoja (Unity)

Nonprofits have always had a sense of competition with one another for funding. As the economy has worsened for our clients and our organizational budgets, the turf wars have gotten a lot more vicious. The concepts of marketing and fundraising tell us that we have to showcase what’s different about us, what makes us better than that other nonprofit across the street. As a result, we often think of organizations with similar missions as competitors instead of allies. So when opportunities come up for collaboration that will allow us to serve more people and change more lives, sometimes we pass on them or don’t even see them in the first place. Yet, if nonprofits are to be effective into the future, a sense of of unity in the nonprofit sector will become more and more important. Nonprofit CEOs will need to drop their gang colors and begin to trust and confide in one another. Then, and only then will we be able to fully maximize strained resources and take advantage of new opportunities.

Kujichagulia (Self-Determination)

The ongoing debate about the term “nonprofit sector” has raged on for many years, but seems to have come to a head this year with several new monikers being floated: social profits, humanity sector, community benefit organizations, and so on. While none of them are perfect, the concept of redefining ourselves is one we should explore. Even if “nonprofit sector” continues as the norm, it’s up to our organizations to really define what that means – not that we don’t create value (profit), but that we provide the kind of social value that’s essential for communities to survive. In the next decade, nonprofit leaders will need to speak up for ourselves and let the public know what we’re really about, not rely on the media and others to paint an inaccurate picture of us.

Ujima (Collective Work and Responsibility)

Many groups have begun to understand that working together gets your further than working alone, especially in this new environment. Through the V3 Campaign, many nonprofit communities around the country have come together to put pressure on local governments and political leaders to put their money where their mouths are. In North Carolina, Crossroads Charlotte has been a highly successful collaborative effort to transform an entire community. In Maryland, Envision Prince Georges seeks to do the same thing. Because all of our causes – hunger, affordable housing, education – are inevitable connected, no longer will nonprofits be able to operate in silos apart from the larger community and political landscape.

Ujamaa (Cooperative Economics)

More joint fundraising will need to happen in 2010 and beyond. As organized philanthropy shrinks from foundations and corporations, nonprofits will need to think creatively about new funding models and how to leverage resources through bartering and projects like GiveMN.org. There never has been, nor ever will be, enough money to go around. Along with financial cooperation, of course, nonprofits will also need to engage in true collaboration for the most impact. As Margaret McKenna from the Walmart Foundation lamented last month: “We’ve given grants for collaborative work to four organizations, then after we leave, they just split up the money.”

Nia (Purpose)

Nonprofit leaders continue to be overworked and underpaid. It is those that cannot connect back to the true purpose of why they do the work of social change that get burned out and leave the sector. It pains me that most nonprofit management (and even leadership programs) do not create a space in the curriculum for students and executives to reflect on their purpose, the reason they started working in the nonprofit field. Going into the next decade, nonprofit leaders will need to reflect upon their purpose in doing this work and convert that into renewed energy to continue to do it, even as it gets more and more difficult. We will also have to be more compassionate to one another as colleagues and help others become more resilient nonprofit leaders within our organizations.

Kuumba (Creativity)

After decades of what many consider slow progress in creating social change, there is an incredible need for greater creativity in the nonprofit sector to come up with better and more efficient ways of fulfilling our missions. The White House Office of Social Innovation has made the idea of nonprofit innovation much more popular than it has been in recent years. While some nonprofit leaders get excited about new ways to do the work, others hear “risk” and run far in the other direction. The biggest obstacle to implementing new ideas, however, is not that nonprofit leaders don’t have any. In my recent interview with Trabian Shorters, VP at the Knight Foundation, he pointed out that most innovative ideas fall by the wayside as soon as they are met with the slightest resistance. Yet we know that the urgency of our work demands that we overcome our resistance to change and push forward with the kinds of creative ideas that not only change organizations, but entire communities.

Imani (Faith)

Every single nonprofit leader that works on behalf of a cause should have faith that they can make a difference. If you came here just because you needed a job, we don’t need you. Simply working at a nonprofit does not equal social change, so go rest your laurels somewhere else. The nonprofit sector needs leaders that really and truly believe that change can and will happen because of their work. We need leaders that have the kind of burning faith that breeds courage to make the impossible possible. We also need leaders that will challenge the status quo and risk new methods and strategies and innovations to put bold action behind that faith.

What else can Kwanzaa teach us about the future of nonprofit leadership?

In honor of my 27th birthday on December 31, I’m asking all my readers to donate $27 to benefit the Young Nonprofit Professionals Network of Washington DC. Will you give? Your gift would really make a difference for young nonprofit leaders in DC!