NG Farrell Marketing

For over four years I have enjoyed an active professional relationship with New Media BC, a not-for-profit service association that has been instrumental in developing BC’s vibrant digital media sector. During that time, my work with the organization has included strategic planning, web development and member consultation. Along the way, I have come to know a lot of creative, passionate and dedicated professionals within the association and the industry.

However, like many not-for-profit associations, New Media BC has seen the industry it represents rapidly evolve and shift. Members and players have come and gone. And like everywhere else, there’s a struggle to find funding sources that can keep pace with ever-increasing requirements and requests.

At NG Farrell, we regularly encounter something that could easily be named D.O.D. (Degenerative Organizational Dystrophy). D.O.D. is hitting not-for-profits particularly hard these days, and it generally runs a course that looks something like this:

D.O.D. starts when funding for the organization becomes stagnant. Innovation slowly gets inhibited, new program development ceases, and service quality starts to erode. Stakeholders with a passionate investment in the organization’s success become frustrated, and for the first time in years, membership stops increasing. Next, the board falls into disarray and starts making well-meaning, but ill-advised and counterproductive decisions. And that new strategic plan that was paid for just last year? It's been dropped because it became too expensive to implement, and the beautiful, crystal-clear vision statement it contained is now completely blurred. The association is now floundering. And people inside and outside of the organization are questioning its future.

In no way do I mean to imply that I believe New Media BC suffers from any of these symptoms. But the organization has decided to make sure its future does not become pixilated, by deciding to merge with its mobile cousins at the Wireless Innovation Network of BC http://tinyurl.com/yk243ce. Details of the merger still need to be resolved, but I applaud both for taking a bold step to ensure that the successes of their founders, past staff, and countless volunteers will be carried forward, and that BC will continue to be a leader in digital and wireless technologies.

Congratulations to two organizations that reached deep into the very innovation and creativity from which they were born, and are now poised to re-launch with a new plan for survival and success.