Author: Lorin Diehl

I was sitting in the park recently watching ants swarm around a spilled puddle of thick greenish soup on the pavement. What a marvel.

They came first for the liquid itself – dozens, then about 200 – before tackling the small bits of meat and vegetable scattered around it. Some carried pieces ten times their size. Others directed traffic. All moving with quiet, relentless purpose.

It struck me: this is exactly what we do in nonprofit work. Building something that lasts.

The Colony Mindset: Building for Tomorrow

Those ants weren’t ransacking the spill. They worked methodically, making multiple trips. It reminded me of the tension in relief and development: urgent need versus lasting impact.

The colony mindset means working for the sustainability of the whole, not just immediate extraction.

Those ants didn’t strip the spill bare – they left enough for tomorrow, for the long-term health of their colony. It’s about building systems that keep producing rather than depleting them in a single harvest.

Years ago, I helped manage an Ambassador Program recruiting and encouraging volunteers to expand our reach. The temptation was to ask for everything immediately. But we learned you can’t extract from people any more than ants can strip their food sources bare.

The volunteers who stayed were ones we invested in. We trained them. We let them shape the work, bringing their own ideas and local knowledge. When they brought friends in, those volunteers stayed too.

The Pheromone Trail: How Passion Creates Pathways

Watching those ants follow invisible trails, I thought about volunteers who became our strongest advocates.

One who served on our team at our international location came back transformed. Her community and church both donated and partnered with us. Her passion laid down a trail others wanted to follow.

Once we recognized the natural connectors and invested intentionally, the program grew organically.

The Division of Labor: Trusting the Dance

What fascinated me most was the coordination. No project manager. The ants just knew and scouts found food. Workers retrieved it and others maintained trails.

Initially, our volunteers in the Ambassador Program did most everything – some doing recruiting, training, advocacy, fundraising. We developed an Ambassador Tool Kit with short guides, branded materials, and templates to help educate and onboard new volunteers.

When we created these clearer pathways, the system began to breathe. Each person focused on their strengths, and impact multiplied. Purpose became clearer when roles aligned with gifts.

What the Ground Teaches

We complicate this work sometimes. But maybe the questions are simpler:

• Are we investing in people and building something sustainable? The colony feeds its workers first, creating systems that outlive any single effort.
• Are we creating trails others want to follow? Authentic passion creates followers naturally.
• Are we measuring impact by what endures? Changed lives and strengthened communities matter more than quarterly metrics. The ants don’t agonize, they just live it.

That volunteer program? Still running. Some ambassadors have served over decades, recruiting hundreds and influencing significant funding. Not because we extracted everything, but because we built trails worth following.

The spill is long gone, but those ants are still there – still working, still building. There’s clarity in their persistence, in knowing today’s small effort becomes tomorrow’s pathway.

Maybe that’s what we were doing: laying down trails for each other, trusting the colony is stronger than any individual, and showing up tomorrow to carry what we can.

Cultivation, aka retention, is still King. 
 
When looking at retention, which is fundamentally a ‘gain or growth’ metric, we see the proverbial glass half-full. Customers come in and stay with a company. 
 
If we look at it more aptly as churn though, where customers are leaving a company, then we see it as a ‘loss’ metric. This reframing alone increases urgency. 
 
So, say you’re a membership or sustainer driven organization. Every percentage point of churn directly reduces your revenue and customer base. The pain is tangible, measurable, and urgent. 
 
But are organizations today fully considering the integrated whole – customers from a true value perspective across their entire lifecycle, from acquisition through cultivation, reactivation, and back around? 
 
This shift from customer volume to customer value matters more than we often realize. We’re now in a performance-based environment where assumptions are expensive. 
 
So, what are we doing about this? 
 
Case In Point 
 
With the organization I work with now, as an example, we had an author who genuinely appreciated the publishing experience – great feedback, relationship, beautiful book, and a successful launch. 
 
Family members even published, and continue to publish, multiple books with us. These authors are part of our DNA – so we trusted (assumed) that they’d naturally return for their next book. 
 
When we followed up later, though… they went dark on us. A few months afterwards, too, we noticed that their next book had been released elsewhere. 
 
What surprised us most was that there was no conflict, no complaint, no “bad ending.” Quite the opposite. 
 
We didn’t lose them because they were unhappy. We lost them because we assumed satisfaction equals retention. 
 
Retention isn’t passive. It requires active cultivation, continuous engagement, and the recognition that today’s satisfied customer isn’t automatically tomorrow’s loyal one.  
 
In a performance-based environment, we can’t afford to confuse silence with satisfaction or past success with future commitment.  
 
The question isn’t just how many customers we keep, but how intentionally we’re keeping them – and how seriously we’re treating churn not as an inevitable loss, but as a critical signal demanding immediate recognition and response. 

How do you lead when the ground keeps shifting beneath you?  
 
Today’s non-profit leaders face an impossible tension: stakeholders demand stability while circumstances require constant reinvention.  
 
Do you hold firm to what’s always worked, risking irrelevance? Or pivot constantly, risking mission drift? 
 
The answer isn’t choosing between stability and change. It’s recognizing that deeply embedded organizational purpose enables courageous adaptation.  
 
Purpose isn’t the anchor that prevents movement – it’s the compass that makes navigation possible. 
 
Learning Through Experience 
 
I experienced this leading a team in the non-profit space when overseeing the merger of marketing and communications departments. Both performed reasonably well independently, but neither fully met our evolving needs. 
 
We developed our “service excellence model” – a ‘refreshed’ operating platform (mostly for our communication services). What made it work was approaching the challenge through a servant leadership lens, viewing my role as serving both my team and the broader mission. 
 
Rather than imposing solutions, I engaged colleagues to co-create an approach with “pause and reflect” moments where we examined what was working without constriction. 
 
Purpose Enables Flexibility 
 
Purpose and flexibility aren’t opposing forces… purpose enables flexibility.  
 
When leaders ground decisions in clear values, teams distinguish between what must be preserved – core principles, dignity of people served – and what must evolve: methods, systems, delivery models. 
 
Progressive leaders integrate purpose with adaptability through servant leadership that creates psychological safety and service excellence mindsets that shift from rigid procedures to responsive relationships. 
 
The Cost and the Reward 
 
Leaders who resist adaptation watch their organizations become irrelevant. Conversely, leaders who change without clear purpose create chaos and mission drift. 
 
But when leaders anchor decisions in purpose and involve teams in co-creating the path forward … organizations thrive through disruption, discover new capabilities, and attract supporters who recognize authentic commitment. 
 
Three Keys to Purpose-Driven Adaptation 
 
Name your non-negotiables. Get clear on what must remain constant – your core values, your fundamental “why.” Then change or reframe everything else. 
 
Create “pause and reflect” rhythms. Build moments where your team examines what’s working without constriction. 
 
Communicate the “why” relentlessly. Explain how each adaptation serves your enduring mission. People tolerate and accept change when they trust the mission remains intact. 
 
The Path Forward 
 
Leaders who integrate purpose commitment with adaptive capacity won’t merely survive uncertainty – they’ll leverage it to deepen impact. 
 
Organizations led by purpose-driven leaders will discover that constant disruption can become the catalyst for their most meaningful work.