Among the most instructive research in the field of community and organisational sustainability is the body of evidence produced by studying organisations that have failed. It is tempting, when building or strengthening organisations, to focus exclusively on models of success. But the organisations that dissolved, particularly those that dissolved despite good intentions and genuine community need, carry lessons that success stories cannot provide.

The SHOW-21 research, which tracked nine distinct nonprofit organisations in Chicago through the process of their dissolution, produced an empirical post-mortem whose findings challenge some of the most common assumptions about why organisations fail. The most significant finding was this: these organisations did not fail primarily because they ran out of money. They failed for reasons that were relational, strategic and structural, manifesting long before the financial crisis that ultimately ended them.

What the research found

The post-mortem analysis identified a cluster of factors that appeared consistently across the nine organisations. The first was the absence of a clear, living strategic plan: not a document produced for a funding application and then ignored, but a genuine, widely understood and regularly revisited articulation of where the organisation was going and how it intended to get there. The second was severe internal friction: interpersonal conflicts, role confusion and trust breakdowns that consumed organisational energy. The third was a lack of clear mission alignment, a growing gap between what the organisation said it existed to do and what it was actually spending its time and resources on. The fourth, perhaps the most counter-intuitive, was the complete isolation of the organisation from its community network as it began to flounder.

The isolation factor

The isolation finding is worth dwelling on, because it runs against the instinct most organisations follow when they encounter serious difficulty. When an organisation is struggling, the natural response is to turn inward: to close ranks, manage the situation internally and avoid the reputational risk of allowing external parties to see the extent of the difficulties. This response is understandable, but the SHOW-21 research suggests it is consistently fatal.

The organisations in the study that isolated themselves lost access to precisely the resources that might have helped them survive: the knowledge and experience of peer organisations that had faced similar challenges, the advocacy of community members who valued their work and the practical assistance of allies who might have shared staff or resources during a difficult period. The community relationships that sustain an organisation in good times are not a luxury. They are an emergency infrastructure whose value becomes most apparent precisely when the organisation is most in difficulty.

Building for sustainability from the beginning

The SHOW-21 findings have clear implications for how organisations should think about sustainability from the beginning, rather than as an afterthought. A clear, living strategic plan is not a bureaucratic requirement; it is the shared navigational tool that keeps a team oriented when operational pressure creates the temptation to drift. Strong internal relationships are not a soft add-on; they are the structural foundation that makes everything else possible. And civic relationships are not peripheral; they are the emergency infrastructure that a community-embedded organisation can draw on when its own internal resources prove insufficient.

Questions for reflection

When your team encounters an internal friction point, do you tend to isolate your group and manage it internally, or do you reach outward to peer supporters for perspective and assistance?

Given that the absence of a clear strategic plan was implicated in the dissolution of multiple organisations, how current, visible and genuinely shared is your group’s navigational roadmap?

Think of a community or peer organisation that your group has allowed its relationship with to lapse. What would it take to re-establish that connection, and what might both parties gain?

What is one specific investment in internal relationships, civic network and strategic clarity that your organisation could make this month to strengthen the infrastructure on which long-term sustainability depends?

Inspired by: Puntenney, D.L. (cited in Russell, C. and McKnight, J. (2022) The connected community: discovering the health, wealth, and power of neighborhoods. Oakland, CA: Berrett-Koehler Publishers.)