There’s no such thing as an easy merger.
I knew this fact going into our merger process last fall, but the initial conversations made our merger seem like a simple, slam-dunk process. Our visions were so well-aligned, the integration seemed like such a no-brainer, and we got along with their team so incredibly well, that it seemed we could maybe just get it completed that week! But anytime two independent, sovereign organizations (each with its own set of boards of directors, employees, volunteers, and donors) try to become a single organizations with a unified mission and structure, there are always going to be some challenges. We set off to identify as many of these potential challenges as early as possible, and we grouped them into what we called “speedbumps” and “roadblocks,” to symbolize their relative importance to getting the ultimate deal negotiated and done. We were eventually able to come to agreement, but don’t go in expecting an “easy” process!
Communication was the biggest success factor.
Again, we knew this going in, but being the ones doing all of the communicating opened our eyes to how critical this element is to success, both in terms of internal communication with staff and board, and external stakeholder communications. Having several face-to-face communication sessions, both among our joint merger task force members, and with our staff and board, was crucial to clarifying expectations and agreements, allowing concerns to be expressed and addressed, and building trust. Nonprofits by definition have so many varied external stakeholder groups (clients, members, donors, volunteers, partners, etc.), all of whom feel some degree of ownership in our organizations, and each group needs to be carefully communicated with at the appropriate times in the process and with the appropriate messages. We learned that a very robust, detailed, communication plan (you should see this complicated mega-spreadsheet!), against which both sides were carefully executing, made this merger as well-received as it was.
Outside help really helps.
As merger consultants and facilitators, we seriously debated whether we needed to hire a consultant to help us guide our merger. I mean, we’d done this more than a dozen times, and surely we’d seen everything before and could handle this ourselves, right? Fortunately, we took our own advice, and we hired a great consultant to help guide our process! She was amazing, and she not only kept us on track, but allowed all of our leaders to freely engage in the process and negotiations as participants, free to express our own vested interests, without having to worry about balancing opinions and facilitating meetings.
Branding really matters.
Nonprofits, including ours, are filled with passionate, mission-oriented people who care about and are invested in our organizations, including their names and brands. In our situation, both organizations had strong, respected brands that we wanted to ensure were well-represented and -positioned throughout the process and after. We jointly decided on a two-stage solution to the branding issue: first, we agreed to operate jointly as “Greenlights” at merger time and for the foreseeable future with “Innovation+” represented as “a program of Greenlights.” But this was also a good time for us, post-merger, to undergo a thorough brand assessment process with a branding consultant and then jointly determine, with professional guidance, what the longer-term branding would look like. We are just now launching this process, so we’ll have more to report soon, but so far I can say that this was the right decision which allows us to focus on the most important aspect of this merger, which is improving our ability to strengthen this community and those we serve.This merger has taught us a lot and I look forward to helping other organizations with their mergers and other strategic growth needs!