Inside the Strong Towns Strategy

Earlier this month, the Nonprofit Growth Show released a podcast episode where I was the guest. I’ve been a guest on a ridiculous number of podcasts since my book came out in October, but this one was very different. The topic was our organization and the strategy behind our movement.

I talk about this a lot, but rarely do people ask me about it in a forum like this. There’s no secret to hide, but most people don’t want to delve into the inner workings of how a small nonprofit is making such an oversized impact.

My favorite quote:

“We very intentionally wanted to create a business model that, if it worked, was going to meet our mission objectives, and if it didn’t work, we were going to go away. We were going to feel the pain of it not working.”

Here is a link to the episode. If you’d like to skip ahead, here are some minute markers for different parts of the back and forth:

• Why we do staff meetings at theme parks and how it’s an efficient way to meet. (1:15)

• The unique way Strong Towns recruits and hires new team members. I call our team the “island of misfit toys” but also explain how our process identifies people who are truly genius. (9:40)

• What it means to run a non-profit and how pursuit of the mission should push us outside of our comfort zone. (15:50)

• The mindset it takes for a tiny organization like ours to take on the multi-trillion-dollar development approach of North America. (18:15)

• What Strong Towns is doing to create change; an explanation of our strategy. (21:20)

• How we use paid content marketing as a key strategy to expand our reach and grow our movement and how we explain that to our supporters. (24:10)

• How the commitment of resources to marketing has resulted in significant audience growth. (32:10)

• How the Strong Towns engagement pipeline creates a positive feedback loop that simultaneously serves the mission and grows the organization. (34:00)

• Why Strong Towns doesn’t do consulting, despite the overwhelming demand, including giving back a $150,000 grant in the early days because it wasn’t supporting the mission. (37:10)

By the way, the top photo is from our last board meeting. That’s us taking a quick break from meeting to enjoy some Aerosmith at over 60 mph.

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