Selling a home and moving into a new place to live is rarely a smooth process, but my wife and I have had our share challenges over the past year. We first put up our house for sale last fall. My wife’s insistence that we clear the clutter and with the help of an outstanding broker, we actually had many prospects. But we received no offers, even after we lowered the price. Meanwhile, my wife found a home that we both liked; we made an offer, but were unable to go forward since our home wasn’t yet sold.
To reduce the pressure of constantly having to have the house in ‘showable’ condition every weekend and be able to quickly vacate the premises (with our two dogs), we decided to take it off the market until the spring, when presumably more potential buyers would be interested. Apparently this strategy worked, for we received an offer shortly after we re-listed our home, again at a lower asking price. The final agreed upon price wasn’t what we hoped for, but we felt grateful for having found located a buyer in such a tough market.
We then proceeded to look for a new home; the house we liked last year was long gone. Due to the economic meltdown, we decided to focus on rentals and coops/condos, much as we had lived in before moving into our house in fall 2002. But we learned that many buildings were not ‘pet friendly’ and even those that did accept dogs had specific conditions, such as not allowing more than one dog (we have two).
Ultimately we found a beautiful apartment at an amazing price, so we quickly agreed upon a price. But we learned later that the apartment had already been foreclosed on, so we had to renegotiate with the bank before our offer was formally accepted. Due to my wife’s persistence, we eventually went to contract, but it has taken a while to firm up a closing date. Meanwhile, we’ve already closed on the sale of our home so for now we’re living in temporary quarters and have moved most of our possessions to a storage facility.
What lessons can we apply to our nonprofits? Change and uncertainty is part of life; we can’t just make them go away. We don’t know exactly when the current recession will end, but we can continue to do what we have always done – keep our constituents engaged and interested in our work. When we eventually move into our new home, life for my wife and I will be different than it was before. When economic times ease, our nonprofits will need to continue to find new approaches to raise money and serve our target audiences. Fortunately, many nonprofits are doing great things online – learn from organizations recognized at sites such as Great Nonprofits and Nonprofit Coordinating Committe’s Nonprofit Excellence Awards to keep your organization thriving, no matter when the recession ends.
