What does it mean to come from a strength based approach?

In the industry, there’s always buzz words. They are exciting, they get people worked up and then the words change. All. The. Time. Do you do non-extractive financing? We focus on impact first lending. What does it mean to practicpatient capital? 

I just said the same thing three different ways using various buzz words. One of the recent buzz phrases that’s entered our vernacular the last few years is: a strength based approach. What does that even mean?

Here at Akiptan, instead of regurgitating the phrase while it’s still “hot,” we’ve actually latched on to the phrase and formed it into our daily operating methods at Akiptan. While our theory of change is constantly reaffirmed, and we have the stats to prove it, we’ve stepped into a fortunate position of - We know we are unique, we know what we do works and we are making a deep impact. 

It's time to use that momentum to help transform the whole system. Another way to phrase that (with buzz words, of course) we are no longer operating in a place of scarcity, we are now operating from a place of abundance. As an organization, we have never said “yes” to opportunities that don’t serve our mission nor have we been willing to bend our lending philosophy just to get additional capital. 

As a start up nonprofit Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI) with an unusual lending philosophy, believe me when I say it was scary in the beginning. After 6 years we recognize the power we, unknowingly, flexed in our early days by saying no to things that did not match our goals and truly align with our mission. There will be other opportunities out there, other funders whose mission is better aligned with ours will come, etc. Believing that there are enough resources to go around, more opportunities will come and that we just need to stay in our lane and do our part our way. We don’t need to compromise or sacrifice our mission. That’s how we’ve applied using a strength based approach to our operating and fundraising strategy and we are so thankful to everyone who has believed in us thus far.  

One of our more recent adjustments at Akiptan is that we decided to switch our terminology from Programs to Initiatives. This is important because without realizing it, the term “programs” seems to come with an implied meaning of long-term dependence (with a scarcity mindset). Using the strength-based approach encourages us to empower our clients and using the term Initiative is a positive way to do that. An initiative will propel a client into the future vs a program a client might feel dependent on. It's abundant. It's strong. It's reflective of our partnership based approach designed to strengthen our producers. Initiatives are targeted to cure the problem, not treat the symptom. 

What would the world look like if everyone was able to have that mindset shift? At Akiptan we are in the midst of finding out. I was recently at a conference and a gal by the name of Lauren Manning, Managing Director at FS6, said something I’ve been trying to put into words for years. “Why do we all have to be so damn academic?” It stopped me in my tracks because I’d had similar thoughts, but wasn’t ever able to articulate them in such a clear way. We are spending so much time on concepts and ideas and big fancy words when we should be out there doing things in practice. Trust me, I see the irony as I’m sitting here writing this “academic” blog. But, the most important takeaway here is that I want to share our story about putting our money where our mouth is every single day. Maybe it’s the rancher culture in my team and me, but we are pragmatic and solution oriented. Talking about problems and solutions doesn’t do any good if there’s no action to follow up. Just sharing “academic” questions and pondering it for days doesn’t usually translate to much impact in a producer's pocket. Time to practice what we preach, apply our strength based solutions and actually make a difference.

Basically, it’s time to get shit done.