Nonprofit organizations are like people. They often move through several different stages of development – from “Start-Up” (Infancy/Childhhod) to “Growing” (sometimes called the “Adolescent” stage) to “Mature” and sometimes to a stage of “Stagnation” or “Decline.” Just like people, nonprofit organizations rarely do this in a neat, orderly, and predictable fashion. Organizations like our own membership-based network may be at the “Start-Up” stage in some respects and at the “Growing” stage in another. Similarly, organizations may be solidly in the “Growing” stage until they face a crisis such as a major change in leadership or new developments in the needs of the client population or membership – that serve as a catalyst to either move them backwards to the “Start-Up” stage, the Growing/Adolescent stage, or catapults them forward to “Maturity.”

About Your Speaker:
Susan Griffin, MS, MA, LMFT, CADC-CS, DOT-SAP

Susan Griffin is Executive Director of Hannah’s House (HH) and Senior Therapist in the Transitions Family Program. She is a licensed Marriage Family Therapist with over 40 years of human services experience. She holds degrees in child development, music, psychology, behavioral science, and couples/family therapy. In 1988, she co-founded HH, a nonprofit organization dedicated to teaching Family Court-involved children and parents the skills essential to making a successful transition through the trauma of family breakup. HH provides Multi-Modal Family Therapy (comprehensive wrap-around services) to divorced/separated families with over 40 services through a network of family programs serving families involved in or recovering from a family breakup.