Jesse Lane founder of goodmakerU, has a message to walk you through your report to let you know whats here, and how to use it.
Scott, what you've built with Scott.co in under three years — essentially solo — is genuinely impressive. But you named something in your own words that stopped me: you need to rediscover your why. That's not a small thing. That's the engine. Before strategy, before systems, before the next grant application — that's the thread everything else runs through. This report is going to be direct with you about what's creating friction right now, and more importantly, what to do about it.
When you said 'honestly, everything would struggle' if you stepped back, you weren't exaggerating — you were being precise. At Scott.co, you are the fundraising, the operations, the external communications, and almost certainly the institutional memory. That's not a leadership style, that's a structural risk. For an organization under three years old and volunteer-run, this is understandable — but it's also the ceiling that's keeping you from growing. Your Q14 response about fundraising not producing enough to fund the vision is directly downstream of this: when one person carries everything, there's no bandwidth left to build the relationships and systems that actually move revenue. The path forward starts with deliberately designing the organization so that at least one or two critical functions — even with volunteers or part-time help — can run without you in the room.
You indicated that a single source represents more than 51% of your revenue, and your primary funding comes from earned revenue and programs. For an early-stage organization, that's a precarious position — not because earned revenue is bad, but because one program disruption, one slow enrollment period, or one contract ending can destabilize everything almost overnight. With a budget under $250K and no staff buffer, there's very little room to absorb that kind of shock. Your Q13 priorities — pursuing grant funding and diversifying revenue — show you already see this clearly. The challenge is that diversification requires time and capacity, both of which are in short supply right now. That tension is real, and it needs a sequenced plan rather than a scattershot effort.
Here's the honest read: Scott.co has the bones of something real. Your investment mindset is healthy — you find a way to fund what matters rather than waiting for permission. Your brand clarity is a work in progress, not a crisis. And you're already thinking about the right things — operations, systems, grant strategy. What you're facing isn't a broken organization, it's a growth plateau that's hitting earlier than expected because you're doing this largely alone. The 'rediscover my why' answer you gave isn't a soft, personal aside — it's actually the clearest strategic signal in this whole report. Organizations stall when the leader's internal compass goes quiet. Getting that back isn't a detour from the work. It is the work right now.
These three patterns are feeding each other in a loop that's worth naming directly. The Leader-Dependent structure means every dollar of revenue has to flow through your relationships and your effort — which makes diversifying away from that 51%+ concentration nearly impossible without burning out in the attempt. And because you're carrying everything, the energy required to rediscover your motivation and reimagine the organization's direction keeps getting deferred. Meanwhile, your board — by your own description — is reluctant to help, which means there's no relief valve. The revenue concentration creates urgency, the urgency creates pressure, the pressure depletes the leader, and the depleted leader has less capacity to build the systems that would break the concentration. Breaking one link in that chain — starting with the leader-dependency — is what gives everything else room to move.
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Get your team and your board in on this conversation. Reports like this one work best when the whole organization can tackle issues together.
