Yellow caution sign — A yellow caution sign.

Although “excited” may not be the first word that comes to mind when you hear “enterprise risk assessment” let me tell you why investing in an initiative like this is something you should absolutely consider doing for your nonprofit organization or business.

What is a risk?

A risk is anything that could get in the way of achieving your mission, or could harm your people, operations, or reputation. Risks can also be unknowns and unwelcome surprises that could be hiding inside of great new opportunities to deliver more mission impact.

Why Do an Enterprise Risk Assessment?

Why make the investment and take the time to identify and analyze these risks?

Taking a pause to reflect and look around will result in revelations and trends you just can’t see when you are always moving forward. Organizations often do this when they undertake future-looking strategic planning (which I also support) but rarely do they just look at how things are working now and ask: Can we do this better?
Giving people permission to say out loud what is worrying them not only surfaces problems and obstacles that could get in the way of success, it also sends a signal that you care about their concerns AND their ideas about how to address them. I’ve seen first-hand how the simple act of asking people “What keeps you up at night and how could we help you address it?” plants the seeds of a risk-aware culture that will pay dividends again and again. Once people start asking themselves this question on the regular, they spot small problems before they become big ones, and feel comfortable raising their hand to ask for help before it’s too late.
Identifying and cataloging all the risks you face – your very own list of 99 problems – allows you to prioritize the ones that really require a deep-dive of focused attention without being distracted by sweating the small stuff (the risks you have under control or are not as serious as other issues.)
Did I mention that boards and funders *love* risk assessments? Why? Because it helps them get their arms around your organization quickly with very little work and also shows you are on the case before they have to remind you to get on top of something that could become an issue.
And finally, inviting someone from the outside to come in and look around shows you are serious about managing risk and further validates the approaches you already have in place. It also allows you to be a customer and beneficiary of the process rather than having to run it yourself.
In sum, the cost of doing an enterprise risk assessment is a one-time investment in the expertise to conduct it and the time you will make to do it. The peace of mind it will bring, and the advantage it will give you over uncertainty and fear? Priceless.