Stop Giving It Away: A Practical Path to Paid Services
Issue 1: May, 2025
Welcome to Issue 1 of RunTheNetwork, where we explore critical topics affecting research networks and other grant-funded organizations.
Each month, we'll dive deep into strategies and solutions that help groups like yours thrive!
Whether you're leading a research network, managing a knowledge mobilization platform, or directing an institute, this issue of RunTheNetwork will help you navigate the transition from free to revenue generating services.
Table of Contents
Article: The True Cost of Free: Rethinking Your Service Strategy
Quick Framework: Service Impact Matrix
Trusted Resource: The University of Kansas Center for Community Health and Development’s Community Tool Box
Q&A: “How do I explain to my Board that we need to stop being the ‘free help desk’ for our partners?”
The True Cost of Free: Rethinking Your Service Strategy
Breaking free from the default no-charge approach is crucial for a research network’s long-term sustainability.
Maintaining the status quo of serving your community without charge is admirable, but it can lead to unintended consequences that ultimately hurt both your organization and those you aim to help.
When something is offered for "free," there are often hidden costs that impact both the provider and those they serve. These costs manifest not just financially, but through reduced service quality, limited availability, and unsustainable practices.
The "cost of free" extends beyond just financial impacts.
Here's how offering everything for free can create hidden costs:
Resource Depletion: Staff burnout occurs from constantly expanding workloads.
Strategic Impact: When organizations try to meet every request without charge, it leads to mission drift and threatens their core purpose.
Organizational Instability: Free services can create financial instability that ultimately compromises an organization's ability to serve its community effectively.
Moreover, by not putting a price on your services, you may inadvertently undervalue your own expertise and the real impact you create. Setting appropriate prices acknowledges your organization's intrinsic value and creates an environment where both your team and community can thrive long-term.
Making the Shift
The solution isn't to completely abandon free services, but rather to create a sustainable business model based on a diversified revenue structure. This means ensuring you can fulfill your mission long-term through appropriate pricing of select services.
How to get started?
Start by assessing your current service portfolio. Which offerings require significant staff time or specialized expertise? These are prime candidates for fee-based services.
Next, document the tangible value these services provide – in time saved, problems solved, or opportunities created. This evidence helps stakeholders understand why fees are necessary.
When introducing fees, transparency is key.
Communicate clearly about why you're making changes and how the revenue will strengthen your ability to serve the community. Consider tiered pricing or sliding scales to maintain accessibility.
Moving Forward
Charging appropriately for your specialized services isn't greedy, opportunistic or a sign you’ve abandoned your mission or purpose.
It's responsible stewardship that ensures you can continue making an impact for years to come.
Quick Framework
Service Impact Matrix
How do I use it?
For each service you offer to your community, plot it within the 2x2 grid, based on the level of effort and impact each service has.
What do each of the quadrants mean?
High Effort, High Impact: Monetization candidates - these are prime services to consider charging fees
Low Effort, High Impact: Scale and optimize - these are efficient ways to deliver value, continuing to support your community with no-cost expertise
High Effort, Low Impact: Eliminate or redesign - these activities drain internal resources without sufficient return
Low Effort, Low Impact: Maintain or discontinue - these require minimal investment but may be taking time away from higher-impact work
**Start Today: Download and save the pdf version of the Service Impact Matrix.
Trusted Resource
The University of Kansas Center for Community Health and Development has created a Community Tool Box, a free online resource for those working to build healthier communities.
Section 14 of the Community Tool Box is a resource to learn how to set up and manage a fee-for-service structure to develop dependable funding for non-profit organizations over the long term.
https://ctb.ku.edu/en/table-of-contents/sustain/long-term-sustainability/fee-for-services/checklist
Q&A
Let's address a question you've been thinking about but haven't dared to ask out loud.
“How do I explain to my Board that we need to stop being the ‘free help desk’ for our partners?”
This is a tricky question because it involves shifting an established dynamic with partners and community members, who have grown accustomed to receiving free support. It requires addressing both financial sustainability and relationship management, which can appear to be at odds with each other.
The question is particularly sensitive because it requires convincing board members that charging for services isn't abandoning the organization's mission, but rather ensuring its long-term ability to serve the community effectively.
→ Here's how to approach this conversation with your Board:
Frame it as responsible stewardship. Show how charging for services ensures your long-term sustainability and ability to fulfill your mission.
Present the hidden costs. Demonstrate, using both qualitative and quantitative data, how your current approach could lead to staff burnout, mission drift, and organizational instability.
Suggest a balanced approach. Explain that you're not eliminating all free services—rather, you're creating a sustainable model that lets you serve your community effectively for years to come.
Provide a clear assessment method. Use the Value Grid framework to identify which services require high effort and deliver high impact—these are your prime candidates for monetization.
Be transparent about how the revenue will strengthen your ability to serve the community. By diversifying your revenue streams, your organization will be positioning itself to deliver lasting impact.
The approach and strategy outlined in this issue can be implemented independently, but you don't have to go it alone.
Surge Advisory offers tailored services to help you develop and execute a sustainable revenue plan that aligns with your mission.
Contact us at surgeadvisory.ca to explore how we can support your transition!