What if your NPO did a “Great Lock-In” this fall?

BY Riposte Team

Every fall starts out a little the same. We come back from summer with renewed energy, fresh ideas, and projects we’re finally ready to move forward. We tell ourselves that this time, we’ll get ahead. Then September really kicks in. Meetings resume, inboxes fill up, urgent requests return, and somewhere between two committee meetings, those ambitious August intentions start to fade. Maybe that’s why a social media trend that emerged last year caught our attention: the Great Lock-In.

What exactly is the Great Lock-In?

The trend really took off on TikTok in late summer 2025. The idea is fairly simple: dedicate the last four months of the year, from September to December, to a few goals you genuinely want to move forward.

There’s no specific program to follow. Unlike other highly structured challenges that have made the rounds on social media, the Great Lock-In doesn’t really have any rules. Everyone chooses what they want to “lock in” on: finances, health, career, a personal project, new habits… The idea is simply to stop spreading yourself too thin and focus your energy for a few months on what really matters.

In a way, instead of waiting for New Year’s resolutions, you decide to finish the year with momentum. The Associated Press even aptly described it as the “little sister” of New Year’s resolutions.

Naturally, it got us thinking about nonprofits.

Because nonprofits sometimes get pulled in too many directions, too

To be fair, it’s usually not because they lack ideas. And it’s not necessarily because they lack strategy, either.

Many organizations have gone through a strategic planning process in recent years. They’ve established directions, identified priorities, and adopted an action plan. Then organizational life took over.

Someone leaves. Funding needs to be renewed. An event is coming up. The board needs something. One urgent issue comes up. Then another. And gradually, some of the actions in the strategic plan move from “this year” to “when we have time.”

So the problem isn’t always the plan. Sometimes, we’ve simply lost the connection between strategy and action.

What if the Great Lock-In became a tactical check-in?

That’s where the idea gets interesting. Imagine that every fall, your organization sets aside a few hours to pull out its strategic plan. Not to rewrite it. Not to organize a two-day strategic retreat. Not to launch another major discussion about mission, vision, and values.

Simply to ask a few good questions:

• Where are we, really?
• What have we moved forward since the beginning of the year?
• What hasn’t moved forward?
• Have any of our priorities changed?
• And most importantly: what are the three or four actions that truly deserve our attention between now and December 31?

That’s what an organizational Great Lock-In could look like: a tactical moment to reconnect what we decided to do with what we’re actually doing.

Three or four things. Not fifteen.

This is probably the hardest part. A Great Lock-In should definitely not become yet another to-do list. Quite the opposite.

If your strategic plan includes 27 action items and your team chooses four that absolutely need to move forward this fall, you’ve already accomplished something important: you’ve made a choice.

For an organization, that could mean finally revisiting the member experience. Implementing a process that’s been sitting on the back burner for six months. Cleaning up your digital ecosystem. Reviewing key performance indicators. Automating an administrative task. Improving your content strategy. Completing a governance initiative. Or simply tackling an important strategic action that has been postponed for far too long.

The priorities will be different for every organization. But the list should be short enough that, come December, you can say: that’s done.

Do less to move more forward

There’s something refreshing about this trend that started on TikTok. Behind the slightly dramatic name is a very simple idea: you don’t have to wait until January to start again. September is already a fresh start.

For an organization, the fall can be about more than returning to the office and getting activities back underway. It can be an opportunity to revisit the strategic plan, take an honest look at where things stand, and put renewed energy into the areas where it will have the greatest impact.

Not another planning exercise. Not another list of resolutions. A realignment. A few priorities. Four months. And a commitment to get them done. So before fall gets fully underway, pull out your strategic plan. You might just find your Great Lock-In in there.

The Riposte Team