By: Carol Kotacka, Managing Partner

“We need to diversify.” 

It’s a conversation happening everywhere. 

In boardrooms. Council chambers. Economic development offices. Indigenous communities. Businesses. Post-secondary institutions. Charities and nonprofits. 

We need to diversify our economies. Diversify our revenue. Diversify our partnerships. Diversify our trade relationships. Diversify our funding sources. Diversify our markets. 

None of this is new. For decades, organizations and communities have recognized the risks of relying too heavily on a single funding source, industry, market, or economic driver. The conversation has remained remarkably consistent. What changes is the urgency. And today, urgency is everywhere. 

Governments are under pressure. Businesses are facing economic uncertainty. Communities are facing rising costs and growing demand. Funding environments continue to shift. Technologies are reshaping industries at unprecedented speed. New geopolitical realities are forcing us to rethink long-standing assumptions about trade, investment, and growth. 

The burning platform is obvious. The question is not whether we need diversification. The question is whether we are prepared to do what diversification actually requires. Because diversification is not the strategy. It’s the outcome. 

Market creation is the strategy. 

Creating Markets, Not Just Competing Within Them 

Too often, when faced with financial or economic pressure, our instinct is to compete more aggressively for what already exists – the next grant, donor, client, opportunity. But sustainable growth rarely comes from simply competing for a larger share of the same pie. It comes from expanding the bakery itself. 

The strongest economies, organizations, and communities are not simply participants in existing markets. They are creators of new ones. They identify opportunities where needs, assets, capabilities, and demand intersect. They connect partners who might never have worked together. They find ways to create value that did not previously exist. 

In economic development, this may mean identifying international opportunities that unlock entirely new trade relationships. 

For businesses, maybe it is reaching customers they never previously considered. 

For charities and nonprofits, perhaps it’s leveraging CSR / ESG to develop partnerships that generate both social and economic returns. 

Different sectors. Same challenge. Creating opportunities rather than waiting for them. 

The Capability Gap 

The reality is that most organizations are designed to operate within existing markets. Very few are designed to create new ones. That distinction matters. Because creating markets requires a fundamentally different mindset. It requires looking outward before looking inward, curiosity before certainty, relationships before transactions, experimentation before consensus, speed before perfection. 

It requires organizations to become comfortable pursuing opportunities that do not yet have clearly defined parameters, pathways, or guaranteed outcomes. That can be uncomfortable. Especially for organizations built around planning, predictability, governance structures, risk management and funder accountability. 

Yet the environments around us are changing faster than many of our systems can respond. Over the last six years alone, we have watched industries, technologies, workforce priorities, funding environments, public expectations, and global markets shift repeatedly. In some cases, entire markets have changed in a matter of months. The rate of change in our world has accelerated exponentially and is not going to slow down. Our environment will likely not “go back to normal”.  

The organizations that do well in the future will be the ones best positioned to adapt to changing markets. The ones that will thrive will be the ones capable of creating new markets altogether. The ones who create opportunity. 

What I’ve Learned About Creating Opportunity 

A thousand years ago, or at least it feels that way, I worked for a multinational manufacturing company while attending school at night. I went to school at night for seven years, working my way up the proverbial ladder. The company operated in approximately 40 countries selling to other manufacturers. I had the opportunity to learn from some of the best salespeople in the country and around the globe. These were critical lessons that I carried with me.   

What struck me wasn’t their ability to sell. It was their ability to see. They constantly looked at problems through the eyes of customers – their goals, needs, unspoken desires. They spotted opportunities others missed. They connected seemingly unrelated needs, people, and ideas and understood that value creation starts with understanding what matters to someone else. 

Most importantly, they understood hustle. Not hustle as working longer hours. Hustle as curiosity, persistence, and constant responsiveness. As a willingness to pick up the phone, ask questions, explore possibilities, and build relationships before opportunities became obvious. 

When I founded Ryelle Strategy Group nine years ago, those lessons became invaluable. And they’ve remained remarkably consistent whether working with governments, economic development organizations, Indigenous partners, post-secondary institutions, or community organizations. 

The organizations that create opportunities move differently than those waiting for opportunities to appear. 

So, Are We Ready? 

If creating markets is the goal, we need to be honest about what it requires. 

Are we prepared to: 

• Recognize that building new markets and new relationships often requires five times the effort of maintaining existing ones? 

• Look beyond traditional boundaries of sector, geography, mandate, or funding model to identify opportunities that create mutual value beyond philanthropic priorities? 

• Respond to market demand in real time rather than waiting for the next strategic planning cycle, budget process, AGM, or board meeting? 

• Mobilize our teams around opportunities that didn’t exist six months ago? 

• Take calculated risks, experiment, test ideas, learn quickly, fail occasionally? 

Are we prepared to hustle?  

Because creating markets is not a passive exercise. 

It requires organizations to stay curious. To stay connected. To continuously scan for opportunity. To build relationships before they need them. To move when timing matters. Most importantly, it requires a culture that sees possibility where others see barriers. 

Taking Our Future Into Our Own Hands 

Over the course of my career, from the Governments of Ecuador to Dubai, from post-secondary institutions to Indigenous communities, I have seen organizations embrace this approach with extraordinary success. And I’ve seen others struggle. The difference is rarely resources, it’s often mindset. Organizations that build market-responsive cultures position themselves for long-term sustainability because they are not solely dependent on existing opportunities. They create new ones. They don’t simply attract investment, they create opportunities worth investing in. They don’t simply compete for existing resources but expand the pool itself. 

They ask how value can be created. 

When communities, businesses, governments, academic institutions, Indigenous partners, investors, and nonprofits come together to create new opportunities, something powerful happens. 

Economic value and social value stop competing with one another. They begin reinforcing one another. And when that happens, we move beyond diversification as an aspiration.  

The future will not belong solely to those who adapt to changing markets, it will belong to those capable of creating them. That starts with a simple question: 

Are we ready? 

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Ryelle Strategy Group works with public sector organizations, corporations, and NGOs to navigate strategy, transformation, and organizational change. If these questions are showing up in your organization, we’re happy to continue the conversation: www.ryellegroup.com.