Nonprofits are faced with more challenges to accomplish their missions and the growing pressure to do more, raise more and be more for the causes that improve our world.
We're here to learn with you from some of the best in the industry, bringing the most innovative ideas, inspirational stories, all to create an Impact Uprising.
So welcome to the good community, where Nonprofit Professionals, philanthropist, world changers and rabid fans who are striving to bring a little more goodness into the world.
So let's get started. Hey, Becky, what's happening? Hey, John,
welcome back, everybody to the summer of evolution.
I know this week is one that I have been so excited about, because we're looking at how to sustain in scale your mission. And this is like putting into practice, like what are those shifts that we can make, they can change the way that we show up with our revenue? And how can we better take care of our people. And it's all about capacity building. It's about strengthening and how we do our work. And it is about this evolution, but it's about how to do this in practical terms. And we're kicking it off with honestly one of the most defining conversations we've ever had.
Do you remember this conversation at the responsive nonprofit summit that we co hosted with Virtuous? I remember the chat was absolutely exploding. And it's probably because the group that we brought in this panel, these panel experts are just so fiery and knowledgeable about all things strategy, diversifying revenue, building pipelines, and so it's just a great joy to be able to introduce our panelists. Veronica luff, Amina is with luff Amina and company she is its founder, we had Brian Joseph on who's the CEO of Rev Gen. If you are looking to diversify your revenue go look no further. Eric Newman is one of the founders of rock solid foundation, and which is an incredible organization. That's building playgrounds for children fighting cancer. And we also had the incomparable Kimberly O'Neill, who's the founder and CEO of the giving blueprint, and together their brains were on fire, you don't want to miss this episode. Okay, so we got a tone set a little bit, because the reason that we built this panel is because we've heard from so many people in our community, about how fast the pace of our sector is changing, the world is changing. And nonprofit is really having to struggle, you know, we we kind of work it a little bit of a slower pace. And we're trying to embrace that abundance mindset to innovate and move faster. And we've got four incredible humans that are going to talk to us about how are we going to look at the bones of our organizations, we've got to relook at the infrastructure that's in place, diversify our revenue, because we want you to not only be sustainable organizations, we want you to be scaling organizations. So I want to kick this first question to Brian, because you are really one of those experts that we tap when it comes to revenue. And talk to us a little bit about kind of the key elements in a revenue infrastructure that people should be looking at right now.
That's a great question, Becky. The first thing I think, for any leadership team is just the intentionality. Right? So often, we want to say, hey, we're focused on our mission and the infrastructure piece, well, we'll get to that later. But the intentionality to be there and get alignment amongst your leadership team, the five quick elements and I'll touch on these quick because I know we got a ton to cover here. We always say that the infrastructure of an organization, you need to start with looking at your revenue model. So where's your money coming from today? Where do you want to come from the next one to three years, right? So be very focused, who owns the relationships, we always like to apply PIs preserve what you do? Well see if you can increase that before you expand? And then what do you stop doing? That's not getting the results? Once you do that, then what's your revenue strategy? Right? the intentionality of the people processes and systems you need in place to actually see that revenue model shift? And how's it aligned your organizational strategy? When you go through that work, lean into your org design? And not by looking at and say, Hey, we have Brian on the team, and he's good at this. But instead, park the people and say, if this is our revenue strategy, what skill sets do we need to be really good at these different aspects of our revenue strategy, then overlay it with your existing team and look for the gaps and where you can make choices and hires? Then the fourth element we really like to encourage on from a solid revenue infrastructure is gonna be something we define as revenue infrastructure, excuse me, resource allocation for the revenue infrastructure, which is when 100 pennies come in the door? How do I allocate that out between my mission I get it reprogrammed driven, we have to do that. But we have to invest in operations NEED IT and HR, and we need to invest in our revenue muscles. Because if we don't invest the financial resources, we won't have the human resources back to work design, to see the revenue strategy executed to see that revenue model and move forward. And then last but not least, and I can't stress this enough revenue culture, you have a revenue culture, whether you're intentional about it or not, and how our leadership team shows up and rocks up every day. If we're that team that shows up and say, We have to talk about revenue again, guess what it's gonna permeate out. But if we walk rock up and say, this is actually fun, we can align our revenue team to our mission. You're gonna see your coach revenue, culture thrive and really take off but don't was five elements, in my opinion, if you look at your leadership team and start to focus on those five, will probably address 70 to 80% of your root causes of your challenges inside your, your organization.
Boom, a framework right out of the gate.
There's your five points. Let's shut this down.
That's it.
Okay, I remember when Eric Newman came on podcast, and you looked at us and you're like, no money, no mission, you know, and I think this is the first time I've heard that phrase, but it is in my head a lot. And so I want to kick it to you to talk about how to organizations really shift their mindset to think about themselves as scaling a business.
Yeah, I think that no money, no mission, what that means to us is the fact that I say that to the team. And I agree, it's got to be a culture, you can't be scared to talk about the revenue, slash or put it as plain as it is money, right? And so for us, the reason that we say no money, no mission is we run rock solid foundation, like a fortune 500 company. The difference is our shareholders are kids fighting cancer. So you have to have that mentality from like, listen, and the difference is I'm not in this big corporate CEO seat to rake in all the money, our job as nonprofit leaders, is we need to make as much money as possible to give to our shareholders. So I would just say, Who's, who are your shareholders. And I would echo again, don't be scared to talk about money. Because the fact of the matter is like I was in the for profit world before. And then like, I'm in this wide ocean, right of like, you can do anything. You can talk about money, you make money, but then you come into the nonprofit world, I felt like a shark put in captivity. And so now that I'm on swimming around, I'm like, Hey, guys, there's a whole world out there that we can start to model and to be like, and let's just change the framework around mentality of like, listen, our shareholders, or whoever you're called to love and serve. So let's make as much money for them, so that we can impact them in the way that we're called to do.
I mean, that's the world I want to live in, I want to give the power back to the kids or back to the planet, or whatever, whatever the purpose is. And I think just that simple reframing, Eric is already a mindset shift. And also, thank you for talking about these sort of entrepreneurial habits, that helps us accelerate our growth, accelerate our success. And we cannot think small, because the missions that we're serving, they are just too big. And they need us to think in progressive ways. And I think I want to kick this question to you, Veronica, because you have completely changed and shifted the way I think of strategic planning. And as a recovering major gift officer, when I go back to strategic planning days, I'm thinking about an 18 month process, you know, it turns into a 40 page document that sits on a shelf and gets dust. And you are literally someone that says don't do that. So talk to us about how we can reframe our thinking about strategy and about strategic planning in a brilliant a new way.
Well, thank you, Becky. And I just want to say, like, echoing so much of what Brian and Eric have already put out there. We think about strategic planning and the nonprofit sector about perfectly executing a 30 year old process, but doesn't work. So I don't know when the last time any of you read a 40 page strategic plan and really absorbed that and felt like yes, this is making an impact. But when we model our plans and our sector after the federal government, or after very large organizations with international business units, we are setting ourselves up for failure. The key audience for your strategic plan is your staff. If your staff members do not know what the strategy is, why we're doing it, and why it's going to make things better, then it's not gonna go anywhere. So when we think about defining strategy, two important things. One is who are we as an organization, and it's a common thing that we overlook in nonprofit because we're like, oh, we have our mission, we've got our vision, we've got our values. But the place where we fall down is what is our role in our community in the issue area we serve, when we try to please everyone do everything and extend ourselves beyond what our true capabilities are, we are setting ourselves up for a bunch of messy stuff that we're going to be paying for for a long time. The other element is strategic clarity, that doesn't involve a 30 PAGE PAGE plan with lots of documentation. It involves understanding how who we are influences what we focus on, what we're still learning and what we don't do. strategy really is a clear set of choices about what we will and won't do to get to our goal. And if we can't articulate that in one to two pages, we are setting ourselves up for a lot of confusion, a lot of the same merry go round conversations and frustrations around being aligned on our executive team. And all of the downstream stuff as Brian mentioned, ties back to that. So if we We can really focus on our strategy being about knowing who we are and clarifying our choices, we're going to put ourselves in a much better position to actually be able to have the impact we want to have as well.
Man, the synergy of this conversation already, and the clarity and use of the confidence, I hope that we can all feel, and like leaning into these principles that we're sharing. I just can't I can't wait to keep diving in. Because Kimberly, you get to work with startups. And as a startup over here on the couch here, I mean,
30 page business plan. I'm like hiding right now, right.
But I mean, I feel like you have a different lens. Because when you talk about scaling, I mean, this is your bread and butter, you work with organizations, you're in the weeds with them to like, what context would you add? And what have you learned in working with so many different nonprofit startups?
I think most of the people that most of the people that I work with jump into the nonprofit sector because they see an immediate issue in their communities that has to be addressed. And oftentimes, we hear you know, we don't need more nonprofits, the larger nonprofits, midsize nonprofits are often taking care of it. But the truth and the reality is a lot of these small nonprofits are tackling an issue in the community that no one is touching, or a segment of the problem that no one is touching. And so what I tried to affirm is, yes, you had to jump to get started, because what you wanted to do is to make sure that something in your community was addressed. But after you jump, and you begin to stabilize that issue, you have to go back to business, because otherwise we cannot sustain and we cannot scale. And if we've not looked at data, because we jumped in this based on passion and observation, then we'll have a hard time trying to attract funders or individual donor, or even to Veronica's point put together a strategy, you can't even put together a one page strategy, it's really don't understand the root of the issues. So I often tell organizations, we've got to go back to the data, what does the data say, and we end up having fun with it. Sometimes it's overwhelming. But we get to craft the narrative and the narrative that is true, and is ethical to the communities that we're serving. But if we don't have the data, everything else we've just talked about the money, the strategic plan, no money, no mission, none of that is going to be possible if we really don't understand the issue and how to move forward to know that we have something worthy of bringing a nonprofit to the table.
I am so glad that you brought up data because we really believe that data tells the story. And as to people, I would say that our self professed like adverse at using data, we just have to get culturally more comfortable with it because there are engagement and behavior signals in the data that are pointing us to the north star to the next innovation to the next way that we can scale. And I just love that you lifted that so much. And I and I'm thinking about this idea of scaling Eric, and I want you because you have this very unique lens of coming from the for profit and the fortune 500 world of coming into nonprofit talk about some of the scaling obstacles that you've seen, that have occurred in nonprofit and how you have at rock solid have really overcome those and maybe some hallmarks that people could take away.
Yeah, I think from the scale side in general, is you have to be okay with what I call killing your darlings. You cannot scale if you have a bunch of weight from old, past old history, like I have the privilege because I started it right. I don't have a lot of the inherited thing. But if you have the inherited things, you gotta call what I what I call Kill your darlings. Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should. And you have to be able to execute what's best for your organization and for us, is that when we got into this, and oh nine, I didn't know anything about nonprofit, but I knew that organizations love to do team building. And so I'm like, Well, how about that rock solid foundation is the conduit, right? It's underneath the ground, you can't really see it, but you have the community that wants to love and serve. And then we have a family child that needs to be loved and served. So how do you connect the dots to those two, we become less than the equation and they become more they are the volunteers. They are the donors. And they are the child the families that we love and serve. So with that we just started calling companies up and asking them if they wanted to do team building exercises. And we started just focusing more on the companies that we started loving and serving the organizations that partnered with us just as much as we love and serve the kids fighting cancer. So they become an intricate part of the equation. So it's just know who your customers are. And be relentless, not reckless. On your mission. You need to be relentless, not reckless, reckless is mission creep. Man we do 75 programs. That's great. Congratulations. But how effective are you? And we literally this like summit up in one of our programs, play defeats cancer. What does that mean? We provide playsets. For kids fighting cancer in their backyard, your mission from for us has to be so simple that when people hear it, they don't forget it. And then once they don't forget it, then they come back. And that's how a lot of the recipe of scale becomes. And you have to respect simplicity, you have to die for simplicity so that people can do it. And we've been able, we started with one place at a year, and this year, we'll do close to 700 plays that. So it's making it simple, so that people, people want to do good in the world, you have to make it make it simple enough for them to feel like they're making an impact. And we partner with large organizations, and we partner with the mom and pop organizations down the community. If you have a heart to love and serve kids fighting cancer, we'll figure out a way for you to be able to do so. So it's just going through the lens. I believe the hag big hairy, audacious goals, that's Jim Collins, that's, that's a good thing to have. Because there's someone waiting on you right now that needs your permission. So let's get out of this small frame. And let's look at scale. There is a difference between scalability and growth. And so scalability focuses on simplicity, growth is very slow. So what do you want? Who are you? Where are you going? And what do you believe? And that helps with the root of scalability is a couple of things. And hopefully, I answered that question. This is one of my soapbox. And so I love it so
much. And I have to tell you, you do this well, because I'm a donor to rock solid. And the way that I get text messages from rock solid, about what I can do right now is so simple and actionable. And I also want to just lift one thing that you said, the accessibility of the big donor down to the little guy to come into your mission, we believe that there is something way more powerful about a believer than a donor, because believers are going to show up with more than just money, they're going to show up with their sweat equity, they're going to show up with their story, they're going to show up with their networks and influence. And if we can look at them as more than $1 sign, then that is going to grow the mission. That is scalability right there.
I mean, I'm with you the brain trust in this room. And in the chat friends. I mean, we're getting watching some live legit coaching happening in the chat. So get in the chat if you have a question for this panelist. So, Veronica, I want to kick it to you, because there's a lot of ideas being thrown out lots of strategies, how do you really translate that into action? You're just such an expert at this, how would you break it down?
I love this question, John. Because I think, again, strategic planning always get stuck in this, like, we're creating our vision Pinterest board for the future. And we haven't necessarily thought through all of the elements, we're going to need that so many folks on the panel have brought up already to make this actionable. It can feel overwhelming, when or you may not feel that excited about evaluating your infrastructure, because you're like, Well, we're pulling this all together with bubblegum and duct tape. But we have to be honest with ourselves about our capacity. And that capacity could be in our technology, the systems available to us and the kinds of operational components we have. We often are not realistic with ourselves about the human capacity on our teams. So not that long ago, I wrote about a key metric that every nonprofit leader should be looking at. And it's your vacancy rate. So if you're the executive director or the head of finance, you probably are looking at vacancy rate as a way that your organization is saving money. But if you're the head of development, or the Head of Marketing and Communications, and you don't know what your vacancy rate is, chances are the plans and the goals you are setting for yourself are based on a team that is fully staffed completely aligned 100% on boarded. And friends, that is not where we are right now as a sector. So you have to be really understanding your capacity in order to then convert your strategy into action. The other two things that are really important are think about the behaviors and habits and rhythms your organization will need to do over and over again, to achieve what we're talking about here. As Eric mentioned, scales about simplicity, so that we can continue to reiterate, grow, be consistent and developing that and moving it upward and onward. If we don't know the behaviors that influence our ability to do that, well, it is very difficult to take a fantastic local program and continue to grow beyond just the immediate capacity of the key leaders of the organization. So really thinking about how can we frame our strategic choices as the behaviors that we want to take, or the habits and rhythms that we want to introduce so that we're helping our teams make better decisions and the moment but not a task list, but who we are and how we live it. And the final thing is communication and negotiation. I wish like I wish I didn't have so many examples of leadership teams that are not having hard conversations with one another about truly, here's what we've said Our strategy is to what does that mean in real life, when we get to prioritization, we can't do everything all at once. And there has to be some kind of way that we together evaluate what we choose to focus our energy and effort. If we have over planned because we haven't really thought about our capacity, or if we're not having great, forthright conversations with one another, we are pushing that responsibility down to the staff at lower and lower levels of the organization or to volunteers and saying, Good luck, folks hope you can turn that into something, we as leaders need to be responsible for working out those intricacies or the practical real life elements. So that we're giving our teams a fair shot at achieving these big goals that we have.
We're taking a quick pause to get real with you friends.
Because let's face it, it's a new world, donor expectations are higher than ever, and donors want to know what their personal impact will be. Which means we need to start by building a truly resonant message.
And if you follow We Are For Good, ou know, we're advocates for nonprofits need to disrupt and adapt in order to grow. And our friends at Foster Avenue agree.
You might know Foster Avenue by their former name Snavely Sssociates. But here's the thing. They're evolving alongside the sector too. As a philanthropic communications consulting and creative agency, they see how campaign communications are facing a revolution these days. And luckily for us, they're sharing their insights.
The Foster Avenue team is sharing a 10 point checklist for creating campaign communications that meet the moment. And we want to get this checklist into your hands so you can start refining your messaging right away,
Grab it today at fosteravenue.com/good.
So whether your campaign launch is three years away, or six months away, Foster Avenue can help you accelerate to the next phase.
We want to see your campaign have all kinds of success. So hope you will check out Foster Avenue.
That's fosteravenue.com/good.
This absolutely resonates and friends I hope if you are working in a nonprofit right now you feel seen. Because we cannot dive into the strategic plans. We cannot scale if we do not have capacity. We know how tired you are Kim, you just came on to the podcast and talks about how we're going to normalize rest because it's got to be baked in because we do got to have that really sound Northstar. But we got to be healthy in the way we do it. And I I think what I value so much about this conversation and clay, I see your comment in the chat and I could not agree more with it is the simplicity of this is actually going to help us move faster in the tactics we know just slow us down and nonprofit. And we've got to reevaluate how we look at all of this. And so I want to kick this to Brian, like next question. What are your just such a wealth of information I can I just give Brian a little shout out he is so kind and such a good human. He's even offered to help. We're for good, like even with RJ Reb Gen plan. And I just think the way that you show up and serve a nonprofit is just so open handed. And I want you to talk about some of the common pitfalls that you see a lot of organizations are making because we've talked about scaling, but we really got to talk about the sustainability piece. Talk about some of those pitfalls that you see nonprofits are making? And how can we start to avoid them quite frankly?
It's such a good question. And it's been an hour on this just alone, there's been so much good stuff already coming that we're hearing. There's a couple of things. I think the first thing is, you know, kind of what we're talking about back to Brian's point about capacity, we continue to under invest in our revenue capacity, and then wonder why sustainability doesn't change. Because we're so focused on our mission. And I go back there, it's kind of no money, no mission, right? Like, we have to draw the parallels and say it's not bad for us to invest in our revenue teams. The other things I see a lot of is there's no quick fix. There's no one time I'm going to do this thing one time. And then we're going to wash your hands and we're going to be sustainable. Now we can go back to the reason why we exist which is our program. You have to day in and day out. We're in a dynamic market, things changed financial markets, the economy, you have a major funder who changes you all those things always change, there's no one thing that you're going to do that's going to they're going to just solve it and then move on is the constant discipline and practice of keeping it front and center, building that culture talking about it and embracing it. The other thing I think happens a lot too, Becky is I always tell teams, when you change your revenue stream, you change everything. Everybody always thinks like goodness, if we just diversify our revenue, and then we're gonna go get me we're gonna go get an earned revenue stream and that's gonna solve everything because it'll be unrestricted but the moment you change anything, I don't care if you go to an event if you go to a major gives that plan. You haven't been doing that if you if you go to an earn model you literally have to think through everything the skill sets that you need, the marketplace that you're going to be and who else is in that marketplace, what's going to look like you, the list goes on and on and on. But you have to be realistic about that. Because if you don't, then you're just throwing additional work on and we're like, hey, we can do that too. And all of a sudden, back to that analogy, I mentioned earlier pies, analyze your revenue streams, preserve what you do well, right, maybe I'm great at a grant and I can do foundations. Is there a way for me to increase that? Are there funders I'm not talking to are we have it on the shelf before I expand? Because again, you change everything as soon as you expand? And then what do you stop doing? What's not getting you the results that you think they are? And how do I stop that? So for me, it's just back to some of those real, avoid those pitfalls of there's no one thing. When you change the revenue model or the revenue stream, you change literally everything, and invest the time and resources to be as intentional about that your revenue model as you are about your mission, and watch what changes.
Kim I feel I feel like maybe you want to respond to this, because I'm seeing your comment in there, if you want to thread it, anybody jump in there.
I think what Brian just said is spot on. And it ties right back to what Veronica talked about. If we don't do a human capital assessment, we don't know what we need, that we're not paying attention to our retention rates, we're not paying attention to our recruitment strategies, if we're not paying attention to skill sets, every time we make that change within our organizations, we have to do that all over again, it is a repetitive process. You don't do it once a year. Because the moment as Brian said, you change one thing, you are changing the structure of what is happening within the organization. And you have to assess, I may have good people, but do have the right people, right, and all of that impact, the growth and the scalability and sustainability of the organization. And for that we have to move a little bit towards away from passion and purpose. And we have to put on that business hat if we really want to honor the mission, and the stakeholders of the organization. That is our responsibility. Our responsibility isn't always to just be likable. Our responsibility is to do the job, and to do the job well as if we can fix it all tomorrow. That's the energy that we have to bring. But we also have to pay attention to who we have inside. Do we have the right people? And are we allowing the right people inside to rest and be restored as well?
I mean, Kimberly, every time you come into our world, you teach us on this, and I'll have Julie drop this link about the encouraging rest and centering rest in our work. But I want to give you space to just let's let's talk about sustainability. As we start to round out this conversation. I mean, what are factors that contribute to sustainability? What are some action items that we can look at preserving this human capital, that is kind of the answer to all these questions to him just want you to riff there, and then whoever else wants to jump in.
One for me, because I focus on the nonprofit startups, those emerging organizations are founders have to know when they need to move out of the way, you will forever be the founder, your vision is clear. But this is a public charity. And a public charity is run by many. And so you will forever be the founder, but you might not be the right person to take it to the next level. And we have to be honest about that. Even with established organizations, if you are not the right person, for the next season of the organization, it's time to have some hard conversations. And again, if we're focusing on mission, then we have to remove ego and get out the way so the mission can move forward. So that's probably the number one thing that I see often, a lot of people with a lot of hearts that want to do a lot of great work. But this is a business that just happens to be the charity. And we need to make sure that the right people and the right voices are at the table for the season that the organization is in and with an organization needs to go.
And I will just even riff on that and say if you are sitting at the table, and you can give up your seat, if you are not the right person, please look around and see who is not at the table, use your privilege and influence, bring the right people to the table. So I want to I want to throw a curveball at the group. Because we get this question a lot in the community. I want you to talk about how do you get your board involved in this discussion? This is such a great question from Tamra Fox, who is just dropping the incredible questions on the conversation stage. So how do we get them on board? And I'll just pitch it to the group first one to jump in.
I'll say
Oh, you go ahead.
You want to. Number one is that there always has to be an assessment you have to have strong leadership on the board, who honors the bylaws of the organization and a board that continues to review the bylaws of the organization. So that were updates and amendments need to happen they Do something needs to be removed? They do, I find that a lot of people on board like to sit on boards to say they're on boards, but they don't understand the governance aspect and the legal responsibilities that they have training is paramount. And we don't see enough of it. In nonprofit organizations, I'll make a suggestion that if you have a nonprofit that your board should have at least 30 minutes in every meeting with their some sort of professional development, or they're someone that's coming in, that you've served as a stakeholder that can share what the organization has done, I think that is key, because that helps to keep board members connected to the mission and the work.
I really agree with that, Kim, and what I would add is one of the practical strategies I've found when working with boards, is to think about what is the professional development, they mean, some of it is going to be around being that governance, sitting in that governance, see what that dynamic means and looks like what the leadership team. But one of the areas I've found that very few boards actually have a lot of understanding is change management. How does change actually happen in organizations and in our society. And when we can give our board more information about how change is successful, and the things that make it fail, we actually open up more conversation about so what does that mean, we're going to do next, we tend as humans to look at the examples that came before us and use them as a predictive model for where we're going to go next. But honestly, none of us is a mind reader, none of us can tell the future, there's a lot we can't predict. What we can have a better understanding of is, what does it take for humans to take ideas or a new way of being or a new strategic approach, and put that into practice? So it has the kind of impact we're looking for. And so what I see in the boards I work with is these aha moments around. Oh, yeah, I guess the way we were doing this before, it was never going to work, because that's not how humans work. The other element I would say is, boards tend to be a source of let's stack everything on, we need to do more and more and more. And one of the biggest reasons change fails in organizations is the lack of a visible and engaged executive sponsor. We have a stamina crisis among leaders at nonprofit organizations, when it comes to picking a thing and seeing it all the way through. We have amazing leaders working in this sector, everyone is pulled a millions of directions. But if we actually want to go from the way we're working now to where we want to be in 18 months or two years, we need leaders who are committed to staying visible and engaged. And as part of the process so that staff and volunteers and our board members get this is a priority. We're not just checking a box, we're becoming new. And that's especially important for culture change initiatives, anything to do with justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion, anything that has to do with like, fundamentally changing the way we work. Those human elements are also often missing without a honest conversation about what it means to participate as a board member and leader here and how we can all find a better way together.
I feel so seen. Yes, keep going Brian.
The only thing I would just add to this and great comments already. David, this is phenomenal. I couldn't agree more. A couple of things that I see a lot of is one the the actual structure of the board meeting. Too often I see nonprofits who come in there and assist simple read out, do you have a stack board a powerhouse who are there as volunteers? A lot of them are donors and want to see the organization move forward? What is the actual structure of your meeting? I'm gonna send you a board book and I'll send you the financials. And let's come in do a quick review of that. So I can answer your questions. And let's gauge in a strategic conversation strategic and fiduciary, is it? The other thing I think is also reminding what is the role of the board? Sometimes we confuse that the board is not management? Right? They're not staff. So how do we actually engage them in the best leverages their skill sets with where they're at? And around financial sustainability, the revenue aspect, what we tend to find is we make a lot of assumptions around what our boards will and will do. And we ask general comments, and I give an example here sat in a boardroom, had a powerhouse board of people who could make contacts and we'd ask every time I'd listened to executive director say, Okay, we need some help with fundraising, we'll reach out to us, let us know. And then everybody leave and nothing to get different. So I asked one of the upcoming board meetings, I said, Can we be specific with two requests? What are two things that we want? And we went in there and we asked specifically for two requests that we're looking for? And we answered them both within five minutes and got the context of the two things that we wanted within five minutes. So it's the specificity of sometimes we'll how we engage the board in that aspect to that can move them forward. Because, again, I always say they're not working against us. They volunteer their time they give the resources, how do we meet them where they are to, to bring them along on this journey?
Okay, this is why we brought these humans incredible humans to the forefront. You don't even need us. You guys are slaying it right now. And I see the just the chat blowing up about this. And Eric, I just kind of want to. We got it. We got a different question here. Eric, I'm coming back to you. Okay. So what is the first step for a one year old nonprofit to become sustainable? Haley, this is such a heyland. Sorry, it's such a great question. So she's funding a 20,000 a month initiative, bringing in 10,000 a month applied for multiple grants, like what does she need to do? Who wants to take this one and give halen some hope? Yeah.
So I'll jump in, self funding just made my heart hurt. Because too many times we focus on self funding. And when we do that, we miss the opportunity to develop a strategy for the organization. And oftentimes, I find with nonprofit founders, that self fund, it becomes mine. It you leave out the weeds, and moving forward. So for me, my recommendation for someone that works in this space, is self funding needs to stop immediately unless it's disposable income, that you're just donating into the organization. But there has to be a real strategy in place. Because for funders, when they see self funding, and they don't see a return coming in, it is a red flag. And you want to move away from that. Because if you are not in that position, to donate $20,000, however, often that happens, what happens to the organization, can it sustain without you and I have been in rooms where decisions are being made, where a decision to not fund an organization has been based on the fact that the founder has donated too much, and the founder is too involved. And so keep those things. And I'm happy to share like offline if you find me online. But that is a critical area for me when it comes to self funding and or a nonprofit organization, because it is a public charity. And we have to look at it and approach it from a very different lens. But it's not a sustainable, sustainable, it's not a sustainable approach. And it brings for a lot of questions when you're looking for grants and other funding as well.
I mean,
If I can say something real quick on just the startup just specifically within the first year, I self funded to which is it's hard, right? So marry the mission, not the model. So you're married to the mission in that first year of life as an organization, you're breathing it, you're given everything you have. And I don't remember the person that wrote that or the comment. But the fact is, like, invite people into your story. And what I would say was that the stories that get repeated are the ones that you invite people into, and test hard and pivot often. Tests hard pivot, often. I mean, I'd probably dropped. I don't know, like, it's embarrassing how much I self funded. But I knew that we had something and I've started about 12 businesses in my life, and I've self funded all of them. So if you go with the business mentality, self funding is almost a must. I agree with the grant situation. Grant, we didn't get our first grant to We are five years old, because of just that, right. So I would go in and I walked in, I was like, oh, I want to build place that and the guy's like, what's your sustainability model? I'm like a, what? Like, they're like, what's your board of directors structure, you're like, what's a board of directors, and I'm showing my my ignorance maybe on this, but the fact of the matter is, where you are in the first year, take a deep breath. invite people into your story, and focus test or test hard and pivot often, test hard and pivot off and try something if it doesn't work. And this mission is important enough to you. Try it again. And as you invite people into this story, that's when the funding will come. That's when the volunteers will come. But if no one knows the story, how can they repeat it, and make the story so simple, that other people can see themselves into it? And I promise you, it's not going to be easy, but it will be worth it. Marry the mission, not the model, and test hard and pivot often. I feel so much love for you right now. Because I was there 14 years ago. It is possible just don't quit is what I would say.
To Deepak Chopra of the nonprofit sector. I agree with Natalie in the comments. You've got those lines. Thank you for that.
But I would also say Eric's written a book about this. So like, go find this I've I've read this. I've given this to other founders where he tells his story and is really transparent, and a lot of practical wisdom, too. So what hope looks like I was like, wait, I know it, there's hope and it was the title of it. So find that as we round out this conversation, we want you know, y'all that have been on the podcast, you know how we do this, we want your one good thing, your piece of wisdom that you leave for us doesn't have to be about scaling and sustaining. But it's what do you want to leave with this community that the chats been so active? Let's start with you, Brian, what would you share,
I'm gonna go back to the comments that were being made about human sustainability, we often talk about financial sustainability. And we don't marry that to that until we address the turnover, the burnout, and isolation. So be as intentional about investing in your people and yourself. And lead by example, especially if you lead an organization that I do invest in myself, through professional development through other resources to take time, because that demonstrates the rest of my team that it's okay, and leads to a strong organization, and I believe, even greater impact. So don't forget that.
So Veronica, what you got?
I want to add on to what Brian said, this is a speech I give with every new team I started leading back when I was in high change environments, give yourself permission to focus, when we give our attention to something we are much more likely to accomplish it. But when our attention is split, when our time is split, we are wasting one of the biggest assets we have, we have to value our staff time and our volunteer time and our energy in a way that enables all of all of the great things we've been talking about today. So in addition to solving you know, the human capital issues where we've been talking about, a key of that is give yourself permission to focus on what you do best. And what you can do better than anyone else in your area and how you can uniquely serve your your folks, your mission, your community, it will change your life.
Okay, that's the second time we've heard focus today on the conversation stage, I cannot double click or underscore that enough, because I do think the paddle, and the amount of tasks that are on our list can be so distracting for us. But those habits, those routines that we have are really going to help us create that focus toward that one, sustainability and scalability. So Kim, what about you? What's your one good thing?
My one good thing is a piggyback off of Veronica. And it's, for me, it's about it's not yours to resolve only. It didn't though challenges didn't come overnight. And it is a marathon to get to the finish line, no matter how quickly we want to address the issue. But it's not yours, to resolve by yourself. And so you need people to help you need the resources to help you to move along and embrace the spirit of collaboration, when it is appropriate for the work that you're doing. Can you help, can someone else help, but it has to be appropriate for the work that you're doing and others, but it's not yours to resolve only.
That's beautiful. Eric round us out my friend.
Yeah, I would say the hardest thing for me is to focus. And it's funny. Like that has been a main topic. And this is what I say to my team. That's what I say to myself. Extreme focus over time creates momentum. And if you can focus in on your mission, your financial structure, your strategy, whatever it is all this great wisdom that has been put in today focus on the board development, extreme focus over time creates momentum. And I just encourage everybody I like find joy in the journey, because like we've been doing this for 14 years. And Kimberly, I was like, I want it now. There's 16,000 families, we're going to change the world tomorrow. And I'm like, oh my god, like, there's a lot of confusion in this right? Like, I don't know what a 501 C three is, or like all of this stuff. But if you focus in over time, extreme focus will create momentum that you will need to sustain, to scale to grow to slow, and there's always fear. Like there's fear when you first start, you're like, Oh my God, how are we going to make it? There's fear when you're growing. You're like, Oh my God, how long is this gonna last? And there's fear when you're flat too. So drop, drop, fear, drop the F bomb, dropping fear not the real. But I know No Cussing, right, I promise you I'm not gonna cuss.
That's Jon's rule, not mine. You know, it adds color and emphasis. So I hope if you are listening to this right now you feel so held, so supported, because our missions are deeply important. But Brian Fung said this at the beginning of today. He said you are human capital, you are a precious cargo. And so take care of yourselves. We need to figure out better ways to work but we need to do it in the spirit of balance and ability to try new things. And this is your hype squad right here. These four individuals clearly know exactly what they're doing. We encourage you to reach out to them, connect with them on LinkedIn connect on their websites. They've got incredible resources, check out Eric's book, which is phenomenal. And I just want to thank our panelists and this incredible conversation that has gone on with our community in the chat.
And this is gonna start so many different conversations as a result. So thank you all my heart is full grateful to see you.
Keep going. We're rooting for you all.
Thanks so much for being here. We hope you're loving the summer of Evolution Series. And to learn more you can head over to we are for good.com/evolution All the playlists, resources and other ways to help you get inspired and activated this summer. We'd also love for you to join the conversation. Share what you're learning on social media, or join us at our free community at We Are For Good community.com Bonus points for snapping a picture and showing us where you're listening from. Can't wait for the next conversation. See you soon friends.
