Ep 80: [Client Success Story] The Nonprofit Growth Playbook with FOTCOH's Nathan Ruby

EPISODE 80

Engaging Hearts and Minds to Fuel Nonprofit Missions

 
 
 

Meet Nathan Ruby, the Executive Director of Friends of the Children of Haiti (FOTCOH). He's a brilliant fundraiser and longtime client, and today he's sharing how our work together moved his organization from $200,000 annually to $800,000 (even with a small team)!

We dig into how marketing, operations, and fundraising have led to a significant boost in donor engagement—demonstrating the undeniable power of combining communications, marketing, and the art of connecting with those who support your mission.

From the growing pains of transitioning to an executive director to the necessity of acknowledging one's limits, this episode offers a candid look at the need for robust support systems. 

He shares a strategic lens on fundraising, stressing the importance of aligning donor interests with organizational outcomes, and the untapped potential within existing donor networks and how to get your board to support your org's growth.

For more information about FOTCOH, visit: www.fotcoh.org
Listen to Nathan's podcast, The Practice of Nonprofit Leadership.

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Resources mentioned:

 
 
 

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TRANSCRIPT:

Christina 00:02

Welcome to the Purpose and Profit Club podcast for nonprofit leaders, mission-driven creatives and social entrepreneurs. Get ready to stop dreaming and start doing. Here, ideas become action. We prioritize purpose and profit. You ready, let's go? Welcome to the podcast, nathan Ruby. I'm so excited to welcome my friend and longtime client. You're the executive director of FOTCOH Friends of the Children of Haiti, so take a moment and tell us about the work that you do at FOTCOH.

Nathan 00:34

Well, first of all, Christina, thanks for having me. This is awesome. I'm really excited to be here today. Friends of the Children of Haiti is a primary healthcare provider in a small town called Savadieh, Haiti. It's on the southern coast of the country and we have been there since the early 1980s and we provide primary healthcare, so just like going to the doctor, and also we have a surgery program, a dental program, clean water program, a women's health program and a really, really, really stellar pharmacy. So that's what we do. So we serve about 17,000 patient visits a year Amazing.

Christina 01:22

And I was thinking about it in advance of this interview. I think we started working together like our first meeting was the end of 2019, I think. So that's what I'm thinking. Does that sound right?

Nathan 01:32

Yeah, I would say that's give or take. You would know better than me. That's like ancient times ago.

Christina 01:41

And I think one of the reasons why we have worked so well together is a couple of things you definitely have the entrepreneurial spirit.

You make decisive action, You're willing to try new things. As the ED of your organization, You're trusting me, bringing me in as an outside consulting and a coach, and we're going to get into how that helped to really accelerate your organization's growth. Today and I know that a lot of people will naturally hear and will have you back on for a separate conversation about fundraising, but you're a rock star fundraiser and one of the things that people bring me on and they join my programs to do is I'll see this like it's kind of this common thread with organizations that are half a million to a million where often not always, but often the ED is actually kind of an amazing fundraiser and they're not able to go do what they do well because they're doing the running of the organization. And one of the places that I feel like it's like my goal for you is to make sure that you can go fundraise, because if you can fundraise you can have an even greater impact.

Nathan 02:49

Well, first of all, we have to go back a little bit, and the reason that you and I work really well together is A, because you're extremely smart and you understand the trifecta of communications, marketing and fundraising, and that is a left brain, right brain type. The people that are really good at marketing and communications do not have the fundraising piece, and vice versa. And you have that and I will give myself credit. I will say I am smart enough to just say this is what we need and then just let you figure it out. So I'll take credit for that part of letting you do what you do and that you do really well, because I don't have the communications piece, I don't have the marketing piece. So, anyway, that's why we work so well together.

Christina 03:44

But you are unafraid of donor meetings, and I love it. I love it. You're like put me in coach, put me in.

Nathan 03:52

That's the only reason I do this job is so I could go to. No, that's not right. You might want to edit that out. That's not right, but I do. I just, I love that is the best part of my day If I, when I have to work, look at a spreadsheet, it just you know, like on the budget, it literally gives me hives. But if I could go and talk on the phone with the donor even better, sit down at the table with them or sit down across the conference room, whatever it is, I just that's. That just lights me up.

Christina 04:22

Yeah, totally. So. Let's talk about some wins. So we've ended up working together. For now it's like, oh my gosh, so long. But from where we started to why you were like, okay, we need some help to where you are today. So what's a like standout moment or a success from our work together that comes to mind?

Nathan 04:42

Oh my gosh, how long is this episode? I mean, geez, the list is long. You know, I think, when, when I reached out to you, I knew I came in in the organization 2017, and it was a. It was a great organization doing great work, started by a founder typical founder story. You know, the founders traveled to Haiti. They saw what was happening there. They said to themselves, somebody needs to do something. They looked around and and they realized that it was them. They're the ones that needed to do something. So they did this and, in typical, in typical founder fashion, they had an, had an outstanding, deep, profound passion for the people that they were serving, and that is unique among all founders. Otherwise they wouldn't be founders. They have this driving force that is inside of them. But also, like founders, they did not have expertise in finance, or in fundraising, or in marketing, or in this and this and this and this and, but they did it the only way. They knew how to do it, and that was kind of where the organization was when I came along in 2017.

And I knew, you know, I knew right off the bat we needed a new website, we needed a communications plan, and I think that's the answer to my, to your question is the biggest, most profound change we made was getting proactive. And getting what sort of want getting? I guess we'll just say proactive. Getting proactive about putting a plan together of this is what we're going to do, this is our strategy, these are our tactics, this is how we're going to do it, this is when we're going to do it, and then we're going to stick to that plan.

And you know, I would give I would give us, not you, I would give me a C plus on implementing the plan. I would give the plan and a that came from Christina. And there were some bumps along the road because as an organization, we did not have the systems in place to give you what you needed to to to help us, and so that took, that took a little while, but I think that was the biggest. The biggest thing was creating a plan and being proactive and then executing on that plan.

Christina 07:12

Yeah. So a couple of things come to mind. I'm recalling a recent interview with another sort of what would be the word she took over for the founding ed and she's like I this is Wendy from live like blue foundation. She's like I inherited Christina a spreadsheet with our donors. She's like that's what I got Right and it's sort of this like very grassroots way of founding and running an organization. And then it's like what is the next layer of getting us to 500 and beyond? Look like, and it's like, yeah, we got to create some systems. And often too, it's like what is our actual plan? What is not only our fundraising plan, because I think you had it out, you had that but it's like how does that talk to and incorporate with the comms plan and the online plan and all of the things?

Nathan 08:02

Yeah, yeah, because the the, the well. And I think to your other client that that, yeah, when you and a lot of organizations small, especially smaller organizations this the minute decreases to be an issue, the bigger you get. But for smaller organizations, a culture of philanthropy is critically important. And in a culture of philanthropy it is a understanding of staff and the board and volunteers and your donors, everybody, that if we don't fundraise, if we don't generate revenue, we got nothing, no margin, no mission. We can't go do this wonderful thing that we do if we don't have money in the checking account as a nonprofit. That's how we get that money. We fundraise, and so it has to be a oh gosh, do we really have to talk about fundraising at this board meeting? As opposed to, this is a. You know it's a standard on every agenda. You know every board meeting it's there, people are engaged and so it's this culture right, you have to build this culture. And then the other piece of that is having on a fundraising.

You know, when I took over the organization we were about a $300,000 budget and we've grown. This year we are going to hit $800,000 this year and the fundraising plan on an $800,000 to a million dollar organization is radically different than on $300,000 budget organization. But here's the thing, christina, is you have to create the changes, the plan ahead of the growth. You don't have growth and then, oh, we're going to do things differently. That won't work. You have to do things differently now to get to the growth. And so, you know that could be training or it could be, you know, coaching, or it could be. Hey, I have this fundraising plan that did X. Well, if you, if you do this exact same thing next year as you did last year, then, all things being equal, you're probably going to raise X. So if you want to raise X plus, then you need a plan that's plus, plus, plus.

Christina 10:16

Oh, that's so good. Yeah, I'm picturing like a visual of going down a road and it's like you have to pave the road for you to go down, otherwise just going to go down the other road, the other sidewalk. So, as speaking to like investing and figuring out the plan and what's going to take you to that next level, what is the benefit of having an outside collaborator, consultant, coach, in that instance? Because I think it's easy for organizations to say, yes, we're with you, Nathan, and our board's going to figure this out, or we're just going to figure it out, or maybe we need to hire a new staff member or give so and so extra hours. What's the benefit of sometimes having an outside set of eyes?

Nathan 10:57

Yeah, that's a great question and I am. I have definitive opinions on this, as I do in most things. So getting outside support or help or council, whatever you want to call it. Here's the thing with the executive directors, and especially in you know, under a million dollars, executive directors are you wear every hat. You are the chief fundraiser, you're the chief program officer, you're the chief communications person, you're the chief Moldigrass person, you're the chief volunteer coordinator. So I have a lot of these roles and typically an executive director typically not always, but typically they come up through the program side of the equation. So they have.

You know what happens is executive director leaves for whatever reason, retires or takes another opportunity, whatever. And there's this whole. And trying to hire a new executive director for an organization is miserable for everybody. I have a word, but it's probably a family show so I won't use that word, but it's not easy, all right. And so the easy thing for the board to say is oh, you know, there's Susie or there's Joe or whatever. You know, they've been with the organization for years and you know, they know the organization and they know everybody and everybody loves them. So they make a great executive director and so they offer the position and they take it because they're excited. And then they come in and they sit down in the chair for the first day and they're like I don't know anything about finance, I don't know anything about building a budget, I don't know anything about social media, I don't know anything about fundraising, I don't know all of these things, all right, and but the board says OK, as they kind of, you know, wipe their brow and say we did our job, we got somebody in the executive director role, you know, go forth and grow the organization.

Now my story is a little different. I actually came up on the fundraising side and so when I took my first executive director position, I had never run program at all and I am still and I had to change my tone because I used to say when I was on the fundraising side, I would actually say I don't care about the program. Now I cared, I cared deeply for the outcomes of the program, the people that we helped and the changes, and the change slide in the same way. I cared deeply about that. But how the program functioned, honestly, christina, I didn't, I didn't give one who about that, because I didn't understand it and I didn't wake up every day and say oh, how can we, you know, how can we drive more benefit out of our program?

It's not how I thought, and so, and to this day, I have to be aware of that. I have to make sure that I'm spending adequate time on our program development and that we're hitting the outcomes, we're hitting the deliverables that we say that we are same way with finance. I hate spreadsheets, I hate budgets, I hate all of it, but I'm the executive director, so that's my job, so I have to pay attention to that. And so the point of this rambling that I'm doing is, if you are short and every executive director is every executive director has pluses and minuses, strengths and weaknesses. If you are weak in a certain area, sooner or later that is going to hold you back from growth, it's going to hold the organization back. And so at some point you're going to have to say, all right, either I need to get a consultant or a coach to come in and help me, or I'm going to have to hire somebody part time to deal with that, or full time, or whatever the case is.

Christina 14:33

But you can't just ignore it, because it will hold your organization back you literally just described an email that I got from the founding executive director this happened like last month saying I'm stepping down and this lovely human from programs is now our executive director. I literally just got this email and I was like, okay, okay, all right, and so yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's so funny that you say that you talk about setting somebody up to fail.

Nathan 15:05

Yeah, now, I'm not saying don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that and this person is awesome at their job in programs which they've rocked it at.

Christina 15:14

However, this is, like I would imagine, going to be a complete. It's like putting on two left foot shoes. They're going to be like what is this?

Nathan 15:28

And I am not a board person. I'm not a person that says, oh, the board's not doing their job or oh the board whatever, yeah, no, it's your job. You're the executive director, it's your job to make these decisions, it's your job to do these things. But in this case that you just described, they probably don't know what their real job is, right, and so it's going to be up to the board to say you know what? We need to allocate funding for you to get some help for you to get coached up for you to have somebody walk alongside of you.

And in my coaching that I do, I had one that we just for a year we worked together and it was the exact same thing. She was on the program side. The executive director this was the executive director got walked out, so a little different thing. She got put in and she realized I have no idea what I'm doing. And so we got connected, we worked together and she just made massive steps. It just massive steps and just so, yeah you, there comes a time where everybody I use coaching, I know you use coaching somebody to walk with this and things that were weakened. So everybody needs that.

Christina 16:45

Yes, totally. I'm like I gotta send them an email. They need to talk to you. Okay, let's talk a little bit about some of the successes we've had. I'm curious where do you feel like Falko would be had we not worked together? So, had you brought, had you said we're gonna figure this out in house or we're gonna figure, I don't know. Just I'm sure there's a thousand different ways you could have gone down this path, but like, what would have looked like? Let's Falko like today without our work, taylor, other than we would have, I would have totally missed all of our WhatsApp conversations.

Nathan 17:21

I know and some of our and you know a lot of our stuff has nothing to do even with work, totally, you know, I think that the first thing that comes to my mind with that question is our newsletter. Yeah, and I get compliments on our newsletter all the time. All the time, anytime I'm out talking to donors, anytime I'm out with groups of people that are insiders, that are Falko friends of the children of Haiti Falko is our acronym. If we're with Falko insiders, almost 100% of the time the newsletter comes up and our newsletter prior to us, working together, was it looked like volunteers put it together? You know we had volunteers put it together and you know volunteers can only do so much.

Christina 18:10

And we are talking about like a printed, mailed piece and yes, so it was like yes, like a little.

Nathan 18:18

Yeah, and it was. It looked like a little mom paw organization newsletter.

Christina 18:24

It was very, very busy. So there was like there was the design piece and I was like, oh my God, this is going. And then there was the content piece and both of them. It just needed the design piece. We've completely reimagined it, we just started fresh. And then the content piece and I know we've weaved that into like your direct mail, your appeals, and all of that was just how do we step up the authority and the expertise and the true impact of what you're doing, because what you're doing is remarkable. But that wasn't being, that wasn't there in the content. You know.

Nathan 19:02

You know, and the big thing is, and if and whether you're fundraising or marketing or communications in your nonprofit, it's all about stories. It's all about telling stories. And that was one of the big changes we made in the content was we went from factual telling you what was happening or what happened to here's this story, here's this patient story. Here's the name, here's a picture. Here's what happened. We're not talking. You know thousand word stories. They're like you know a hundred word stories. I mean, they're short little things, and so that was, I think that was a big upgrade. You know the design, you know most people and as executive directors, we put in hours agonizing over these newsletters and every word, and you know all of this stuff. And you know people, people are gonna look at the pictures. You know they're gonna look at the captions under the pictures.

Christina 20:00

They're gonna look at what's bold.

Nathan 20:01

Yeah, what's bolded, what's in different colors, they're gonna maybe skim your executive director corner that you, you know that's right. They're gonna look at the PS and you know now you're real zealots, you know you're real ambassadors that love everything about your organization. Maybe they read every word, but that's not the majority, and so you've got to hit their attention in those spots where they're gonna look. And I think that was the biggest difference. And you know you're going back to the design again. It looks good. The colors are on our color palette, it just it looks good. It's professional.

And I think for organizations there's a point where you transfer from we're a monpa, you know operation and everything's about saving a dollar. And you know we printed this on our own printer and we had volunteers come in and fold it. And you know, and that's great for a $200,000 organization or $150,000 organization. But again, going back to, you have to change first to get the growth.

If you want to grow to a half million dollar organization, then you have to look like a half million dollar organization or else donors aren't going to support you at that level. So, and it's you know, it doesn't mean that you spend, you know, thousands of dollars on every newsletter. We're not saying that. But you know, look at the newsletter that comes from the biggest hospital in your community or the big universities. You know, look at what they're putting out compared to what you're putting out. Now, obviously there's a cost difference there and I'm not saying if you're a $100,000 budget, you need to put out what the university of you know, whatever state you're in, does. But you've got to step it up if you want to grow.

Christina 21:52

I'm so glad you said that, because one of the things that we've done really well together and has made you more money is investing in whether it's a fundraising tool, investing in, like you said, let's clean up the look and aesthetic of this. It doesn't mean we're paying a designer $10,000 to do it, but it's like where is the small upgrades that we can make along the way and being willing to do that? And sometimes I have organizations that come to me and it's like a race to the bottom, like we are so proud that we spend two cents on marketing throughout the year and it's like that's not a badge of honor, right.

Nathan 22:28

No no.

Christina 22:29

Because, functionally, from the donor's point of view, like you give me that mail piece and it looks like crap, it looks like it's hard to read, I'm not reading it. You send me that email and I'm having to pinch to zoom in or there's so much friction to make the donate I'm not doing it right. Don't be proud that you have the cheapest printer, the cheapest fundraising tool, like in fact, it's inhibiting people from donating to your organization or volunteering or whatever it is.

Nathan 22:59

Okay, you just took one of my pet peeves and you just cranked me up on it. One of my pet peeves is this 30% overhead percentage that people talk about. That was created in like 1932 or whatever, and donors get fixated on it and it's not as bad as it used to be. But I still hear it once in a while and so I think nonprofits have this oh, we have to be under this arbitrary number and for admin cost, and the lower the ratio, the lower the percentage, the better it is. It's the wrong question. The question is your impact. What impact are you making? So if I wanted to have, if I wanted to bring FATCO's ratio down to 5%, oh, I could do it. I mean, I could bring that thing down to almost nothing. So, but what would we have to sacrifice? Well, we could not do an audit. I mean, that's expensive, we could not do that. So now I'd have no way to show donors that, guess, your money is going to where we say it is, but I've cut my ratio down. I could cut you out.

Christina 24:12

Cut your entire comms plan.

Nathan 24:14

Yeah, we could go back to. We could do no social media, we could do no newsletter and we could go back to sending like we used to before. I came to a one appeal letter at the end of the year and that's it. Okay. Well, that would cut that ratio way down. So it's not about I don't mean to be snarky, but it's not about the ratio, it's about output and I have talked to donors and I most donors, vast majority of your donors if you could say, hey, if I spent a little more money, then I would have more revenue to make a bigger impact, to serve more people, to serve more people better, mr and Mrs Donner, which would you have? Would you rather have a little bit higher ratio and serve more people, or a much lower ratio and serve half the people that we are now? If you ask your donors that, I guarantee you they will take the bigger impact.

Christina 25:08

This is why we get along so well. Like it's, this is it Is. It shouldn't be a badge of honor that you're like great news, mr and Mrs Donner, our staff of five employees are getting paid just above the poverty line, so they're barely making ends meet. And aren't you so glad? No, no, you know. And FOTCOH employees more than 50 Haitians in Haiti run the clinic. It's like I wanna make sure not only the stateside employees, the employees over there are paid well. Right, that should be like the foundationally, and it is about being willing to have that conversation with the donor of like. Actually, let's rethink this whole overhead and why it's important that people are paid well. So thank you for that. All right, let's talk about. We're gonna wrap up here in a second, so we're just getting going. I know, I know we can keep going, so let's talk a little bit about what's next Like. Where do you see FOTCOH next and what is the next layer of growth for your organization? Take that picture.

Nathan 26:19

Oh man, that's a great question and I've been thinking about it. Actually, I just sat yesterday at Panera with our CFO and we talked through this very question. So we're gonna push 800 this year. Our next plateau is a million. That's our next step. And so our next investment we're gonna go a little heavier into grants. We are and if you're listening to this podcast and you heard me say grants, that is not a panacea, that is not a oh, we're gonna get into grants and all of a sudden you have this big, huge money just starts falling out of the sky. We started this process four years ago and we now have the infrastructure built and we have the groundwork ready to go so that, moving forward, we are going to start to receive on a consistent basis. So it didn't happen overnight. So we're gonna invest a little bit more heavily in that. That's one.

Christina 27:27

And before you invest heavily in grants, you have a core group of high impact donors. That sort of allowed you to do that, yeah.

Nathan 27:37

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's actually number two. Okay, go, Because we are going deeper into our major gift program. Yeah, we have an awesome board and we have a handful of our board members who are very good, very good at major gift fundraising and work hard at it. And so we've identified an additional group of donors that we are going to bring into the major donor process that are gonna go from maybe one call a year to more of a cultivation process where we're doing major gifts, moves, management and intentionally working them into our one-on-one communication process and interaction.

And then the other thing in that same topic would be we have to go deeper with some of our already generous donors and connecting the dots between transactional, even at the major gift level less transactional, more personal and so finding out what is the donor's real passion for giving, what are they trying to achieve through their philanthropic giving, and then connecting those dots of. Okay, mr and Mrs Donor, these are the three things that are really important to you and here's how we meet that, here's how we deliver that for you. And when you do that, you go from three-figure gifts to fourth figure, to five to six. That is how you bump up. And here's the thing, christine, and I know you know this you already have.

If you're an executive director and you're listening, I'm telling you you already have the money in your current donors. You don't need to go spend money. Yes, do we need an inflow of new donors? Yes, every organization needs that. I'm not saying that's not important, it is somewhat important. There needs to be a little bit of emphasis on that. But all the money you ever need for your organization is already in your donor base. You just have to go make the connections with those donors, find out what's important to them and then show how your organization, the outcomes, how you're changing lives, how you're saving lives, how that connects to your donor's passion, and the money will follow.

Christina 30:10

Like let that sink in because it's true. Like let that sink in because it's true, they're right here, they're right there. You haven't asked, they haven't felt seen, they haven't felt engaged with, like they exist. I'm so glad you said that. I'm thinking about my assistant putting together the quotes for this episode. I'm like that's a quote, that's a quote. There's another quote. You had a lot of good ones.

Nathan 30:32

Well see, here's the thing with your donors. Sorry, I mean I interrupted, I did, but sorry. They're already giving those donors that you have that are in your donor file. They're giving those four and five and six figure gifts. They're just not giving them to you. They're giving them to other people. They're already doing it and if they're not giving them to you it's because you haven't done the work to get them, to motivate them, to encourage them, to ask them to give to you.

Christina 31:04

Yeah, that's a solvable problem, for sure. Right, yeah, the best Duh. Okay, you said something, but I wanna make sure that we, like you, have to tell us a little more. You said my board. There's some really great fundraisers on my board and I want to know how did they become really great fundraisers?

Nathan 31:21

Yeah, good question.

Christina 31:22

Do they just come to your board and say I'm gonna be a board member because I'm thinking of a few that I know personally? Did they come as natural? Amazing fundraisers.

Nathan 31:30

Nobody raised their hand and said, ooh, ooh, ooh, pick me, pick me. The smart kid in fifth grade had always answered all the questions that annoyed everybody else. Sorry if that was you.

Christina 31:42

I was in the back corner, you're good Don't call on me.

Nathan 31:46

Yeah, not making eye contact. So I have the best board. I've been doing this for 25 years and this is the best board I've ever had. They are amazing and we have 14 board members. Half come from the business world, half come from the medical world. We're a medical clinic, so we've got to have medical sides really important. But we worked really hard and the board has worked with me on this over the last six years to bring in really high level, competent business people who think differently, who have different perspectives, different ideas, different skills, and so I have four or five that are not afraid to pick up the phone and if I say, hey, this donor just gave this gift, can you reach out to them and say thank you. The next thing I get back is send me the contact information and then three days later they've sent me the thing done. This is what we talked about, and so a couple of things. If you have a board that it's not doing anything for you in that field, here's how you do it Couple of easy steps.

One is don't expect your entire board to do it, unless you've recruited them as fundraisers. That's specifically what we're asking you to do. They're not gonna do it, they're just not. You didn't recruit them that way. So every board member that we're actually in the process of cultivating a couple of them now and that was like within three minutes of the first conversation is we're expecting you to fundraise and to bring in this much money. That is right up front, and so if they're not interested in that, then they're not a fit for us. So if you didn't recruit your board members that way, don't expect them to all say, oh, you're gonna start this initiative, okay, yeah, I'll do that. It won't happen. But there's probably one or two that if you ask them specifically individually, one-on-one, privately, not in front of everybody, they will probably say yeah, I can help you, All right. So that's one. Start with one or two.

Two is make it all about thanking the donor. Don't ask them to go in and make a $100,000. Ask you, ask them to. I would like for you to help me thank a donor for their giving. One and two I just want you to say tell the story of why you're passionate about our organization. That's it. I want you to say thank you and I want you to say why you're passionate. Well, if they're a board member, anybody can say thank you and they can tell their own story. That's pretty simple. All right, that's two. And then three is after you have the interaction with the donor, whether it's on the phone or, better, face-to-face but you can't always do face-to-face zoom whatever. However, you're gonna do it.

Then typically what you'll find is the board member will say, oh well, that wasn't so hard and that was actually kind of fun. And then it's like okay, I've got another donor, could you help me two weeks from now? So then at the next board meeting or at a future board meeting, you have that board member relate their experience. Yeah, it was really fun. I just I said thank you, and then we talked about why I was passionate. And so then you've got other board members saying, oh, is that all it is? Well, okay, I can do that. I can say thank you and tell them my own story. That's how you start, as opposed to yeah, I'm gonna make a $5,000 ask next week and I need somebody to go with me. Who's gonna volunteer? Yep, nobody's gonna do that. So that's how you do it.

Christina 35:42

So smart and it's like these little incremental pieces coaching them through it and it was reminding me of what we did at the end of the year. So we sort of took, I'm gonna say, those warm board members and then we opened it up to the whole board and said who's gonna help us? So, underage, right, we had a container of a start date and an end date and I helped you create this of like this fundraising campaign online. And then the other piece that is similar but a little different to what you just said is we gave them a toolkit which was like how do I make this the easiest thing possible? And the most fun outcome aside from the money raised, which was so fun, and the new donors that came in, which was so fun was the one board member that hit reply all on a thread to the other board members that just said this was so easy. All I did was post once and I think he had $5,000 coming that day or something and it was like that endorsement helped get people.

Nathan 36:35

Yeah, yeah.

Christina 36:36

Oh, you can do this too.

Nathan 36:38

Yeah, and another thing on your board and it doesn't make any difference if it's the, the grandma who's on your board, who's been on the board for 20 years and she's the most wonderful, amazing person and everybody loves her and she loves the organization. Whether you're talking about her or if you're talking about the CEO of a half a billion company, they are terrified to fundraise. I don't care who they are. I have one board member now who came in the door and said I will, I'm gonna help you do this and I will do this. And this guy, he is one of the best major gift fundraisers I've ever been around and he has no clue what he's doing. So we but he had passion and he had the desire to do it, and so we've coached him and we've worked with him and he's the only one in 25 years who came in and said I will help you do this.

The rest are terrified and I don't care who they are. Tonya, christina, you take the CEO of a billion dollar company, can go in and speak to 10,000 people and can lead all of these things and do all of these things, and if you say, could you help me ask a donor for a gift, you will see fear creep into their eyes. So don't ask them to do that. Ask them to help you say thank you to donors and tell their own story, that's. If you try to get them to do any more than that at the get go, you've lost them Totally.

Christina 38:16

Okay. So we ask every guest on the podcast what is one thought that you like to think on purpose? So maybe this is an affirmation, Maybe this is a quote you heard. What is something that kind of helps keep you motivated as you're doing this work?

Nathan 38:41

I would say and this you have to help, you have to let me explain this. But I would say what comes into my mind the most is irrational confidence. And by that I mean not irrational confidence says I don't care what the situation is, I don't care what's happened, I know. I have confidence in my own ability, I have confidence that I can figure it out. Now, that doesn't mean that I, that I write off the bat and know the answer. It doesn't mean that I know the right direction. I don't know the right step all the time, immediately, right off the bat, but I have confidence that I'll figure it out. And so that means being able to say confidently you know what? That's a great question. I don't know the answer, or this has happened.

And then you know, as an executive director, something happens. Well, then you can visibly see everybody's head turn towards you because they're waiting for you to make a decision or answer. And it's having the confidence to say, yeah, I don't know what that is, but give me an hour, give me a half a day, give me a day, give me a week and I'll figure it out. And so the irrational confidence is knowing, trusting yourself, that you will come up with a come up with a solution, come up with a plan, and even if it's not the exact right plan or the most efficient way or the most effective way, it's that you're leading and saying all right, this is what we're going to do. We're going to do step one, step two, step three, and if we get to step two and realize step three is not right, then we're going to change that and get it. We're going to get it right. But that's what I that's what I remind myself the most is be confident, know that you've figured out and just trust yourself that that eventually I'll get there.

Christina 40:34

That's so good. I think so many founders and leaders get stuck in the loop of going to bat for why it's not working or why it's not going to work, instead of going to bat for what, if this works? Next step, what's the next best step? Next, next step? So I love that. You know that's perfect.

Nathan 40:52

So good, yeah, and I make mistakes. Oh my gosh, I screw things up, I do things wrong. So it's not that you're you're perfect and that you're going to get it right every time because we all, we all mess it up. It's just saying okay, well on word right. What's it? You know, I make mistakes all the time and it's like all right, well, that didn't work. So what are we going to do instead of that?

Christina 41:17

So but at least it's pushing, it's moving your organization, it's moving you as a leader forward when you have that attitude. So I get it.

Nathan 41:24

You can't stand still, you can't do nothing. That is the worst. You've got to take action. You got to move.

Christina 41:31

So okay, thank you. Thank you. I've loved this conversation. I knew that everybody would get some major gifts coaching out of it. I didn't know they would get board coaching, so this has been extra fun for that. How can people connect with you, tell us about your, your podcast and yeah, all of this, yeah we do.

Nathan 41:50

I have a podcast called the practice of nonprofit leadership. It's. I do have a co-host, tim Barnes, and Tim is a leader in an organization called the international association for refugees and so he's doing refugee work globally and we've been longtime friends and we put this podcast together and it's really designed for executive directors of smaller organizations less than a million for the most part, but a lot of our listeners are like way, way smaller than that and we focus on fundraising, on leadership, on governance and, christina, you've been a wonderful guest of ours a few times and so we've talked about marketing and and it is a place for executive directors to come together to just to learn. And we're starting a new membership program where we're going to be doing some online office hours where people can come in and hang out with us and ask questions and go in a little deeper. So, yeah, so that's the practice of nonprofit leadership. That's that's my podcast and we'd love to have you check it out.

Christina 42:57

Amazing Thank you. Thank you for today. It's been, as always, so fun.

Nathan 43:01

It's been fun, thanks.

Christina 43:03

You know how they say you should enjoy the journey, not just the destination. Have you ever wondered how do I crack the code to do that? I can help you do that. I can help you not only achieve your biggest, most daring goals, but the journey to get there. No more overwhelm, no more self doubt. I want to invite you to book a call with me. Go to splendidatl.com/book.

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PodcastChristina Edwardspurpose and profit, marketing, entrepreneurship, purpose driven, nonprofit, social impact, mindset, productivityComment