Ep 81: [Live Coaching Session] Becoming a Super Thinker and Better Problem Solver

EPISODE 81

Adapting to Thrive in Nonprofit Fundraising and Growth

 
 
 

Ever feel like your nonprofit is stuck on a treadmill, working hard but not seeing the results?

In a recent coaching session, Mary shared struggles common among nonprofit leaders. This episode focuses on the transformative power of professional development, particularly in major gifts fundraising.

We explore skill-building, embracing a growth mindset, and making strategic investments in your team to enhance your organization's value. Learn about 'going upstream' for vital relationships, crafting resonant content strategies, and aligning with successful entities for impactful growth.

We discuss the need for immediate and bold actions—mobilize board members, send impactful emails, and embrace a scrappy mentality to revolutionize your fundraising efforts.

Quantum leaps require investing in yourself and your team. This episode is your guide to thriving in the demanding yet rewarding world of nonprofit work. 

Think you’ve reached out to “everyone” in your network? Out of ideas to get noticed and get funded?  Generate leads for your nonprofit or social impact business: https://www.splendidcourses.com/prospect

Steal my Prospect List! Lead Gen just got a lot easier!

Resources mentioned:

 
 
 

Links may be affiliate links which means I may earn a commission at no cost to you.

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.

00:20

I'm sharing with you today a clip from a recent info and coaching session that I had many of my course students attend so that they could hear first glimpse of what we're going to be doing in the Purpose and Profit Club group coaching program. This clip I just knew as we were coaching. I was like I have to share this on the podcast because I know what Mary asked is and what she had some resistance around is what so many organizations feel as well. Thank you, mary, for letting me share a bit of your coaching on the podcast. I know it's going to help a lot of people. I share a pretty juicy prompt or a juicy way to think, a kind of brain bendy way to think about investing in professional development, investing in support, and how to make a decision about what to invest in this year and how to. I love to 10x my own investments, so how to make sure that you get the value out of it, out of those investments, and that it compounds year over year, because that's what happens. Whenever you learn a new skill, whenever you learn a new strategy, whenever you're doing something for the first time, you're building those muscles and you're building really an SOP, a standard operating procedure for your organization. This isn't a one-time thing when you invest in any sort of new strategy or support. In fact, it builds year over year or month over month. Enjoy, let me know what you think. I see the organizations that scale past the half million and then scale past the million dollar mark again and again and again, invest in their people, invest in continuing education and invest in professional development and invest in the mindset work For me. The way that I look at it is when I spend $5,000 to make my organization 50 this year, yeah, but it's not just 50, it compounds, because the framework you get if you start to go okay, well, christina made me book 10 direct ask meetings. Now I have those under my belt. Now, maybe I fumbled, maybe I stumbled, maybe I rocked it. Now I have that skill set going. That's something you bring into the next year. That compounds the interest. That's how I look at it.

02:43

I do think that there's two types of nonprofits. There's my tough club. There are two types of nonprofits that are at this 100K-ish level. They are the ones who stay small because they don't invest in the support whether it's me, whether it's some other piece they can build. The skill set the number one skill set I think that many of you need to build is the major gifts piece.

03:09

I think Dave Ramsey says you need a bigger shovel. Does anyone know that? Dave Ramsey? He's the debt guy. Whenever he coaches people and he's like these people are like I have $100,000 in debt. He's like what do you make a year? They're like $30,000. He's like you need a bigger shovel. It's going to take a long time to get out of debt on that income. What he means is we need to go upstream and make some more money. This is the same for you. It's the same for you. I want you to go upstream.

03:38

The reason why you haven't gone upstream to develop those relationships, to develop those social street teamers, to develop some of these content pieces we've talked about, is because of the support, because of the how I don't know what to say because of the. I feel very nervous, like those very normal feelings that go along with it For me. That's where the club comes in. That's where it's like we get you into action mode, we build that muscle when we think, well, I just don't have the money. That's the easiest, fastest way to just go, yeah, I don't have the money and move on. It's like, wait, what if I could? Wouldn't it be interesting to be like what if I could create $5,000 to pay for this? Then you've proven to yourself I could go create $5,000 more to fund our organization Again. That is how we have to become super thinkers. We have to become better thinkers and better problem solvers to get out of the funding Plateaus that every single one of you are in now.

04:33

I know some of you have increased year-over-year, but I want to see some big increases and especially if I look at your portfolio of donors, I want to see you take Christina Edwards from you know, 250 a year Way up. I want you to 5x her. I want you to 10x her. I want you to find that one. I know Kathy has a couple of thousand dollar donors, that's it, okay. I want to Multiply that. If somebody can give a thousand dollars a year, they can give five or at least 2500 Thousand dollars. A lot that tells me something about them, that tells me their capacity is not 50 bucks, 200 bucks, right, thousand dollars is something, and don't forget who has heard this quote before.

05:14

You're the? What is it? You're the four people. You're sort of like a culmination of the four people you hang out with the most, or something like that. So part of this is getting yourself in the room with organizations that are past when you want to be, that are at where you want to be, right to be in the room and go. What are they doing? Got it. How can I glean and learn from them? Got it. So there's that piece to you start to to Elevate yourself and be in the room from those people, in the same way as for the donors. Okay, yes, thank you Andy. So it's the same way for your donor. So if you have a donor say you have one donor that gives $5,000 a year that donor knows other people who give $5,000 a year to other organizations. The other piece is that donor that gives you $5,000 a year Gives other organizations. They likely support other organizations and one of the things we tell ourselves is we tell ourselves that is their ceiling. What if you found out that donor you're there? Their lowest gift? They give other organizations 20. They give other organizations 15, right, so it's just going.

06:19

Oh, am I looking through this through the right lens or do I look at it over here and make something happen? Because I've told you this, melissa, before. I know which is cat cat lovers hang out with cat lovers. This cat lover knows other cat lovers. Right, it's the same thing, right? And I know, kathy, your organization too. It's like. These are like-minded people who are looking for help, looking for a solution, looking for support. We hang out together. Healthcare providers hang out with healthcare providers, so we know each other. It's a matter of how do we get people to Bridge the gap between? Okay, they know they know other people, christina, but how do I get? So? If you were gonna bring in Another $6,000 this month, who would you call? What would you do? What would that look like?

Mary 07:02

I Don't know.

Christina 07:07

If you had to, if the, if the you're based in the US, right, yes, okay. If the government was like listen, to keep your nonprofit status, you got to bring another 6k this month, otherwise you're gonna lose it, you won't be a nonprofit anymore and we're closing your doors.

Mary 07:20

Then why, would ask every person I came in contact with, and people that they know, and people that they knew?

Christina 07:28

Did you guys hear that? Why aren't you doing that now?

Mary 07:33

Part of it is time and just that hesitation of getting in front of people.

Christina 07:38

It's not the time, it's the hesitation. Do you feel that like in your bones? Do you feel it?

Mary 07:43

Oh, absolutely, and knowing the right thing to say, or like, yeah, you don't want to piss somebody off.

Christina 07:49

What if right? So here's what I want to give you. What if you were okay with not knowing the right thing to say? What if you were okay with pissing somebody off? Would it be worth it for your organization to exist next month? Yes, absolutely.

Mary 08:03

We can't not.

Christina 08:04

People's lives are literally depending on us, that's what we're doing in the club and you keeping yourself small by saying I don't. I'm giving you some hard coaching right now because I know you're here to receive it. I can tell you're open to it. You saying I can't afford this or I'm not able to do that again, whether it's the club or not, is what's keeping your organization from growing, and it's so normal. I've been there in my business. The executive directors I've worked with that are past the million dollar mark. They still encounter this.

Mary 08:37

I'm like I don't want to piss them off.

Christina 08:39

I don't know what to say. It is the most normal thing that everybody in this, this world, this mission-driven world, experiences. But if you're able to override that part of yourself, you're gonna see a huge amount of success. And if you start negotiating with that part of your success, you'll be exactly where you are now, where you see incremental growth, but it's not quantum leaves. Does that make sense?

Mary 09:06

Yeah, I think it's so what I've invested in myself already as far as yes you're doing it.

Christina 09:14

I see you yes.

Mary 09:16

Oh, it's been huge, so I do. And I do have some hesitation, like oh my gosh, can I commit to like the weekly meetings? Can I like? Is it gonna be so much information? Am I gonna be able to keep up?

Christina 09:24

Here's what we're gonna do. Yes, we meet three times a month. We have what I call an off week or an integration week, a catch-up week, a rest week, whatever you want to call it. There's that piece, okay. So we meet once a week for three weeks of the month. The way the coaching is set up, I will teach a bit in the beginning and then we will coach life.

09:45

Okay, if you want to submit a question ahead of time, you can. If you're like I can't make it to today's live call, I have a meeting booked tomorrow. Here's what he the prospect. Here's their deal. Help, I can. Just. You can watch the replay. You could also do that in our Facebook group, so you don't have to come to all of the live sessions in order to see results. I am not firehosing this program with modules for you to watch. You will get access to Amplify Social Impact. You will get access to easy emails. You will get access. I have workshops, templates, scripts, tools. I have a body of work that's ridiculous. You'll get access to all of that if you need it. You don't have to do that to.

10:23

I want everybody that comes in here to make their money back quickly. I don't want you to spend six months to make $5,000. I want you to make $5,000 quickly and then I want you to go make some real money and compound that. Okay, so that's the piece of like. Is it a lot of content? No, and by design, I want us to get really clear on our goals. I want to get us really clear on the way that you're thinking and the actions you're taking and to enjoy the process, even though it's going to be uncomfortable, while you're going through the program, and I think a big part of it is going to be on developing partners relationships, whether those are with major donors, whether those are with digital ambassadors, whether those are with influencers, kind of mid-level donors. That is what we'll figure out for you, but it's still going to be like, expansive and uncomfortable, and it's still going to be the exact work that you're not doing right now. And I don't mean you, I mean all of everybody of like okay, if my doors were going to close next month unless I've raised this 6K, this 10K, what actions would I take? That's the work that I want you to do, and I don't want to do it from a way that feels uncomfortable. I don't want to do it from a way that feels like if anyone's ever had like a I'm thinking of like a coach in high school or in in wherever that was like mean, not in that way. You know where it's like you have to, but I choose to, I choose to, I choose to do this. It's hard, I have the support, but I choose to do this and it's worth doing. It's like work worth doing because I want to make sure our organization next year is set up for where it wants to be.

12:02

So use that prompt. Ask yourself OK, if I had a month to reach X goal, what would I do? Who would I call? What emails would I send? What doors would I knock on? What texts would I send? What would I have my board help me do? What decisions would I make swiftly, quickly? What would I stop overthinking about? What would I stop kind of ruminating or worrying about? Like how would I scrappily do the minimum viable product of a fundraiser, of a campaign, of a social street team launch, like, what would I do? And then the next question is why am I not doing that now? And welcome to being a human? The answer to that question is fear of rejection, not knowing, not having the skillset, the tools, the support, the accountability of knowing what to say, do that inner negative self-talk, that shadow self. Right? It's all of those pieces mixed together. It's the strategy, it's the mindset, it's both. If you need help with that, then you need to come join us in the Purpose and Profit Club in the group coaching program.

13:11

Every year, I make new investments in my own business and the strongest clients that I have, the strongest nonprofits that I know, the ones, the big ones, the ones that are leading their sector, the ones that are disrupting, the ones that are expanding, they're doing the same thing too. They are not using the same roadmap, the same skillset that they did five years ago, that they did three years ago, that they did last year. And that requires taking leaps. That requires investing in yourself, investing in your team, investing in support. And there is a gap between that initial investment, whether it's bringing on a part-time staffer, a freelancer, an assistant I'm a huge fan of EDs hiring an assistant at a part-time basis right, there's a gap between spending that money, spending the money for a coach, and seeing the initial results. Right, it's not immediate.

14:10

And so you have to believe in yourself, you have to believe in your organization enough and you have to want it badly enough to where you go. I'm in. So that's the power of coaching, that's the power of the club. Like what you're hearing and want to take this to the next level, I want to invite you to go to purposeandprofitclub to watch my free class In there. I will tell you the number one thing, that's, keeping your nonprofit or social impact business stock, and what to do instead. Go to purposeandprofitclub.

You Get To Have Purpose And Profit. I’ll Show You How.

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