$300 I didn’t plan to give

Lee Wochner:
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A while back, I went to an event for a nonprofit my wife is involved with. I was just there as a guest. Then they put their impact up on a giant screen, and I got so swept up that I pulled out my credit card. Three hundred dollars. Gone. Happily. 

It felt like an impulse. But everything that got me to say yes was ready before I walked in. The story. The screen. The QR code and the envelopes on the tables. 

Strategic consultant Dan Wempa breaks down why that moment worked, why you need more lead time than you think, and how a simple process beats last-minute heroics every time on this episode of How to Market Your Nonprofit. 

Dan Wempa Transcription
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Jaclyn Uloth:
Welcome to How to Market Your Nonprofit, the Counterintuity podcast featuring interviews with experts in marketing, fundraising, strategy, and leadership who offer how-tos and inspiration about how you can help your nonprofit succeed and grow during a time of chaos and change. Bringing his 25 plus years of experience in marketing, strategy, and nonprofit management, here’s our host, Lee Wochner.

Lee Wochner:
Dan, it’s great having you join us today. It’s always a pleasure to share insights, notes, observations with you. and frequently I find that you and I are of like mind. And so it’s just a great relationship.

Dan:
Thanks for having me on. It’s great to be with you, Lee. Always nice to talk to you.

Lee Wochner:
And you know, the past, I guess, well, thank you. Same here. I guess the past three, four years, five, you know, time just hurdles by. we’ve gotten to know each other because we actually share a client that we work with, and that’s the Lewis Armstrong House Museum in Queens, New York. I mean, wonderful people and I mean just really an impressive thing. And I’ve seen the help and the guidance and the strategy you bring to that. And it’s been really nice to get to know you and to see that. And so I know a lot of our listeners will pick up real takeaways from this conversation.

Dan:
Here’s hoping.

Lee Wochner:
business minds talking about nonprofit and the arts and such. so let’s start with a little bit of bio. You’ve spent a long time working inside and alongside nonprofits, foundations, and such. How did you get started in that?

Dan:
good fortune. it was you know just if a job that became available in a nonprofit organization at a time when I was looking for employment and that was the opportunity. and you know sometimes I feel like I slipped on a banana peel and I just kind of backpedaled into a career. but I you know I Was able to take the skill set that I have and apply it in many different ways because it was at a time when there were many opportunities in many different places. And teams being what they are, the size and the resources of a lot of nonprofits, there was an opportunity to learn quite a bit.

So I found myself in a lot of different types of rooms working on different types of projects and started to see certain commonalities, you know, across it might be a different discipline or a different type of team that you’re working with, but there’s certain things that kinda hold the success or the failure of an endeavor in their hands.

Lee Wochner:
Yeah, commonalities. It’s like if you were building cars, I mean the car the body shape can be different, the engine can be different, but there are some things that are constant across all sorts of makes and models of cars. And nonprofits do have a distinct way of operating because they’re mission driven for one thing. They’re not profit driven. Although we like them to make a little bit of money and not be in the red, of course.

Dan:
I remember the quote, but not the person who said it. But I once heard someone in a room full of nonprofit leaders say, you know, not nonprofit is not a business model. It’s a tax classification. you know, you still have to manage you have to manage to two bottom lines because you have a mission to accomplish and you have to remain solvent.

Lee Wochner:
Yeah, and that’s a great line. And it certainly keeps you in my experience of running pro nonprofits, it keeps you actively solving problems, which is actually rewarding. I mean, because there’s an imit there’s a mission you’re working to accomplish that you think makes the world a better place. So it can be very rewarding as opposed to, you know, we need the other sorts of jobs, but selling widgets never appealed to me.

Dan:
I think that’s right. and I think just you know, I think that you know, one of the things that having the benefit of working in some pretty well established organizations that have been around for, you know, decades and then also working alongside some organizations that are much earlier in their lifespan. It was interesting to see the ones that are more mature that have had the chance to build up their systems and processes and how th how we do things here. You know, it’s it was it’s been something to aspire to because those things really work really well. But it takes a lot of time to establish those processes and develop a culture that works for what the organization is trying to do. but you know, it takes you a while to get there.

Lee Wochner:
And now I would submit it’s time to reevaluate all those since you brought up processes. I mean, we’re currently doing that here at Counterintuity. We’re doing that with and for some clients because so many things have so radically changed during and since COVID. There’s just been huge global change in so many ways. And you and I, of course, are recording this remotely. We’re on each coast. So there’s a change.

And if your processes predate all of that, it’s really time for a new look. So the other thing that interests me in talking to you, in addition to your obvious charm, is you have a background in development and marketing are tied. There’s an umbilical cord there of some sort.

So can you talk a little bit about how you got into development and how that and what insights you drew from that? And how you what the fundamentals are of making a case when you’re trying to raise money for, let’s say, a new endeavor at a nonprofit.

Dan:
Well, the how it started is, you know, like I said, I was able to sort of apply some skills that I brought to the party in the first place. I had a background in live events, you know, music production festivals, things like that. So my first entree into fundraising was producing events, you know, lectures, galas, you know, symposia, reunions, you know.

Event-based fundraising, you know, sell tickets, sell tables, you know, those types of things. from there, people eventually found out that I had a liberal arts degree and that I could write and I became a grant writer somewhere along the way as well. So having that sort of different lenses on how to raise money by bringing people together, providing an experience, how to raise money by making a case on paper with a budget and a narrative and a justification to go along with it.

So, you know, that was interesting to see fundraising from those two lenses and different types of donors, you know, you target them in different ways or you approach them in different ways to try to engage them, whether it’s w invite them to something or respond to an RFP. but at the end of the day, in either case, it’s about getting the organizations message across. you know, the organization that throws the gala has to look and feel like the same organization that they read about in the letter that you sent them. so understanding the brand or the personality, again the culture of the organization. because, you know, people don’t donate to organizations. They donate to the impact. They want to be involved with what you do, what you accomplish.

You know, those motivations tend to come in a much more visceral place. so those are some sort of early sort of aha moments that you know, there’s these elements that need to be a part of the event needs music and food and this, that, and the other thing, but and the grant proposal has to have the budget and the case statement and but you everything you do, you are selling, for lack of a better word, a mission. you know, so you’re persuading people to have trust in what you want to do and to get behind you in some way.

Lee Wochner:
And you know, I think that I think that’s well said. And you just came up with the unifier between marketing and development. They’re both about persuasion. They’re both about the reality of the cause, of the organization, of the mission, but they’re also about persuading you that you should be part of that and getting you to do that and then making it easy to do that.

I was at an event with my wife last weekend and it was kind of her event. It’s something she’s involved in. And when I saw they had a giant screen and they were showing this new technology they had put out and what the impact was, I was so swept away. I grabbed my credit card out of my wallet and there I was to my own surprise. Cause but they really I was impressed with their ambition and what they’re doing and the and what they’re actually looking to prevent a terrible societal thing happening and they’re trying to address some things and I was just caught up in it.

I mean the storytelling was great. They showed it dramatically and graphically. and, you know, I just kind of went as a guest, but suddenly there went three hundred dollars out of my happily out of my credit card account. Because they did the things you’re talking about.

Dan:
Yeah, you know, I hear three things in what you just gave in that anecdote. One is that they had their story. You know, they were able to tell you who they are. but then secondly you mentioned that they did this sort of graphically or, you know, they which I assume means with some pictures as well as the words. you know, picture superiority is a thing. We remember what we see better than what we hear. so that’s, you know, again, like the ability to put multimedia in your storytelling is usually a way to in incite that visceral sort of response that you’re looking for. And they clearly got to you.

And then the third thing is they got to you in that moment. And from that production angle, they actually had a way for you to pay right then in the moment. It wasn’t a postcard. It wasn’t a, you know, a letter later. It like you have your credit, I’ll swipe that for you. You know, being able to have that the QR code ready to go or the payment page set up and all that. So have the story, make it real, make it visual, and then figure out how to close the transaction. Like that’s it in a nutshell right there.

Lee Wochner:
To their credit, they had they presented multiple ways to give, good for them. and so yeah, I scanned the QR code, but there were also envelopes and forms on the table. I mean, they weren’t letting anybody slide away, so good for them.

So you’ve also been a chief operating officer, whether you’ve had that title or not. And sometimes I will come across a nonprofit or some organization and I will think they, you know, they’ve got somebody really smart and clever at the top, a visionary. they really need a COO equivalent, whatever that title might be. They need a chief operating officer. what does a chief operating officer at a nonprofit actually do? I mean, you and I know what they do. Can you please tell us in your mind what that is, what that role is?

Dan:
Yeah, well, you know, obviously many things will be location specific, industry specific, you know, to the culture of the org. But, you know, at its root, you are correct that there is a visionary. That’s, you know, most often the CO CEO position or it’s at board level, some organizations it’s more distributed, but there’s a vision and that’s not something that you look to your head of operations. You’re looking at that person to implement the vision.

Lee Wochner:
Sure.

Dan:
You know, to be able to take the fundraising, the finance team, the programs team, the marketing and web team, the, you know, if you’re a location based, you might have security or facilities or parking lot to manage. if you’re a global organization, you may have satellite heads of, you know, offices around the country. and all that has to funnel up to one, you know, head of operations.

Because that person may not necessarily be in charge or have all those different people report to them, but they are ultimately accountable for everybody pulling in the right direction. you know, you need to make sure that the thing that we’re doing, we’re all clear on why we’re doing it. You know, what are the intended outcomes? What are the steps we’re gonna take? How long is it going to take? Who goes first? How are we going to pay for it? When will we receive income that might be coming as a result of it.

There’s a sponsorship involved. you know, how do we account for it? Where are the receipts? You know, all the different pieces of something that need to be managed successfully so that an organization functions and is able to do the things that it sets out in its mission, the thing that inspires people to get on board with them. It’s that, you know, quality, you know, of delivery and excellence in how you do the things that you say that you’re asking people to trust you to do.

So ultimately that rolls up to someone who’s got COO or operations or VP or executive, whatever in their title, but it’s a number two, it’s a right hand to the visionary who is the person that is the, you know, the one that needs to be outwardly focused and talking to constituencies while someone is inwardly focused, making sure the organization is on track.

Lee Wochner:
I think that’s really well stated. so and one of the things I bear in mind to keep those roles straight, I’ve done a lot of reading in American history, right? So George Washington was in during the war, was the Revolutionary War, was the person out there, you know, leading the campaign, expressing the vision, keeping these bedraggled troops in the army. And Alexander Hamilton was designing the uniforms working on supply lines, all of those things as a COO does. and being rather annoying to a whole bunch of people, but that can also be the role of a COO. And then in my own work, I always rely on highly organized get it done people because I don’t have any of those skills. I have no organizationally I’m not so organized.

And so the co my co-founder here at Counterintuity, highly organized and capable, Lisa Pham, our ace producer for this podcast and other things, highly capable and organized. And, you know, God bless them, because, you know, we all we need those roles filled. And by the way, they’re both creative as well, but their principal function is managing all of these things. What so as a consultant, can a consultant fill in if you’re a nonprofit and you just don’t have that position and can’t quite afford that position. Is there a role there for a consultant to step in and address some of that?

Dan:
Definitely. I speak from first hand experience in that regard. you know, and I don’t think it’s just non profits at this moment, because the notion of the fractional COO, fractional head of finance, fractional fundraising consultants, you know, fractional head of sales in a for-profit business, that’s a thing, you know.

And it makes a lot of sense in many cases, because you know, hiring and bringing on board someone full time is expensive, time consuming, and there’s risk involved if that person doesn’t work out, or if the funding that you thought you had for the position goes away and now you’ve got headcount, you know. so you really want to be really sure and be able to commit for the long haul when you’re expanding your permanent team.

But many times there is a discrete period of time when a discrete project is happening, or a specific specialty, or talent, or skill is something your organization would really benefit from. And that might be for three or four months or something like that, or a year or even, or three years if it’s over the course of like a capital project campaign or something like that. and sometimes it’s more ongoing, but it’s still not 40 hours a week, right?

You may only need bookkeeping support for 15 hours a month, given the size of your organization, whatever it might be, or a limited marketing, you know, spend that needs to be managed, but not at a level that would justify a full-time director of marketing position. so it makes a lot of sense for organizations to go that route, but the key to getting it right is being crystal clear about what that role is. You know, what is that skill set that you need.

Because you’re bringing people on that are only with you f a fraction of the time. So you have to make sure that you’re clear about this is what I need you to do. And this is what it looks like. Do what by when is a very important thing to be clear about with anybody that you’re bringing on your team, but especially someone if you have that sort of contractual relationship with.

Lee Wochner:
Yeah. And numeric expectations. Numeric because other sorts of expectations can be subjective, but numbers are objective. I mean, this was the goal, this was the time frame to your point, this was the numeric result we agreed on. Was that achieved? you know, when anybody it’s funny the way you just talked about this, because when people ask me, ow how many people work at Counterintuity? I don’t know how to answer. Because it you know, the number at one point was 14. And I don’t even know how to answer the number now. I mean, we have payroll employees, we have payroll employees in two states, we have contractors, we have project-based people, we have people we outsource to.

One of my closest people I work with is an entity called Claude, who is a thought partner for me when I can’t get a flesh and blood thought partner, right? And it it’s opened up opportunities. So theoretically, I mean, as you know, because you and I have worked together in New York, I can work from anywhere. and so sometimes I’ll be out of Southern California and nobody will even know. And so everything again has radically changed.

And what you’re proposing is essentially you can cook up whatever recipe you’re trying to fulfill in your kitchen with a different melange of people. it because now it’s we’re we don’t all have to go report to the same place at the same time, the same five days a week. It’s changed.

Dan:
Yes, which is both a blessing and a bit of a challenge as well, because you know, culture and team kind of come camaraderie is still, you know, still a thing. And some of the organizations I’ve worked with and you know, we’ve spent a decent amount of time talking about, you know, planning ways to come together, the whole team. You know, ’cause I know organizations that may have a permanent location and everybody has to come in a certain number of days a week, but it may not be the same days. And so in effect you go into the office to be on Zoom with people who are home today. so but that coming together to physically be in a space to interact with people, to get to know people because, you know, organizations at the end of it all, it’s like we’re just people.

Lee Wochner:
Yeah.

Dan:
And, you know, we there is no management. There’s only us, right? You know, there’s the people that are in the room that have to make these decisions and we have to rel relate to each other with some empathy. And that’s much harder to do when you only see people in the little Hollywood squares box on your laptop.

Lee Wochner:
Yeah, it and so it’s about trying to find the upsides to that, right? And make it work for people and make it b be fulfilling and help you accomplish the mission. and trying to maintain the cultural aspects that are really important. and you know, you and I have backgrounds in, you know, events and so let’s talk about, for instance, our client that actually has a space. It’s a museum and a performing arts center.

That’s the Louis Armstrong House Museum. And then in the recent couple you couple few years, they built the Armstrong Center across the street. They’re both in the neighborhood in Queens where Louis Armstrong and his wife lived. I mean, it’s quite a thing. And so I and I’ve been thrilled to go there every time I’ve been there.

So yes, you spend some of your day, if you’re white collar, on a laptop or wherever you are, but you still want to get out and do things and see other people. So, can you tell us a little bit about the Louis Armstrong House Museum and the Armstrong Center?

Dan:
Sure. that it’s a you know absolutely fantastic organization. and its mission and what the things they get to work with, it’s just fantastic. You know, they are the organization that collects and preserves the historic house that Louis Armstrong and his wife Lucille lived in for you know, thirty, forty years. and in that house they also collected seventy thousand piece collection of memorabilia from a life on stage and on film and around the world. So they are a collecting organization, historical preservation organization, and then they’re also a public facing museum that welcomes the public and has a box office and a gift shop and all those sorts of things as well.

So there is a just a vastness of story and history that is part of that organization’s fabric that is just you know it’s fascinating. I’ve words fail me, obviously, as I stutter here. It’s just it’s a really special place. It’s a really special story because Louis Armstrong’s life and story and legacy is, you know, something that everybody should understand better than they do right now. I’m positive of that.

Lee Wochner:
I grew up seeing Louis Armstrong on TV a lot and hearing his music and my mother was a fan and I became a fan. And it felt so special to me the first time I came and visited with you and with Regina Bain, the executive director. And I was like, Wow, I am in Lewis Armstrong’s study where he has all of these notes and recordings and all of this stuff, and there’s his chair.

It just felt like wow, this is amazing. just and it’s just a neighborhood. It’s just a neighborhood. I just think it’s such an incredible achievement. And to note this, the Lewis Armstrong House Museum has the world’s largest archive devoted to any single jazz musician. It’s incredible. That’s a that is a unique place on planet Earth. It really is.

Dan:
It is. And at the root of it all, it’s a house on a street in Corona, Queens. that you know, part of again that core as we were talking about earlier, the core culture or the fabric or the personality of the organization is at the root of it a home. So much of the organization’s, you know, programs and the way that it, you know, talks to its audiences around this idea of you know, come on over.

You know, it’s a social type of experience because we’re inviting you into someone’s home. and you know it’s a house where, you know, right to this day, you know, contemporary musicians create original works of music, dance, what have you, in that home and, you know, with the archive as a source of inspiration.

And then right across the street, as you mentioned, as of three years ago, is a brand new exhibition space and performance room, seventy five C cabaret, where, you know, the legacy of Armstrong continues in song.

Lee Wochner:
With people like Winton Marsalis and Flea of Red Hot Chili Peppers coming through. I mean, pretty impressive. when I w so there are tours of the Louis Armstrong House Museum. And so a couple of us who were coming into town to work with you and the whole team of the Lewis Armstrong House Museum, we took the tour and just, you know, we’re trying to blend in and this

This one guy and his wife came from New Orleans expressly for this. Somebody else came expressly from Canada for this. I mean big fans of Louis Armstrong and of jazz. And I just thought, wow, it must be really great to be part of this here because look what you’re doing for people. so here here’s my question that is a significant accomplishment.

I mean, opening the Armstrong Center and in a neighborhood is a huge accomplishment. So hats off to everybody there who was part of that vision and making that vision happen. It for a small or a mid-sized nonprofit, somebody who’s considering some sort of expansion that requires a capital campaign, right? They don’t have a huge endowment, let’s say the one I’m dreaming up for you.

How do you know how do you do an assessment to know if you’re ready to take that leap? What should they put in place first?

Dan:
Well, I think there’s you know, several things and it depends on how far along the organization is, again, in its evolution, because some things may already be in place or it may be first time that some of these things are being thought about. But I think it really starts with, you know, the core values and the mission of the organization. And most organizations have some form of a core value statement.

it may be something that’s on their website or in their handbook. It may be something that everybody gets introduced to upon hire, and it may or may not be something that they ever really revisit again. and so just being clear about what are we all about here, you know, is a very good place to start. And because that gives you something to take a look around the organization, be like, again, we’re only people here, or all of us.

The embodiment of these values, you know, and if not, what do we do about that? but so it’s not to, you know, it’s not just an exercise in wordsmithing, which is what it can sometimes devolve into. It really is about like what are we all about here? It’s just something worth if you haven’t done the exercise, think about it. Get something sort of articulated.

And if something does exist, just touch base with it every year or every other year, even. And just make sure that everything you’re doing is still consistent with those, you know, sort of core principles about what we what we’re all about here. and then I think, you know, the core focus, what are we all about? What makes us unique? and you know, again, we’re not just a museum or a performing arts center. You know, we are a performing arts center for these communities, or we specialize in presenting emerging artists in these disciplines, or you know, whatever it is, you know, try to get as specific about what we do and what is the promise that we put out there and what makes us unique so that we can say, like, yeah, that this is why all these things that we may want to do in a capital campaign, like this is why it makes sense for this organization to do it, because this is what we’re all about.

This is who we are at our core, and this is why we exist because no other organization has this sort of territory as their core focus and the thing that they spend all their time thinking about trying to make better. so then I think it’s like, all right, so what do want to do over the next five, six years in these areas that we are uniquely positioned to, you know, assess what needs to happen right now. Why now? Why is this the thing that should be on our short list of to-dos?

And then I think from there you go to, all right, so how do we pay for that? And that’s where you get into the you know, the feasibility study aspect of you know, talking to people who are, you know, who’ve supported you in the past, who may be on your prospect list, you know, here’s some things we’re thinking about doing. Would you be excited about them? Do you think those are the right things for this organization to do?

Lee Wochner:
Yeah.

Dan:
And that starts to give you an idea if you’re in the ballpark, you know, the right people with the right organization can figure the right way to do these things and people that are ready to raise their hand and say, Yeah, I’ll support that. Do all that before you launch.

Lee Wochner:
What I like about before well, see, that’s what I was gonna say. That’s what I like about what you said. It’s not just, hey, we want to be bigger, right? We want more revenue. we want more donors. I mean that’s not a goal. That’s well, it is a goal. It’s not the goal. And what’s interesting to me about what you said is really what you’re saying there is get your story straight first. Really know who you are.

The who, what, where, when, why, and how of your organization. Who are you? Who do you do it for? Why do you do this? How do you do it? where do you do it? All of those sorts of things. And therefore, what does a next level of achievement look at, look like? And why would people be involved in that? So I’m involved in a nonprofit that was started on paper in 1990 and has been actively producing new work since ninety two. And we were distinct and in many ways we are now more successful than ever.

But now lots of people are doing kind of what we’re doing and the staff is staff has taken note and so we need to do some work to figure out what makes us unique now. Now that we’ve kind of like Johnny Appleseed dropped so many appleseds around and there are all these little trees.

We need to figure out where we go next. So what you just shared is really helpful. I think a lot of organizations are trying to figure that out because you have to stay in a way to use the business aspect of this, you have to stay niched. You have to stay in some sort of niche, stay in your lane. Your lane can be bigger or it can be going someplace else. But you everybody and every organization has a unique identity. You have to lead with that. You have to make sure you know what that is and lead with that.

Dan:
It’s a percent right.

Lee Wochner:
We’re going to take a short break here but when we come back dan and I are going to talk about why so many strategic plans never get implemented the hard truths nonprofits leaders need to here and waht nonprofit organizations need to prepare for in the next couple yeasr. Stick around.

Jaclyn Uloth:
Modern nonprofit marketing requires expertise in web, digital advertising, email, social media, design, and storytelling. Finding one person who is good at all of that is, as any hiring manager will tell you, like finding a unicorn. And yet most nonprofits keep looking for that unicorn. There are alternatives to this. We break down the options, including a hybrid approach most nonprofits haven’t considered, in Counterintelligence, Counterintuity’s insider resource for nonprofit leaders. Read the full article and get your briefing at counterintuity.com.

Lee Wochner:
And we are back with strategic consultant Dan Wempa. Dan, tell us a little bit about the services that you provide to nonprofits.

Dan:
so I work in four main areas. strategy, sort of big picture visioning and setting a course over you know pr usually many years of where is this organization headed. figuring out, like we were saying before, what are the values and the things about this organization that make it who it is, from you know, get that strategic lens dialed in.

So once a strategy has been dialed in, the next piece is an operations project management lens that I bring to projects. And that’s sort of what we talked about before in a fractional capacity where I may embed with a team for a period of time and implement a piece of a strategy, make sure that a certain project that doesn’t have an owner is being tended to.

Providing support and quarterbacking an initiative that may or may not have that sort of strategic oversight in place. third area is production, in the areas of whether it’s event production or sometimes that’s you know the act of bringing people together, as I said earlier, live events, online events of various shapes and sizes. and then the last piece is storytelling, which is very close to the marketing lens and again, being able to communicate a coherent message to the many different audiences that an organization needs to reach. so all four of these things really interconnect. And sometimes a project will bring in a little bit of all of the above, and sometimes it’s a discrete, focused do this thing by this time in just one of those areas.

Lee Wochner:
So one of the things you’ve talked about and written about is that many nonprofit organizations have the same problem, more on their plate than their team can handle. I mean it and it all seems important and we’ve certainly see that. So the people are capable, the work’s important, but you know, resources are finite. how do you recommend that people address that?

Dan:
By doing I think two things are really critical. One is give yourself more time than you think you need. You can never have enough lead time. you know, when I’m thinking and we’re talking about planning complex initiatives or a new project, a campaign, or launching a new venture, cutting the ribbon on some new something. You know, there’s so many pieces that need to line up, and they all take longer than you think.

And especially when you’re working with an organization that you know doesn’t have the luxury of 15 people in the marketing department or you know has to sort of navigate a calendar where everybody’s kind of got their eyes on the same space. you want to have the greatest impact for whatever that thing is when launch date finally comes. So long lead pitch times, if you want to get media interest, if you want to get people to travel, make plans to come to your thing or tune in at the right moment.

You need to let them know about it way in advance. And you know, there’s so much that goes into getting these things right. And you want to get that core sort of what’s it about, the five W or the who, what, when, where, as you mentioned before, like you need to be clear about all that right from the get go, because when you roll out anything to your internal team, you wanna be able to kind of know where it’s headed.

You don’t, you know, you want to project like a sense of we’ll know that we’ve succeeded because we already know that this is the plan. And so you want to have all those pieces laid out and give yourself as much time as possible. and I think the second thing that’s related to that is once you’ve got that mapped out, is you need to have a system. it doesn’t really matter what the system is, you need to have a way of keeping track and staying organized and having processes in place, whether it’s to manage the entire organization or maybe just your department, your team that you have to manage, your piece of that.

Or maybe it’s just yourself and your own to-do list because you’ve got thirty-seven things on your plate and you know we don’t have the luxury of being able to keep all those things on our plate simultaneously. So, you know, just having a strategy for how we do our, you know, plan our day, plan our agenda for the, you know, the meeting, having the standing sort of check-ins built into that’s all back to process.

And that’s not to become beholden to it and everything is rigid and we can’t respond to changing events. But we need to anticipate when we’re gonna have the opportunity to respond. You have to build these processes that we know, like, all right, we’ll have a checkpoint here, and if it’s not working, then we’ll revisit it. Or we’re gonna look at this, you know, outcome to see if we’re on the right track or not. and have a way to figure out who’s, you know, who’s gonna be at the office today versus who’s gonna be on Zoom.

You know, just keeping you keep literally keeping track of people’s comings and goings because you’re depending on someone to deliver something, but y unless everybody’s clear about what’s on not only your own plate, but somebody else’s people talk past each other a lot.

Lee Wochner:
You know, it sounds like a lot and it sounds complicated, but when you talk about process and being watchful, it actually creates more bandwidth for you because it’s like, here’s how we do things, here’s how this works. And so I just need to check in on these things and make sure we’re following that process. And if the process doesn’t work, then we’ll change it. but without that, you have you just have chaos or what somebody on our team has started calling the scramble.

And once he named it the scramble, I was like, my God, I hate the scramble. Because the scramble is okay, well now what? What do we do now? And you lose so much time and you exhaust yourself having the scramble, as opposed to having a methodology, which is what you just laid out. A methodology that says, it’s okay, here’s how we operate, here’s how this works.

Dan:
Right. I think about it as a lot of organizations fall into a trap of relying on heroics. You know, at the la at the last minute, we’re gonna all gonna come together and pull the all-nighter and get this done, and which is inevitable, you know. But you know, if it’s too much of that, or if it’s you know, sometimes again, like you deviate from this is how we’re normally doing it, but we’re in crunch time, so we know it’s gonna be like this for a little while. If it’s just constantly crunch time.

Lee Wochner:
Yeah.

Dan:
You know, that’s burnout waiting to happen, you know, and that’s teams being demoralized or not really sure that did we really do what we were supposed to do. Who knows? At least it’s over, you know, like if we’re not sure how we’re deciding if it was successful or not, that doesn’t give you the kind of high you need to roll into the next thing as a member of the team. so that’s a critical piece is having that process. And it’s nothing scary or, you know, complex to do. It’s just having a clear picture of we’re gonna do this by this time in the following ways and then we’re gonna report back and then we’re gonna do the next thing.

Lee Wochner:
So you and I both know of, or whether we know ourselves, organizations that have done some sort of strategic planning. And maybe they have that great big thick study sitting on the a bookcase, right? but they don’t, they’re not strategically implementing an action plan. Why does that happen so often? Why do all of that thought work about what’s our strategy and not implement? And I ask you that because.

I know you’re very implementation oriented, which is smart. And I’ve seen this dynamic over so many years working in different organizations. I’ve seen the dynamic of, yeah, we did this and here it is and nobody’s looked at it lately. Why do you think that happens?

Dan:
Well, I think it happens for a lot of different reasons, but you know, I think the you know, the effect of it is the same is that without that action piece, you know, it’s not gonna happen. Because, you know, those are usually the types of things that come out of a strategic plan is usually long range. You’re usually looking three, five, ten years in the future. They are major goals take a lot of time, they cost a lot of money.

So and they’re usually new on top of all the other stuff that the organization needs to do to get just the day-to-day work done and continue to do all the work that it’s already built a reputation for. So sometimes it just lands on top without the, you know, the implementation, you know, suggests that it

Lee Wochner:
Yeah.

Dan:
implements and integrates into the organization in a thoughtful way. So I think it’s that you know that piece of the incremental process or the inc incremental progress that’s going to get you to those big picture goals is sometimes not as concrete as it could be. or just once you hit you know once you hit the ground running things are subject to change.

And you have to have that discipline to bring it back to all right, well, we’re are we still on track or not? And is there a moment where it’s like, all right, that’s just let’s that’s not gonna happen. That was, you know, having the courage to kind of step back from that sometimes makes a lot of sense. but I think ultimately things go sideways if you’re not disciplined about the implementation that you committed to when you adopted the plan.

Lee Wochner:
So mostly what you’re talking about here is so people running nonprofits, working in nonprofits are already full, right? They’re their cup runneth over. And then this new initiative, this planning process is on top of that. And so it kind of goes back to what you were talking about earlier about being under resourced. They need more resources. And part of the planning has to be how are we going to be able to do this? Because here’s what we’ll need to be able to do this new thing.

Is that right?

Dan:
That’s part of it. I think ultimately it’s about what is the right size, you know, the right sized ambition for the an organization right now. Because, you know, it’s you’re you know, you’re never gonna have enough resources. We can always use another member of the team. We can always use another whatever piece of equipment or a better space or whatever. But, you know, right now, today, we are this. So if we want to go in a new direction as an organization, or if we think that, you know, there’s an opportunity for us or a mission priority that we want to follow through on, that doesn’t always have to be on top of everything else. You know, there is a point in a strategic process where maybe you want to play around a start, stop, continue. you know, what are we not gonna do?

As a result of this, or pause, or maybe scale back, or you know, meld, evolve. We may have a new ambition and we have a core program that may actually have some things in common if and we just if we think about it through that lens, it’s not a brand new thing. Maybe it’s the continuation or the expansion of the thing that we already have built credibility with because it’s ultimately achieving the same macro goal.

But I think just being crystal clear about, you know, all right, we can do this right now, we’re definitely doing it this year. And at the other end of the scale is that’s a great idea, but it’s not gonna happen. You know, somewhere in the middle is these things that let’s do that next year. So let’s start planning now so that we’re ready for it next year. Again, being, you know, sort of right sized about how long things take and where they fit is that implementation piece that makes the plan come to fruition.

Lee Wochner:
So we’re not saying so we are not saying no, we’re not gonna have this revolutionary war. We’re saying we can take this hill now, right? And we can surprise the British. And I don’t know why I’m stuck on this metaphor, Dan, but I am. So it you know, there were there was a combination of strategy and tactics in that worked out. We just exhausted the British. and again, I don’t know why I’m stuck on that. But yeah.

Dan:
I don’t know, but because you’re thinking about the General Washington campaign still.

Lee Wochner:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know. I that’s why.

Dan:
But you know, like I’ve heard some people say, you know, you gotta show growth, you know, whether it’s for profit, nonprofit, whatever it is, you know, people need to see an organization that’s growing. You don’t want to look like you’re stagnating or nothing new and interesting is happening. But that is absolutely true that organizations need to grow and evolve, but it’s not so much about constant growth as constant momentum. And that’s, you know, not to just say spinning your wheels or, you know, but you sometimes grow and expand and you find that, you know, you’re now at the limits of how your organization is constituted right now today.

The size of the organization, the budget of the organization, all that. Like this is at the limit of what we can do. And more often than not, you push forward and kind of break that model a little bit, because then you have to consolidate and grow into being incrementally bigger. You know, we have we need to bring these core competencies into our organization.

Now that we’re doing this all the time, we need to have an additional grants accountant because we have so much more contributor revenue that needs to be reported on this year, whatever it is. But so it takes a while to kind of get to this point and consolidate, and then the next phase of growth, and then you consolidate, and then the next phase of growth. You don’t want to get overextended so that you’re doing so much that it completely breaks the organization.

But you also don’t want to seem like you haven’t done anything interesting in the past decade. So it’s, you know, incremental progress and then make sure that you’re, you know, consolidating underneath that so you have a foundation for the next phase of growth.

Lee Wochner:
Wow, I hope people really heard that and took note of that because that is exactly how that should work. I think that was well said. And I like that you set that up earlier when you talked about doing it the other way leads to burnout. The heroics lead to burnout. Absolutely right. And so momentum more than quote unquote growth. I like that a lot. So let me ask you a couple questions in tandem here.

So working at lots of different places, you’ve had some pattern recognition. you know, I see this again, right? So what patterns do you see most often in nonprofits that are stuck? And then let’s talk about what patterns you see in nonprofits that are that actually have momentum. So let’s start with the stuck ones first, okay? What are the patterns that we should look out for?

Dan:
You I don’t know if s so much about even being stuck necessarily as you know, some of what I already alluded to, just I think the trap of you know, not allowing the right amount of time to fully leverage what needs to get done. you know, because it’s there’s opportunities in every project to grow audience, to get better known, to get attention, to get new funders to get your mailing list just expand, you know, whatever it might be. but again it requires all those things to all you know to be mutually reinforcing and consistent and lined up in the right sequence. you know so I think that’s you know maybe not so much getting stuck as it is just like never always feel like you left something on the table. you know, or you know, sometimes there’s a well, you know, the this is what we do.

Again, we talked about we’re both with the events background. Like we have these four or five events that we’ve always run. We’ve always run them. So we’ll always run them. and some of those things are signature, you know, it’s what you’re known for, and it’s the main way that people that support you want to support you, which is not to say that just because you’ve done something for 10 years, it’s time to stop doing it, but just because you’ve done something for 10 years is not the reason to do it for 10 more years. so again, that sort of periodic, just like, all right, you know, scenario plan of if this, then that. You know, if this happens, we’ll reconsider. But if this happens, then we’re gonna stay the course. so

Again, I don’t think it’s so much about getting stuck as it is like just being able to figure out how to keep things headed in the right direction over a long period of time and knowing this is why we do this and you know, not losing sight of that and just because we’ve always done it.

Lee Wochner:
And so the ones that have momentum that are succeeding more so than not succeeding, that’s really what they’re doing, you think?

Dan:
You know, I think, you know, it all first of all it comes down to being c clear about what success you’re looking for, you know, what again, what those outcomes are. Because, you know, a lot of times you are able to define success a little bit, or you are able to say, like, we were doing this for the following reasons, and therefore once we’ve done it, we can say we’ve done it.

Lee Wochner:
Here’s a question I’ve been asking pretty much everybody. this will not come as news. We are living through a period of seismic disruption, economically, politically, technologically. Wow, the world is an interesting place right now. What advice do you have right now for non profits operating in this arena as we all are?

That’s a big question, I know.

Dan:
You know, it’s a big question. It’s funny because we’ve been spending a decent amount of time talking about the need to take the longer view and think out into the future and plan things that are going to evolve over time. But at the same time, I think one of the areas that many organizations need to, you know, just be vigilant about is the need to shorten their planning cycles, which is kind of the opposite of what I just said about having a long range strategic plan. But I think, you know, you know, an old, you know, the old model a decade or more ago might be about adopting a budget at the start of the fiscal year and then you build next year’s budget. You know, or maybe you had a mid year check-in or you did quarterly sort of reviews or forecasts or whatever.

But you know, things can change at a much faster rate right now. And again, I think being able to have certain scenario plans. And again, none of this I don’t mean to make it sound like you have to do all this modeling and build spreadsheets. And if you know it’s because we have all the other things that need to happen. But you need to be in touch with what are the external sort of realities that could impact you on very short notice. And what would you do then?

You know, and again, that doesn’t have to be down to a step-by-step, you know, 30-point implementation plan for what we do if certain funding gets pulled or a new technology emerges or whatever it might be, but it is down to you know, we’re gonna keep an eye on these things, and when we see a major shift or if some new information comes in.

We’re gonna reconvene, we’re gonna assess it against the assumptions that we made a month or two ago or a quarter ago and see if we’re still on track. I think you just need to be much more aware of everything that’s going on, not just in your particular sector, but more globally speaking, because it’s all interconnected at an increasing rate.

Lee Wochner:
You know, I want to endorse something you just said, which is scenario planning. So the great thing about that is to start off with, if you’ve if you planned for scenarios, you sleep better. And so you take your annual revenue, let’s say I’ll give you an example, and you say, okay, what are we gonna do if we lose 10% of our revenue, our donors, our grants or whatever? What are we gonna do if we lose 25%?

And then you do the opposite. What are we gonna do if we gain 10%? What are we gonna do if we gain 25%? And if you just spend a day or two thinking about that and writing that up, then you can kind of, okay, well, we lost some money and you know, here’s what we’re gonna have to do. Or hey, this happened. we had a guest on recently who got a surprise two million dollar donation from Taylor Swift and Travis Kelsey. pretty on completely unexpected and $2 million, right?

So that’s even bigger than the counting on the figuring out the 10 to 25% growth. But when you’ve done the scenario, for good or bad, you’re not pre-catastrophizing and you’re not pre-celebrating, but you’re laying out actions that you would take. And I think it just makes life simpler. So hats off to you for recommending that because we do it ourselves and we do it with clients and I don’t think I’ve ever given it so directly as advice in the way that you just did. It does a lot. so Dan we’re pulling into the station here. Let me just ask you a couple other questions. So in the general schema of the world and all of these challenges and opportunities what do you f what makes you feel hopeful? What leaves you feeling hopeful about some things?

Dan:
I think it’s better than the alternative for one thing. I would much rather be hopeful and there is a choice component in it. and I think that’s, you know, first of all is that you know, we are inundated by all sorts of messages and hot takes and conclusions and guaranteed outcomes.

Maybe. You know? but look, you know, so I do think there is a part of, you know, you can’t let the negativity just force you into a hole.

Lee Wochner:
Yeah, that don’t happen. Yeah, yeah.

The world has been ending at least since the ancient Greeks, is my reading of history. And certainly the Middle Ages and et cetera, et cetera. So I’m not sure it’s ending any time soon.

Dan:
Right, but you know, so there’s that. But second of all, you know, again, as I said before, at the end of the day, we’re talking about organizations, you know, is what we’re you know, we’re focused on in this discussion and how they work. But organizations are people, and people are, I believe, on the whole, looking to find ways to make things better. Not just for ourselves, but for the people that are important to us and for the people that, you know, we may not even know, but we realize that we’re all people. And you know, we don’t want to see things get worse. so I think despite all the evidence that to the contrary, you know, I do think there is still, you know, this look I’m looking around at all the things I take for granted in my world.

And there was you know, there was a point when those things didn’t exist, but you know, there was a you know somewhere there was a determination that, you know, I’m gonna improve on big or small this thing or whatever it is, and that’s, you know, part of what’s gonna save us from our lesser instincts.

Lee Wochner:
Yeah, good for you. Vol Voltaire said, and I’m paraphrasing, people are generally optimistic because they go to bed making plans for the next day. And I like what you said that yes, most people are working toward improvement. And I you know, I think most people are good people. And my originating career was as a journalist, and so I know that you know bad news sells better.

And so, you know, whether it was Facebook or your daily newspaper. so I understand the market economics behind pushing the bad news. any further advice you’d like to share with our listeners?

Dan:
I think that again, what a lot of what we’ve been talking about today is of revolving just around the idea of how do we lead our organizations forward? You know, how do we improve the outcomes that we get? How do we make a better impact on the or the audiences that we serve? and how do we, as the individuals leading these organizations, get better at doing what we do so that we could be more effective at it and I think that you know, one of the other things that is great about the time that we’re in right now is that we have resources at our disposal that make it possible for us to do our jobs better. so I think intelligent reliance on tools makes us all more effective.

Lee Wochner:
Awesome. If listeners want to reach out to you, Dan, what’s the best way?

Dan:
they can go to my website, which is endeavorsdw.com. you can find me on LinkedIn. you may even just include my contact info in the notes of this show.

Lee Wochner:
We’re happy to do that. I gotta tell you, it’s been really great to spend this time with you. I also enjoyed the time that we had over dinner, just like five months ago in New York. I hope we get to do that again soon. And it’s just always a pleasure to see you and to get to spend some time talking with you. Thank you, Dan.

Dan:
My pleasure. Thanks for having me, Lee.

Jaclyn Uloth: Thanks for listening. How to Market Your Nonprofit is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever you get your podcasts. Please like and follow the show. Visit counterintuity.com to learn more.