Handcrafted: Small steps / big change 

Lee Wochner:
In today’s internet-enabled world, every artist, every creator, every artisan, is capable of making some money with their art… if they know how to do it.

For almost 20 years, Nest founder and executive director Rebecca van Bergen has been helping handcraft artisans share their wares and support themselves and their families.

The Nest Guild is a global network of two thousand artisan businesses from 120 countries, united in leveraging craft to increase gender equity, promote economic inclusion, and ensure cultural preservation and appreciation. With over 300,000 individual artisans employed, 88% of whom are female, Nest is certainly helping people weave bigger nests.

At the same time, Nest and Rebecca have learned a lot about how to tell stories that move hearts and open wallets, how best to succeed with marketing, how to reinforce your company culture locally and globally — and how to iterate for constant improvement.

We’ll learn about this and more on this episode of That’s What C! Said.

Jaclyn Uloth:
Welcome to the podcast that lightens the tension when things sort of get hard…  That’s What C! Said, the Counterintuity podcast, featuring interviews with leaders and doers who have helped to make our world a better place through their actions — and especially through marketing, communications, and embracing change. Here’s host Lee Wochner. 

Lee Wochner: 
Rebecca, nice to meet you. Thanks for joining us today.

Rebecca Van Bergen: 
Thanks for having me, I’m excited to be here.

Lee Wochner: 
Well, I’m excited to talk to you for lots of reasons. I have a big background in the arts. I love the arts and I love the crafts. My daughter is a knitter and crocheter. My grandmother was, and my mother was a world-class crocheter who I’m gonna reference a couple of times. My fiancée is a painter and such. I mean, I was very excited to have this discussion. Just to help people understand right away, what is it that Nest does?

Rebecca Van Bergen: 
We support artists, artisans, and makers—they take many different terms in the US and around the world. We recognize that most people, like all the people you’re connected to in your family, bring their creative talent with them, but often they then have to run a business to turn that craft into something that can be an economic opportunity. That can be difficult for a creative person to juggle all the different things, wear all the hats. We help step in and support the business development side of craft, building markets, and turning art or craft into a sustainable business.

Lee Wochner: 
Well, I love the idea of solopreneurs, and I always want to see people get involved in the economy, right? It helps them, helps others. But let me ask the nakedly brazen question anyway: Why is this important? Why is what you’re doing important?

Rebecca Van Bergen: 
I could answer that in so many ways. It’s hard to answer succinctly, but I think even just going back to how you opened—you’re so deeply connected personally to craft. I think that’s true of almost everyone, that in their family history, their legacy, their story, there’s a grandmother, grandfather, or uncle who’s connected to craft. Yet, it’s not a very invested-in sector. It’s often seen as “women’s work” or just arts and creativity, instead of being viewed as small business or economic opportunity. We really want to help change that narrative and ensure that craft is recognized as art but also as a driver of financial stability for women—largely women, but also men—both in the US and around the world. We aim to harness craft as an economy to drive security and resilience.

Lee Wochner: 
That’s awesome. I grew up seeing a lot of crocheting in the family. And I will tell you, when she was 94, my mother crocheted 60 lap blankets and donated them to what she called the “old folks home.” They were all younger than her, but she was very proud to do that. She watched a lot of *Murder, She Wrote* and did that. And then my daughter, who I referenced earlier. It’s amazing how my daughter can make little figures. If you tell her you want something in crochet form, which seems impossible to me, she’s able to do it. She puts them on Etsy and takes commissions, but to your point, it’s a sideline. She’s a pharmacy tech as her day job. So, with Nest, where is your reach? Is it global?

Rebecca Van Bergen: 
It is. We have a footprint in 123 countries, which is very wide. One of the things that’s special about craft is that it exists everywhere. It’s part of every community, making it very macro. But I also want to zoom in on what you said, which I think is really interesting and important. Often, craft is a way to build additional resources for a family, which makes it unique. It’s frequently part of the informal economy where people are paid cash or do it on the side. That presents different challenges to how you invest in and scale it, but also emphasizes its importance, as it often serves as a secondary, resilient income that helps people navigate disasters, financial hardships, or family changes. So, I just wanted to highlight that because it’s spot-on and unique about the craft economy—it’s often a side hustle turned into economic opportunity for many people around the world.

Lee Wochner:
My house is filled with handmade art—paintings, masks from Mexico, art from my kids, professionals, and artisans. Is there a difference between amateurs, professionals, and artisans?

Rebecca Van Bergen: 
I think it’s in the eye of the maker and how they self-identify. We try to be careful about that. However, the craft sector hasn’t always been fully appreciated. Many craft makers see themselves as artists, and they are, yet the broader art community hasn’t always embraced craft as a form of art. We try to break down those barriers because craft spans from fine art to commodity sales, and that’s okay. It’s a wide spectrum of creative work, largely driven by women—although we do support men too. Makers’ goals vary: if you see your work as art, you might focus on growing your art in specific ways, whereas someone mass-producing on Etsy or selling to mass-market retailers may have different ambitions. Nest works to support this wide diversity of talent, from Indonesian cooperatives with 3,000 basket weavers producing for Target, to a woman making pottery in her garage in Detroit.

Lee Wochner: 
I believe all creative human endeavors should be equally valued—some are more polished, some are raw. Since the 1980s, there’s been a big outsider art movement that has become commercialized. For instance, a *Talking Heads* album cover was done by Reverend Howard Finster, an outsider artist. I remember visiting a giant sculpture garden near Hays, Kansas, created by someone who welded together biblical-themed sculptures. I took a million photos! I can’t make anything like that, but I love appreciating it. I’m drawn to what you’re talking about because, economically, when people are doing better, they feel better, and I believe that leads to more peace. There’s also incredible value in buying something handmade that didn’t come off an assembly line.

Rebecca Van Bergen: 
I completely agree. What’s also exciting about craft is that, in addition to economic opportunity bringing peace (and there’s data to support your belief), many forms of craft practiced by women—beading, sewing, embroidery, knitting, crochet—are repetitive motions. It’s similar to counting a rosary or mala beads and triggers the same brain chemistry as meditation. So, it’s truly peace-building, alongside the economic benefits.

Lee Wochner: 
You started Nest at age 24. What prompted you to start this organization?

Rebecca Van Bergen:
I’m not a maker myself—I’m a social worker by training. I got my degree in social work, and the year I graduated, Muhammad Yunus won the Nobel Peace Prize for microfinance. This was 18 years ago, when social business was just beginning. I found microfinance interesting, but in our country, a loan is debt, not a business. Scaling loans without holistic business support or market-building felt challenging, particularly for women in emerging markets. So, the vision for Nest was to provide holistic business support for women entrepreneurs. Today, that’s more or less what we do. I focused on the craft economy because it’s considered by experts to be the second-largest employer of women in emerging markets, second only to agriculture. Craft is what women are doing, and it also brings benefits like mindfulness, community building, and cultural preservation. So, it felt like the right sector. I came to craft through social work, but now I have such deep appreciation for it. Like you, my grandmother was a quilter, so craft was always around me too, which was another motivator.

Lee Wochner: 
What has happened with Nest since its start? What has that journey been like for you and the organization?

Rebecca Van Bergen: 
I like to share that Etsy was actually founded around the same time Nest was, about six months or so apart. If you think back 18 years ago, before Etsy, the world wasn’t talking about handcraft or handmade in the same way. Etsy really spawned a consumer movement around craft and handmade. In many ways, we were lucky to be founded at a time when others with bigger, deeper pockets also believed in what we were doing. While it took hard work and grit, the changes in consumer behavior helped fuel our movement. Eighteen years ago, we never would have imagined Amazon, which only sold books back then, would have a platform like Amazon Handmade. Seeing such a behemoth invest in handmade really shows how much consumers have embraced this market, which has allowed Nest to scale.

We are a nonprofit, so we raise funds from donors and foundations, and we invest directly in makers and artists. We also work with brands and retailers, including Etsy—now one of our largest partners—to build and invest in programs that support global artisans and U.S. makers, either through sales channels or through learning and development opportunities.

Lee Wochner: 
So you’ve experienced strong growth. I looked at your 990—good for you! I think you mentioned a number earlier that I didn’t catch. How many skilled artisans would you say you support or come in contact with annually?

Rebecca Van Bergen:
We work with about 3,000 small businesses, which employ around 300,000 artisans in 125 countries. It’s been exciting growth. I started as a social worker in St. Louis, Missouri, and didn’t anticipate this scale, but it’s been a rewarding journey.

Lee Wochner: 
So truly, you are an economic development center.

Rebecca Van Bergen: 
I hope so. That feels bold to say, but yes.

Lee Wochner: 
Well, you are. We’ve worked with economic development centers, and it’s impressive how you help arts businesses and skilled artisans with an economic model. Hats off to you. Can you give us a picture of how Nest operates? What’s the staffing like?

Rebecca Van Bergen: 
Thank you. There are 32 of us now, so we’ve grown. Our entry point for artisans is through what we call our Artisan Guild, a free, open-access network for artisans anywhere in the world. From this large network, we learn about them and develop programs or financing efforts that help them achieve their goals. Our programming team works hard to understand the diverse needs of this network and create programs that provide peer support while also being customized to their specific goals. For example, we run a business accelerator for artisans looking to scale. We also have specific programs for U.S. makers, as their challenges differ from those of our global artisans.

In addition to our programming team, we have a sizable partnerships team that handles traditional fundraising but also works closely with partners to create synergies that support makers. For instance, with Etsy, we run a program called Uplift Makers, which identifies artisans facing digital divides and provides e-commerce education, such as digital photography and how to build an online shop. Etsy even waives its fees so the earnings stay within the community. One success story is the G’s Bend Quilters from rural Alabama. They had never sold online before, but after joining Etsy through this program, they’ve generated nearly $700,000 in direct sales. Including other partnerships we’ve helped facilitate, they’ve raised over $1 million in two years.

So, as you were saying, we work as an economic development center by identifying barriers for makers and helping them turn their creativity into economic success, whether through philanthropy or partnerships. We work with a wide range of companies, from Etsy to West Elm, Target, Hermes, Patagonia, and many others.

Lee Wochner: 
One exciting aspect is the ability to compete in today’s marketplace, especially with smartphones. We’ve done work in the homelessness sector, and even unhoused people have smartphones, accounts, and internet access. You’re reminding me that there are ways for them to get into the marketplace too, as long as they have a phone and data plan. There’s a lot more they can do today than even five, ten, or fifteen years ago.

Rebecca Van Bergen: 
Absolutely. The global pandemic really accelerated direct-to-consumer sales for small makers, and Etsy has been a big part of that. Many makers now sell through social media without needing a full e-commerce platform. There’s definitely a new world of opportunities ahead.

Lee Wochner: 
I want to ask a few more questions about Nest, but then I’d love to dive into some of your successes and what people can learn from your example. What is an average day or week like for you as executive director?

Rebecca Van Bergen: 
There’s no average! I think that’s part of being an executive director—it changes constantly. I spend a lot of my time raising money, as most executive directors do. The program work inspires me, but my role as the founder is often to be an advocate for the organization, making sure we inspire partners, donors, and makers to get involved. I also focus on internal leadership, since we’ve grown quickly in the past 10 years, tripling in both staffing and revenue. With 30 staff members, we’re not huge, but we’re not tiny either. We’re also a fully remote organization, so I put a lot of effort into ensuring that our staff feels inspired and connected to the mission, as well as making sure they have what they need to succeed. It’s hard work, but rewarding.

Lee Wochner: 
So part of what you’re talking about there is culture. So being fully remote and having 30 staff, 30-ish staff who are fully remote, and then having 300,000 people who are connected to this, how do you reinforce and preserve your culture?

Rebecca Van Bergen:
It’s definitely a challenge. We were in person. We had offices in New York City and then went fully remote during the pandemic. And we had such a strong in-office culture that it has been a challenge to translate that to a remote working environment, I think. We’ve done it, but it’s required kind of great intentionality. It doesn’t come just by nature of people showing up for work. It’s really easy to be very siloed and to not feel interconnected. Things that we kind of took for granted, like you’d overhear conversations in our office, and so just by osmosis would know what was happening at the organization. If we’re not intentional about sharing it, you only know what you are a part of. And so we’ve just had to be incredibly mindful and very, very deliberate about the way that we build culture and making sure we carve out time. Both virtually, and then we also do an in-person employee gathering summit. And we’ve learned about that too. Like the first year I tried to have us work during it, and then there was a lot of rebellion. It was like, “We work remotely all the time.” And so what we don’t have remotely is time just together. I learned quickly that the time together really needs to be about connection and bonding rather than digging into real work. But that’s actually proved really, really well. It’s also a nice deep breath and a step back to refocus on inspiration.

Lee Wochner: 
Are all of your people, all of your teams, still in New York or have they gotten spread out? What’s happened?

Rebecca Van Bergen: 
They’re very spread out now. Yes, many people left, and then we’ve also grown since then. Not having offices in Manhattan freed up some budget for us, so we were able to invest that in team members. We’ve been hiring, and now we hire globally, which has been fun because it’s brought a wider diversity of talent to us than when we were limited to just hiring within one city.

Lee Wochner: 
What’s the impact that NEST is having on people’s lives? Do you have any individual examples of someone who has just blossomed because of NEST?

Rebecca Van Bergen: 
Yeah, so many. I shared the story of the quilters in Alabama, which is one of my favorites. Their average income before that million-dollar infusion in the community was $16,000 a year. So they were in greater poverty than people might realize still exists in the U.S., particularly in rural Alabama. What’s so powerful about that story, and others I could share, is that access to e-commerce wasn’t a crazy new medical solution. It was such an easy fix to a big problem. It’s a reminder that often solutions aren’t as challenging as we make them. Sometimes small steps and little solutions can go a long way.

We also have a program in the U.S. for arriving refugees. Often, refugees and immigrants arrive with talent and skills. We work with a program in Seattle that supports refugees. During COVID, they were working with a community of arriving Afghan refugees. They didn’t speak the language, they were living outside Seattle, and their husbands, who often worked jobs like Uber, lost those opportunities during the pandemic. One woman, caring for five children, lived outside the city and didn’t speak English. During the pandemic, we had this talented workforce of makers. We quickly pivoted and began working with U.S.-based partners to make masks, which were in short supply. These makers could make them safely at home, avoiding the COVID shutdown problems that factories faced. This woman ended up making over $30,000 that year by making masks.

We supplied 19 hospitals, the U.S. Postal Service, and many more organizations because our home-based workforce was so resilient. There are so many stories like this, both in the U.S. and globally, where the income really matters.

Lee Wochner: 
That’s an amazing story. In your time starting and running Nest, are there any mistakes you’ve learned from?

Rebecca Van Bergen: 
I’ve made so many mistakes—that’s a long list! One thing I believe in, and what we try to foster at Nest, is being okay with making mistakes. One of our cultural values is iteration. I believe it’s more challenging to try and perfect something before doing it. It’s better to learn, iterate, and listen. To do that successfully, you have to admit when things aren’t working and change them. At Nest, we aim for continuous improvement—always learning and listening. The challenge of that approach is that things are always shifting, but the benefit is that we stay responsive to changes. For instance, during COVID, we shut down our core programs and created new ones that responded to what people needed at the moment. 

Another personal challenge as a founder is that I feel very connected to Nest, and I can sometimes take critiques too personally. I’ve had to learn to not react quickly and to see critiques as opportunities for growth. Growing a business is rewarding but tough at the same time.

Lee Wochner: 
People who say they don’t make mistakes aren’t stretching, right? You learn by making mistakes, just like how we learn to walk by falling down. So, I’m always wary of people who are averse to mistakes. I wouldn’t advise people to make mistakes on purpose, but it is how you learn. With adaptability being key, it’s the core success of the human species. The pace of change is faster than ever, so hats off to you and Nest for your adaptability.

Rebecca Van Bergen: 
Thank you. And I agree, it’s just about making sure we feel comfortable with it. I think sometimes new employees take a minute to adjust, but once they integrate it into their way of working, there’s something very rewarding about it.

Lee Wochner: 
What’s great about new employees is they can see exactly what’s going on before they acclimate to the environment. When I do strategic work with clients, I always like to find out who the newest employee is and go talk to them, have coffee, because they can immediately see the situation. Everybody else acclimates to both the good and bad stuff. So I listen to new people closely, as they experience everything with fresh eyes. I like to do onboarding with new people for this reason.

Rebecca Van Bergen: 
That’s actually great advice.

Lee Wochner: 
Meeting with new people at our own company, and also new people somewhere else, gives you the straight-up story. We’re going to take a short break, but when we come back, Rebecca and I are going to discuss how she and Nest have leveraged their fundraising and marketing strategies for greater success. Stick around.

Lee Wochner:
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Lee Wochner: 
And we’re back with Rebecca Van Bergen, Executive Director of the nonprofit Nest, which helps bring the full beauty and skill of handcrafted artisans to the world. Rebecca, what’s your fundraising strategy for Nest? How does it work?

Rebecca Van Bergen: 
We have a dual strategy. We’re a traditional nonprofit, so we raise money from individual donors who feel connected to our mission—any listeners who are excited about what we’re doing—foundations, and that’s one stream. That money goes directly into the programs we run for makers and artists, ensuring they’re always free of charge. Then we also partner with companies, which is like a fee-for-service or earned revenue model, where they hire us almost like artisan consultants to build and implement programs for them. So it’s slightly different from philanthropy, but equally exciting. Some of these partnerships are where we see our biggest impact, so it’s a portfolio we care deeply about.

Lee Wochner: 
So let’s talk about that one for a moment. Are those partners corporations or government entities?

Rebecca Van Bergen: 
We’re almost exclusively corporate. We get a small amount of government funding, but it’s mostly grant-based philanthropy.

Lee Wochner:
Yeah, okay. The reason I ask that is because you are essential. I mentioned earlier that I have an arts background and we were always making the case of how much the arts feed into the economy, and a dollar contributed winds up—well, the numbers would vary—seven times or 11 times or whatever in the local economy. You build a performing arts center someplace and restaurants pop up, dry cleaners, parking lots, and all these other things. It really builds the local economy.

And when I think about your mission, it does sound like, and I’m not trying to peddle this on you, you really are an economic development center. So I was wondering if any government is supporting that—local, state, county, national government, anything like that.

Rebecca Van Bergen: 
They should, they should. They definitely should. But no, it’s not been our primary, which has been a little bit by choice. Sometimes government funding can be a slog for those in fundraising. It’s a lot of administrative work, so it’s definitely on our growth strategy. Also, working with trade centers or other kinds of similar country-based funding for some of the places where we work, where they have a really strong vested interest in what we do. It’s around promoting exports and scaling investment in local communities within their country. So it’s definitely on our radar, but it’s not currently one of our major drivers of revenue.

Lee Wochner:
And so in your fundraising strategy, do you have an overall pie where you’re like, “This amount of pie is coming from individual donors, this amount is going to come from grants, this is foundations,” etc.? Do you have it carved up like that?

Rebecca Van Bergen: 
Yeah, we like to keep it about 50-50. About 50% from foundations, individuals, and true philanthropy, and then about 50% from our corporate partners. We try really hard to keep that pie as diverse as we can because with economic uncertainties and changing environments, all the different portfolios come with different challenges and risk areas. The broader and wider we can keep our strategy, we feel just a little more insulated from some of those changes.

Lee Wochner: 
Smart. It actually sounds like 50% of your income is earned income. Is that right?

Rebecca Van Bergen: 
Of the 50%, most of it is earned income, but some of it is philanthropy from those corporate partners. We’ll do a campaign, and they’ll donate a percent back to our mission, or event sponsorships and other ways that companies also contribute philanthropically. So I would say probably within the 50% from corporations, maybe 30% to 40% is earned, and the rest is corporate philanthropy.

Lee Wochner: 
Good. Okay. So how do you tie in your fundraising strategy with your marketing strategy? What’s the connection?

Rebecca Van Bergen: 
They’re deeply ingrained, especially around our corporate partnerships. A lot of what we do with companies is build and execute programs that are around marketing and storytelling, working with artists and communities either globally or in the U.S. A big piece of what we’re offering makers through those collaborations is driving sales and storytelling opportunities, which drives economic impact. So they’re deeply intertwined at Nest, which is exciting. We also try to bring that story beyond the company to consumers, ensuring individuals understand they can be part of the impact too, not just relying on companies to make investments.

Lee Wochner: 
You used a word that we use all the time at Counterintuity, that we think is really important: storytelling. Why is storytelling important, and what is it?

Rebecca Van Bergen: 
I guess for us, especially within the craft community, so much of what makes craft special is the process, the people, and the place behind where something is made. Those elements differentiate a handcrafted product from a mass-produced one. It’s important that those elements come through in the marketing. There’s no better way to talk about people, process, or place than through stories. It’s also crucial for us that we’re not marketing a community or person or product, but that they are telling their own story. There’s an authenticity that comes with storytelling versus marketing. We want people to have ownership over what’s shared, how it’s shared, and that they convey the pieces of their story that feel most important.

Lee Wochner: 
Well, I think it’s about personal connection. It’s about human connection. The people behind the work have a story, and that differentiates it from something commoditized. We need factory goods too, right? I don’t need every pair of jeans to be handcrafted, but the one that’s handcrafted stands out. So what’s your overall marketing strategy? How do you spread the word about Nest?

Rebecca Van Bergen: 
I think it’s been evolving. A lot of our history was more business-to-business since we had so many corporate clients. We spent a lot of our time marketing and storytelling to them rather than to consumers, letting them tell our story forward. For example, we would build a program with Etsy, and they would tell the story to the end consumer. But as we’ve grown, we’ve become increasingly interested in making sure we’re also part of the consumer story.

We have this network of incredible makers, and we want them to tell their own stories too. We try to make sure we have a three-tiered strategy: leveraging our corporate partners, working with the voice of our makers, and weaving together our own narrative. It’s been a challenge because those different audiences want to hear very different things, so finding our own independent voice has been difficult. Building our website, for instance, was a huge nightmare—because who are we talking to? Everyone.

Lee Wochner:
Yeah. Well, you’re talking to different people in different ways, but you have a core identity of who Nest is and what Nest does. So your website and marketing can give the same message in varying ways to the different audiences. How do makers find out about Nest?

Rebecca Van Bergen: 
We do some deliberate outreach to makers, but a lot of it is organic. Everything we do for makers is free, so it’s a fairly appealing place to get support. It’s not a loan, investment, or a business education program you pay for. A lot of it is through word of mouth. Makers or artisans share it with colleagues or friends, and they naturally join our network. Every day, new makers and artisans join, and we try to make sure we can scale quickly enough to provide meaningful impact.

Lee Wochner: 
And then how do you market to donors and foundations?

Rebecca Van Bergen: 
It’s been fairly organic. I started Nest at 24 in St. Louis, Missouri, so I built a lot of these relationships myself, just cold calling, knocking on doors, and sending lots of emails. We’ve built loyalty with current partners, so they’re more willing to introduce us to others. But it can be a challenge in philanthropy because the craft sector is not always seen as an investable one. It’s often viewed as niche, women’s work, and there’s bias against this sector. Overcoming those hurdles and building the case that it’s an impactful sector to invest in has been one of my life’s greatest challenges.

Lee Wochner:
That’s why I keep going back to the economic impact. You can tell the softer story, the life-changing work, and the story of the artist, but then there’s the rational pragmatist approach: the impact on the community. You probably need both. That’s an example of tailoring a message to different audiences—some respond to a heart-tugging message, and some to the ROI for society.

Rebecca Van Bergen: 
Yes, exactly.

Lee Wochner:
How do you handle social media? Do you have a social media marketing plan?

Rebecca Van Bergen: 
We do. We have a marketing team at Nest, thankfully, because the social worker in me is learning as I go. We have a social media account, @BuildANest, and we’ve been investing more in it. We try to let our corporate partners tell a story, and then let us tell our own authentic story alongside it. We try to showcase the large global community we’re propelling forward.

Lee Wochner: 
With social, you can find groups and get involved. On Facebook, you could find groups of makers or philanthropists. LinkedIn would be great for finding corporate partners, and a strategy that included engagement in groups would probably work well for you.

Rebecca Van Bergen: 
Yeah, LinkedIn is great for our corporate partners, but less strong for our makers, who are really strong on platforms like Pinterest and Instagram. So we’ve been tailoring our messaging to different audiences, depending on the platform.

Lee Wochner: 
And your messaging probably sounds different on those platforms, right? On LinkedIn, speaking to a corporate audience, it’s going to sound different from the little text you might put on Instagram.

Rebecca Van Bergen:
Exactly, yes.

Lee Wochner :
That’s why we start with a social strategy when we work with clients. The core culture and identity have to come across, but the voice gets modulated a little bit. It’s like code-switching. When I speak somewhere, I speak one way, and when I go where I grew up, I sound completely different.

Rebecca Van Bergen :
Yes.

Lee Wochner :

What’s the most effective marketing you’re doing? What’s working the best?

Rebecca Van Bergen:
Ooh, that’s the most effective. Ooh, I don’t know if that—what’s working the best? I think we’re relatively new to diversifying it. For a long time, just because we are small, we would do the same thing for everyone. We rebuilt our website for the first time this year, probably in a decade. It was amazing to be able to really be more deliberate in how we built what we were sharing.

Now when you go to the website, it’s clear: “for makers,” “for brands.” The pathways are direct. Before, it was a little something for everyone, but hard to find your specific pathway. That’s been a game changer, redoing our website and being more deliberate. The stage of our organization is at a point where we did so much by momentum and inertia. Now, at almost 20 years, we’re really pausing to build deliberate infrastructure for scalability.

Adding strategy to what we’re doing has been the biggest game changer, as opposed to just being reactive. It might sound silly, but it’s easy to get into the habit of just doing without pausing and proactively thinking about the message you want to convey. A big reflection was considering how much time we should be spending on different platforms. What is the ROI of these platforms for us? Do we want to invest more time in the ones where we connect with audiences that matter most and scale back on others?

We’ve scaled back on Facebook because we weren’t seeing the same connection that we were via LinkedIn and Instagram for our core audiences. It’s about having a data-driven approach rather than just letting momentum carry us forward.

Lee Wochner:
Well, you hit the other word—storytelling is word number two, and word number one is strategy, right? We’re constantly counseling nonprofits that strategy gets you far. It saves you time and money from wandering around in the dark. You develop your strategy, put it out there, test and measure, iterate, and refine. Congrats to you for figuring out that one platform isn’t performing well for you. Without strategy and analysis, you wouldn’t have known or adjusted, potentially misusing resources.

Rebecca Van Bergen:
Definitely, we like to say “slow down to move fast.” Pausing and investing in strategy before continuing can save resources and time. It’s tough in a fast-moving nonprofit in a tough economic year, but we try to live by that and be thoughtful, strategic, and ensure we’re prepared before just continuing onwards.

Lee Wochner:
A lot of people in nonprofits need to get out of the hamster wheel and take a breath. It’s not just about thinking strategically but also about taking time away, like going for a hike, to clear your mind. When you do, everything falls into place about what you should be doing. If you’re constantly in the hamster wheel, it’s hard to think straight.

Rebecca Van Bergen:
Yeah.

Lee Wochner:
It’s counterproductive to be overloaded. I do my best to help people out of that because it doesn’t work in the long run.

Rebecca Van Bergen:
That’s so well said and a huge problem in the nonprofit world, you’re spot on.

Lee Wochner:
I have a great love for nonprofits, and I understand where that comes from. I continue to volunteer because it’s important. When you’re attached to your mission, like you said, you’ve had to work on not taking it personally. The work of your nonprofit is vital to hundreds of thousands of people, but the people working there, including you, are important too, and they need mental rest. Strategy and regular check-ins give you mental rest, focus, and reassurance.

I used to take comfort in the numbers, even when they were hard. Numbers are irrefutable—they add up. Words are harder: what am I going to say? Who to? Words and strategy require deliberation, but numbers offer clarity. With a strategy, you see what’s working and what isn’t. Without it, you’re jumping into something and might find yourself overwhelmed.

Rebecca Van Bergen:
Exactly. Knowledge is power, even if the data isn’t what we want to see. At least we know what problem we’re solving for.

Lee Wochner:
Very well said. I could talk to you all day; I’m really taken with what you’re doing. Any final advice for those in the nonprofit or marketing space?

Rebecca Van Bergen:
Someone once gave me the advice that the difference between being a visionary and making an impact is the idea of seeing the mountains of change you want but waking up every day and focusing on the path in front of your shoes. Keeping a vision for the future only works if you break it into actionable steps every day. Write the to-do list, create the strategy, and refine it. Balancing inspiration and vision with operations and management is key.

Lee Wochner:
That’s fantastic. How can people connect with Nest or ask you questions?

Rebecca Van Bergen:
Our website is buildanest.org, and we have a team page with everyone’s emails, including mine—rebecca@buildanest.org. Our social media handle is @buildanest on all platforms.

Lee Wochner:
I love that everyone’s email is available on your website. It shows how connected you want to be. Rebecca, it’s been a pleasure. Thanks so much for joining us.

Rebecca Van Bergen:
Thank you so much for having me. It was a delight chatting with you.

Lee Wochner:
Same here. Thank you.

Jaclyn Uloth:
Thanks for listening! We’re glad you came. That’s What C! Said is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever you get your podcasts. Please like and follow the show. Visit Counterintuity.com to sign up and learn more.