Money for mission: how marketing fuels nonprofit sustainability 

Lee Wochner:
There is a lot we all could do to make the world a better place, but to actually accomplish a lot, that requires focus and strategy. On today’s episode, our guest is Lori Carmona, the CEO of YWCA Greater Los Angeles, who with three decades of successful hands-on nonprofit leadership experience, knows whereof she speaks when it comes to focus and strategy. Lori shares the importance of clear strategic planning, defined priorities, and how to stay grounded in reality while leading with optimism. Want to learn more about how thoughtful strategic nonprofit leadership rooted in values, partnership, and positivity can drive meaningful impact, especially during times of uncertainty? Then this discussion is for you on this episode of how to market your nonprofit.

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:
Lori, it’s terrific having you join us today. I have great respect for your organization and for what you’re doing there.

Lori Carmona:
Thank you, Lee. It’s really a pleasure to be here.

Lee Wochner:
And by getting to work with you and YWCA Greater Los Angeles a little bit, I’ve learned a lot more about YWCA and actually about aspects of Los Angeles. So that’s been a pleasure. Can you tell us a little bit about what YWCA does and YWCA Greater Los Angeles?

Lori Carmona:
Yeah, so YWCA is actually an international movement. here locally and internationally, it’s about eliminating racism and empowering women. And how we do that here in the greater Los Angeles area is through support for survivors of sexual assault and domestic violence. We do economic empowerment for women and families.

We have very large child development programs. We’re helping infants, toddlers, and preschoolers get ready for kindergarten and helping families continue their jobs through that. And then we also have engagement programs for seniors and youth. So we do a lot of different things in a lot of different parts of Los Angeles.

Lee Wochner:
And I’ve gotten to see some of that in practice and I’ll tell you it really has touched my heart. So thank you for doing those things. So let’s learn a little bit more about your personal background and your journey. How did you get started in nonprofit service?

Lori Carmona:
Thank you.

Lori Carmona:
Well, I was a communications major in college, public relations, thought I wanted to go work for a PR firm. And my advisor at the time suggested that I consider doing an internship at a nonprofit because he said these nonprofits won’t get off my back. They have so much work to do. And I think if you go there, you’ll have a really good variety of experience. So I interned with Easterseals in Seattle. And I know, help them with the telethon back in the day and doing their newsletter. I got to interview families whose children were benefiting from services, but also CEOs of companies that were supporting the organization and kind of everything in between. And then they said, and by the way, put on a fundraising event, a volleyball tournament, fundraising event. I’m like, okay, I nothing about volleyball or fundraising.

And that’s kind of the life of nonprofits, right? So you learn as you go and you adapt and just never a dull moment. And at the end of the day, you even though there’s challenges, you’re, doing something good for the community. And I just fell in love with that kind of work. And I never looked back. My whole career has been in nonprofit service.

Lee Wochner:
You know, I don’t think I even realized so cogently until recently that I hadn’t put it together that my father was part of a service club in Southern New Jersey where I grew up, where they did good works around town, that he was on the school board, that my mother did a lot with the church and such, and we all would get into the car and go vote, right? So we were all in this together. And so my parents set

an early example and I hadn’t realized that until reflecting recently. So in your nonprofit journey, was there a particular mentor who helped you, who really led the way, gave you some advice, somebody you could learn from?

Lori Carmona:
There was a boss that I had in one of my first jobs right out of college. And one thing I always remember, again, it was a fundraising job. This was at the March of Dimes and we were just launched one campaign and I was so excited. We got it up and running. And then she called me into her office and she said, okay, it’s time to start working on the second one. I was like, wait, this one’s not done yet. She said, yeah, I know. So, you know, I just kind of carried that.

Lee Wochner:
Yeah.

Lori Carmona:
that momentum forward in my life. Like you just kind of, you know, you got to keep, keep the everything going forward. And it’s not, it’s not always about finishing one thing before you start the next thing. And again, I think that’s a lot of what we do in, life in general, but in nonprofits for sure. And I always appreciated that advice and that she didn’t allow me to just say, let me finish this first. You know, it’s like, let’s move on to the next thing. And I think that was a really good lesson early on.

Lee Wochner:
Yeah.

Lee Wochner:
Excellent advice. One of my very closest friends is a church pastor. He’s a terrific guy. And he calls that the handoff. You have to hand off to people, you know, here’s the handoff, here’s the next thing we’re doing, here’s the next thing I’m calling you to do, et cetera. That’s a lesson well learned. So let’s talk about nonprofit leadership and that philosophy for a couple minutes. So one of the things I’m struck by is you were with Ability First for about 20 years. Can you remind me what does Ability First do?

Lori Carmona:
So Ability First works for and alongside people with developmental and intellectual disabilities.

Lee Wochner:
Okay. And you were there quite a while and you registered great success. mean, you completed two capital campaigns totaling, let me look at my notes, nearly $10 million while you were there. And so the thing about that period of time, I would think it gives you a while to learn things about leadership, management, sustainability, and sometimes
I worry that nonprofit is a field that quickly consumes people. Did you pick up any insights about the sustainability of nonprofit leadership?

Lori Carmona:
Yeah, so that is they’re celebrating 100 years this year at Ability First. So and and they were founded 19.

I started in 2004, not too long after they had gone through a major name change to kind of update their mission and philosophy. So a lot of what we were working on was, I guess you would call it modernizing the services and the facilities, which is why we did two capital campaigns. The facilities were kind of built at a time when the model and the programs were too, when the model was, because back in the day of people with.

Developmental disabilities, unfortunately, were often kept in institutions as they called them. So in the 70s, Ability First was part of that movement of moving people into the community. But what that meant in the community at the time was in segregated settings where they would come together. they were adults, they would work side by side only with each other. If they were children, they’d be only with each other. And a lot of what we were doing was really what we call a person-centered approach. And it’s something that we do at the YWCA as well, is looking at

the whole person and really what are their desires and not like a cookie cutter approach but you know what are if it’s a person with a disability okay there might be some challenges but what are their abilities again the name ability first is looking at the ability and so what what are the abilities what are there that person’s desires and wants rather than saying we have a job over here why don’t you go do that but it’s like no what do you want to do and then let’s try and fit that in and again

we take that same approach with our economic empowerment program at the YWCA. But that was a lot of what we were doing there. And again, there’s a lot of crossovers with the two organizations because we’re a 130 year old organization. So a lot of it is how do you build on the legacy and the past success of a long term organization while bringing it into modern day, right? Like what’s going on in the community today?

Lori Carmona:
What are the needs and desires of the people that you’re serving and not just what is necessarily best for the cheapest way to provide the service or what will the funders cover, right? So really trying to make it person centered.

Lee Wochner:
You know, this notion of person centered, one of the things that I’m careful about and aware of every day is to focus on people’s strengths. Because when you look at what people are capable of, it’s amazing. And it’s amazing what they’ll do. And when you focus on the things they’re not good at, it doesn’t benefit anyone. And I have to share with you, Lori, I think I’m really good at like three things, right? You know, I’m lucky to have a great team where I work with the counterintuitive because they’re good at a bunch of different things that I’m hopeless at. And our producer, Lisa Pham, could attest to how hopeless I am at some things. But I do have some strengths. And when you focus on strengths, people appreciate it and you’re empowering them to succeed. so I love that. Did I correctly encapsulate person centered?

Lori Carmona:
Yes, yeah, absolutely.

Lee Wochner:
I just love that, I really do. And I tell my kids, all of whom are now young adults, that look at people’s qualities and work from there and don’t focus on the negative, it’s just better. When you stepped into the leadership of YWCA Greater Los Angeles a couple of years ago, I think of you as a change maker and that’s a legacy organization.

Lori Carmona:
Yeah.

Lee Wochner:
How did you balance honoring the legacy of 100 plus years with bringing your own vision?

Lori Carmona:
Well, the first thing that we did was to launch a strategic planning process. So it also had been about five years since one had been done here. So it was time, but I think also as a new leader, it was a great opportunity for me to bring the board, the staff and the community and the clients all together to align on where are we going from here. And again, we’re lucky that the mission is so broad, know, empowering women. You could give me any need in LA and I could fit it into that.

So it’s important to be very specific about for the clients that we have and the clients that we want to serve, what are they really looking for and needing? So the strategic planning process included client surveys, just general community surveys, a lot of board work and input and staff work and input. And what came out of it is a great five year strategic plan, very aggressive, 10 major goals.

of what we want to accomplish over that time. And we’re using that as our North star, but also being flexible about how we implement some of those things. So economic empowerment, for example, that was something that this organization had been very strong in before the pandemic and then went through some changes. And now it’s something that we want to do, but we want to do it in a different way. Jobs have changed, right? So what are the jobs today that we can help people to, to earn, you know, living wages and better benefits and all of that.

So that’s one thing that we’re working on and being very flexible again in what the individuals want and how we deliver that service.

Lee Wochner:
Well, that’s one of the things that impresses me because you’re making, I think, an omnibus approach to so many people’s lives. And the approach is flexible depending on who they are what they need, but the impact. And also the local geographic impact because you have a number of different locations. So there’s the virtual impact online. People can call if they’re in crisis. There’s the geographical footprint. There are the activities. I mean, again, I’m very impressed with that. So let’s talk about strategy for a minute. And so the first thing I gather from you, and I think one of the things that you and I have spoken about, is we both believe in strategy and having a plan, because it charts a course.

So the overall YWCA mission of eliminating racism, and by the way, put me down for that. I would like that to happen. So I thank you for that. Empowering women, promoting peace, justice, freedom, and dignity for all. I like all of that. I endorse all of that. It’s bold and it’s ambitious. But the nice thing about it is I think that you’re posting real results on it.

How do you translate such a sweeping mission into day-in-day operations and measure outcomes? Because I know, because I’ve read your reports, I know that you’re achieving success. How do you do that?

Lori Carmona:
Yeah, so as I was saying, it comes back to having that strategic plan with the broad 10 overarching goals. And then, of course, there’s objectives and tactics underneath that with timelines and all kinds of it gets more granular as we move it through the organization, but also remaining flexible at the same time, which I think is really key in this, especially in this changing environment that we’re in. But we do evaluation of all of our programs on a regular basis. So that’s

Some of the performance outcomes include obviously tracking number of people served, hours people are served, and also looking at the outreach we do in education and awareness, because that’s a big part of the issues that we’re working on. And then we look at the client impact through pre and post surveys. So we’ll ask a senior, for example, in the engagement program.

maybe about their level of loneliness that they feel. And when they come in and then measure that along the way and see if really what we’re doing is helping with the engagement. That’s just a really simple measurement. with the toddlers and preschoolers, it’s a little easier. are definitely measures like schools use that you can look at their language development and reading skills and preparation for kindergarten, as I mentioned. it’s very depending on the program what we measure, but we do do a lot of client satisfaction surveys as well as outcomes measures that by the people that are administering the program and as they’re working with the clients, usually on a daily basis, and they can do their own do their assessment of what they’re seeing and also the individual can also assess their own how their progress.

Lee Wochner:
On one of my site visits, I saw the seniors all involved in a fitness thing. And I was really happy to see that because there are a lot of lonely, isolated seniors sitting indoors with a TV on. And these folks seemed so happy and well, and that really made me happy. And then I go to the next room on the tour and there were a bunch of sleeping three-year-olds, I guess.
That made me pretty happy too. But I really congratulate YWCA Greater Los Angeles in not just in providing these services, but in tracking the outcomes. And I’ll tell you just to edify myself, because I’m always interested in learning things. I took your annual revenue and I looked at how many people you serve and I went, wow. This is a really good investment. They do a lot. was struck by that. So thank you. And again, I think that measure of measuring results would probably help with funding and with grant applications and such and appeals for donations.

Lori Carmona:
Absolutely, donors are more savvy today and even individual donors want to know about your outcomes and your impact.

Lee Wochner:
So let’s talk a little bit about partnership and collaboration because I also, I was in a meeting yesterday and it turned out that that nonprofit leader is a friend of yours of about 10 years and she spoke very highly of you. And then you and I know other people in common and you seem very widely connected and you have partners, partner organizations.

So let’s talk about partnership and collaboration just for a minute, because I know you think it’s important. And I think I would agree. how do you, let’s start with your board. How do you approach board engagement? What makes for a strong CEO board relationship?

Lori Carmona:
Well, obviously trust is super important. I am a big believer in transparency with the board. Obviously, I’m not going to, you know, bother them with every little thing going on in the organization, but certainly if there’s anything that is more high profile that I think that they need to be aware of that they, you know, maybe ask because people may know that they’re on our board and they may ask them about a particular issue facing women or something related to our organization. So.

Lee Wochner:
Okay.

Lori Carmona:
certainly working on trust and transparency, but also really using their time wisely because our board is mainly women and women, think especially, not that men aren’t busy, but women often are the hub of the family and they’re taking care, especially the women that we tend to have on our board are often working mothers who are also caring for their parents and have all these demands on their time. So I think it’s really important to use board members’ time strategically and use them as ambassadors and open the door and use the staff. We’re pretty large, we have 130 staff, so we do have people that can do these kinds of things. understand smaller nonprofits would be different, but to whatever degree I can, I always like to offer that staff support. So anything that we can do for them, we do so that their time can be spent in creating new relationships and new opportunities for us by being out there being ambassadors.

Lee Wochner:
A good board and a good board relationship with the CEO just makes a big difference in my own experience. I’ve seen that again and again. And I’m currently doing board service on three boards. Excuse me. And I always, I’m always forthright with the CEO about, you know, where I think I am or whatever. And also that I support them and they can come to me if they have a need, we can figure it out.

Lori Carmona:
Yes. It’s critical.

Lee Wochner:
Everybody has a down day. I’m here. Sorry.

Lori Carmona:
And that’s.

Yeah, and that’s the thing that most of your good board members are on multiple boards and they’re highly sought after. So being really, again, respectful of the time and using that wisely.

Lee Wochner:
You’ve also emphasized the importance of partnerships. And one of the things we’ve been putting out at Counterintuity to nonprofits is, hey, have you considered partnering with others, especially the ones that are facing sudden new funding challenges and service delivery challenges? I’m thinking of one in Washington state, for instance. And so, well, how can you partner with some others?

What makes in your mind, I know you partner a lot, what makes a truly effective nonprofit partnership?

Lori Carmona:
Yeah, well, depends on the level of the partnership. I mean, we do a lot of things in our programs where we’ll just go table at another organization’s event or invite them to come to ours. And so obviously, that’s just important about getting the word out and making sure that the other organization has something to offer to your clients. For more meaningful partnership, it’s really important to have organizations whose cultures align, I think.

And especially if you’re going into like some sort of a merger or a subsidiary model, you want to make sure that you’re not bringing in people that have a different culture in the organization because that can be very difficult to integrate two groups together. But I think just in general, it’s about expanding your impact and your reach without reinventing the wheel. That’s why I’m so passionate about it because I think there is a lot of duplication of services and most

service sectors in LA and if people could come together a little bit more, we could be more efficient and streamlined and then the limited amount of dollars that are available for nonprofits could go a lot farther.

Lee Wochner:
Right, because the real goal here is to make a positive impact on the world. we’re going to take a short break here, but when we come back, Lori and I are going to dig into advice for nonprofit leaders, how the change going on, all sorts of changes in our atmosphere, how that affects marketing, and much more. Stick around.

Jaclyn Uloth:
According to the Association of Fundraising Professionals, the shelf life of a website is two years and seven months. So if your website is three years old or older, it probably needs a tune-up or a complete overhaul so that you can stay current and engaging. A website refresh provides design and content improvements to drive donations and new technology to save you on time.

A website refresh provides design and content improvements to drive donations and new technology to save you time on tedious tasks while keeping your website safe from hackers. a free assessment of your website, contact us through our own website at counterintuity.com or email lee at lee@counterintuity.com. We’re ready to help. And now back to our show.

Lee Wochner:
And we’re back with the CEO of the YWCA Greater Los Angeles, Lori Carmona:. So Lori, what marketing does YWCA Greater Los Angeles do to spread the word?

Lori Carmona:
So we do a lot of storytelling as much as we can. And we’re very fortunate to have wonderful stories, as you mentioned, you know, our sleeping three year olds when they’re up and around and doing their thing on the playground. One of my favorite stories is one time I was at the playground and the teacher referred to it. And the children are now working on conflict resolution. That’s what she called it on the playground, which is true though, right? So, you it’s like, how do you take those really more mundane kind of things that we take for granted that kids do, but really they are learning skills and working through that. So we tell those stories every way that we can through social media, email blasts. You know, obviously we have a website, we like to get out and talk like this. Any, you know, take any speaking opportunity there comes my way, because I love to tell the story as do a lot of our staff.

and board members. we do, you know, anything and everything, I guess you would say for marketing.

Lee Wochner:
So we do get to help you a little bit with some of these things. And since you bring up the children, I’m just a sucker for kids. I think most people are, right? And so the story that I loved was the little girl who had separation anxiety. then, you know, they had to work her, the people at YWCA Greater Los Angeles had to help her separate from her parent, dropping her off, et cetera.

And then one day she came in and she just hung up her backpack and said, no, I’m brave today. I just love that.

Lori Carmona:
Yeah. you know, that our staff are really, really great. I mean, we have a lot of teachers. Our average tenure is eight point five years. So if you can imagine, you know, especially in a teacher, that’s a very demanding job. And we have a lot of, you know, 20 plus year veterans as well. And they’re really great. And one thing they did when we rolled out our values across the organization.

they found a way to bring those down to the level for the children. So for example, one of our values is courage. And so they had worked on flashcards that had different faces and, you know, visuals. And I believe the courage one was about expressing your feelings. So they had been talking with this child and the other children in the classroom about that. And I think that was why she said, I’m brave today because, you know, she

They had been working on the separation anxiety, but I think she put that together with the courageous part. And I think that’s so cool that the staff figured out a way to take those values down to a three-year-old level.

Lee Wochner:
Well, that’s definitely an impact you’ve made and those early lessons stick. I talked on our podcast a few weeks ago about how watching Star Trek with my dad shaped my life. I mean, never expected that, but it did. Where is this federation? I want us to have it. It seems good. And I guess I was like four or five years old. So this is a especially, I think, important question now for nonprofits to think about. How does your marketing, the marketing that you do, how does that link with your fundraising efforts? Because I know this is requiring closer examination by a lot of nonprofits right now.

Lori Carmona:
Yeah, they’re definitely very well linked. There’s a lot of, as you well know, noise, I guess you would call it in our world today, right? Every time we open our phone, we’re impacted with all these messages or wherever you get your TV or whatever. So nonprofits have to, we have to share that space with the companies that have really big budgets that are also competing for people’s time and attention.

So it’s super important and we have to be very strategic about how we use very limited dollars to have that reach. But the donors do see it and they’re looking at it and it helps with everything from board member recruitment to even client recruitment. If they don’t know that we’re here, that’s super important. But we promote our major fundraising event, of course, through that, which is our Y Her event, which is coming up on April 28th.

We also have our giving circle, which is promoted through all the different marketing efforts that we do. So just telling people different ways that they can engage with us. And it’s really important through those marketing efforts.

Lee Wochner:
Can you talk a little bit about what Y-HER is? And I like the acronym, Y-H-E-R, I like that a lot.

Lori Carmona:
Yeah. So her, Y obviously stands for the YWCA, Greater Los Angeles, and her stands for honor, elevate, and respect. And so it’s about honoring women in our community. mean, first of all, it’s a really fun afternoon. It’s at the Grammy Museum and their beautiful outdoor terrace on a Tuesday afternoon, April 28th, from three to six. So it isn’t a lunch. It isn’t a dinner.

It’s not even really, I wouldn’t even really say it’s a cocktail hour. Of course there are cocktails and yummy appetizers, but it’s about being up and moving around the room. There’s different interactive stations. This is only our second inaugural. Last year was the inaugural, this is our second annual. And so it’s about moving around different kind of engaging stations, hearing a few high profile honorees, like we’re honoring Maria Salinas, the CEO of the Greater LA Chamber as one of our honorees. also there’s almost everyone in the room is an honoree because sponsors are encouraged to invite women that they want to honor. And so that’s a great way that corporate corporations can when you make a donation, you’re helping our mission, helping our programs, but you can also use it as employee recognition, as client recognition, vendor recognition, you anyone that you want to recognize and so we have ways to make those people feel special at the event as well.

Lee Wochner:
And then you also have justice for her. What is that?

Lori Carmona:
So Justice for Her is our giving circle. It’s confusing because the names are similar, but it’s actually very different. So these are donors that give $500 or more. have up to, I know we have a couple at the $25,000 level, so everything in between there. And they’re invited to quarterly events throughout the year that we hold sometimes at our locations. We did one recently at the E-Bell, the Wilshire E-Bell to celebrate.

the longstanding history that our two organizations have of serving women in LA. And, you know, they’re different topics. They’re just informational, fun time to get together with other, they’re not all women. We have men that are members of Justice for Her and they come together and these are people that care about women and empowering women. And we do special, you know, email blasts and different things where they can be up to date on all the different things facing women today and particularly our programs and services.

Lee Wochner:
I got to come to that Justice for Her meeting and thank you for that. And I don’t know if I shared with you, I met the CEO of the Wilshire E-Bell and I’ve been to the E-Bell many times and I did not realize that it was the CEO was someone, she and I had known each other, here you go, this is such an internet LA story. We’d known each other for 30 years but never met in person.

Lori Carmona:
Okay.

Lee Wochner:
Yeah, because when I was running the performing arts group, the service organization for Los Angeles, she had been the number two there before I arrived. And so we were aware of each other for 30 years. And then when I said my name, she goes, I’m like, you’re. So that was fun. was a fun event and it was a surprising networking event of sorts.

Lori Carmona:
Mmm.

Lori Carmona:
Yeah, exactly.

Lee Wochner:
And the tour, the tour of the e-bell was amazing. it’s interesting the people that your organization is connected to and the way that it provides people to get connected. And I think that’s an added bonus. So, and then finally, I think here’s something I’d really like people to hear. You do internal marketing of sorts and I would call that internal marketing because you’re informing your team and helping them to spread the word. How do you do that?

Lori Carmona:
Yeah, as I mentioned, we have about 130 staff spread out among about 10 different locations, five or six, you know, the larger ones. And so it’s important for our culture and for communication and just effective, you know, business strategy. And, you know, and because people that work at nonprofits, they like working with people and they like hearing about people. So.

We do a monthly newsletter that recognizes all the birthdays and the work anniversaries, promotions, and we tell some of those stories in there because if you’re in the Survivor Empowerment Story program, you may not hear about that little girl that said, I’m brave. If you’re in child development, you may not hear about the story where we just helped a survivor who was traveling from Seattle through LAX that

was identified as a potential target for human trafficking. And our staff were able to step in and get this gentleman back on a bus to Seattle. So that’s a story that we would tell through the newsletter so that others in the organization know about that. And then we also do what we call the quarterly pulse, is, it’s been Zoom so far, but we’re talking about doing.

one, at least at one of our locations, so a hybrid model. This is where I come in for an hour and talk about what’s going on in the organization. And then we follow that up. The following week, we just had this yesterday, our coffee with Lori. because the pulse is, you know, with that many people on a Zoom, it has to pretty much be one way communication. So I like to have the coffee, which is like an optional time. So the pulse, pretty much everybody is expected to come, but the coffee is optional and, we had, we had, think 30 people on our coffee yesterday. So, you know, to came to ask any follow-up questions from there, provide any input. And it’s really more about me listening to them. And it was, it was really, really helpful. They had a lot of great questions about how are we using AI going forward? They, you know, they wanted to know what’s going on at the national level. And, you know, and just, and our conversations always seem to come back around to food.

So we decided we do send out, we did the first two times send out a gift card for an actual cup of coffee at the end, because I always feel bad. You’re inviting someone to a coffee and there’s no coffee, right? So we’ve done that. But our conversation yesterday was around milkshakes because the weather is so hot right now, even though it’s February. yeah, so we might we might do milkshakes next time. But yeah, so those kinds of things just help people feel connected.

Lee Wochner:
I think it’s important to have that sort of discussion and to share your values. The values are really important and to keep people posted. And I’ll never forget this quote. Somebody said to the playwright Christopher Durang that his plays were preaching to the choir. And he said, yes, but the choir needs to hear it too. I really like that. The choir needs to hear it too, right? Okay.

Lori Carmona:
Mm, yeah, absolutely.

Absolutely.

Lee Wochner:
So, I mean, let’s talk about change for a little bit. So you’ve been forthright about making necessary changes at organizations that you’ve led. How do you balance respecting organizational culture and perhaps practice and process with driving needed innovation and change when things have to change?

Lori Carmona:
think culture is always a work in progress. So it’s never stagnant. It’s evolving and changing with the times and with new people that come in to the organization. mean, having those values is a key part of it. That’s why we started with that so we can center ourselves around not just those words like courage, but what’s the definition and what do we mean when we talk about that. So that’s how culture, I think, continues to evolve and I think that balancing the legacy of where we’ve been with the vision of where we’re going is about, you know, again, it comes back to mission, vision and values, right? So we have our mission, we have our values, you know, we have our long term vision, but then also we have a vision within our strategic plan. So for the next five years, and again, using that as the North Star of where we’re going, I think is.

Because to think beyond five years is difficult, even up to five years these days. But I think that’s where the innovation part comes in.

Lee Wochner:
Are there business smarts that you think every nonprofit leader should develop, but that sometimes perhaps get overlooked in favor of the bigger picture?

Lori Carmona:
Yeah, I mean, we we really, you you call it nonprofit, but you you have to break even. Right. No, you know, I love the saying no money, no mission. Right. And it goes both ways because you have to have a good mission to fundraise. But then it takes fundraising to implement your mission. Right. So it’s often the cart and the horse and how you bring those two things together. So I think that really comes about with also looking at how you diversify your revenue. I think that’s another business strategy that is very important for nonprofits. So you can’t be over reliant on, in my opinion, government sources, for example, even though we do receive a lot of government sources and we did at my prior organization as well. because, you know, government changes its mind, they change direction, they don’t want to fund certain things. And so that’s where your general support, your philanthropic support comes in.

where you can use that for, like the saying is the light bill, right? Nobody wants to fund having lights, paying the electric bill, but you can’t deliver your mission without it. So diversifying through adding government contracts, maximizing every government contract you can get, the fundraising, and then in our case, we own a lot of facilities, so where can we rent those out to other?

non-profits and for-profits and have another source of revenue coming in there or any other kind of earning income.

Lee Wochner:
We’re living through a time of significant socioeconomic change, budget cuts, policy shifts, increasing needs. I think you already gave one great insight, which is you have to diversify your revenue. Are there other strategies that you would recommend to nonprofit leaders facing challenges in this area?

Lori Carmona:
I think, yeah, it’s hard because, like you say that things are changing so much, I think looking at again, back to not reinventing the wheel. So I’m doing a competitive analysis. So who else is doing what you’re doing in the same space? And back to your point about collaborations, how can we come together? In some cases, maybe it makes sense not to do that particular program in a community. If they’re is someone else is doing it equally well. Maybe that’s not a need and you can put your resources toward something different that the community does need. So I think that that’s really key. And just, you know, being up on, you know, just basic things like basic employment law and, you know, working with your employees and make sure that you’re implementing everything, you know, just like because we’re subject to all the same thing that all businesses are.

And I think a lot of times people don’t realize that, that nonprofits have to do everything that for-profits do, but just on a leaner budget. So I think being aware of all of that is really key.

Lee Wochner:
What’s the biggest challenge that nonprofits and the organizations that you work with are having right now, would you say?

Lori Carmona:
Focus, think. I think there’s a lot of distractions in terms of, know, you know, there for a while at the beginning of the year, was all about educating people about their rights towards immigration, making sure that we knew what we would do if, you know, ICE showed up, that our staff would feel protected and know the right things to do and that we would know like emergency contacts for all the children in case somebody didn’t show up. So those are like normal course of business things that you usually have to worry about, right? And that’s not something you can go and get extra funding for or, so I think that’s what I mean by kind of, I don’t know, distraction sounds too small of a word, but, it can, if you’re not careful in these times, I think, lead towards what’s known as mission creep, right? So we want to do everything for everyone. We’ve seen this, this, well, this is going on and so we should do that. And so back to looking at who are the other partners in the community that you can bring in to talk about a certain issue. And we don’t have to be the experts in everything or be the one to deliver those services. We did a food drive recently back when, remember, Snap was, was an issue and, we made it clear, this is like a one-time thing. We’re not a food bank, but we, this was a need that we saw for our families and for our staff to some degree. So we jumped in and did that and that’s very much a one-off, but it was something that was needed at that time.

Lee Wochner:
It sounds like, you know, there are things within your control and things outside your control and what you can exercise your control over and have a positive impact without mission creep, I think that’s well said, you should do. I, so, but what I’m really hearing here is strategy and planning are helpful and you’ve laid out contingencies for what you would do if certain things happen. I can’t tell you. How many nonprofits we get into discussions with who just wanna jump past strategy and planning. And I’m like, you’re gonna be in the hall of 37 doors. And the problem with being in the hallway of 37 doors is you never get out of the hallway. Opening every door, looking inside, closing the door, you never enter a room. You don’t know where to go, you don’t know what to do. So I congratulate you on having plans for those.

Lori Carmona:
Yeah.

Lee Wochner:
some of those contingencies that I think are just terrible, but we have to have.

Lori Carmona:
And you can’t plan for everything, but planning ahead of time will often save you time down the road. So we went through a process at a prior organization where we had the board kind of define what are most important because we had a lot of programs. What’s the most important for core programs, for example? And then when out of the blue, funding got cut for one of those programs. It was very easy. We didn’t have to convince convene a board meeting or figure it out. It’s like, no, this is important. We’re going to find a way to make it work, where if it’s maybe one of our other programs that hadn’t been deemed as core, then it might be looking at an exit strategy, right? But because we had done the planning ahead of time, then when you have these key decisions to make, you can be quicker. So I think to your point, people say they don’t have time to plan, by doing that, you can create more time when time is really of the essence.

Lee Wochner:
Absolutely. One of the things that we talk to people about when they have real challenges is that there are opportunities in every challenge. And I don’t want to say there’s opportunities in dealing with ICE. That’s horrific. But as an example, we were able to grow areas of our business strategically during the pandemic because we provided an off ramp for another company in New York.

Are there opportunities in these challenges that we’re talking about right now?

Lori Carmona:
Yeah, I think the strategic alliances and partnerships like we talked about earlier, that there’s, it can be a motivation for organizations to be looking for partners. I think there are more looking for partners than ever, you know, than in a normal, if there is such a thing as a normal environment. So think that’s definitely a partnership. I think that just the discussions that we’re having as a country fit

very nicely into our mission. can be a challenge, but it also, to your point, is very much an opportunity, eliminating racism, empowering women at a time when we’re talking about DEI strategies changing, but yet we still want to eliminate racism, empower women. So I think that creates an opportunity for the YWCA.

Lee Wochner:
Are you optimistic about the future?

Lori Carmona:
Always, always. mean, I think you can’t be in this work if you’re not just a general optimistic person, but I’m also a realist. So I, you know, like to your point, like to plan and take that optimism and, okay, let’s be optimistic, but let’s also plan, you know, for the what if, right? Like you were saying, contingency planning. But I think, yeah, I think, you know, as a country, I’m optimistic that we’ll come out. I don’t know how long that will take other end of this stronger, I think as an organization we will for sure and you know just hopefully our local community also.

Lee Wochner:
I’m with you. I’m optimistic about the future. And when I was in my 20s, I remember being rather cynical and I’m not a cynical person at all. And suddenly I realized, I think I’m trying to be cynical, but I’m not, I’m not a cynical person. And I’ve told all three of my kids, you know, most of the time things work out okay. Generally they do. And here’s all the positive developments that have happened or are happening.

Lori Carmona:
Yeah.

Lee Wochner:
And I could talk about climate change and the real progress we’ve made, et cetera, et The world’s not going to collapse soon. We have real challenges to work on. But yes, and you are 100 % correct. You have to be optimistic about the future if you’re going to be an effective leader.

Do you have any further advice you’d like? I could talk to you for so long. I just, you really are a bright spot. Do you have any further advice you would like to share with our listeners?

Lori Carmona:
can’t really think of anything that we haven’t covered, Lee. You did such a great job laying out the conversation for us. I really appreciate the opportunity to talk about what we’re doing at the YWCA Greater Los Angeles and also about my journey and my thoughts on this, because as you said, I am passionate about a lot of what we, everything that we talked about today. So nothing further to add. Thank you.

Lee Wochner:
I would really encourage people to check out your organization. I don’t know if it sounds like I’m shilling for you. I’m not. I’m just so impressed. I really am. I mean, getting to see up close what you guys do and hearing those stories, it’s very motivating. Lori, if people want to reach out to you, what’s the best way they can get in touch with you?

Lori Carmona:
Yeah, so for general information, our website, ywcagla.org or reach out to me directly at lori.carmona at ywcagla.org.

Lee Wochner:
Okay, we can put that in the show notes and they can find you on LinkedIn as well, I believe.

Lori Carmona:
Absolutely, yes.

Lee Wochner:
Well, great. Thank you so much for joining us and thank you for what you’re doing in Los Angeles and in the wider community that we’re all part of. Thank you.

Lori Carmona:
Thank you, 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.