The Nonprofit Podcast

Send us Fan Mail A packed room isn't necessarily a fundraising strategy. If you’re already losing sleep over seating charts, guest counts, and selling every last ticket, take a breath.  The event doesn't raise the money - relationships do. Here is what actually happens when you stop trying to fill the room and start building it.   Cara Augspurger pulls back the curtain on a recent live f...

Send us Fan Mail Why - and when - do donors actually trust your organization? Every gift is a decision, and every decision has mechanics. Donorbox has mapped them in a new field guide , 10 Principles of Donor Conversion and Retention: The Science of Giving . It draws on published research into why donors give and why they stop. In the first of two episodes that break down the mechanics of the givi...

Send us Fan Mail Happy DAF Day. Here's something to think about. Nearly one in four dollars of individual giving in the US now moves through donor advised funds, and DAF giving is growing 8X faster than everything else. Jena Lynch and Cara Augspurger get into who DAF donors really are (**Spoiler** not all are billionaires - most give under $1,000) , why they tend to stay longer and give more,...

Send us Fan Mail You pulled the report. 1,800 people who gave last year haven't given a cent this year. And it's October. Cue Giving Season panic. Jena Lynch and Britt Stockert see it differently. Most of those lapsed donors didn't leave. They drifted. This episode is all about winning back LYBUNT donors (Last Year But Unfortunately Not This) before December 3 - no guilt trips. No &...

Send us Fan Mail How far can one campaign travel this Giving Season?  Further than your email list, if you set it up right. Today, Jena Lynch , Head of Community Engagement at Donorbox , shares how a crowdfunding campaign gives supporters a clear, specific goal to rally around, and how peer-to-peer fundraising turns that campaign into something supporters carry into their own networks… reaching pe...

Send us Fan Mail Most nonprofit events open exactly one path to giving: the ticket.  Jena Lynch and Britt Stockert map the fundraising moments most events miss, before doors open, during the event, after everyone goes home, and unpack how nonprofits can open more paths to giving - without extra work for their team. What You'll Learn Why the ticket purchase is one of the best, and most frequen...

Send us Fan Mail Heart does that panicked double-thump. Stomach drops. Ohh - there goes gravity!  Sound familiar?  That's what happens right before most fundraisers call a donor to ask for money… and Britt Stockert , Fundraiser Coach at Donorbox , says that feeling is telling you the opposite of what you think. In this quick, coffee-break episode, Britt shares the four words she scribbled on...

Send us Fan Mail ChatGPT. Claude. Gemini. Or Google...Search visibility has changed. AI search is changing how donors and volunteers find nonprofits, and most teams are still figuring out what to do about it.  This week, host Jena Lynch talks with Jessica King, Director at Getting Attention, about what's actually working in search right now...from why ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini are showing u...

Send us Fan Mail A simple donor survey is the closest thing you will get to reading your supporters' minds, yet the answers you get are rarely what you expect Donors are sitting on insights most nonprofits never think to look for. Cara Augspurger , our field correspondent and CEO of Grace Care Center Foundation , joins Jena Lynch to share what happened when her team surveyed hundreds of donor...

Send us Fan Mail You can't repair the runway while the plane is taking off. 🛫 That's Darrin Cook's blunt take on why Giving Season prep has to start in August, not November.  Darrin joins Jena Lynch to break down how early infrastructure work, not last-minute campaign scrambling, drives real Giving Season results. He shares a framework for auditing donor data and donation flows now...

Send us Fan Mail A plan built by a few people at the top and handed down is just paperwork.  Dr. Renee Rubin Ross argues real ownership comes from who's in the room while the goals get decided, not just who signs off on them. Dr. Ross is the founder of The Ross Collective and author of Inclusive Strategic Planning for Nonprofits. In this episode, she and Britt break down her five-step spiral...

Send us Fan Mail Only 26% of nonprofits tell donors when AI helped write to them. 76% of donors say they should be told.  That's not small! It's a fifty-point trust gap that grows every time an organization reaches for a new tool without a plan for it. This week, Jena Lynch digs into what's actually pulling nonprofits toward AI right now (hint: it's burnout, not hype), why dono...

Send us Fan Mail Most nonprofit strategic planning mistakes don't show up until year-end, right when your fundraising push exposes exactly what's missing. Being busy isn't the same as having direction. In this Summer Rewind, Cara Augspurger , CFRE, breaks down the five steps that took her organization from constant firefighting to a plan that actually holds up, in six months . What...

Send us Fan Mail Great performers don't always make great leaders. That gap is costing nonprofits people they can't afford to lose. As nonprofits head into the busiest stretch of the year, Britt Stockert revisits a listener favorite with Chris Wong, founder of Leadership Potential and a licensed therapist who builds leadership programs inside nonprofits. They talk about accidental leader...

Send us Fan Mail Summer time and the living...could be easier! Nonprofit teams are gearing up for the second half of the year, and this Summer Rewind brings back one of the show's most practical conversations for that exact moment. Jena Lynch talks with Chad Barger , founder of Productive Fundraising , about slow fundraising: an approach built on doing fewer things, doing them consistently, a...

Send us Fan Mail Summer is a good time to slow down and check the quiet gaps in your fundraising…before Giving Season prep picks up speed. This episode is a fan favorite, back for our July summer rewind series. Donors haven't stopped giving. They've just gotten more careful, and that means small friction points matter more than they used to. Jena Lynch and Britt Stockert talk through thr...

Send us Fan Mail Giving hit a record high in 2025. What's underneath that number will shape your fundraising strategy for the next decade. Americans gave $617 billion to charity in 2025, a record, and real growth even after inflation. Five of nine nonprofit categories hit all-time highs. The sector showed up!! But the Giving USA 2026 report tells a more layered story. Jena Lynch and Britt Sto...

Send us Fan Mail Nearly seven in ten nonprofit employees are actively looking for new jobs…and it's not always about the paycheck. Britt Stockert and Cara Augspurger talk through five low-cost ways to help your team feel appreciated and connected to the mission. Cara draws on real examples from her work at Grace Care Center Foundation, where a culture of recognition has helped keep people eng...

Send us Fan Mail Every nonprofit team has one…the decision that keeps getting pushed to next week.  The platform that's been under evaluation for three months. The recurring giving program that still doesn't have a name. The donor email that's been rewritten twelve times and still hasn't been sent. In this episode, Jena Lynch and Britt Stockert get into why fundraising decision...

Send us Fan Mail The fundraising capacity gap is the distance between what a nonprofit needs to raise money sustainably and what it's actually resourced to do.  And, right now?... That gap is widening. In this episode, Britt Stockert, Fundraiser Coach at Donorbox, unpacks what it is, where it shows up in daily development work, and why it keeps getting misdiagnosed as a performance problem wh...

Send us Fan Mail “Doubt kills donations.” Before a donor ever gives, they’ve already formed an opinion of your organization. It takes a minute. Sometimes less. And most nonprofits have no idea what’s coming up about their mission. What they find in those moments either builds confidence or raises doubt. In this episode, Jena Lynch sits down with Tori Burrello , Marketing Manager at Candid , to tal...

Send us Fan Mail Nonprofit boards are doing more with less. And when governance isn't working, it's the executive director who absorbs it quietly, consistently, at real cost to the organization. Britt Stockert sits down with David Rhode, nonprofit executive coach and author of Passion Isn't Enough, to talk about the board self-assessment - what it is, why so many boards skip it, and...

Send us Fan Mail Fundraising is getting harder. But generosity hasn't disappeared. So what's actually changing? Jena Lynch sits down with nonprofit coach, consultant, and host of The Nonprofit Leadership Podcast , Rob Harter, to interrogate the real pressures nonprofit leaders are facing right now, donor retention, staffing burnout, supporter engagement, and fundraising performance. They...

Send us Fan Mail Promoting from within is one of the best things a nonprofit can do. Until it isn't. Not because the person wasn't ready. But because nobody built the bridge between outstanding performer and effective leader, and that gap quietly costs nonprofits some of their best people. Britt Stockert sits down with Chris Wong , founder of Leadership Potential , licensed therapist, an...

Send us Fan Mail The plan is just paper. The value is in using it. When your nonprofit is growing but still feels directionless, that's not a passion problem…it's a planning problem.  Strategic planning isn't about doing more, it's about finally knowing what matters. When you're clear on who you serve, honest about what it costs, and aware of how it's funded, everythi...