IMPACTability: The Nonprofit Leaders' Podcast

What is collective giving, and how could it benefit your nonprofit? Like-minded organizations have begun joining forces in order to raise money for important missions! Learn how a group of nonprofits can start a connected giving circle. Guest   Susan Benford, Board Chair of Philanos, a network of nearly 80 giving circles representing 18,000 women, will answer these questions and share how giv...

Why should a donor give to you? What is your nonprofit’s value proposition? Tim Kachuriak, CEO and Founder of NextAfter, and co-author of the book Why Should I Give To You? We will answer these questions and share some of the newer trends in fundraising that could take your development program to the next level! Learn strategies and tips from experts in the field that will provide a boos...

What kind of risk mitigation does a nonprofit have to be concerned about? What about data security? How do you keep your donor’s information safe?  To discuss the threats that your organization could face, how to avoid them, and how to prepare for them is Tony Olivo, Director of Investigative Services for CSI Group and a Board Certified Professional Criminal Investigator. In this episode you'...

As fundraisers, one of the best tools is the email and the e-newsletter. But why all the bounces?  What should you definitely have in your e-newsletter? What is the fine line between “I’m sending the right amount of emails” and “they can’t wait to unsubscribe?” Email marketing expert,  Erica Salm Rench, will answer these questions to help you skyrocket your open rates.  Erica Salm R...

What’s new in digital fundraising? Is there something we’re not doing at our fundraising events that we should be doing? Are there any low-maintenance digital fundraising ideas to make our events more successful? Our guest, Nidhi Doshi, is here to answer these questions and help us use digital fundraising to take our events to the next level. In this episode you'll discover: How did the pande...

Is the distinction between nonprofit and for-profit organizations changing? Can the two work together for the common good? Are we seeing a paradigm shift in the way we work? And with bitcoin all the rage, can the nonprofit world get in on it? This episode has a little bit of everything! Helping us tackle these subjects and more is our guest, Kelly Jackson. In this episode, you will definitely lear...

One of the most important parts of your nonprofit organization, and especially your fundraising efforts, is your story. The way you decide to convey the message and history of your organization makes all the difference when pursuing your mission. How do you tell your story, and does it evoke emotion? These are just a few of the questions we will ask the Principle and Creative Director at Barkada C...

Wouldn’t it be great to have a steady stream of donors? According to The State of Modern Philanthropy, recurring donors are over five times more valuable to your nonprofit than one-time donors. Monthly giving creates reliable income from your most committed donors. So how do you start a monthly gift program or increase the monthly donors you have? Are there pitfalls to watch out for? In this episo...

Thanks to COVID, there's a good chance that your nonprofit's annual event has been sidelined. Now that more events are being planned, should you go back to doing the same event or try something new? Ever think of doing a golf tournament? If you're already doing one, how can it be bigger and better? We have a pro on our course, Logan Foote, who will help you answer these questions and give his top...

Have you ever wondered how your nonprofit organization is doing? How do you evaluate your organization? What things will an organization assessment look at? This episode answers these questions and more. Kick the tires and check under the hood of your nonprofit with award-winning educator and a Professor Emeritus of Nonprofit Leadership at the University of Missouri, Dr. David Renz. In this episod...

Have you ever wondered what collaboration between two nonprofits would look like? Could joining forces increase your impact? How would you  preserve your mission while adding to the collective power? This episode’s guest, Jaysen Roa, will answer these questions and more as he shares his own experience of effective collaboration between nonprofit organizations.  This episode's Coaches Cor...

Have you ever wondered what it is like to be an Executive Director of a nonprofit ? Is it as tough a job as popular opinion declares it? Are there challenges that never seem to go away? To answer these questions, we speak with Susan McManus about her 30 years as the Executive Director for her organization. And yes, she still loves her job! This episode's Coaches Corner answers the listener's quest...

Is the intellectual property at your nonprofit protected?   Do you know what is considered intellectual property? What if someone else uses the name of the fundraiser that you do every year? What can you do about it? This episode looks at how your nonprofit can protect its intellectual property. Protecting your nonprofit's assets, your name, logo, events and more, is an importa...

The news is full of stories telling us that the job market looks really good right now, that it is an employee’s market, and people are jumping from position to position. COVID-19 was just a bump in the employment road, and now businesses and nonprofits alike are struggling to hire and retain good talent. To help listeners either find the right employee or the right job, we invited Mike English, a...

This episode centers on a perfect storm that caused a nonprofit to form and address a long-standing problem in the community it serves. Our guest, Dr. Arol Buntzman, was at the center of it all and will share some of the lessons he’s learned about grassroots fundraising through faith-based organizations. Discover the do’s and don’t of approaching church communities and other faith-based groups to...

You’ve got a nonprofit organization with a fantastic mission, and you’re doing all the right things, but how do you get the word out? In this episode, we start with the basics: how to get in touch with the media. Our guest, Kimberly Lohman-Clapp, is the founder and CEO of Golden Hour Communications and has an extensive background in public relations. She has been a television and radio news anchor...

How are you with the technology of fundraising? Whether you know all the in's and out's of fundraising tech, or could stand to learn what is new on the tech front, this is the episode for you. Technology is your friend and to help explain is our guest, Abby Jarvis. Abby is the nonprofit education manager at QGiv, a software company that seeks to make it easy for nonprofit, faith-based, and politic...

Your Board members are the guardians who guide your nonprofit through sound governance. How do you identify and recruit the best Board member candidates possible for your organization? Once you find them, how do you keep them? How do you train them? What skill sets will you be looking for in a prospective Board member? It is a lot of hard work to create a Board, maintain it and improve it, but tha...

In this episode, we look at some pitfalls you should be aware of when it comes to a nonprofit organization’s tax-exempt status. Maybe there’s something that you’re doing right now which could possibly put you in jeopardy. Since we don’t want that to happen, we’ve brought in an expert to discuss your tax-exempt status, how to get it if you're just starting out, which status you qualify for, and how...

With the new year around the corner, have you set up a solid game plan for raising major gifts? They can represent the majority of your fundraising and take your nonprofit to the next level, so if you are not working with individual donors to raise major gifts, the time to start is now--and this episode can help. In this episode, we speak with Dr. Lou Traina, CFRM. Lou has served in public and pri...

Communicate, lead, recruit, fundraise, possess vision…these are the key ingredients in the workday of the Executive Director. In this episode, we look at ways current Executive Directors can become better in the new year, and, for those thinking about moving into the hot seat, what should you be doing to get there? Our expert guest is Peggy Monson. Her career spans the fields of philanthropic serv...

It’s all about saying thank you. In the world of fundraising, how you say thank you is almost as important as the thank you itself. You might think that you thank your donors for every gift and that there isn't an issue, but how do you thank your donors, to what level, and is there a wrong way to thank your donors? You would be surprised at the answer to that last question. To help with this discu...

Teamwork makes the dream work. There’s no “I” in “team,” let’s work together. You’ve heard all of the “go team” sayings before, but what about the meaning behind them? After all, teamwork DOES make the dream work, but that’s only if the entire team is on the same page. Once everyone is working together for the common good, how do you keep everyone motivated? What are some ways that managers could...

When it comes to fundraising, there’s the small first-time gift that hopefully moves to a recurring gift, and then hopefully—someday--it could develop into a planned gift. It definitely takes some work to understand planned gifts enough that you can confidently encourage donors to make them. In this episode, we focus on new strategies for going after planned gifts or creating better strategies tha...

Now, before the time comes to start playing your favorite holiday music, what are you doing for year’s end when it comes to fundraising? The end of the year is an incredibly important time for fundraising, as many people prefer to make year-end, tax-deductible gifts. Do you have a plan? Are you executing your plan? When is it too late? In this episode, Dan Rahill will help answer these and other q...