Small Nonprofit: Fundraising Tips, Leadership Strategies, and Community-Centric Solutions

Send us Fan Mail Running a small nonprofit can be pretty lonely. Very often, whether we're the executive director or a senior manager or leader in the organization, we don't have peers in our role. In small shops, we're often the only ones responsible for our area of work. And that can be hard, especially when we feel like we might not be as competent, confident, or content with our...

Send us Fan Mail In today’s podcast episode, we’re going to talk about influencer marketing with Christina Edwards, the founder of Splendid Consulting, a marketing expert, and a coach, and she will show you how to work with influencers to grow your small nonprofit and amplify your social impact.  Myths that Christina wants us to walk away from: Influencer marketing doesn’t work with small nonprofi...

Send us Fan Mail Small nonprofit organizations face the same fundraising challenges over and over again. They often believe that one fundraising strategy can solve all of their problems and look to large organizations for inspiration. Better marketing, major gift campaigns, corporate sponsorship- they have so many ideas, but most of the time, those solutions are not aligned with what will raise th...

Send us Fan Mail From lack of opportunity to develop leaders or train managers to pay transparency, there are so many issues and topics about HR that we never seem to have time to do or be able to make the proper investments. It's going to be a big problem for our sector because our work is only as good as our teams. Our organizations are only as strong as our culture. In today’s podcast epis...

Send us Fan Mail Have you ever felt overwhelmed, like giving up? Or maybe just really burnt out?  You are not alone! Nonprofit employees are always at risk of burnout. Pre-pandemic, our work was already demanding. And now the pandemic has left us even more stressed and with no capacity to deal with any more ups and downs.  In this episode, Kim Dechaine, Founder of Inner Powered Leaders, will discu...

Send us Fan Mail AI is one of those buzzwords that has recently taken over people's minds. We imagine AI as a futuristic, thrilling, and scary opportunity. But we don't always recognize how it affects us or our work. The cool thing is that AI is being brought into our sector and has a lot of potentials to help organizations leverage their data to do more focused work or analyze and find...

Send us Fan Mail Have you ever heard the term design thinking thrown around whether in our sector or in the business world and you've thought, what are they talking about? What is that such a buzzword? But there's actually a lot of really cool stuff happening around design thinking and the approach that it has to problem-solving, which is exactly what today's podcast is about, how w...

Send us Fan Mail Supervision is one of those things in our sector that we kind of fall into. It is often overlooked in our sector but the quality of supervision is important because it affects productivity, morale, work quality, team interaction, conflict, and the overall culture of the organization. In today’s episode, Rita Sever, an expert in human resources, organizational psychology, and nonpr...

Send us Fan Mail Fundraising and philanthropy make a lot of people very uncomfortable. A big part of that is our discomfort with money generally, but a lot of it is how our sector and philanthropy have been structured and the power systems it upholds. Our sector faces challenges related to power, change, and resource redistribution for impact. In today's episode, Yonis Hassan, Co-Founder, and...

Send us Fan Mail Are your donors on the same page as your organization when it comes to understanding the work? Often, we think that there is this great divide between us and our donors - one that is not easily bridged. But Aniel Gokhale at The Toronto Foundation has been creating programs for donors to go on a learning journey to better understand how they can change how they give to align with t...

Send us Fan Mail Have you ever wondered how your small organization can leverage marketing to build an audience, raise more money, find volunteers or even find service users? I'm sure you've looked at the big organizations and their advertising, whether it be online or in-person and felt a little bit of envy - “I wish we could invest in that.” Well today's guest, Adora Drake, is goi...

Send us Fan Mail The last year and a half has been lonely. While at the beginning slogans like “together alone” might have made us feel connected, that has slipped away and many of us are feeling like our worlds are a whole lot smaller than before. But this loneliness is not new for those in small nonprofits. Often we are very much alone in our work, without peers. In today’s podcast episode, Kimb...

Send us Fan Mail Video - one of those things that everyone wants to get better at using, but not many know where and how to start. On today’s podcast, co-owner of Nonprofit Video Comms, David Phu, joins our host Cindy Wagman, to exchange insights on how nonprofits can best leverage the power of video.  Myths that David wants us to walk away Video = social media. There are so many other ways videos...

Send us Fan Mail Every year before GivingTuesdays, a lot of fundraisers and Executive Directors are scratching their heads and wondering whether they should do something on GivingTuesday, and if do do something, what can make their organization’s messaging stand out? On today’s podcast, Lys Huggesen, the VP of Partnerships at CanadaHelps and one of the pioneers and leaders of GivingTuesday Canada,...

Send us Fan Mail Podcasting is exploding. More and more nonprofits have a podcast, or are considering getting into it. Should your organization also have a podcast? Is it a lot of work to manage a podcast? What should you talk about on the podcast? On today’s episode, Christian Robillard, founder of Purpose Podcasting,  joins our host Cindy Wagman, and the two of them are going to answer all your...

Send us Fan Mail Are you experiencing the awkward silences at the board meetings where people seem to want to say something, but no one is speaking up? Or maybe it’s that one person is dominating the conversation. How might leaders and organizations actually facilitate structure and process for all voices to be heard at the decision making table? On today’s podcast, organizational development cons...

Send us Fan Mail Grant writing. It’s one of those things that every organization struggles with. Often grant writing seems like it’s a bad investment of time and effort - you put 100 out there, you hear 1 back. So how can nonprofits be more “grant-ready” and less overwhelmed with the process. On today’s podcast, CEO of Think and Ink Consulting, Shavonn Richardson, walks us through the key steps to...

Send us Fan Mail Our sector - especially in small nonprofits - is filled with reluctant fundraisers who were assigned the responsibility of fundraising so that they can keep the organization afloat. Reluctant fundraisers know a lot about fundraising best practices, but when it comes to actually doing it, fundraising still feels difficult and even impossible.  To support all the reluctant fundraise...

Send us Fan Mail Do you get butterflies in your stomach before making a big pitch or presentation? To end the season off, we invited Lucia Cesaroni, world renowned opera singer and voice consultant, to share with us how to find our own voice and project it with confidence and ease.  Myths that Lucia wants us to walk away from “I get nervous before presenting because I am not good at it.”   Everyon...

Send us Fan Mail How have donors been giving this past year? And what’s the outlook for the future of giving? On today’s podcast episode, Jacob O’Connor, Vice President of Engagement at CanadaHelps, comes to share with us the latest giving trends published in CanadaHelps’ 2021 Giving Report.  Jacob’s highlights of 2021 giving trends  Charities are adopting digital giving rapidly. During the pandem...

Send us Fan Mail How can we actively create the future we want to see beyond the COVID-19 pandemic? On today’s podcast, André Pawan Vashist, ecosystem facilitator, system solution designer, and seasoned nonprofit leader, shares with us his insights on how to move from a transactional way of thinking and doing to bringing about transformational changes in our sector and in our society as a whole. ...

Send us Fan Mail Despite all the research that shows the untapped talent and capabilities of neurodiverse population, neurodiverse individuals are still facing significant barriers when seeking employment and adapting to workplace culture and practice that is not made accessible to them. How can employers proactively design a healthy workplace to support neurodiverse individuals to shine with thei...

Send us Fan Mail Is your organization starting to plan for going back to the office? Or is your team going to continue working from home as we slowly transition to post-pandemic reality? Whichever option you’re thinking about, there are considerations for how to ensure your staff has a safe and healthy working environment. On today’s podcast, Alice D’Abreu, an HR expert and founder of Monday Morni...

Send us Fan Mail With everything that’s happening in the world right now, work can feel heavy and onerous. How can we bring back the joy in our work and feel aligned? On today’s podcast, business coach extraordinaire Lianne Kim shares with us her insight and tips on how to show up to work with a joy oriented mindset. Get your copy of Lianne’s new book here Building a Joyful Business a 15% percent...

Send us Fan Mail As part 2 of Collecting Courage, we invited several white leaders in the sector to talk about how to be real and active allies for anti-racism work. On the podcast today are Mazarine Treyz, Fundraising Author and Coach, Chris Conroy, Partner at the Wellspring Group, and Scott Russell, Chief Executive Director at the Alzheimer Society of Toronto.  Mazarine, Chris and Scott’ tips on...