The Influential Nonprofit

Nick Lynch is a senior product and business operations executive with experience managing, building, and executing product development strategy, developing business relationships, growing revenue, and executing initiatives in the social, digital, influencer (creator economy), traditional, and online media industries for multiple start-ups, growth stage, and blue chip companies. Strategic thinker f...

Jenn Whitmer helps teams and leaders solve conflict, cultivate communication and create empowered teams. She is a keynote speaker, a TEDx speaker, and a consultant. She talks about hard topics with infectious joy. Through working with her, people improve communication, work through conflict, and build awareness with the Enneagram. She asks big questions that lead to big dreams, big ideas, and big...

Katelyn started her marketing career in tech then moved to the nonprofit sector to focus on mission-driven marketing. After having her first daughter (now has two!), she started her consultancy for more flexibility and freedom. Her strengths are digital strategy, project management, fundraising, and email marketing.   Key Takeaways: If you want to give the highest quality of service that you want...

Julie Boll is passionate about supporting powerful, dynamic, and impactful leaders that are accountable, visionary, and always growing. Great people make great organizations. And great organizations change the world. It is her joy and passion to help people and organizations get clear on where they want to go and how they will get there and then help them hold themselves accountable to propel thei...

Key Takeaways: You’ll find unexpected gems if you open your eyes to the lessons that you could learn from the people around you. Be personal but stay neutral. Don’t let your interactions with other people have any bearing on how you perceive your own self-worth. Be graceful to others and do not judge. The energy that you put out, you get back. If you want the energy of the atmosphere to be calm or...

Key Takeaways: Anytime there's something new, something different, something unexpected, it tends to stir up the monkey mind. It goes into overdrive.  Relax into the present and release the need for certainty and control, knowing that you won’t be able to have it anyway. Shift your monkey mind into more deliberate, conscious thoughts.  Be conscious of what’s happening and interrupt the pattern or...

Key Takeaways: Energy is everything - it precedes outcome. How you think and feel about something determines the kind of results you’re going to get. We often prioritize strategy but we must also focus on energy.  Write all the ways that your life is amazing, be specific about it - as if you’re going before a judge to present facts and evidence that your life is indeed amazing.  There's little tin...

About Kim Woods: Kim grew up in a family that kept astrology books on the coffee table. If it involves cards, crystals, or flower essences, she’s certified in it. However, she didn’t come fully out of the intuitive closet until her son was born with significant issues and she walked away from a highly successful corporate career to focus on healing. Now, she weaves strategy with intuition to help...

Key Takeaways: You don’t own your social media, it’s unreliable reach. It’s a great way to create a community, but you have to find a way to transfer that community to more reliable reach. Creating content for a lead magnet is all about offering value that is relevant to the people that you want to reach. It doesn’t have to be complicated or expensive. Instead of sending a monthly newsletter conta...

About Joey Goone: Joey Goone is the president of The Utopia Experience. Utopia is an experienced creation company, namely producing Events and Video stories for nonprofit organizations. They've helped 200 nonprofits raise more than $30 million since the onset of the pandemic. Joey's mantra and Utopia sole purpose is to serve those that serve the world.    Key Takeaways: There are three forms of ca...

About Maria Bryan: She equips nonprofit leaders with the quality training, tools, and 1:1 support needed to thrive as change agents — through consultation sessions and group workshops on creating simple but powerful nonprofit marketing strategies. Because she believes that marketing doesn’t have to be an obstacle course.   Key Takeaways: If your target audience would be people who have been throug...

Angie Winchel is a strategic and proven communication professional. With more than 30 years of experience helping companies and organizations find clarity. She provides  strategy, marketing, and communications and fractional CMO services to a variety of clients.    Key Takeaways: Don’t put yourself last, don’t do something if you’re not the right person for the job. Say no so that you can say yes...

Sarah founded The IllumiLab (as Insight Partners Consulting) in 2016 after having worked in the non-profit sector as a family therapist, program manager, quality improvement manager, grant-maker, and capacity-builder. Throughout her career, Sarah’s been driven toward increasing effectiveness, efficiency, and impact because she hates waste and loves seeing results. She believes that, as mission-min...

Key Takeaways: Time has value. Taking your time off from doing the things you’re good at to do the things that you can pay somebody to do, is wasting a lot of time and causing a lot of burnout in you and your team.  We get back what we put out. If you’re putting out grace and ease, you’re going to get grace and ease. If you’re putting out stress and tension or the thought that there’s not enough t...

Key Takeaways: Stop pitching. Instead, take the time to talk with them, assess their needs, and then find something that works for them or create something to work for them based on their specific needs. Start with a quick call with the goal to connect. Get to know a person or organization first before giving your pitch. Once you’ve had more information about them and know how you can help them, t...

Key Takeaways: Our brains don’t process a negative so it’s important for us to speak in a language of what we want instead of what we don’t want. Look at your own messaging. Are we mired in the negative? Is there a better story we can tell?  Here’s our six needs in order of lowest to highest: certainty, variety, significance, love and connection, growth, and contribution. When creating a vision, w...

Jenny is a veteran in nonprofit communications and she’s been with the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet for 16 years, from doing PR Campaigns, Big Picture strategies, to making Facebook memes. She also shares her expertise through consulting projects and speaking engagements and she is a long time member in the Communicators For Women Religious and a local group in St. Louis, the Nonprofit Mark...

Key Takeaways: You are the creator of your experiences. You have options and possibilities. You don’t have to put yourself in the role of a victim.  A lot of times we paint our nonprofit spaces in the hero-victim-villain dynamic. We were taught to make our donors the hero and make the people we serve the victims.  When you are challenged, you have the opportunity to flip from being the victim into...

Adora Drake is a digital marketing consultant with High Spirits Marketing and she is an expert digital marketing strategist, coach, and consultant. She helps nonprofit organizations feel inspired to take action and to gain clarity in their marketing strategy and learn how to convert their followers into raving fans who want to be part of their mission.    Key Takeaways: How you set boundaries at h...

Joanna Brody, M.A., is an award-winning communications professional with a distinct expertise in social marketing and a passion for promoting causes and issues. Her full-service public relations firm, Brody Public Relations, is known as “an agency with a conscience” for its work with clients who make a difference in the world. Joanna has spent 25 years in public relations, creating a variety of su...

Key Takeaways: Don’t deliver content in silos. You don't have to pump out a lot of content to get people’s attention. Consistency is key.  The top of the hourglass is one awesome story that you will tell per week. One story with one call to action. Tell this story on a video instead of writing it down.  Upload the video of you telling the story on YouTube, now you have video content. Take the audi...

Jess is with Out In The Boons, a small shop fundraising house. She teaches nonprofits how to raise more money through writing killer stories.    Key Takeaways: Stories will outlast “billboard style” advertisements. That’s why when advertising for your nonprofit, you must use stories.  The most vulnerable person is often the most powerful. Tell your story in an authentic and open way.  Tell stories...

Key Takeaways: It’s not your job to convince people to make people care about your nonprofit. Your job is to make people feel valued, heard and seen. The philanthropic heart is the reason why somebody cares about your nonprofit and somebody else doesn’t. You can’t convince someone to change their heart. All you can do is to reach out to those who already share your philanthropic heart. When people...

Key Takeaways: Growing your empathy isn’t useful only for external public situations and organizational crises, it’s also useful for interpersonal situations, your relationship with other people.  Empathy is all about witnessing and validating what’s going on with someone. It’s all about making somebody feel seen and heard.  The biggest part of communication is nonverbal. When speaking, mind your...

Michael Slawin: As a fourth generation entrepreneur, Michael has been involved with a variety of businesses including Real Estate (where he completed rehabs utilizing tax credits), E-commerce, Printing, and has volunteered and supported a number of nonprofits.   Susan Holt: Susan has been in the financial services for five years and has partnered with ERC Specialists to help nonprofits and busines...