Episode 391: Deeper, Not Bigger: How to Make the Case for Capacity (Jimmy McQuilkin)

Episode Summary

Most capital campaigns fund something new, a building, a wing, more seats. Jimmy McQuilkin, Founder and Executive Director of UrbanPromise Charlotte, built a six-million-dollar campaign to fund something nonprofit leaders rarely ask for: getting better. McQuilkin traces his path from a Teach For America classroom to a summer running UrbanPromise Honduras, and the 2013 leap that became UrbanPromise Charlotte’s twenty-year model of reaching, raising, and restoring through its Street Leader program. He walks th...

Episode 390: How People Work: 4 Things Every Nonprofit Leader Should Know (Nancy Bacon)

Episode Summary

Most nonprofit leaders assume that passion is enough, that a motivated team is simply a team that cares, and that a performance problem is a training problem. Nancy Bacon, Founder of Nancy Bacon Consulting and co-founder of the Nonprofit Learning Center in Seattle, spent this conversation taking that apart, one piece of research at a time. She walks through self-determination theory’s three levers for real motivation (autonomy, competence and relatedness), the di...

Episode 389: How to Stop Being the Invisible Sector (Dr. Mariane Asad Doyle)

Episode Summary

Ask a nonprofit leader about advocacy and you will usually hear one of two things: there is no time for it, or it is lobbying and therefore off limits. Dr. Mariane Asad Doyle, Executive Director of the Center for Nonprofit Excellence in Charlottesville, Virginia, takes both apart. Advocacy, she argues, is simply legislative education, and the line that actually matters is a bill. If you are pushing a specific piece of legislation you are...

Episode 388: Why Half of Your Week Isn't in Your Job Description (Cyril Jefferson)

Episode Summary

Most nonprofit leaders can feel that the week has gotten away from them, but very few can prove it, which makes the conversation with a board sound like complaining rather than evidence. Cyril Jefferson, Mayor of High Point, North Carolina, spent years on the other side of that problem as a consultant, and his fix is a four-week time audit: log every task in a spreadsheet as you do it, add...

Episode 387: How to Build Something That Keeps Giving

Episode Summary

Most leaders build as though time is unlimited, and the idea that would matter most sits in a notebook waiting on money that never arrives. William McNeely, Founder and CEO of Do Greater Charlotte, stopped thinking that way in 2017, and six weeks after a double lung transplant, with no money and no staff, he was on a stage pitching an organization built around one sentence he had written himself: commit to doing something greater that will keep giving...

Episode 386: How to Build on Your Community Capital as a Nonprofit Leader (Dan Bevels)

Episode Summary

Plenty of nonprofit professionals talk themselves out of executive roles because their resume does not show years of philanthropic experience. Dan Bevels, President of the Atrium Health Floyd-Polk Foundation in Rome, Georgia, nearly did exactly that, and applied only after his wife and a mentor pushed him. He walks through the case he made in place of the credentials he lacked: that what he did not know could be taught, and that...

385: No Margin, No Mission: Building Nonprofits That Last (Cecilia Haag)

Episode Summary

Nonprofit leaders are told that the urgency of the mission will carry the organization, and that financial and operational discipline is something the corporate world worries about. Cecilia Haag, President of Thompson Impact Consulting, came out of that corporate world, joining the 140-year-old human services organization Thompson as Chief Strategy and Innovation Officer after watching it decide to take its model across six to seven southern states. She walks through what that growth actually required: a...

Episode 384: How to Launch a Planned Giving Program in One Week (Tony Martignetti)

Episode Summary

Small and mid-sized nonprofits routinely tell themselves that planned giving belongs to hospitals and universities, that it takes a lawyer and a brochure to begin, and that raising it with a donor means starting a conversation about death. Tony Martignetti, founder of Planned Giving Accelerator and host of Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio, has worked in planned giving since 1997 and spent more than twenty years consulting almost exclusively with small and mid-sized shops, and...

383: What Nonprofit Leaders Get Wrong About Growing Fast (Steve Isom)

Episode Summary

Nonprofit professionals often come to the sector craving mission, not metrics, and the discomfort that creates around money, growth, and hard numbers can quietly limit how far an organization goes. Steve Isom, Chief Operating and Financial Officer at Bloomerang, has spent nearly six years professionalizing the finance, operations, and customer functions behind the giving platform that now serves more than 24,000 nonprofits, and in this conversation he draws a direct line between his own path from Wall...

Episode 382: From Shoe Drive to Global Movement  (Andrew Lovedale)

Episode Summary

Too many nonprofit founders assume that the people who love them will automatically support the mission they've built, and few learn how costly that assumption is until donors who cheer from the sidelines never actually give. Andrew Lovedale, Founder and Executive Director of Access to Success (A2S), learned that lesson firsthand after a shoe drive he started as a Davidson College basketball player, whose run to the 2008 NCAA Elite Eight alongside teammate Steph Curry helped raise the first 10,000 p...

Episode 381: What Leaders Must Know to Build Cross-Sector Power (Karen Riordan)

Episode Summary

Nonprofit leaders often assume advocacy, cross-sector partnerships, and funding diversification are someone else's job — but Karen Riordan, President & CEO of Together SC in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, argues that building real power for the sector starts with everyday relationship-building. Drawing on three decades of for-profit marketing experience before her move into nonprofit leadership, Riordan makes the case that nonprofits are businesses too, deserving of the same respect, visibility, and strategic rigor as any company in th...

#380: Relationships Shape Everything: What Leaders Must Know to Build Community (David “Dae-Lee” Arrington)

Episode Summary

Many nonprofit leaders believe they've built real community and trust within their organizations — but David “Dae-Lee” Arrington argues that what looks like connection is often just proximity, and that gap is costing leaders more than they realize. Founder and CEO of Bridge Builder Leadership in Charlotte, NC, Dae-Lee shares how his own journey - from a Black, working-class neighborhood in Norfolk, Virginia to a mostly white, affluent Charlotte suburb at age nineteen - sparked a...

379: How to Treat Every Donor Like a Major Donor (Derric Bakker) 

Episode Summary

Nonprofit leaders and fundraisers are exhausted, and the instinct when results slip is to simply work harder. In this episode of Your Path to Nonprofit Leadership, Derric Bakker, Founder & CEO of DickersonBakker, argues that today’s struggle is not a down cycle teams can out-hustle but a structural shift in how people give, driven by demographics, the widening wealth gap, fraying community and religious ties, and donors who now expect the personalized experience every consumer bra...

378: The Money Myths Holding Your Nonprofit Back (Sean Hale)

Episode Summary

Too many nonprofit leaders quietly avoid their own finances, trusting that a clean audit or a capable CPA means everything is handled, and that blind spot can put a mission at real risk. In this episode, Patton talks with Sean Hale, founder of Nonprofit CFOs, who busts five money myths that hold organizations back: that the audit has them covered, that finance is the CPA’s job, that nonprofits aren’t supposed to make a profit, that conf...

377: Stop Pushing Harder: How Great Nonprofits Build Momentum (Suzanne Smith)

Episode Summary

Nonprofit leaders are exhausted, pushing harder and still feeling stuck. Suzanne Smith, Founder and CEO of Social Impact Architects, offers a different path. Drawing on sixteen years of consulting and her forthcoming book, The Nonprofit Flywheel, she reframes Jim Collins’s flywheel for the social sector: translate business practices, don’t transplant them. Suzanne walks through the six elements, impact, brand, revenue, and operations, held together by culture and governance, and explains why momentum builds only when...

Episode 376: Who Should Be Part of Your Strategic Planning Process? (Renee Rubin Ross)

Episode Summary

Too many strategic plans end up gathering dust on a shelf, or worse, frustrating the very people who were left out of building them. In this episode, Renee Rubin Ross, Ph.D., Founder of The Ross Collective and author of the new book Inclusive Strategic Planning, makes the case that who you involve in planning matters just as much as the plan itself. Drawing on more than twenty planning processes, she walks through...

375: Outrageous Kindness: A Framework for Unlocking Philanthropic Potential (Kristina Joy Carlson)

Episode Summary

When disruption hits, many nonprofit leaders go quiet and wait for conditions to settle before they act, and that pause quietly signals to donors and communities that the mission can wait too. In Episode 375, Kristina Joy Carlson, CFRE, Founder and CEO of Outrageous Kindness, makes the case that perfect is never coming, and that the leaders who keep moving are the ones who build the strongest relationships. Drawing on decades in global philanthropy and a...

Episode 374: A Roadmap to Nonprofit Excellence: What Most Leaders Miss (Lauren Deiorio)

Episode Summary

Most nonprofit leaders don’t fail because of mission. They get stuck running one part of the operation well while neglecting the rest, often because they rose through programming and never learned the business of running an organization. In this episode, Lauren Deiorio, President & CEO of the Community Foundation for Ocala/Marion County, shares the Roadmap to Success, a practical tool she helped build that breaks nonprofit excellence into nine “destinations”: governance, HR, financial manage...

#373: Turning Leadership Transitions into Organizational Breakthroughs (Jeffrey R. Wilcox, CFRE)

Episode Summary

Most nonprofits treat leadership change as an emergency to survive rather than a future to plan for — and the cost of that blind spot is mounting. In this episode, Jeffrey R. Wilcox, CFRE (ret), CEO of Third Sector Company and founder of the Interim Executives Academy, names the “perfect storm” that has left the sector unprepared: taboo conversations about people, resource development defined only as money, a scarcity mindset that turns pipelines into pipe dreams, an unmana...

Episode 372: The Culture Work No One Warns You About in a Nonprofit Merger (Marcia Beckner)

Episode Summary

Too many nonprofit leaders treat a merger as a last resort, proof that something failed, when it can be the boldest strategic move they make. In this episode, Marcia Beckner, Founder and CEO of Culture CARES® Global, reframes merger as a path to greater impact, drawing on her own experience founding MyLifeLine Cancer Foundation and merging it into the Cancer Support Community. She covers how to know when a me...

371: Stop Scaling, Start Listening: Building Nonprofits That Actually Work (jacob adams) 

Episode Summary

Too many nonprofits have become experts at performing impact - hitting metrics, writing polished reports, scaling programs - without ever stopping to ask whether they’re actually changing the lives of the people they serve. In this episode, Patton sits down with jacob adams, Founder and Executive Director of Inner Spark Learning Lab in Los Angeles, to explore what it looks like when a nonprofit is genuinely built around the community it exists to serve. jac...

370: How to Stop Losing Half of Your Recurring Donors (Dave Raley)

Episode Summary

If your organization celebrates a 42% recurring donor retention rate (the national average), you may be focusing on the wrong number - because the real story is the 58% you’re losing every year. In this follow-up to Episode #301, Patton welcomes back Dave Raley, Founder and CEO of The Center for Sustainable Giving in Poulsbo, Washington, for a deeper dive into sustainable giving. Dave unpacks the two distinct faces of donor churn - involuntary (failed credit cards) an...

369: No Money, No Mission: Rethinking How Nonprofits Are Built to Survive (Ryan Dewey Smith) 

Episode Summary

Most nonprofits don’t fail because their mission stops mattering - they fail because the structure holding that mission together was never built to last. In this episode, Patton sits down with Ryan Dewey Smith, Founding Executive Chairman & CEO of Inperium, Inc., based in Reading, Pennsylvania, to explore the structural fault lines quietly threatening even well-intentioned organizations. Ryan draws on more than a decade of building Inperium’s constellation model - a netwo...

368: Before You Merge: Five Factors Every Nonprofit Leader Must Weigh (Staci Barfield)

Episode Summary

For too many nonprofit leaders, the word “merger” lands like a verdict, a sign something has gone wrong. Staci Barfield, Senior Director of Consulting Excellence at Armstrong McGuire in Cary, NC, argues the opposite: a merger belongs early on a leader’s strategic menu, not at the end. Drawing on her work facilitating the Arise Collective and MATCH (Mothers and Their Children) merger, Staci walks Patton through the full continuum of collaboration and unpacks the fi...

367: Activate Good - Leading with Fearlessness and Purpose (Marjorie Maas)

Episode Summary

Nonprofit leaders carry the weight of the next grant, the next major gift, the next board meeting - and that constant worry doesn’t make the work more productive, it just makes it heavier. In Episode #367, Patton talks with Marjorie Maas, CEO of Share Good, based in Omaha, NE, about what it actually looks like to lead with fearlessness when stakes are high and resources are tight. Marjorie leads a national technology and community-building nonprofit that he...

366: Stop Writing for Your Organization. Write for Your Donor. (Tom Ahern)

Episode Summary

Most nonprofit communications are, in Tom Ahern’s blunt assessment, built to fail. Not because the work isn’t worthy, but because organizations keep writing about themselves when they should be writing for the donor. In episode #366, Patton sits down with Tom Ahern, founder of Ahern Communications, Inc. and one of the most influential voices in fundraising copywriting, to unpack why so many appeals, newsletters, and annual reports fall flat. Drawing on decades of commercial copy...

365: The Long Game: Building a Fundraising Career That Lasts (Jim Broschart)

Episode Summary

What does it take to build a fundraising career that spans decades, and still choose a challenge over comfort when the next opportunity calls? In Episode 365, Jim Broschart, Vice President for Philanthropy and Alumni Engagement at the University of Louisville, shares the leadership philosophy behind a career that has taken him from community health centers in Syracuse to leading NC State’s $2.1 billion campaign, to his latest challenge of building a top-tier philanthropy program at Uo...

Episode 364: What Will Your Donor Remember? (Norman Gildin)

Episode Summary

Fundraiser burnout is real — and with average tenure in the profession hovering between two and four years, the sector is losing talent it can’t afford to lose. In Episode 364, Norman Gildin, a fundraising consultant and author with more than four decades in the field and over $100 million raised, cuts through the noise with the kind of plain-talk wisdom that only comes from doing this work at every level. Drawing on his framework of common sense, mora...

Episode 363: Your Mission Is Clear. Is Your Story? (Brandy Walker)

Episode Summary

Most nonprofit leaders are skilled at communicating their mission, but far fewer know how to tell their own story, and that gap is costing them donors, alignment, and influence. In Episode 363, Brandy Walker, M.A., CPC, founder of Brand Worthy Solutions and a former nonprofit fundraiser and educator, breaks down why personal storytelling isn’t self-promotion, it’s strategy. Drawing on her frameworks for trust, team alignment, and clarity, Brandy explains the three story types every lead...

362: It’s Never Just the Money: What Donor Psychology Means for Nonprofit Leaders (Marcia Dawood)

Episode Summary

Most nonprofit leaders approach fundraising as a logical transaction — make the case, present the data, close the gift. But according to Marcia Dawood, angel investor, author, and TEDx speaker, that approach misses the deeper psychology driving every giving decision. In Episode 362, Marcia draws on her experience investing in 50+ startups and chairing the Angel Capital Association to reveal what truly motivates donors — and it has far more to do with money stories, values...

361: 5 Reasons Your Professional Development Isn't Working (Megan Joseph)

Episode Summary

Most nonprofit leaders are spending on professional development - and still not seeing results. The workshops get attended, the boxes get checked, and the notebook sits on the shelf. In this episode, Megan Joseph, Founder of Impact Launch, makes the case that the problem isn’t effort or intention, it’s strategy. Drawing on eight years of working hands-on with organizations across the country, she identifies the five reasons PD consistently fails to deliver: disconnected from strategy, scattered and...

360: The ABCs of Grassroots to Grasstops Community Impact (Tchernavia Montgomery)

Episode Summary

Most nonprofit leaders understand that community impact requires both frontline relationships and institutional influence — but building a strategy that connects those two worlds takes a very different kind of leadership. In this episode, Tchernavia Montgomery, CEO of Care Ring in Charlotte, NC, shares her ABCs of grassroots to grasstops community impact: Authentic Leadership, Board Engagement, and Capital Campaign Navigation. Drawing on five years of leading one of Charlotte’s most vital health and human services organizations thro...

359: Why Your Board Is Checked Out (and What Actually Re-Engages Them) (Katie Spencer)

SUMMARY

When nonprofit leaders say their board is disengaged, Katie Spencer argues the real issue is usually clarity, not commitment. Executives want board members to show up, follow through, and be proactive. But many board members are thinking, “I don’t know what my job is,” where the lines are, or how to be helpful, so disengagement becomes the predictable outcome. Katie explains why more emails and more asks don’t solve the problem in today’s...

358: What Nonprofit Leaders Need Now: Guidance from Four Sector Experts

SUMMARY

For this special multi-state panel, we convened four statewide nonprofit leaders: Ivan Canada, Mariane Asad Doyle, Karen Riordan, and Kevin Dean, to explore what organizations need most as they prepare for an uncertain 2026. From financial volatility and policy change to workforce burnout and collaboration, these experts share frontline insights drawn from the thousands of nonprofit leaders they support. Their guidance is clear: diversify funding, strengthen advocacy, engage peer networks, and invest in the wellbeing of your people...

357: Rethinking How Organizations Are Built to Change Lives (Logan Herring)

Episode Summary

Five years after his first appearance on Episode #128, Logan Herring returns with a dramatically expanded vision and impact. What began as an ambitious community revitalization effort has evolved into a nationally recognized model for integrated, place-based change. As CEO of The WRK Group, Logan leads a vertically integrated set of tax-exempt businesses focused on housing, cradle-to-career education, workforce development, and community wellness in Riverside, Wilmington. In this conversation, he challenges leaders to rethink how organizations are...

356: AI Without Overwhelm: 4 Insights Nonprofit Leaders Can Use Now (Mary Gallivan)

Episode Summary

AI is already reshaping how nonprofit teams work, and leaders who avoid it risk falling behind. In this episode, Mary Gallivan, Founder of Joyline Consulting, shares a practical, nonprofit-centered approach to adopting generative AI without fear or overwhelm. Drawing on more than 25 years of experience across fundraising, operations, grant management, and partnership development, Mary explains why AI literacy is quickly becoming a workplace expectation, why adoption is primarily a people and change management challenge, and...

355: Thinking Differently to Solve Nonprofit Problems (Sarah Tucker)

EPISODE SUMMARY:

Nonprofit leaders are often expected to solve complex problems with limited resources, increasing pressure, and entrenched ways of working. In this episode, Sarah Tucker introduces the work of Edward de Bono and explains why better outcomes require not just harder work, but different thinking. Sarah unpacks the concept of lateral thinking and how it differs from traditional linear or vertical problem solving. She explains why the human brain gets trapped in familiar patterns and how leaders can intentionally...

354: A Lifelong Learning Framework for Nonprofit Leaders (Kelsey Picken)

SUMMARY

Nonprofit leaders are surrounded by professional development options - degrees, certifications, conferences, and credentials - but many still struggle to build a learning plan that feels intentional rather than reactive. In this episode, Kelsey Picken offers a practical framework to help leaders step back, clarify their why, and make smarter decisions about how they invest in their own growth. Kelsey breaks lifelong learning into three distinct but connected areas: formal learning (degrees, certificates, and structured programs...

Episode 353: Resilience Isn’t Optional: Tools Every Nonprofit Leader Needs Now (Russell Harvey)

SUMMARY

Nonprofit leaders are operating in a world where change is constant - and the pressure to react quickly can undermine clarity, trust, and team stability. In this episode, Russell Harvey explains why resilience is a leadership capability (not a personality trait) and how leaders can strengthen it without adding more overwhelm. Russell introduces the VUCA framework (Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, Ambiguity) alongside the leadership responses that help teams navigate it (Vision, Understanding, Clarity, Ag...

352: Fundraising That Works: Measure What Matters (Greg Warner)

SUMMARY

Fundraisers often focus on the bottom line—how much money came in—but Greg Warner argues that many nonprofit teams are still flying blind because they don’t track the few metrics that actually explain performance. In this episode, Greg (founder of MarketSmart) explains what leaders and boards miss when they focus only on transactions, and how a small set of operational metrics can dramatically improve fundraising strategy. A major focus is donor lifetime value (LTV)—what it is, why it m...