Optimistic Voices
Vital voices in the fields of global health, global child welfare reform and family separation, and those intent on conducting ethical missions in low resource communities and developing nations. Join our hosts as they engage in conversations with diverse guests from across the globe, sharing optimistic views, experiences, and suggestions for better and best practices as they discuss these difficult topics.
Optimistic Voices
An Innovative Strategy for NonProfit Leaders - Hive Turns Your Isolation Into Connection
What if the fix for burnout, donor fatigue, and stalled partnerships isn’t another webinar, but a better conversation? We sit down with Tasha Van Vlack, founder and CEO of Nonprofit Hive, to unpack how simple one-to-one matchmaking helps nonprofit pros feel seen, swap solutions, and spark collaborations that actually stick. From role-based pairing to safety-in-strangers design, Tasha shares the small systems that turn isolation into momentum.
We explore the pressures reshaping the sector—post-pandemic staffing gaps, rising expectations, and funding uncertainty—and talk through a practical reset: protect time for curiosity, treat networking as a creative tool, and measure connection like any other KPI. You’ll hear why great partnerships create clarity rather than chaos, how to identify your organization’s zone of genius, and when to gracefully pause a misfit collaboration. We also dig into the psychological hurdles—scarcity mindsets, local competition, and fear of idea theft—and offer tactics to lower the stakes while raising the value.
Donors will find a candid roadmap for engagement beyond the glossy report. Think voice-memo updates, WhatsApp groups for real-time wins and needs, live video walk-throughs from the field, and small, transparent experiments that welcome learning—not just outcomes. Tasha’s stories from global peers, from rural Uganda to national networks, reveal how consistent, human-scale rituals can restore hope and drive measurable impact.
Hive: https://thenonprofithive.com/
If you believe radical collaboration beats going it alone, this conversation gives you concrete steps to start. Subscribe, share with a colleague who needs a lift, and leave a review with one low-stakes connection habit you’ll try this week.
A link to our website: helpingchldrenworldwide.org
____
Firmly Rooted - A new documentary on orphanage response - the right way!
To view the released trailer and sizzle reel, go to https://firmlyrootedfilm.com/
or to https://www.helpingchildrenworldwide.org
__________
____
Organize a Rooted in Reality mission experience for your service club, church group, worship team, young adult or adult study. No travel required. Step into the shoes of people in extreme poverty in Sierra Leone, West Africa, Helping Children Worldwide takes you into a world where families are facing impossible choices every day.
Contact support@helpingchildrenworldwide.org to discuss how.
Give to a 25 year legacy - plant seeds of hope!
________
Travel on International Mission, meet local leadership and work alongside them. Exchange knowledge, learn from one another and be open to personal transformation. Step into a 25 year long story of change for children in some of the poorest regions on Earth.
https://www.helpingchildrenworldwide.org/mission-trips.html
******
Helpingchildrenworldwide.org
Welcome to the Optimistic Voices podcast. I'm your host, Jasmin Vaughn. In today's episode, I'm going to be talking with Tasha Van Vlack. Tasha is a community builder, strategist, and connector working at the intersection of technology, relationships, and social impact. She is the founder and CEO of the Nonprofit Hive, which is a grassroots platform that creates one-on-one connections between nonprofit professionals to spark collaboration, learning, and peer support. Tasha is also the creator of Community Hives, which is a plug-and-play community engagement tool designed for associations, networks, and membership organizations that want to foster deeper peer-to-peer connection. Today, Tasha and I are going to be talking about a topic that is absolutely central to our work at HCW, the power of collaboration in the nonprofit space. So I came across Tasha first through her insightful article, Why Nonprofits Struggle to Network and How That's Holding Us Back. And it so deeply resonated with the values that we have at HCW. We champion collaboration across our child welfare and global health networks. We engage with organizations like the Christian Alliance for Orphans, the Sierra Leone Coalition for Family Care, Christian Connections for International Health, and Together for Global Health, to just name a few of the organizations that we work with. In researching Tasha, I learned about the Nonprofit Hive, which I just shared a little bit about and we'll talk more about as we go through this episode. And I'm really just inspired by the way that she believes that no one should feel isolated in this valuable work and inspired by her vision for a world where nonprofit professionals never have to go through it alone. So, Tasha, thanks so much for joining us on this episode. I'm super excited to talk with you about why collaborative partnerships are so essential and how we can truly foster them.
SPEAKER_02:This is awesome. Thank you so much for having me. And I love that you found me through that article because you kind of put your ideas, your thoughts, your dreams out to the universe, and you never know who exactly is listening. So so thank you. I I love this.
SPEAKER_01:We could have a whole episode on helping nonprofit professionals feel seen and heard in the work that they're doing. So I'm glad to do that for you. That's awesome. That's awesome. So tell us a little bit more about the nonprofit hive, why you started it, how it works, uh, just some details about it. Sure.
SPEAKER_02:So the nonprofit hive came from my own feelings of loneliness, of isolation. I am a horrible remote worker, still am to this day, and I love meeting new people. I really dove into LinkedIn during the pandemic and started making friends with incredible nonprofit professionals all over the world. I just feel comfortable reaching out and saying, hi, I love what you're doing. And I found that so many of them had the exact same feelings I had. They were craving community, but feeling instead isolated in their work. And I wanted to find a place where we could gather to be seen. I started to just research what was already out there on the market. I figured someone already had to have figured this out and I just wanted to jump on board. And I didn't find it. It didn't really exist in the free form that I was hoping for. So took the leap in summer 2023 and decided to build just a really simple human-centered system. And so every Friday I send out an invitation to our whole network saying, please come enjoy a one-to-one with another community member. And if it works in that person's schedule, they choose a time. And on Thursdays, members who have signed up for that week's hive chat meet one-on-one with another nonprofit peer somewhere in the world.
SPEAKER_01:I have the pleasure of uh attending a few of those chats. Um, and they've always been really wonderful. Um, not always was I connected with someone who was doing work that directly aligned with the work that we do at HCW. Um, but it was nice to just hear some of the same issues being shared, um, some of the same challenges, same successes, um, being able to celebrate what other people are doing. Absolutely.
SPEAKER_02:And I think sorry, go ahead. Go ahead. No, no, please. The one thing I was going to say as well is we match sometimes based on background. So what your nonprofit is is doing out in the wide world, beautiful work like what HTW is up to. We have a few members from the Christian Alliance for Orphans. We're very fortunate to have had since day one. And we also, though, match based on role. So if you are a development director, if you are a small shop ED, if you are an international aid organization, there's all these different facets to nonprofits that we often, you know, don't group ourselves necessarily into, you know, and everyone has different attachments to what it means to be a nonprofiteer, is what we joke around um here saying we're nonprofiteers. But uh, what does that mean to different people? It there's a huge range on what that means.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah, absolutely. There's a lot of different roles that um are part of this work, and each of them has their own um successes and challenges that they face. Absolutely. You mentioned um that a lot of the screw out of the pandemic of like the isolation of that time, of not being able to connect with people um in a real way uh as we had to during that time. And I really feel like we've also seen that as well, that um the pandemic changed a lot of things for a lot of people. Um, but really, like there's just been a lot of changes in the nonprofit sector over the past few years. Um 2025 has felt like a nonstop rush of changes in nonprofit work, um, including a lot of new legislation, some changing economic pressures. Um, how what have you seen in your work with the nonprofit hive? How these changes have highlighted this need for connection and collaboration.
SPEAKER_02:The pressure is building in in in it's economic shifts, you know. I think there's a little bit of donor communications fatigue. I don't know if I want to say there's donor fatigue, but how we've been communicating with donors in the past, I think there's fatigue of the style of communication we've maybe been putting out there in the world. Staff burnout, wild, the number of organizations. I know who furloughed certain staff out of necessity during COVID and are still running at the same number of staff as what was the lean crew that was possible during COVID. But expectations are not going down, and the work that nonprofits provide globally has never been more critical as more and more government organizations take a step back from those responsibilities and nonprofits step in and step up. And that's a lot, and a lot of this work is being done in a degree of isolation that we would have never seen prior to COVID. And a lot of the community groups, um even just personally, how all of us move in the world socially post-like, you know, post-pandemic, it's still not quite back to where we were before. It's a new new normal. Maybe that's the right thing to say, right? New normal. And my one benefit I would have said personally as an extreme extrovert is post-pandemic. I make friends and connections online all the time. And I had never done that once before. COVID, I early 40s. You know, it was as, you know, my Facebook is only for family and friends, and you know, like it was very much local, and it was, it was, yeah, I wasn't meeting new people that way. Now I think there's much more acceptance of networking, of meeting new people online, of finding your places of belonging, don't have to be limited to physical locations the way they maybe were in the past. But are we giving people in nonprofit the time to really share with each other? Are we giving them just more webinars and more work? Or are we going, hey, community and connection is important for people in nonprofit as well?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, absolutely. Um, I attend probably at least one webinar a month, um, if not once a week. Um, and at the end of it, it's like, all right, this person's talked to us for an hour. I guess I'm not gonna get to chat with anybody else on this call. You know, there's no uh side conversations or um, as they say in in kind of the international development space, when you go to a conference, you have to have those hallway conversations with people.
SPEAKER_02:Absolutely. And those hallway conversations, I know we're gonna talk more about collaboration uh in the rest of this talk too, but hallway conversations, that kind of idea of a water cooger of seeing who you really truly connect with, jive with, have those outside sector moments with. We joke, I have met an incredible crew of other human beings who are deeply involved in dungeons and dragons uh in this sector. There's a whole subsector of people in nonprofit who love dungeons and dragons. It's hysterical, like very quite a few. That's a new Venn diagram for me. Right? New Venn diagram, but it is it is out there. And isn't it so cool to be able to shift? I've been in these conversations where we're shifting back and forth from talking about nonprofit to sharing about dungeons and dragons. And like it's those, it's like this weird little extra piece that I had never noticed of what builds communities. And there's often multiple spokes, multiple reasons why some people belong to this community, why they might also belong here. And I never think that there's enough community for any one individual, any one organization. Be part of as many as you can manage because the support, we need that level of support in this sector right now.
SPEAKER_01:Absolutely. So, what does it take then to bring people together to really leverage this moment of connection and um and and facilitate these sorts of conversations between people in digital environments uh or in physical environments when it's when we're able?
SPEAKER_02:I had a very close friend who is in the sector, Michelle Flores Wren, brilliant human uh who's been a director of development at many organizations. And when we were talking one day, there's two things that she really brought up that is difficult in nonprofit. And one is creativity. In nonprofits, we are very creative humans. We look at problems and go, yeah, there's a way to solve this. And these are problems we have not solved yet in the world, and it's not due to lack of money, you know. And then we just go, yeah, we'll try to do something. There's, you know, nonprofit professionals step up and we are creative, but we are rarely given time to actually move forward with some of that creativity. I think that's that's part of it. And networking is a creative tool. It's a place for you to share some of your thoughts, your experiences, and and have that moment with another human for them to go, oh my goodness, you know, this is what I was thinking when you start saying this and just that exchange of peer ideas. I don't I don't think in nonprofit we truly value how critical and life-changing that can be to, you know, we talked earlier about being seen and being heard and how valuable that is to our own belief that maybe we have skills that can can aid towards change in the world. And the other piece that really ties closely to creativity is curiosity. And I don't know that we're encouraged in this sector to be curious about new ways to do things. And was just on a call with my own wonderful set of advisory board members, bless them all because they are so patient to uh walk with walk with me through where we're headed and what do we do next and what about this? And and you know, talking about funding and immediately the conversation comes up towards granting, which is not a bad way to go by any means. Hey, we should look into this, look into this. And then we all took a moment and said, huh, it's interesting that we immediately started talking about grants here, right? And is this just because this is the way it's always been done? Is this still a way forward, or can we be curious at new ways of interacting as nonprofit professionals out in the world? And so I think, you know, busy schedules crush creativity and curiosity pretty darn quick. We have to have some space to actually have those those two things, you know, move forward and and be part of a priority in this sector.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, absolutely. And I I like that you bring up your board supporting you in that. Um, I think a lot of organizations really struggle with um the this idea of overhead cost, um, that your your staff that work there, they're an overhead cost. So, you know, if you're gonna go to a conference, you're gonna go to an event, you're gonna try and find these collaborative spaces for people to meet together, well, you have to pay for their airfare and their travel and their hotel and you know, all of those things add up eventually. And so it's like, okay, what's the actual value of them going to this event? Um, and if the the value that you bring back to a donor or to someone else's, well, they got a really good idea from that, or they made really good friends because of that. Um, explaining that, like, that is that is currency right there. Um, some of our best programs have come from conversations that we've had, presentations that we've seen, and then conversations after those presentations with those people and going, what if we did something like this? Or what if we took our program that's doing this and did this? Or actually, they have a solution to the problem that we've been facing for years. Wow, now we can do that.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I love that. I love that those are the conversations you're having. And it I can say that this has very much been a similar experience in hive chat, of which I'm probably the biggest user of our community group. I love to not only take one, but usually on Thursdays, I take three because I like to meet people from all over the world in nonprofit and just have them, you know, tell me, what do you love about the work? What's the most challenging part of the work? What's the thing that you feel like you guys are doing a great job on? And kind of take all of that in frequently. And you know, I ask our members when I have separate conversations with people the same questions. And it very much impacts as the community builder where I head next, what kind of resources I share. Some of my most brilliant members out of rural parts of Uganda are building apps. Like one uh Joshua is building this incredible app, Wakume, very much focused on sexual and reproductive health. And like this is this is not his expertise. He is he's like very many founders, he has a passion for the subject. It's very personal and meaningful for him. And he's been trying to figure out how do I get from, you know, how do I get there? I've never built an app before. I this is not my subject expertise. How can I find volunteers? All of those pieces and watching him accomplish it, you know, supporting where I can, sending resources his way, making connections when I can. It's been an incredible, like just to witness it and watch it. And I think we could learn so much from each other if we opened up those conversations more widely.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, absolutely. I love that commitment to um sitting and listening to people. Um, for anybody who's out there who is a donor or a supporter of any organization in any way, shape, or form, I encourage you to reach out to the people that work there and ask them why they do what they do. Umprofit professionals are in this business because they love it and because they they're passionate about the work that they're doing, but they never get asked that question. Ever. It's so true. You see their faces light up.
SPEAKER_02:They light up. You are so right. So right. One of the my favorite things that I've ever done from and my background's marketing originally, but one of my favorite things that I've ever done as part of our marketing plans for the nonprofit hive community is interview our own members and showcase them online. Let them talk about why they do what they do. Here's one of the people you could meet on a chat. Like, no, no, no problem. This is I can't guarantee you'll meet this beautiful human, but this is an example, right? Like a sample size of who you might talk to. And they're all just so passionate. Their stories are beautiful, and it gives me real hope for the world ahead because these are the people who are who are changing who are out there, the change makers who are really, you know, investing in the world. So I would totally agree. I think that that's a cool thing. And I wish donors often heard more internal stories of why we do the work.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, absolutely. So to talk collaboration, what it takes for organizations to collaborate. We've talked about how um difficult it is to kind of bring people together. Um, I talked a little bit about the money investment, but you spoke mostly about like the time investment, the time investment of bringing people together. Um so, how for organizations that are listening to this, how do we show them when and how to engage with others? Um, what are some indicators or considerations that a nonprofit can have when they're thinking about whether or not they're wanting to collaborate with someone else?
SPEAKER_02:That's a really good question. That's a really good question. I think when we're talking about a 40-hour work week for an individual, and let's be honest, for a lot of people in nonprofit, that's a joke, right? Say 40 hours a week. That seems almost ridiculous that that would be the case. But I think leadership needs to showcase the value of connection and connection and collaboration. Like you're the one leading the charge. You should make this a value for members at all levels of your team. So whether it's your marketing team talking internally with program and delivery, whether it's leadership taking a moment, and you can round Rob in your own team, right? And have those conversations. Or maybe you make some time. Hey, grab 30 minutes with a teammate and have a coffee once a week, but also grab 30 minutes with either someone who's working at a similar aligned organization somewhere else in the world. Like we have LinkedIn, we have email addresses. Often nonprofits are part of some level of collaboration, either locally or more internationally, as part of the work that's out there. There are great networks. Find someone really cool in for-profit on like the a lot of people in for-profit are much more active on LinkedIn. To be fair, a lot of nonprofit professionals are pretty quiet. But there are lots of them out there who are still willing to talk about the journey and to give a little piece of advice. Or if you see something that resonates, getting past the point where I for the longest time, the idea of reaching out to a stranger felt kind of foreign, and I couldn't imagine just talking to a complete stranger. But I think when you realize that everybody's just a person, and if what you love is marketing and they love marketing, you can find somebody to talk about for 30 minutes, right? Like 30 minutes is such a small piece of time. And they often, there's there's doors that can be opened on both ends. Often you have a valuable potential connection for collaboration, even if the two of you, maybe that's not going to be what happens for that connection. So there's a lot of opportunity for reciprocity. Um, and nonprofits do have a deep value on a community level with for-profits as well. So, you know, there is opportunities there that I think most nonprofits just aren't building in natural timing, like time in their day for or time in their week months for. So seeing collaboration as a priority as one. Absolutely. Absolutely. Collaboration has to be a priority. And uh, you know, I always look at you know conversations as a spark, and you don't know that the spark's gonna take off. That's kind of not the point. And there's a surface level that you have to reach if you want one collaboration to be like one collaboration to head out into the world. How many surface level conversations do you maybe have to have before that collaboration becomes clear? Right. So I don't know, maybe there's a shared challenge that exists there. And I you mentioned earlier about going to webinars and investing time in webinars. What if the shift was instead away from learning and more towards opportunities for uh peer conversation? Would like would the return on investment actually be higher, potentially from an activity like that? And I don't know if the answer, I'm sure, is according to the webinar and according to the connection, but we have to find places to start to maybe make those same spaces uh beyond learning more for connection.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, absolutely. Um I'm a part of a network, um, a coalition of practice actually that's being run by the Accord Network, which is a friend of um Christian Connections for International Health. Um and they uh have been doing webinars and kind of weekly calls. Um, but the last time we did one, they had everybody kind of sorted into breakout rooms and they gave us a question. Um, what book are you reading right now? Um and it could be, you know, a workbook, it could be a not work-related book. But um, I was really amazed at how easily that spurred conversation. Um, not only did I get some great books out of it, but um, it really just made everything flow so much easier because you knew that you were gathering around this like central idea. And it wasn't a hard question to answer. Um, you were either like, I haven't had time to read, sorry, or you're like, I've been thinking about reading through this, or I've I'm on page three of this one, or oh, I just devoured this one. Um, so having those spaces where people are encouraged to share, um, but it's very low stakes is also a huge thing I've seen.
SPEAKER_02:I love that low stakes, you know. I I think that's really important when we're talking about collaboration. And one of the when I was thinking through some of the questions that you had had sent my way, and this idea that like, how do we determine if collaboration is beneficial and and timely, right? Like, how do we make that decision in this sector? And a bit of it is, you know, did you have a conversation or connection that provided a lot of clarity and not chaos? That's the partnership that, right? Nonprofits, there's enough chaos going on. The world itself is chaotic. We are we are at max capacity for chaos right now, and it only seems to be increasing, which I think all of us in 2020 would have been like, no, no way it can get more chaotic than this. I don't know if we should say that anymore, right? So don't know if we should say that anymore. But I think looking at partnerships that are value aligned and and can amplify your mission in a way that you wouldn't be able to do it by yourself, that's a really worthy sign of something that we should be exploring. Absolutely. Yeah. Um I think too often in nonprofit and this the this provides between nonprofit collaborations, but also when we're talking about nonprofit with for-profit sponsorship or for-profit investments that may be coming into a nonprofit, but like it feels like there's a lot of contortion that some nonprofits trying to fit this way and that way to fit around other expectations. And, you know, maybe there are spaces where we have it's it's easy to say. I I can say these words and I understand it's so much more difficult than this, but it's okay to pause and reassess a relationship, you know, because it just because it started does not mean we have to continue it. Um, that's really challenging right now as grants disappear left, right, and center and investments in nonprofit are retreating. But I do think that nonprofits who their values are very on are on display, you know, those are the ones who are building a lot of trust and are bringing in people who are very, very aligned. And and I think that's really important. Um, and people are looking for that level of authenticity and connection.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, absolutely. We just recorded a podcast episode with an organization that does a lot of uh donations, or they're they're a major donor to a number of different other nonprofits. Um, and they said that everything about them is about relationship. Um, they start with that, they don't even talk about funding until, you know, they said up to four years into the conversation, which is amazing to me. I I'm trying to think of how many nonprofits I know are like, I talked to somebody for four years before they finally gave us$100. Um, but they were like, we we want to know you, we want to get to know what you're doing, we want to understand your challenges, we want to understand your successes. Um, and that honesty is so key to that. Um, I think if I had to offer a recommendation to any nonprofits that are thinking about doing collaborative work, they're not really sure. Um, look for an organization that's going to be really truly honest with you. They're not going to give you the shiny um donor speech that's everything's wonderful and amazing and beautiful. And, you know, they're like, well, we've also had these problems and this is going on. Um, those are the ones you want to be friends with the most.
SPEAKER_02:Absolutely. And I think friendship is a good place to start, right? You know, we all get advice in our personal lives to go, oh, go and choose a life partner that's your friend. And like there's a reason why we say that, right? Like, because when times are hard, that connection over friendship outlasts so many other things, right? And it gets us through those hard parts of friendships, right? Of life, of um being able to get out there and support each other. And you know, real long-term partnerships are built on that, like reciprocity, that constant back and forth discussion. I actually think that's pretty cool. I think the the fear is, of course, well, will we be here in four years? And I think that makes a lot of nonprofits jump when you know what I mean, like, well, in four years, if we can't get X, Y, and Z figured out, we won't even be here. And there is that latent fear, and I think it often pushes, uh pushes collaborations forward that when we then look backwards and look at maybe the impact that actually occurred, I wonder if if I wonder if we're as happy when we we push forward with things that don't feel potentially right.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah. Making sure you're aligned in your values and in your goals, um, not trying to force a relationship or anything like that. In your article, you talk about a number of other reasons why nonprofits are scared to collaborate. Do you want to touch on that a little bit?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Um I think nonprofits behind the scenes. There are some psychological safety issues in-house that we're all kind of dancing around a little bit. And none of us are at our best when we're burnt out. And I like to use the word crispy a little bit. Like that's I used to actually work with uh an amazing organization in the compassion fatigue and very vicarious trauma was actually my first movement into the nonprofit world. And frequently, you know, we'd be talking about people being crispy, right? And it's not burnout yet, but it's getting a little crispy. And I would say a lot of nonprofit, a lot of non-profit professionals I know are on that crispier side. And uh when we're moving at a full tilt and there's less room for, you know, coming back together for strategy, for discussions, for dreaming, even uh together and as teams, it tends to feel like there's a concern. And even in the nonprofit hive, I rarely put two people from the same city in the same conversation, which sounds wild when I say it out loud. And I I have not been actually secretive about that being what I do. Um, but I do think it is easier for us to be a little bit more open in this sector about how we're actually doing when it's in the safety of there's a little bit of that safety of strangers conversation, right? Right now, where yeah, you know, you don't have to maybe talking with your team is is not going to work. Um, there's a scarcity mindset that is so prevalent in this sector, and that really helped struggle makes it struggling to go. Well, am I gonna tell you why we're doing well when you might steal right our tactic, right? Um I know I mentioned and touched on uh government granting and and where governments are at right now. Um, that's a big part of I think people's people's ongoing fears for resources is how can we consider collaborating with someone else when we're barely getting by? And if we did collaborate with this org, would we lose a portion of our team? Would they lose a portion of their team? So I think that is an ongoing fear that I I try very hard not to ignore. And in order to get around that, I purposely put people in conversations together that it removes some of those. Um, even if they're just perceived fears, it removes some of those concerns.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah. If you don't feel like you're competing with them for resources or for other things, um, that's a huge it's a huge way to feel comfortable in a conversation. Um we try to really focus on what's the value of us coming together. Um, you know, if if you do this, you may then get funding from an organization that we are getting funding from. Well, then maybe you're gonna do something that we were doing, and now we don't have to do that anymore. Um, it's kind of how we we try to approach things of, oh, thank goodness someone's going to help us with this.
SPEAKER_02:I love that. It's such a small reframe, right? Um it's such a small reframe, but there is this idea too, and I love I love it. It's a frequent question I ask people when I'm doing interviews with members, but what's your zone of genius? Like, what is the thing that you're like, yeah, I crushed this? And it's so funny because I frequently would call myself a generalist when anybody asks. I'm pretty good at like picking up a whole bunch of like little things and I can do them all fairly well. And it's taken me 42 years to be like, oh, yeah, my zone of genius is that I'm like, I'm really good at collecting dots and then I can connect them afterwards. And it took me time to realize that that was what I was good at. But I think you have to examine that a little bit. Um, and it's okay for organizations to go, man, we are crushing this. We are, this is something we are so great at. But this over here, man, I think we're not the people to be doing that. Maybe we can find this collaboration with this other group who's really crushing this. This is clearly their zone of genius and what could come out of that collaboration.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, absolutely. Um, that's completely how we work and in so many, so many different programs that we probably don't have time to talk about today. But yes, absolutely agree with that. Love it. So for our listeners that are maybe not working in the nonprofit sector and are kind of listening in, seeing the veil being pulled back on uh the isolation that nonprofit workers feel, the the crispiness uh sometimes burnout that they're experiencing. Um how what are some of the other less visible hurdles or realities that these professionals are navigating that you think people on the outside, um, whether that be donors or even for-profit organizations that would want to collaborate, um, could learn from our conversation today?
SPEAKER_02:Absolutely. It's been really interesting in the last two years, playing the role I've been playing. And I will say I've gotten in some very loud late-night arguments with very close friends. My sister, who I love dearly, and their perceptions of nonprofit is, you know, nonprofits are, you know, there's they're such crooked nonprofits. And, you know, how could anybody, my sister, love her so much? And she knows that I've told this story, said to me, 'What do you mean people go to school for fundraising?' I was like, Oh my goodness. This is like a university-level program, Tar that my like that people take, right? Like this is it was blew her mind. She had no idea. She just assumed all nonprofits were run by volunteers. And, you know, and she's a volunteer herself at a humane society. And so I think there is nonprofit has done a really bad job of marketing out to the rest of the world, what it looks like to work in a nonprofit. Um, there's the charity defense council has some beautiful ads that I just absolutely adore about what it means to work in a nonprofit. And I keep them, there's a little folder on my laptop, open them up every once in a while and go, oh, yeah, this is what for me, my work is about, is about supporting those who are in nonprofit work, like that idea of caring for the carers. So when I talk to people outside the sector, I often talk about the idea that these are highly trained professionals, a lot of the time, who are very much experiencing slower career growth and development by deciding to work in nonprofit. They are sacrificing potentially long-term earning potential by deciding to work on in nonprofit. Um, they are limited to innovation oftentimes because they work in nonprofit. Like there's there's so much more cross-sector learning happening in the for-profit space. Um, I'm in a startup collaborative space here today for this interview. And there are people around me who are out there pitching cool ideas, products, you know, dreams all the time. And that is a very regular occurrence in the startup space where people on the other side will get millions of dollars in loans and also earn and potentially sell off something that's worth millions of dollars. And that's just something that that's not even part of the nonprofit equation to be able to go and you know, pitch in that same way. It's it's just it's so different in the ways that are critical to sustainability and long-term um growth as a professional. And so that's often the things that I'm talking to people in for-profit. I'm like, let's let's be clear what this actually looks like. And uh yeah, I get a little bit on a soapbox about this particular subject for sure.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, to quote Den Pilata, then the guy with the startup sits on the board of the nonprofit and tells the nonprofit people what to do.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, we can't even get into a board conversation today, Yasmin, because that is another whole topic that I will leave to others, but also gets me riled up. I have a fantastic advisory uh board that I'm working with, but it's it's been a point of the I know for many nonprofits, it's one of the stickiest parts of their work.
SPEAKER_01:Yes. And for our board who is listening, we love you too.
SPEAKER_02:So we don't worry about conversations. Exactly. We love you. But some other people's exactly.
SPEAKER_01:So, how how do we go about doing this? How do we start this communication of this of these behind the scenes issues to donors so that they understand um that the work that they're supporting isn't just um the programs that people are doing, but also the incredible people that are doing it? Absolutely.
SPEAKER_02:I love that. What a fantastic question. I think one of the things that you and I already highlighted is find a way to get your staff out in front of your donors and not just the fundraisers, right? Necessarily, but also people in programs. Also, like, you know, most people's EDs are in in bigger scale meetings potentially with donors, but what does it look like for them to interact with the community at large, right? And talk about the mission and the vision and what makes them what's their why for the work? I think that's beautiful to be sharing. Um, I think we need to make space in nonprofit for that creativity and curiosity. There is room for strategy and lighthearted dreaming. Um, I had one of our members you the use the words, he opened up a call and he was like, So, what are you dreaming and scheming about? And I was like, that is just that is in a nutshell. You're gonna regret asking that one. Oh man, there's so many dreams. But you know, like what a beautiful question to ask your own, you know, your own staff. Like, what could be the dream and what do you think you could accomplish more if we had a$5,000 donation? Like, what would that do? Right. And I think so many donors don't realize what can be a truly game-changing amount of money for certain nonprofits, right? And it's not often as big as they think it is, right? It's not as big as they think it is. And on the other end, I think donor expectations are getting higher to be included in that dreaming and scheming. And it's not saying that you have to take it into account. There's lots of good reasons why nonprofits don't pick up a certain program, decide that that program is no longer working. But I think they need to understand also, you know, this is the reason why we're not moving forward with this, because we'd actually need two additional staff to make that happen. And, you know, there's an engagement level with our own donor community, client community, any stakeholders, I guess. And to me, that means you're volunteers as well. That it's scary to let people in and community build with you. You know, to be community-led is often a trustfall, but it can build some pretty beautiful things when you have that level of collaboration from your whole community feeling like they they have some shared ownership over it.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah, because it is a whole effort. Um, it's not just the nonprofits and the people that they're working with, but the donors are the people who are coming alongside. Um, so how do we deliberately bring them alongside?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, we had one of our nonprofit professionals that I met through the nonprofit high, uh, says Keto, he's fantastic. He's doing the coolest stuff in Uganda. And he he offered a Zoom call that donors could join, any stakeholders could join. And he's just on his phone taking us through this refugee uh camp that they work in with art projects for kids. And that was the coolest, one of the coolest donor experiences I've ever had where I was going, oh my goodness, like to be able to participate and leverage technology on that level to feel that kind of engagement and to understand, you know, where your donation was going, it was it was amazing. And that's not going to appeal to everybody, but I do think in the same way that we multi-channel marketing over different mediums, I think donors want to be engaged in different ways too. And um, is that possible? Not for every team, but I do think that there is some really creative examples out there of groups that are, you know, creating really meaningful connections.
SPEAKER_01:Absolutely. Yeah. We uh send mission teams to Sierra Leone. Um, and because it it has the title of mission team, mission trip sort of thing, um, people often are like, okay, what am I gonna do? What am I gonna do? And I'm like, the most important thing that I want you to do is to just meet people and learn. I've invited you to come and see and to be a part of it in some way, shape, or form. And after you've come and you know, seen and and learned and interacted with people, now we can kind of work together and build something if you want. Um, but first I want you to come and see.
SPEAKER_02:Well, and I know for many nonprofits who may be listening, there's a year-end impact report that drives the whole team nuts that you have to pull together. And but yeah, right. But like, what about the messy part? Because that's that's where the nonprofit work is also happening, right? It's happening every day with a team with multiple hats on, it's and they're showing up. And you know, I think donors are happy to a voice memo might be a cool way to engage. I've seen a couple use cases for WhatsApp that are, you know, and like SMS is really growing. And, you know, what about sharing a surprisingly this went so well story, right? Because those happened too, right? And even my own team, even my own team sent it an email today and like newsletter, just a newsletter update. Hey, this is what we're doing, you know, it PS send a quick story of kindness or it or what's uplifting you today. And six minutes later, member having talked to you in over a year, sends a message back about something that totally resonated for him. And I was able to throw that into our, you know, advisory board before our call WhatsApp channel and be like, this is the why, right? Like this type of message. And I'm sorry that I don't always share them. And I'm getting them, I don't always remember, but you know, it's right sizing that narrative of what it really looks like behind the scenes to do the work.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, absolutely. Um, we work with an organization that has a uh WhatsApp group for prayers and they send, you know, praise reports, you know, thank God this thing has happened, and the the messier ones, um staff that are sick or patients that have come in, they need prayer, things like that. And it it does help connect their donors um very quickly to what's going on. I love that. That's wonderful. You talked about um this idea of giving nonprofits the ability to dream, taking the time to do that, taking the time to um build what they're hoping to build. Um, but with that also comes a need for a room to fail, for a good idea to actually not work out. Um, so can you talk about how uh donors can be more open to hearing uh unsuccess stories?
SPEAKER_02:I think there's there's always been risk in, you know, again, like I said, you're at a startup collaborative, I'm watching people take wild swings and risks all the time. And I don't think that nonprofits need to necessarily be irresponsible with funds. That's not the case, but is there space, particularly with newer, younger generations of donors who are looking to shake things up? Because I really believe there is a group of them going, no, let's shake this up. Let's, you know, what are new ways of existing? Could there be a campaign that is literally towards a big dream, right? And and you could you could be clear about it. This is a dream, this is maybe gonna work. This is our plans. It doesn't have to be a not researched uh plan, uh, but right, you know, but it could say this is a new initiative. We don't know what the impact will be. We have done our research, uh, we're believing it's going to work this way. Come and dream with us. And isn't that so cool? Because when the winds are wins under those circumstances, they're so much sweeter. And it's an acknowledged potential failure. And maybe this is only a you've got five thousand dollars to dream here, right?
SPEAKER_01:It's not a it's not a two million dollar grant to dream here.
SPEAKER_02:No, exactly. It's not it's not on that level, but I do think how special it, yeah, how special is it for those donors who got to be in on that dream um and and got to participate on that level with something that's that is a risk, but I think all of us kind of like to see when a risk works out as well. And the staff that take that risk, because let's acknowledge that often nonprofit when things don't work out, someone internally is paying the price for that. Whereas in a for-profit company, that's something that potentially gets wrote off, right? And it's so it's not quite the same um responsibility feelings towards risk taking, but it uh I I don't know. I Leah Kral is, I don't know if you know her in the sector she wrote. Um, this book on social innovation came out last year, I want to say, maybe the year before. Brilliant, so cool. She has so many great examples in that book of the swings and successes, but also, hey, we tried it out this way. Like there are ways to take a risk and minimize the risk while still trying something new. It's not, it doesn't have to be one or the other. It doesn't have to be an all-in, we might lose$15,000 this year. It doesn't have to be that. Um, I think it's just that transparency piece, right? Of saying, yeah, you know, thank you for investing in this dream with us. We're so excited to be on the journey with you and and and continuing to update you on where we're at and how things are going.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, absolutely. And and celebrating uh when it goes well and and debriefing when it doesn't to find a new way to do it.
SPEAKER_02:Exactly. That's actually one argument back towards really focusing in on that staff level, um, on your internal staff who might be on a project like that and why they think it's a worthy endeavor as part of a campaign to bring donors in. Because you said it like earlier, donors invest in people, right? The plan is the plan, but you know, they also maybe want to cheerleads the person behind this cool new plan on just as much as the plan. And because I think we all like to watch somebody win and like the person, you know, whether it's the person you're serving eventually, but um, I do think it it makes it easier to really feel aligned and invested when you know the team that's behind new initiatives.
SPEAKER_01:Absolutely. Yeah. I think there's a lot of room for heroes in this work. Um, the donors who give are heroically supporting um amazing work that's being done to make the world a better place. Um the people who implement it are heroically overcoming uh all sorts of obstacles to make it happen. Um, and then the people that are benefiting um are overcoming poverty and disease and challenges all around them to be successful. Absolutely. Well, Sasha, um, anything else we haven't talked about? I mean, I'm sure there's a lot of things you and I could talk about, but anything else you want to add today? Oh my goodness.
SPEAKER_02:Well, this was so much fun and just you know help me reconnect with a lot of the reasons I do I do the work that I'm doing too, right? And nonprofit is a beautiful space. If you are not, whether you're in for-profit or in nonprofit, I would encourage you to know people who are in this work, right? And probably that, you know, your colleagues, it's going to be a mixed bag if you're in nonprofit in terms of can you get past all the other inner workings of the day-to-day of being in the workplace with anyone to get back to that spot where you can uplift each other and be like, we're doing cool stuff because nonprofits are doing amazing work. Like it is exciting. There are success stories, there are the wins, there's the hard parts. And it can be really hard internally to a team to remember that. It can be really hard when the fundraising goals always appear to be leveled up at the time when you finally manage to make it to that spot. And then now they're bigger again. You know, it is it is an interesting space. And if you're in for-profit, your nonprofit friends need your cheerleading and support, right? This work is really hard and they can really use um people behind them that go, yeah, this is amazing. Like, look what you're doing out here. Why is this any less valuable than any other um kind of work that people will choose to do? And so I I stay really like I feel very hopeful about the future. And I've never felt less apathetic than when in community with other nonprofit professionals. It just reminds me of why this work is so important. And and yeah, it just keeps me keeps me uplifted every day.
SPEAKER_01:So you're very carefully trying to avoid using optimistic here on optimistic voices.
SPEAKER_02:Uh I don't know. You know, like I won't say I'm not. I I am optimistic about the future. I think it's it's interesting times right now. I am Canadian, in case I said about at some point, and it it showed where I was Canadian. But it is a challenging time to watch nonprofit across the world get slammed left, right, and center. As I have so many dear friends across the US struggling, as I have friends all across Africa losing grant and aid money. And it it's not an easy time for nonprofit. So optimism sounds a little bit like a tough word, I will say. Like, you know, but I am very hopeful. I I look at what's out there and I go, yeah, this is a sector with so much heart and soul. And like I will, I will, I will stand here and I will listen to it and I will witness it. And even the hard parts, and we can give each other that gift, right? Of like, I believe what you're doing is important. And and that can bolster us in big ways that I think we underestimate when we're deep in the work. So for me, community networking ecosystems for nonprofit professionals is a lifeline to keep doing what I feel needs to be done out in the world.
SPEAKER_01:Well, on that hopeful note, thank you so much for joining us.
SPEAKER_02:Thank you so much for having me. This is amazing, and I love the work that uh HCW is doing out in the world, and I think it's yeah, it's inspiring. This is another group that is doing inspiring work. So everywhere I turn, there is there is inspiration and I feel more optimistic after this conversation.
SPEAKER_01:Very good. Good. Well, thank you for joining us. It is a big, messy world out there, and there is no shortage of need, but we here at optimistic voices believe that with radical courage and radical collaboration, together we can change the world. So thank you.
SPEAKER_02:Thank you.
SPEAKER_00:Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, share it with others, post about it on social media, or leave a rating and review. To catch all the latest from us, you can find us at Helping Children Worldwide on Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook. Optimistic Voices Podcast.
Dr. Laura Horvath
Host
Dr. Melody Curtiss Cathey
Host
Emmanuel M. Nabieu
Host
Yasmine Vaughan
Host
Elana Childress
Co-host
Natalie Turner
Co-hostPodcasts we love
Check out these other fine podcasts recommended by us, not an algorithm.
Think Global, Do Justice
Canopy International