Inspired Nonprofit Leadership

Founders who build a nonprofit from the ground up often find that their identity and the organization have become the same thing. The founders who handle growth well learn to name what they are feeling when they hand off roles, and they choose a new role on purpose. Sarah invited Luke John Mickelson, who built one bunk bed in his garage in 2012 and grew it into Sleep in Heavenly Peace, a nonprofit with more than 400 chapters across 47 states and four countries, to unpack what founder syndrome feels like from the inside and how founders and the people around them can move through it. In This Episode, You'll Learn How one bunk bed for a six-year-old named Haley became a national movement. Why each role a founder hands off can feel like losing part of themselves. What Luke means by a relevance wound, and the comment that nearly made him quit. How Luke's five steps help founders pause, name a new role, and plan their legacy. What boards and executive directors can do to give a founder grace during a transition. Who This Episode Is For Nonprofit founders who want to hand off roles without feeling pushed out. Executive directors who took over from a founder and want to keep that relationship strong. Board members who want to support a founder through a leadership transition. Founders of any organization who are stepping back and want to stay connected to what they started. Links from this episode Inspired Nonprofit Leadership Newsletter : weekly tips for leading your nonprofit. Sleep in Heavenly Peace Luke Mickelson's website Luke Mickelson on LinkedIn Luke Mickelson on Instagram Free founder syndrome assessment at LukeMickelson.com Founder's Syndrome Survival coaching and courses Book a free discovery call with Luke The Leadership Evolution Podcast Sarah Olivieri's website Sarah Olivieri's Substack publication Thank you to Donorbox Thank you to Donorbox for sponsoring Inspired Nonprofit Leadership. We appreciate your support for the show and the nonprofit leaders who listen. Follow Donorbox on YouTube , LinkedIn , Facebook , Instagram , and TikTok .

Founder syndrome usually gets talked about as a problem, and the founder often gets the blame. Sarah sees it differently: if your organization is outgrowing the person who started it, you probably did something right, and that transition deserves a real plan. Sarah goes solo to share how founders, boards, and the leaders who follow a founder can plan a healthier transition, drawing on her conversation with Luke John Mickelson, her years as a nonprofit executive director, and a sailing saying about easing the sails. In This Episode, You'll Learn Why Sarah thinks every successful nonprofit will eventually outgrow its founder What empty nest feelings can teach us about a founder's transition How a founder can honor the loss and name what they gained Why the founder transition belongs as a goal in your strategic plan How boards and successors can keep founders involved as ambassadors and storytellers Who This Episode Is For • Founders who feel a sense of loss as their organization needs them less • Executive directors who followed a founder and want a strong working relationship • Board members planning for a founder who is still involved • Teams who want the founder transition to feel like a celebration Links from this episode • Inspired Nonprofit Leadership Newsletter : weekly tips for leading your nonprofit. • Founders Syndrome with Luke John Mickelson • Luke Mickelson on LinkedIn • Sarah Olivieri's website • Sarah Olivieri's Substack publication About Your Host, Sarah Olivieri Bold, strategic, and refreshingly human… Sarah Olivieri is the go-to expert for conversations on aligned leadership, outcome delegation, and sustainable growth. She brings wit, warmth, and real-world wisdom to mission-driven founders, visionary CEOs, and change-makers who want more clarity, more joy, and more results. Most leaders hit a wall when success depends on them holding it all together. Sarah helps them change that by redefining leadership around outcomes instead of activity, empowering teams to own results that scale and freeing leaders to focus on the vision that drives them. A former director of three nonprofits and founder of five businesses, she has a rare ability to spot opportunity where others see chaos, shift stuck patterns, and build organizations that support both legacy and life. Sarah leads with the same mindset that made her an award-winning sailor: iterate on what works, stay focused in the storm, and never forget the joy of the journey. Thank you to Donorbox Thank you to Donorbox for sponsoring Inspired Nonprofit Leadership. We appreciate your support for the show and the nonprofit leaders who listen. Follow Donorbox on YouTube , LinkedIn , Facebook , Instagram , and TikTok .

When you expect yourself to get every word right, a small mistake can shake your confidence. Learning to stay comfortable when something goes wrong gives you room to keep communicating and connecting with the people in front of you. Sarah talks with Crispin Thompson , a leadership coach with more than 25 years of experience leading teams and helping people grow. They explore how to build confidence through practice, recover from mistakes, and use AI while taking responsibility for what you say. In This Episode, You'll Learn Why Crispin sees perfectionism as a barrier to confidence and presence. How he slowed his nervous speaking by deliberately lowering his voice. What Sarah means by staying comfortable when she doesn't know the answer. How to use AI for feedback while taking responsibility for the final message. Why Crispin chose calm problem-solving when encouraged to show more anger. Who This Episode Is For Nonprofit leaders who want to feel more comfortable speaking to staff, boards, or donors. Leaders who want to recover from mistakes without losing their confidence. Anyone looking to use AI while keeping their communication accurate and personal. Links from this episode Inspired Nonprofit Leadership Newsletter : weekly tips for leading your nonprofit. The Leadership Studio Crispin Thompson on LinkedIn Crispin Thompson's media profile The Human Advantage: Emotional Intelligence in the Age of AI Sarah Olivieri's website Sarah Olivieri's Substack publication Thank you to Donorbox Thank you to Donorbox for sponsoring Inspired Nonprofit Leadership. We appreciate your support for the show and the nonprofit leaders who listen. Follow Donorbox on YouTube , LinkedIn , Facebook , Instagram , and TikTok .

When something hard happens in your life, the instinct is to keep working at full speed so nobody else has to carry your load. Leaders who handle these stretches well tell their team what's going on, lighten their workload for a while, and ask for help when they genuinely need it. Sarah goes solo to work through what to do when a long day, a loved one's illness, or a family crisis lowers what you can take on, drawing on three recent stories, including a day of early school drop-offs, a late doctor's appointment, and a promised trip to the store with her son. In This Episode, You'll Learn Why a long day or a loved one's illness really does lower what you can take on What happens to your decisions and your health when you push past your limits How your team ends up fixing work you did while overstretched Why asking for help can be a gift to the people around you How to adjust your schedule and expectations to match what you can handle right now Who This Episode Is For • Nonprofit leaders going through a hard stretch at home who still want to lead well. • Executive directors who would rather carry everything than ask their team for help. • Leaders who want to support a team member through a difficult season. Links from this episode Join the Inspired Nonprofit Leadership Newsletter for weekly tips and inspiration for leading your nonprofit. Connect with Sarah: • Sarah Olivieri's website • Sarah Olivieri's Substack publication About Your Host, Sarah Olivieri Bold, strategic, and refreshingly human… Sarah Olivieri is the go-to expert for conversations on aligned leadership, outcome delegation, and sustainable growth. She brings wit, warmth, and real-world wisdom to mission-driven founders, visionary CEOs, and change-makers who want more clarity, more joy, and more results. Most leaders hit a wall when success depends on them holding it all together. Sarah helps them change that by redefining leadership around outcomes instead of activity, empowering teams to own results that scale and freeing leaders to focus on the vision that drives them. A former director of three nonprofits and founder of five businesses, she has a rare ability to spot opportunity where others see chaos, shift stuck patterns, and build organizations that support both legacy and life. Sarah leads with the same mindset that made her an award-winning sailor: iterate on what works, stay focused in the storm, and never forget the joy of the journey. Thank you to Donorbox Thank you to our sponsor Donorbox . More than a suite of helpful fundraising tools, Donorbox is a partner that helps you raise more money and supports you in retaining your donors. Follow Donorbox on YouTube , LinkedIn , Facebook , Instagram , and TikTok .

Mental health support needs a place in the everyday work of a nonprofit. Regular check-ins and clear ways to get help give staff support they can turn to while doing demanding work. Sarah talks with Weanne Estrada, a mental health specialist at ADRA who supports people working in humanitarian settings. Together, they explore what nonprofit leaders can learn from supporting staff before, during, and after emergency deployments, including the everyday moments of connection that staff said mattered to them. In This Episode, You'll Learn Why Weanne sees mental health support as essential to effective humanitarian aid. How psychological first aid uses three steps: look, listen, and link. What deployed staff said about shared meals, walks, and manager check-ins. Why staff valued knowing counseling was available, even when they didn't use it. How stories of recovery and resilience can support the people doing the work. Who This Episode Is For Nonprofit leaders who want to make mental health support a regular part of work. Teams looking for practical ways to respond when a colleague is struggling. Leaders who want to support staff carrying the emotional weight of helping others. Links from this episode Inspired Nonprofit Leadership Newsletter : weekly tips for leading your nonprofit. ADRA International ADRA International on LinkedIn ADRA on Facebook ADRA International on Instagram Sarah Olivieri's website Sarah Olivieri's Substack publication Thank you to Donorbox Thank you to Donorbox for sponsoring Inspired Nonprofit Leadership. We appreciate your support for the show and the nonprofit leaders who listen. Follow Donorbox on YouTube , LinkedIn , Facebook , Instagram , and TikTok .

Show Notes When you explain an idea to your team, the big picture may be clear in your head, but it's probably not as clear in your team's head as you think it is. Specific examples help other people understand what you mean and what the work actually involves. Sarah Olivieri walks through how to add useful detail to everyday communication so you can get what's in your head into the minds of your team. She shares practical examples from leadership meetings, planning, and the experiences of people your nonprofit serves. She shows how describing what happens step by step can make an idea easier to understand and reveal something a plan has missed. In This Episode, You'll Learn How a specific example makes a big-picture idea easier to understand. Why walking through a Monday morning can reveal gaps in your plan. How describing a client's experience helps others understand their perspective. What details can add to onboarding, job descriptions, and team communication. Who This Episode Is For Leaders who want their team to understand what they are asking. Teams that want to find gaps in a plan before putting it into action. Anyone who wants to explain the experiences of the people their nonprofit serves. Links from this episode Inspired Nonprofit Leadership Newsletter : weekly tips, resources, and updates on training opportunities. Inspired Philanthropy Circle Sarah Olivieri's website Sarah Olivieri's Substack publication About Your Host, Sarah Olivieri Bold, strategic, and refreshingly human… Sarah Olivieri is the go-to expert for conversations on aligned leadership, outcome delegation, and sustainable growth. She brings wit, warmth, and real-world wisdom to mission-driven founders, visionary CEOs, and change-makers who want more clarity, more joy, and more results. Most leaders hit a wall when success depends on them holding it all together. Sarah helps them change that by redefining leadership around outcomes instead of activity, empowering teams to own results that scale and freeing leaders to focus on the vision that drives them. A former director of three nonprofits and founder of five businesses, she has a rare ability to spot opportunity where others see chaos, shift stuck patterns, and build organizations that support both legacy and life. Sarah leads with the same mindset that made her an award-winning sailor: iterate on what works, stay focused in the storm, and never forget the joy of the journey. Thank you to Donorbox Thank you to our sponsor, Donorbox , for supporting Inspired Nonprofit Leadership. We appreciate your work removing friction from donation forms. Follow Donorbox on YouTube , LinkedIn , Facebook , Instagram , and TikTok .

Show Notes Reaching out to potential major donors can feel premature when you haven't figured out how you will follow up. A written contact list and a plan for the next interaction give you a simple place to start, without mapping out a year of conversations. Sarah shares this approach using questions from nonprofit leaders starting major gifts programs in the Inspired Philanthropy Circle. She shares her own struggle with following up, the scheduling habit that helps her stay connected, and ways to give people something to look forward to together. In This Episode, You'll Learn What to record in a contact list so relationships don't depend on memory. How to arrange the next interaction before the current conversation ends. What to say when scheduling ahead feels uncomfortable or too pushy. How recurring tours, dinners, or informal gatherings give you something to invite people to. Why building a community of supporters can bring an emotional return alongside funding. Who This Episode Is For Nonprofit leaders who want to start donor conversations without waiting for a complete annual plan. Fundraisers looking for a simple way to keep track of relationships. Leaders who want to stay in touch with supporters without feeling pushy. Links from this episode Inspired Nonprofit Leadership Newsletter : weekly tips, resources, and updates on training opportunities. Inspired Philanthropy Circle Sarah Olivieri's website Sarah Olivieri's Substack publication Thank you to Donorbox Thank you to Donorbox for sponsoring Inspired Nonprofit Leadership and supporting these conversations. In this episode, Maria and Sarah discuss giving donors control over their recurring gifts. Follow Donorbox on YouTube , LinkedIn , Facebook , Instagram , and TikTok .

Episode Description Reaching out to potential major donors can feel premature when you haven't figured out how you will follow up. A written contact list and a plan for the next interaction give you a simple place to start, without mapping out a year of conversations. Sarah walks through this approach using questions from nonprofit leaders starting major gifts programs in the Inspired Philanthropy Circle. She shares her own struggle with following up, the scheduling habit that helps her stay connected, and ways to give people something to look forward to together. In This Episode, You'll Learn What to record in a contact list so relationships don't depend on memory. How to arrange the next interaction before the current conversation ends. What to say when scheduling ahead feels uncomfortable or too pushy. How recurring tours, dinners, or informal gatherings give you something to invite people to. Why building a community of supporters can bring an emotional return alongside funding. Who This Episode Is For Nonprofit leaders who want to start donor conversations without waiting for a complete annual plan. Fundraisers looking for a simple way to keep track of relationships. Leaders who want to stay in touch with supporters without feeling pushy. Links from this episode Links Website: saraholivieri.com Substack: Sarah Olivieri's Substack publication Inspired Nonprofit Leadership Newsletter: weekly tips, resources, and updates on training opportunities. Inspired Philanthropy Circle Thank you to Donorbox Thank you to our sponsor, Donorbox , for supporting Inspired Nonprofit Leadership. We appreciate your support for the show and the nonprofit leaders who listen.

A fundraising story asks people to care and act. How you gather and share that story matters to the person who lived it, the audience hearing it, and the donor relationships you hope to build. Sarah invited Maria A Bryan , a trauma-informed storytelling trainer who helps nonprofits tell difficult stories while protecting the people involved, to unpack how consent, safety, and choice belong in fundraising. They discuss asking for stories without pressure, preparing audiences for difficult content, and building donor relationships around shared impact rather than guilt. Who it's for You want to share compelling stories while protecting the people in them. You want donors to feel connected to your mission without using guilt or pressure. You want a clearer process for consent and responding when a story causes harm. What you will hear Why someone receiving help may feel unable to say no to sharing their story. How content warnings give audiences a choice about hearing difficult stories. Why Sarah argues that relationships built on shared impact can support long-term giving. What Maria's experience of trying to pause a monthly gift reveals about donor choice. Why your storytelling process needs a plan for repairing harm. Links from this episode Inspired Nonprofit Leadership Newsletter: weekly tips for leading your nonprofit Maria A Bryan's website Connect with Maria A Bryan on LinkedIn When Bearing Witness: trauma-informed storytelling certification Emotional Intelligence Is Nonprofit Retention Infrastructure with Brittan Stockert More of Maria's expert insight Ethical Persuasion in Fundraising: Inspire Without Pressure, The Nonprofit Podcast A Guide to Ethical Storytelling, What the Fundraising Podcast The Problem with Nonprofit Storytelling, Nonprofit Nation An Inclusionary Wakeup Call for Public Interest Copywriters, Journal of Public Interest Communications Trauma-Informed Storytelling with Maria Bryan, A Trauma-Informed Future Podcast Connect with Sarah Sarah Olivieri's website Sarah Olivieri on Substack Thank you to Donorbox Thank you to Donorbox for sponsoring Inspired Nonprofit Leadership and supporting these conversations. In this episode, Maria and Sarah discuss giving donors control over their recurring gifts. Follow Donorbox on YouTube , LinkedIn , Facebook , Instagram , and TikTok .

Show Notes Arriving at a team meeting with a solution already worked out can feel like you're helping everyone get ahead. When the work needs several people's perspectives, leaving the solution open gives the team a chance to develop something together that none of them could have created alone. Sarah discusses when preparing a solution before a meeting can get in the way of collaboration, drawing on her experience helping teams create something new together. In This Episode, You'll Learn What to consider before working out a solution ahead of a meeting Why doing extra work can feel like the right thing to do What your approach to meeting preparation might be teaching your team How to make more room for leadership across your organization What Sarah's one-sentence definition of leadership asks us to reconsider Who This Episode Is For • Nonprofit leaders who want more people on their team taking initiative. • Teams who want meetings that draw on everyone's ideas and experience. • Executive directors who want to share the responsibility for moving their organization forward. • Leadership teams who want to develop solutions they couldn't create on their own. About Your Host, Sarah Olivieri Bold, strategic, and refreshingly human… Sarah Olivieri is the go-to expert for conversations on aligned leadership, outcome delegation, and sustainable growth. She brings wit, warmth, and real-world wisdom to mission-driven founders, visionary CEOs, and change-makers who want more clarity, more joy, and more results. Most leaders hit a wall when success depends on them holding it all together. Sarah helps them change that by redefining leadership around outcomes instead of activity, empowering teams to own results that scale and freeing leaders to focus on the vision that drives them. A former director of three nonprofits and founder of five businesses, she has a rare ability to spot opportunity where others see chaos, shift stuck patterns, and build organizations that support both legacy and life. Sarah leads with the same mindset that made her an award-winning sailor: iterate on what works, stay focused in the storm, and never forget the joy of the journey. Links Join the Inspired Nonprofit Leadership Newsletter for weekly tips and inspiration for leading your nonprofit. Resources mentioned: • Apply to talk with Sarah about working together • Explore ways to work with Sarah • Email Sarah about your experience Connect with Sarah: • Sarah Olivieri's website • Sarah Olivieri on LinkedIn Thank you to our sponsor Donorbox . More than a suite of helpful fundraising tools, Donorbox is a partner that helps you raise more money and supports you in retaining your donors.

Episode Description Trust can be measured. It grows through honest communication and fair treatment, and it can break when leaders mishandle change. Sarah invited Kim Bohr , President and CEO of SparkEffect, whose annual research tracks organizational trust across the US, to discuss what builds trust, what breaks it, and how leaders can protect it through disruption. In This Episode, You'll Learn Why 85 percent of people faced major disruption in two years What Kim's research says builds trust Why hard conversations should get to the point How job loss creates shame and blocks support How Sarah uses AI to reshape only her own words Who This Episode Is For • Executive directors leading teams exhausted by constant change • Leaders bringing in AI while staff fear for their jobs • Anyone avoiding a hard conversation with a wrong-fit staff or board member • CEOs hearing "we have a communication problem" without finding the cause About the Guest Kim Bohr is the President and Chief Executive Officer of SparkEffect, where she helps executive teams navigate change while building trust and strong organizational performance. With more than 25 years of leadership experience, she's a board advisor, speaker, podcast host, and author who specializes in helping leaders build resilient organizations during times of disruption. Join the Inspired Nonprofit Leadership Newsletter for weekly tips and inspiration for leading your nonprofit: https://www.inspirednonprofitleadership.com/signup Connect with Kim: Website: https://sparkeffect.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kimbohr/ Email: kim.bohr@sparkeffect.com Text: (206) 552-4452 Blog: https://sparkeffect.com/blog Podcast: Courage to Advance with Kim Bohr Instagram: @SparkEffect Threads: @SparkEffect Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SparkEffect YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@SparkEffect-US Resources mentioned: The 2026 State of Organizational Trust research and the guide on stigma after job loss: https://sparkeffect.com/inspired Sarah Olivieri: Website: saraholivieri.com LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/sarah-olivieri Thank you to our sponsor, Donorbox. More than a suite of helpful fundraising tools, Donorbox is a partner that helps you raise more money and supports you in retaining your donors.

Show Notes Planned giving often lands on the someday list right beside the wealth screen a nonprofit can't yet afford. Tony Martignetti says you can launch it this week with one honest conversation about a gift in a will. No campaign, no brochure, no page. Sarah sat with Tony Martignetti , a front-line planned giving fundraiser since 1997 and author of the new book Planned Giving Accelerated, to discuss how a small or mid-size nonprofit launches planned giving in a single week, without a wealth screen or a legal background. In This Episode, You'll Learn How Tony's three steps get planned giving, and launched inside a single week Why your best prospects are your most loyal donors, not your wealthiest ones What to say when you ask a donor to consider a gift in their will How to respond when a donor says no, yes, or let me think about it Why lifetime giving tells you almost nothing about the size of a planned gift Who This Episode Is For • Executive directors who have been told that planned giving belongs to hospitals and universities • Fundraisers who want major gifts but have no budget to build a whole program first • Anyone who keeps putting off the will conversation because it feels awkward to raise About the Guest Tony Martignetti is the evangelist for Planned Giving. In September, he publishes his book, Planned Giving Accelerated, to help small- and mid-size nonprofits launch by making Planned Giving fundraising easy, accessible and affordable. Pre-orders are at PlannedGivingAccelerated.com . He started as a front-line Planned Giving fundraiser in 1997 and kicked off his consulting in 2003. He's active on LinkedIn and would be honored to connect. Tony is a lawyer, but he doesn't talk like one. Instead, he weaves in his stand-up comedy and improv past to bring Planned Giving within reach for small- and mid-size nonprofits. About the book Tony's new book, Planned Giving Accelerated , is a practical guide for small- and mid-sized nonprofits that want to start a planned giving program without making it complicated. Drawing on nearly 30 years of experience, Tony shows how organizations can launch in just one week, starting with bequests. The book covers how to identify your best prospects, build donor relationships, overcome common planned giving myths, and create a sustainable program without a huge budget or specialized legal expertise. Connect with Tony: LinkedIn: LinkedIn Website: tonymartignetti.com Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio: Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio Email: tony@tonymartignetti.com Resources mentioned Get Tony's book, Planned Giving Accelerated, here: plannedgivingaccelerated.com The LinkedIn episode Sarah mentioned is "Show Up Stand Out with Bafda M. Imam," and you can find it at inspirednonprofitleadership.com . Sarah Olivieri: Website: saraholivieri.com LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/sarah-olivieri Thank you to our sponsor, Donorbox. More than a suite of helpful fundraising tools, Donorbox is a partner that helps you raise more money and supports you in retaining your donors.

Episode Description Many nonprofit leaders treat strategy, operations, and team as three separate pillars in their organization, but in fact, they are part of one integrated system. In this episode, Sarah goes into strategy, operations, and team as the who, what, where, when, and how of running a great nonprofit. She shares how these are built into her Impact Method®, which she developed back in 2017. In This Episode, You'll Learn Why strategy, operations, and the team have to work as one system How the who, what, where, when, and how fit together Why a team problem may actually start with strategy or operations How the Impact Method® keeps strategy current every two months Why distributed leadership removes decision bottlenecks Who This Episode Is For • Executive directors whose weeks feel like one long game of Whack-A-Mole • Leadership teams working on strategy, operations, and people separately • Leaders who fix one problem only to watch another one pop up • Anyone whose strategy looks good on paper but stalls in practice About Your Host, Sarah Olivieri Join the Inspired Nonprofit Leadership Newsletter for weekly tips and inspiration for leading your nonprofit: https://www.inspirednonprofitleadership.com/ Resources mentioned: Work with Sarah (short application, for teams of three or more leaders): saraholivieri.com/application Sarah Olivieri: Links Website: saraholivieri.com LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/sarah-olivieri Thank you to our sponsor, Donorbox. More than a suite of helpful fundraising tools, Donorbox is a partner that helps you raise more money and supports you in retaining your donors.

Episode Description Many nonprofit leaders treat turnover as a problem to solve after someone resigns. The organizations that handle it well plan for it before the hire, in how the job itself is designed. Sarah invited Steve Cadigan, LinkedIn's first Chief Human Resources Officer and the person who grew the company from 400 people to 4,000 while the median tenure on his own staff was nine months, to talk about how to build an organization that works when people come and go, and how to stay connected to the good ones after they leave. In This Episode, You'll Learn Why Steve says no job should take more than six months to learn How to design a role around a hire who will stay three years What to do with a good employee after they leave, and why it pays off Why Steve hires for how fast someone learns, not what they already know How to make a major donor relationship belong to the organization, not one person Who This Episode Is For • Executive directors who just lost someone they were counting on • Leaders whose roles take eighteen months to ramp when staff stay three years • Anyone about to have a hard conversation with an employee who has outgrown the job • CEOs who have decided the sector cannot attract talent, and built accordingly About the Guest Steve Cadigan is a globally recognized talent strategist, culture architect, and author with over 30 years of experience helping organizations navigate growth and transformation. As LinkedIn's first Chief Human Resources Officer, Steve helped scale the company from 400 to 4,000 employees, building a culture that set the standard for tech companies worldwide. Today, through his firm Cadigan Talent Ventures, he advises high-growth companies, venture firms, and global leaders on how to win the talent war, design future-ready workplaces, and use culture as a competitive edge. He's a sought-after keynote speaker and the author of Workquake , a #1 Amazon bestseller that reimagines how we work in a post-pandemic world. Steve's insights have been featured in outlets like Forbes, CNBC, and Bloomberg, and his work has been the focus of business school case studies Connect with Steve: Official website: https://stevecadigan.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cadigan Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/stevecad/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thestevecadigan/ Be sure to subscribe to Inspired Nonprofit Leadership so that you don't miss a single episode, and while you're at it, won't you take a moment to write a short review and rate our show? It would be greatly appreciated! Let us know the topics or questions you would like to hear about in a future episode. You can do that and follow us on LinkedIn .

Episode Description Many nonprofit leaders pick a marketing tactic first- a gala, a Facebook fundraiser, a social media takeover, and then hope it works. The organizations that get a real return pick the goal first and let the goal decide the tactic. Sarah goes solo to work through how to build a marketing strategy simple enough to fit on one page, drawing on the years she spent running a marketing agency for nonprofits. In This Episode, You'll Learn Executive directors about to spend money on a tactic a board member suggested Leaders whose fundraising activity is busy but whose donor numbers are flat Small organizations wondering whether a website is the right first investment Anyone who has run a fundraising event that cost more than it brought in Who This Episode Is For • Why picking a tactic before a goal is where the money goes • What the three marketing goals are and how to spot yours • Why a website converts people who already found you, and does not create them • How Sarah defines a real donor, and why the second gift is the line • What to do about lifetime value when you have almost no donors yet About Your Host, Sarah Olivieri Bold, strategic, and refreshingly human… Sarah Olivieri is the go-to expert for conversations on aligned leadership, outcome delegation, and sustainable growth. She brings wit, warmth, and real-world wisdom to mission-driven founders, visionary CEOs, and change-makers who want more clarity, more joy, and more results. Most leaders hit a wall when success depends on them holding it all together. Sarah helps them change that by redefining leadership around outcomes instead of activity, empowering teams to own results that scale and freeing leaders to focus on the vision that drives them. A former director of three nonprofits and founder of five businesses, she has a rare ability to spot opportunity where others see chaos, shift stuck patterns, and build organizations that support both legacy and life. Sarah leads with the same mindset that made her an award-winning sailor: iterate on what works, stay focused in the storm, and never forget the joy of the journey. Links Website: saraholivieri.com LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/sarah-olivieri Be sure to subscribe to Inspired Nonprofit Leadership so that you don't miss a single episode, and while you're at it, won't you take a moment to write a short review and rate our show? It would be greatly appreciated! Let us know the topics or questions you would like to hear about in a future episode. You can do that and follow us on LinkedIn .

Show Notes: Most nonprofit leaders treat retention as a problem to fix after the hire. The organizations that keep people for decades treat it as something they build into the hire itself. Sarah invited Crystal FitzSimons , the president of the Food Research and Action Center and someone who has been at FRAC for twenty-four years leading a team where staff routinely stay ten, twenty, and even forty years, to unpack what actually holds people in a nonprofit for the long term. This episode is for: Executive directors and nonprofit CEOs who are watching good people leave and unsure why Founders and EDs about to make a key hire and wondering how much process is actually worth it CEOs who have stopped sitting on interviews because if feels like too much time What you'll hear: Why hiring is the single most important thing Crystal's forty-person team does, and how that belief changes the calendar The reason the CEO belongs in every final interview, even at forty people, even at five hundred What Crystal has kept, and what she has added, to sustain a culture where people stay through leadership transitions Why mission alignment is only the price of admission, and what actually keeps someone in the seat How Crystal is holding the team steady through a marathon-and-a-sprint policy season, and what that requires of a president How to think about a hiring process as a cultural transmission instead of a selection task Crystal has been at FRAC for twenty-four years and just stepped into the president role. Her chief government affairs officer recently celebrated forty years with the organization. This is what genuine longevity looks like, and it is not luck. Related Links: Sign up for the The Inspired Nonprofit Leadership Newsletter Connect with Crystal on LinkedIn Check out the good work FARC is doing ❤️ And a big thank you to our caring sponsor Donorbox

Let Them Go Well with Sarah Olivieri The thought shows up quietly and then keeps coming back. Maybe this person is not right for us. Then it sits there for months while you look for more evidence and rehearse a conversation you never have. Meanwhile the person you are worried about is stuck in a job that is grinding on them too. In this solo episode, Sarah walks through how to know when it is time to let someone go, and how to do it in a way that leaves everyone intact. In This Episode, You'll Learn Why Sarah has never seen the instinct "I think I need to let this person go" turn out to be wrong, and what to do with that The two categories to check before you act, fit with the team and fit with the role, and why only one of them is fixable Why a bad hiring process is usually the thing that produced the conversation you are dreading How to turn a firing conversation into a quitting conversation, and when that serves both of you What nonprofit staff in particular need to hear before they can let themselves leave Who This Episode Is For • Leaders who have been carrying the same thought about the same person since spring • CEOs who keep reshuffling a role hoping it will fix a fit problem • Anyone who has avoided a hard conversation because they were afraid of how the person would react Practical takeaways • Run the two-category check. Is this about the team and your guiding principles, or is this about the role • Check your state's employment laws before you plan anything else • Have the clear conversation first. To be clear is to be kind, and simple, explicit, unjudgmental language is the whole skill • Decide your boundaries before you walk in. Last day, terms, severance, what is flexible and what is not • Do not surprise people with money. Be as generous as the timeline allows • Leave room to ask them what would make this transition feel best About Your Host, Sarah Olivieri Bold, strategic, and refreshingly human… Sarah Olivieri is the go-to expert for conversations on aligned leadership, outcome delegation, and sustainable growth. She brings wit, warmth, and real-world wisdom to mission-driven founders, visionary CEOs, and change-makers who want more clarity, more joy, and more results. Most leaders hit a wall when success depends on them holding it all together. Sarah helps them change that by redefining leadership around outcomes instead of activity, empowering teams to own results that scale and freeing leaders to focus on the vision that drives them. A former director of three nonprofits and founder of five businesses, she has a rare ability to spot opportunity where others see chaos, shift stuck patterns, and build organizations that support both legacy and life. Sarah leads with the same mindset that made her an award-winning sailor: iterate on what works, stay focused in the storm, and never forget the joy of the journey. Links Website: saraholivieri.com LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/sarah-olivieri Be sure to subscribe to Inspired Nonprofit Leadership so that you don't miss a single episode, and while you're at it, won't you take a moment to write a short review and rate our show? It would be greatly appreciated! Let us know the topics or questions you would like to hear about in a future episode. You can do that and follow us on LinkedIn .

Show Notes Most nonprofit leaders already know they can't make every decision themselves. They've said it out loud in meetings and retreats. They want more decisions happening close to the work. Then a year later, they're still the bottleneck. Sarah sat down with Jocelyn Wyatt, CEO of Alight and co-founder of ideo.org, to unpack why distributed leadership stalls inside organizations that say they want it, and what it actually takes to make it real across a global team of over two thousand humanitarians. Here's what you'll hear: p]:pt-0 [&>p]:mb-2 [&>p]:my-0"> How Alight's executive directors run their own countries: setting strategy, raising funding, structuring teams, and making the calls, with the global team in a support role instead of a headquarters role p]:pt-0 [&>p]:mb-2 [&>p]:my-0"> Why Jocelyn had to teach distributed leadership through every level of the organization, and what happened when she assumed proximity to the work would produce co-creation on its own p]:pt-0 [&>p]:mb-2 [&>p]:my-0"> The shift from "human-centered design" to "co-creation" to just "proximity and agency," and why the language kept changing p]:pt-0 [&>p]:mb-2 [&>p]:my-0"> Safe Rides in the Nakivale refugee camp in Uganda: how Alight backed entrepreneurs who already wanted to run boda boda taxi businesses, and what that reveals about designing under constraint p]:pt-0 [&>p]:mb-2 [&>p]:my-0"> Why curiosity is the leadership trait Jocelyn most wants nonprofit CEOs to protect, and what happens to distributed leadership without it If this conversation sparked something, the thinking goes further. Sarah wrote a full reflection on why distributed leadership fails when it's announced instead of designed, and what actually makes it work. Read it here: [ Why Distributed Leadership Fails (And What Actually Makes It Work )]. It's a standalone read, built for leaders who want to go deeper than the episode alone. Press play, and then read the article.

Lunch Is Leadership with Sarah Olivieri Lunch is the first thing to go. The calendar fills up, something has to give, and the hour in the middle of the day is the one that looks optional. Skip it enough times and you start making your biggest decisions of the week on an empty tank. In this solo episode, Sarah breaks down why lunch is a leadership decision, and exactly how to get it back on your calendar and keep it there. In This Episode, You'll Learn Why your blood sugar spikes during intense work even when you have not eaten, and what that does to your thinking What skipping the hour actually costs you in decision quality, which is the part of your job nobody else can do Why sharing a meal with one person, a new team member, a donor, a potential program partner, does something no meeting does What your team learns about work habits from watching whether or not you take the hour The recurring calendar block Sarah walks every leader she coaches through, live Who This Episode Is For • Leaders eating at the desk with one hand on the keyboard • CEOs whose afternoons feel foggier than their mornings and cannot figure out why • Leaders who want their team to stop working through lunch but have never modeled it themselves • Anyone who has told themselves that skipping lunch buys them more time Practical takeaways • Open your calendar today and create a recurring lunch block. Noon, one, eleven, whatever time you actually want to eat • Do not overthink the placement. Check it once a week, move it when it collides with something, and let it settle into a consistent time • Aim for the full hour. Sarah often splits hers, half an hour to eat and half an hour to do whatever she wants • Tell your team you are taking it, so the permission travels • Book one lunch this month with a person whose relationship matters to your organization About Your Host, Sarah Olivieri Bold, strategic, and refreshingly human… Sarah Olivieri is the go-to expert for conversations on aligned leadership, outcome delegation, and sustainable growth. She brings wit, warmth, and real-world wisdom to mission-driven founders, visionary CEOs, and change-makers who want more clarity, more joy, and more results. Most leaders hit a wall when success depends on them holding it all together. Sarah helps them change that by redefining leadership around outcomes instead of activity, empowering teams to own results that scale and freeing leaders to focus on the vision that drives them. A former director of three nonprofits and founder of five businesses, she has a rare ability to spot opportunity where others see chaos, shift stuck patterns, and build organizations that support both legacy and life. Sarah leads with the same mindset that made her an award-winning sailor: iterate on what works, stay focused in the storm, and never forget the joy of the journey. Links Website: saraholivieri.com LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/sarah-olivieri Be sure to subscribe to Inspired Nonprofit Leadership so that you don't miss a single episode, and while you're at it, won't you take a moment to write a short review and rate our show? It would be greatly appreciated! Let us know the topics or questions you would like to hear about in a future episode. You can do that and follow us on LinkedIn .

Reflections from host Sarah Olivieri ... Is Your Budget Killing Your Major Gifts Program? Many nonprofit leaders I talk to about major gifts describe some version of the same wall. They know the money is out there. They have heard the statistics about wealth transfer and donor-advised funds. They have sat through the trainings. And still, nothing moves. So they go looking for the missing skill. Better scripts. A new CRM. A workshop on how to ask. Here's what I often find when I see an organization trying to do major gifts but struggling. They're actually operating with systems and processes that work against major gifts. Systems like: annual fundraising strategies a schedule of campaigns an annual budget that rewards short-term gifting, which often comes at the expense of building the proper long-term relationship that leads to true, significant, sustainable funding from major donors Relationships operate on systems as well, but these are not the systems that relationships run on. When the wrong systems are in place, people rarely call out the system. They compensate with effort instead. In fundraising, that effort goes into activity that can be measured this quarter. Events. Appeals. Data entry. All of it visible, all of it defensible, and very little of it building the thing that tends to produce seven-figure gifts. A version of this came up on almost every strategy call I had this spring, which is why I was glad to sit down with Bill Crouch and talk it through. Bill has spent more than forty years inside this work, first as a college president raising private money in the shadow of a state flagship, now advising nonprofits nationally. He has lived this work and he has taught it, which is a rarer combination than it sounds. What the conversation gave me was not a new idea. It was a sharper explanation of why the patient approach holds up and why so few organizations are structured to survive the wait. The Annual Budget Is the Clock Everything Else Runs On Start with the operating budget, because everything downstream inherits its timeline. A relationship with a high capacity donor takes eighteen months. Sometimes three years. Bill spent eighteen months getting the first million dollar commitment for a giving group at his own college. Six weeks after that, he had five more, because the first person made calls to friends. Eighteen months of nothing, then five gifts in six weeks. Now put that curve inside an organization that closes its books every twelve months and asks the development office what it brought in. The gap is rarely a matter of discipline. The organization has committed to a reporting cycle that cannot see the work until it is already finished. So the work does not get funded, does not get protected on anyone's calendar, and does not survive the first cash flow scare in month seven. I write and talk a lot about how the layout of your budget shapes the decisions you make , and this is the most expensive version of that. A twelve-month frame makes long horizon relationship work look like underperformance. Then leaders respond to the number in front of them, which is the only responsible thing to do with the information the system gives them. The Desk Always Wins Bill described development work as needing two different capabilities. The technical side, sitting in the office getting things done. And the relational side, out in the world with people. Two skill sets, often two different humans. In a small shop, one person holds both. Ask that person what they did last week and you will hear about the database, the appeal, the grant report, the reconciliation. Not the coffee that took ninety minutes and produced no measurable outcome. The desk wins because the desk has deadlines. The relationship has none. This is a design flaw with a simple mechanism. Every task in the office has a due date attached to it and a visible consequence for missing it. Relationship building has neither. Give one person both jobs and the work with a deadline tends to consume the work without one, week after week, however much that person believes in the relational side. Which means the fix is structural. Protect the time in a way the person cannot trade away, or separate the roles. Telling someone to prioritize relationships more is asking them to out-discipline their own job description. The Mechanism, Named One line from that conversation has stayed with me: "That forces nonprofits to make short-term decisions that hurt long-term strategies." What I appreciate about this framing is that it locates the problem in the design rather than in the people executing it. The short-term decision is the rational one given the reporting cycle. Change the cycle, or build a revenue floor that takes the pressure off it, and the same team will often behave differently. Not much had to change in anyone's character. The structure stopped charging them for patience. Turnover Is What the Design Produces Forty years ago, the number one problem in nonprofit fundraising was development staff turnover. It is still the number one problem. Bill named four causes, and the timeline inside them is the part worth sitting with. It takes about sixteen months for the wrong hire to realize they do not want this job. It takes the supervisor about sixteen months to accept the same thing. So roughly a year and a half of relationship equity walks out the door, and the next person starts from zero with donors who have now been handed off twice. Run that loop three times and you have a decade of fundraising with no compounding whatsoever. The organization has been paying for major gifts capacity the entire time and never accumulating any. And the third cause Bill listed is the one nonprofits could fix tomorrow. The only way to get a meaningful raise in this field is to leave. We hand out cost of living adjustments and call it compensation strategy. Then we act surprised when the person holding four years of donor history takes a call from a recruiter. The turnover looks to me like an output. The design tends to produce it, and hiring better rarely changes what the design produces. If you want to see the same mechanism from another angle, emotional intelligence functions as retention infrastructure inside these teams, not as a soft add-on. Relationship Building Is a Practice You Can Teach Here is the part that gets skipped. The long horizon only pays off if something real happens inside it, and most organizations treat what happens in the room as a matter of charm. Some people have it. Some people do not. Hire for it and hope. Bill asks every high capacity person he meets about their favorite childhood toy. That is the whole thing. A simple question about a toy, and within a couple of minutes he is hearing what someone actually cares about, in their own words, before any case statement enters the conversation. I have been collecting strategic questions for years, and I recently started a separate collection just for get to know you questions. His goes at the top of that list. I asked my next podcast guest the same thing, and it changed the shape of the whole interview. Which tells you something about the mechanism. A good question is repeatable. It can be written down, taught, practiced, and handed to a nervous program director who has never asked anyone for money. Charm cannot. So when an organization decides that relationship building is a talent rather than a practice, it has quietly made that work impossible to train, impossible to delegate, and impossible to sustain past the tenure of whoever happened to be good at it. Bill also brings brain science into how he approaches this, and that tracks. Relationship building, brain science, and psychology go hand in hand. People give when they feel seen, heard, and valued, and there is a physiological story underneath that, not just a sentimental one. Which means the patient work is doing something specific in those eighteen months. Those months are where the ask becomes possible. Skip them and you are asking a stranger. Titles Are Structure Bill told a story about interviewing a researcher at a large university. She had put the institution in her will. She had been there sixteen years. She had identified and researched a donor who eventually gave a million dollars. No major gift officer had ever walked into her office to thank her. Nobody, in sixteen years. She stayed because her children had a tuition waiver. His response to this pattern is to give every person in the development operation the same title: "Every person in the development shop should have the same title. Director of Major Gifts." This makes sense given the setup. A title describes what the organization believes a role is for. When the researcher's title says researcher and the gift officer's title says major gifts, the org chart has already suggested who is doing the real fundraising and who is doing support work. Most people read that correctly and behave accordingly. I coach clients on titles constantly, usually while helping them build a first development department, and my rule is that people should have whatever title helps them do their job best. Bill's version goes further, and I think he is right about it. It does two things at once. Inside the organization, it tells the researcher and the data entry person that they matter, which is the same thing every donor is trying to find out about themselves. Outside the organization, it gives every one of those people a title they can carry into a room and use to build a real relationship. Give everyone the title that names the actual goal, and you have used structure to say something that a values statement on the wall never manages to say. The Board Question That Is Easy to Sequence Wrong Then there is the board, where two incompatible jobs get stuffed into one body. Bill's framing came from a retired chamber of commerce CEO. Most nonprofit boards are made up of sparrows. Sparrows come to the quarterly meeting, sit through staff reports, argue about whether to spend two hundred dollars on a computer, write a thousand dollar check, and buy a seat at the gala. Most nonprofits could not operate without them. Plenty of boards also want an eagle. Someone who can write a seven-figure check. Eagles tend to hate meetings, do not care about the computer, and rarely sit through reports. Put one on your board and within a year they will often either turn into a sparrow or quit. So Bill builds his clients a separate group. Five or six people, all high capacity, meeting twice a year in each other's homes rather than at your facility, with a single agenda item. Which of our friends can we ask. I give the same advice and I get there differently. I do not want money, power, and decision-making consolidated into the same group of people. Your governing board should be the people who want to do the careful, unglamorous work of oversight, checking that nothing is going off the rails. Not the people with the biggest checkbooks, who are usually the furthest from the weeds and the least accountable for the outcome. So give the givers their own structure where giving is the actual job. Two groups, two purposes, no competition between them. This is also why the board chair and executive director relationship works better when the governance lane is clearly drawn. What a Built System Looks Like Build the plumbing first. Here that means a small number of specific things in place before anyone worries about scripts. The CEO carries a real portfolio, ten people or fewer, and treats it as a standing commitment rather than a fourth quarter push. The relational time is protected structurally, not aspirationally. Compensation is designed so that staying is financially rational. There is a revenue floor that does not depend on this year's major gift closing, which is what makes waiting affordable. And there is a group whose entire purpose is giving and opening doors, separate from the group that governs. Fully built or partially built matters enormously here. A partially built major gifts function has all the cost and none of the compounding. You are paying for the staff, the software, and the events, and you are still starting over every eighteen months. Diversifying and de-risking your revenue base is part of the same picture, which is why revenue design deserves attention before the ask does. What This Makes Possible When leaders see this clearly, the fear around major gifts usually drops several notches. The conversation stops being about whether anyone on the team is brave enough to ask a person for a million dollars and starts being about whether the organization can hold a relationship for three years without flinching. That is a design question, and design questions have answers. What can stop being so heavy is the self-blame. Chances are nobody failed at fundraising here. The organization was built with a twelve-month clock and then asked to do multi-year work, and it did roughly what that setup tends to produce. You are where you are, it is what it is. Once the structure changes, the same people, the same mission, and the same donor list start producing something entirely different, because the effort finally accumulates instead of resetting. Doing Work That Compounds This is not about asking bigger. It is about building an organization that can hold a relationship long enough for the ask to make sense. Nonprofits can raise transformational money.They can pay their fundraisers well enough to keep them.They can stop rebuilding donor relationships from scratch every eighteen months. Not by pushing harder, by building systems that hold. About the Guest Bill Crouch is the CEO of BrightDot Fundraising Advisors and has spent more than 40 years helping nonprofits transform fundraising into meaningful, lasting relationships with donors. A former college president, fundraising expert, author, and Honorary Fellow at Oxford University, Bill is the author of Mattership™: Making Donors Feel They Matter, where he shares practical strategies for building trust and inspiring generosity. Connect with Bill: Website: http://thebrightdot.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/brightdot LinkedIn personal: Bill Crouch LinkedIn Be sure to subscribe to Inspired Nonprofit Leadership so that you don't miss a single episode, and while you're at it, won't you take a moment to write a short review and rate our show? It would be greatly appreciated! Let us know the topics or questions you would like to hear about in a future episode. You can do that and follow us on LinkedIn .