Since posting, Jazz has stepped down as CEO of TurnSignl.

--

Jazz Hampton has sat in every seat that shapes how a community solves its problems: as a nonprofit board member, a for-profit founder, and a candidate for public office. In this wide-ranging conversation, he and host Elizabeth Kitzenberg dig into what the nonprofit sector can learn from the way startups ask for money and why confidence, not scarcity, is the real fundraising strategy.

Jazz co-founded TurnSignl, an app that connects drivers to a live attorney in the moment they need one most, in the wake of George Floyd's murder. He built it as a for-profit on purpose. Along the way, he's served on the boards of Catholic Charities Twin Cities, the Minneapolis Foundation, and the Great North Innocence Project, helped exonerate a man wrongfully imprisoned for nearly two decades, and ran a campaign for mayor of Minneapolis.

In this episode:

• "Call your shot" — why asking for advice gets you money, and asking for money gets you advice
• The marathon-with-no-food problem: how "doing more with less" became a badge of honor that holds the sector back
• What people actually want from leaders in a crisis: a vision, not a ten-point plan
• Why the "Midas touch" leader's real job is to give it away and build an organization that outlasts them
• Why nonprofits hide failure when startups treat it as a badge of honor
• The myth Jazz wants to bust about who the "talented" people really are
• How a board should empower a leader and when to step back

A conversation about confidence, storytelling, and refusing to make the work smaller than it is.

🎙️ Proof of Impact is a production of Gleam Tower Media, recorded at Picnic Linden Hills in southwest Minneapolis.

📬 Connect with Elizabeth Kitzenberg on LinkedIn or learn more about nonprofit consulting at thekitzenberggroup.com.