Missions to Movements

We talk with Priyanka Dutt about how GivingTuesday grows in India when local leaders shape it for their own communities and invite others into shared purpose. We dig into why belonging drives everyday giving, and why retention fails when nonprofits treat supporters like past-tense transactions. 

GivingTuesday is coming up on December 1! Rally volunteers, raise money, and build awareness for your cause. Tools and resources are at GivingTuesday.org/participate. 

Now is the time to start making your plans for GivingTuesday. Visit GivingTuesday.org/participate for resources and inspiration.

Let's Connect!

• Send a DM on Instagram or LinkedIn and let us know what you think of the show!
• My book, The Monthly Giving Mastermind, is here! Grab a copy here and learn my framework to build, grow, and sustain subscriptions for good.
• Want to book Dana as a speaker for your event? Click here!

We talk with Birce Altay, Director of the GivingTuesday Europe Hub, about how a global generosity movement grows when it stays local and community-owned. We dig into distributed leadership, why participation is a core metric, and how a simple invitation can mobilize people who were never asked. 

• Birce's move from digital journalism into civil society communications and philanthropy work 
• How GivingTuesday Turkey starts by reaching out and building local ownership 
• Why localization matters and why “copy and paste” does not work across countries 
• How the Europe Hub strengthens connection, resource sharing, and learning across leaders 
• What GivingTuesday looks like on the ground across Europe from street activations to thought leadership 
• Why distributed leadership helps scale impact, with France activating 12 plus cities 
• Measuring participation and active citizenship alongside nonprofit fundraising totals 
• The power of the ask, starting small, and treating GivingTuesday as an experiment you learn from 

GivingTuesday is coming up on December 1! Rally volunteers, raise money, and build awareness for your cause. Tools and resources are at GivingTuesday.org/participate. 

Now is the time to start making your plans for GivingTuesday. Visit GivingTuesday.org/participate for resources and inspiration.

Let's Connect!

• Send a DM on Instagram or LinkedIn and let us know what you think of the show!
• My book, The Monthly Giving Mastermind, is here! Grab a copy here and learn my framework to build, grow, and sustain subscriptions for good.
• Want to book Dana as a speaker for your event? Click here!

Monthly giving shouldn’t be a line item or a one-off campaign. It should be core infrastructure.

In this special announcement episode, I sit down with Justin McCord, EVP of Strategic Partnerships and Corporate Development at RKD, to share something we’ve been working on. 

After two years of partnering on Monthly Giving Awareness Week, RKD and Positive Equation are launching the Monthly Giving Accelerator, and I’m joining RKD as Monthly Giving Executive in Residence.

In this episode, we cover:

• Why now is the moment to treat monthly giving as a product, not a tactic
• How the Monthly Giving Accelerator works: three months, six organizations per cohort, with peer learning and hands-on support
• What you get: one-on-one time, The Monthly Giving Mastermind book, access to Monthly Giving Builder, a matched peer, and an in-person retreat
• Why programs stall, and what Justin and I see most often
• Who the program is for, and who it’s not for

The first cohort starts in January, with six spots. Apply at https://rkdgroup.com/monthly-giving-accelerator

Watch the video version

Now is the time to start making your plans for GivingTuesday. Visit GivingTuesday.org/participate for resources and inspiration.

Let's Connect!

• Send a DM on Instagram or LinkedIn and let us know what you think of the show!
• My book, The Monthly Giving Mastermind, is here! Grab a copy here and learn my framework to build, grow, and sustain subscriptions for good.
• Want to book Dana as a speaker for your event? Click here!

I’ve spent a lot of time this year talking to nonprofit leaders about monthly giving, and after studying more than 400 audits, one thing became REALLY clear. 76% of nonprofits can set up a monthly gift in under three clicks, but the real gap starts after someone gives.

In this solo episode, I’m breaking down the five biggest gaps I found, why a $36 monthly gift can actually be worth more than $2,000 over the life of that donor, and how to find new audiences you haven’t asked yet so you can build the kind of stewardship that makes people want to stay.

So are you building towards a specific result by December 31st, or are you creating a sustainable monthly giving program for 2027?

Resources & Links

Is your monthly giving program leaking revenue? Take the 5 minute audit and find out what to fix first.

GivingTuesday is coming up on December 1! Rally volunteers, raise money, and build awareness for your cause. Tools and resources are at GivingTuesday.org/participate. 

GivingTuesday is coming up on December 1! Rally volunteers, raise money, and build awareness for your cause. Tools and resources are at GivingTuesday.org/participate

Now is the time to start making your plans for GivingTuesday. Visit GivingTuesday.org/participate for resources and inspiration.

Let's Connect!

• Send a DM on Instagram or LinkedIn and let us know what you think of the show!
• My book, The Monthly Giving Mastermind, is here! Grab a copy here and learn my framework to build, grow, and sustain subscriptions for good.
• Want to book Dana as a speaker for your event? Click here!

46% of nonprofit CEOs say burnout is “very much” a concern, so what needs to change for nonprofit leaders to stay in this work?

For a very special final conversation in my Atlanta CEO series, I’m bringing ALL four leaders together to talk about relationships, community, visibility, sustainability, and what it takes to lead an organization right now. Carolina, Tammy, Chidi, and Kenita get into why CEOs need a public voice, how to separate your identity from your job title, succession planning, letting your team own pieces of the vision, and the most important leadership skill… subtraction!

We also talk fundraising and challenge long-held nonprofit norms around overhead, wellness, and what funders choose to support. And we end with a reminder I think every nonprofit CEO needs to hear.

Resources & Links

Connect with our guests on LinkedIn: Carolina García Jayaram, Chidi Asoluka, Kenita Smith, Tammy Tibbetts

GivingTuesday is coming up on December 1! Rally volunteers, raise money, and build awareness for your cause. Tools and resources are at GivingTuesday.org/participate. 

GivingTuesday is coming up on December 1! Rally volunteers, raise money, and build awareness for your cause. Tools and resources are at GivingTuesday.org/participate

Now is the time to start making your plans for GivingTuesday. Visit GivingTuesday.org/participate for resources and inspiration.

Let's Connect!

• Send a DM on Instagram or LinkedIn and let us know what you think of the show!
• My book, The Monthly Giving Mastermind, is here! Grab a copy here and learn my framework to build, grow, and sustain subscriptions for good.
• Want to book Dana as a speaker for your event? Click here!

Did you know that 88% of nonprofits operate on less than $500,000? Kenita Smith started H.O.P.E, Inc. with no nonprofit experience, no donors, and no grants, AND grew the organization from $11,000 to nearly $900,000 (!)

Kenita founded H.O.P.E after her own experience as a single parent trying to finish college, and one of her biggest growth strategies was getting out and telling that story. Whenever she spoke, they raised money, so she made it a goal to speak somewhere every single month.

We talk about why Kenita went years without paying herself, the pressure she felt to prove the organization was legitimate, and why 100% board buy-in is non-negotiable for a growing nonprofit. Plus, after helping more than 100 parents graduate and coaching 58 nonprofit CEOs, she shares what she’s building toward next.

Resources & Links

Connect with Kenita on LinkedIn and learn more about H.O.P.E, Inc. on their website.

GivingTuesday is coming up on December 1! Rally volunteers, raise money, and build awareness for your cause. Tools and resources are at GivingTuesday.org/participate. 

GivingTuesday is coming up on December 1! Rally volunteers, raise money, and build awareness for your cause. Tools and resources are at GivingTuesday.org/participate

Now is the time to start making your plans for GivingTuesday. Visit GivingTuesday.org/participate for resources and inspiration.

Let's Connect!

• Send a DM on Instagram or LinkedIn and let us know what you think of the show!
• My book, The Monthly Giving Mastermind, is here! Grab a copy here and learn my framework to build, grow, and sustain subscriptions for good.
• Want to book Dana as a speaker for your event? Click here!

Once a CEO, always a CEO? That's not how my current guest sees it. Tammy Tibbetts started She’s the First at 23, became its first employee after landing two $25,000 grants, and spent nearly 17 years leading the organization through growth, workforce reductions, and ultimately a merger with Girl Rising. 

Her biggest lesson from that entire arc? The unglamorous work you’re doing every day is building the muscle you’ll need for the challenges you can’t see coming yet.

We talk about what Tammy learned from some of her loneliest years as a solo CEO, why strong boards should be looking after the CEO as a whole person, and a question we don’t talk about enough: what comes AFTER the CEO title? Tammy makes such a good case for why former CEOs can bring an entirely different level of perspective to philanthropy, chief of staff roles, and other seats at the table.

Resources & Links

Learn more about Tammy Tibbetts on her website, and check out her Merger Diaries series on LinkedIn.

Learn more about She’s the First and Girl Rising.

International Women’s Forum

GivingTuesday is coming up on December 1! Rally volunteers, raise money, and build awareness for your cause. Tools and resources are at GivingTuesday.org/participate. 

GivingTuesday is coming up on December 1! Rally volunteers, raise money, and build awareness for your cause. Tools and resources are at GivingTuesday.org/participate

Now is the time to start making your plans for GivingTuesday. Visit GivingTuesday.org/participate for resources and inspiration.

Let's Connect!

• Send a DM on Instagram or LinkedIn and let us know what you think of the show!
• My book, The Monthly Giving Mastermind, is here! Grab a copy here and learn my framework to build, grow, and sustain subscriptions for good.
• Want to book Dana as a speaker for your event? Click here!

When a high schooler at NewComm manages a $10,000 budget, the money is real. So is the authority, and so are the neighborhoods they're designing solutions for.

Chidi Asoluka spent 16 years as a classroom teacher before founding NewComm, a civic design studio where high schoolers from historically marginalized communities pair literature with real community challenges. He joins me in Atlanta for a special in-person CEO Series episode to share how a dream about Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon became an English elective in Philadelphia, then a summer program for 11 students, and now serves more than 150 students in the Bronx, with Brooklyn coming this fall.

We also talk about the bank CEO who paid his full Georgetown tuition, why success shouldn't require erasure, how senior "managing partners" help run the organization, and how the Net Gala, the first project students funded with their $10,000 budget, became NewComm's annual fundraiser.

Resources & Links

Learn more about NewComm and follow along on Instagram. Connect with Chidi on Instagram and LinkedIn.

Watch Chidi's TED Talk

GivingTuesday is coming up on December 1! Rally volunteers, raise money, and build awareness for your cause. Tools and resources are at GivingTuesday.org/participate. 

GivingTuesday is coming up on December 1! Rally volunteers, raise money, and build awareness for your cause. Tools and resources are at GivingTuesday.org/participate

Now is the time to start making your plans for GivingTuesday. Visit GivingTuesday.org/participate for resources and inspiration.

Let's Connect!

• Send a DM on Instagram or LinkedIn and let us know what you think of the show!
• My book, The Monthly Giving Mastermind, is here! Grab a copy here and learn my framework to build, grow, and sustain subscriptions for good.
• Want to book Dana as a speaker for your event? Click here!

What if the boldest thing philanthropy could do is to hand an organization $250,000, and $50,000 directly to the individual to support the whole leader? My next guest runs a foundation around that exact idea. 

Carolina García Jayaram, founding CEO of the Elevate Prize Foundation, believes that strategic visibility can be just as catalytic as funding, especially for social entrepreneurs trying to grow beyond the people and communities who already know them.

We talk about Elevate Prize’s “Make Good Famous” philosophy, what relationship-based philanthropy looks like, and how Elevate Studios helped one storytelling series generate more than 3 MILLION views and 100,000 new YouTube subscribers.

Resources & Links

Connect with Carolina García Jayaram on LinkedIn and Instagram.

Learn more about Elevate Studios, the Get Loud Award, and the Elevate Prize Foundation. 

GivingTuesday is coming up on December 1! Rally volunteers, raise money, and build awareness for your cause. Tools and resources are at GivingTuesday.org/participate. 

GivingTuesday is coming up on December 1! Rally volunteers, raise money, and build awareness for your cause. Tools and resources are at GivingTuesday.org/participate

Now is the time to start making your plans for GivingTuesday. Visit GivingTuesday.org/participate for resources and inspiration.

Let's Connect!

• Send a DM on Instagram or LinkedIn and let us know what you think of the show!
• My book, The Monthly Giving Mastermind, is here! Grab a copy here and learn my framework to build, grow, and sustain subscriptions for good.
• Want to book Dana as a speaker for your event? Click here!

When World Central Kitchen shows up within hours of a disaster, that response didn’t start that day. The relationships, infrastructure, and funding were already in place, and more than 80,000 Kitchen Corps members are a huge reason why.

Monthly Giving Manager Lindsey Latham joins me to share how WCK turned an already successful recurring donor base into a true community, including a monthly newsletter that catapulted their open rates to 40-45%, along with a 4-part welcome series designed around stewardship.

We also talk about their $500,000 monthly giving match, why it keeps matching gifts through the end of the year instead of just once, and what nonprofits with an unnamed recurring donor base can learn from their retention first strategy.

Resources & Links

Learn more about World Central Kitchen and Kitchen Corps and connect with Lindsey on LinkedIn.

Everything Is Tuberculosis by John Green

GivingTuesday is coming up on December 1! Rally volunteers, raise money, and build awareness for your cause. Tools and resources are at GivingTuesday.org/participate. 

GivingTuesday is coming up on December 1! Rally volunteers, raise money, and build awareness for your cause. Tools and resources are at GivingTuesday.org/participate

Now is the time to start making your plans for GivingTuesday. Visit GivingTuesday.org/participate for resources and inspiration.

Let's Connect!

• Send a DM on Instagram or LinkedIn and let us know what you think of the show!
• My book, The Monthly Giving Mastermind, is here! Grab a copy here and learn my framework to build, grow, and sustain subscriptions for good.
• Want to book Dana as a speaker for your event? Click here!