How do we recover from the exhaustion and pain of the pandemic? How do we lead our organizations into the post-pandemic world with responsible leadership in service for our communities? On today’s episode, social impact leader Chi Nguyen gives us the real talk on how to approach our leadership and the way we show up with a feminist and inclusive lens. 

Chi’s tips on approaching leadership from a feminist and inclusive lens:

1. Caregiving is deeply feminist. Caregiving translates into leadership at all levels of our society. Leaders who understand the value of caregiving have the potential to transform how we are organized and governed. 
2. Purpose and responsibility driven. Think about responsibility not just for ourselves and our immediate community, but our collective responsibility for this planet and future generations. 
3. Show up as our whole selves. We carry what’s going on in our lives, our identities, and our values to the table and so let our authenticity and experience shine through our decision making and leadership. 
4. Be ok with the discomfort when wrestling with power. Disrupting systemic privilege and power structure is uncomfortable but a necessary part of the work in service for our communities. And it’s not just about disrupting power structures outside of our own organizations and our sector. We have to be able to look inward as well. 

Favourite Quotes from Today’s Episode

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“When I think about inclusive leadership and feminist leadership, it's about bringing that whole person and all of the weight of that into decision making, into how we run our organizations with lots of forgiveness and resiliency, and frankly, real humanity.”

“The best community programming and best response to community initiatives is a program that is for us by us - fundraised, led, designed, implemented. That is the model for ownership of community solutions, but it is not how our systems have been built. We need to move from a charitable model to collective impact model.”

Resources from this Episode

The Good Partnership

Chi Nguyen 

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How can I close that sponsorship deal? This is the question that keeps many fundraisers and Executive Directors up at night. On today’s episode, Charmaine Hammond, partnership development expert at Raise a Dream, shares with us an easy-to-follow, 7-step framework for building long lasting partnerships.

Myths that Charmaine wants us to leave behind

1. You have to shoehorn your nonprofit into a partnership. Have a discovery call with a potential partner and assess if there is an alignment before proceeding further. You don’t have to pursue a partner that has no value and impact alignment with your organization.
2. If there is a problem with partnership deliverables, let’s not report the problem until the point of no return. Engage your partner early on with the problem and invite them to be part of the solution. Your partner is invested in the success of the partnership just as you are. 

Charmaine’s tips on building partnerships

Listen for the full episode to get all of Charmaine's tips and the complete 7-step framework. 

1. Go beyond the obvious for partnership research. Try to see where your partners are speaking at, what social media engagement they are doing, and what campaigns they are involving themselves in. 
2. Let the partnerships/sponsors tell you what to include in a proposal. Ask them explicitly what would be helpful to include, what should not be included, who else will be involved in the decision making process and viewing the proposal etc. 
3. Continue to consistently engage your partners after the partnership is concluded. Get in touch with partners and see how they’re doing. Keep tabs on what initiatives they’re engaged in. Share program updates from your side. Keep in touch with them like your friends and the relationship will flow organically. 

Favourite Quotes from Today’s Episode

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“I don't want any surprises when potential partners read the proposal and contract I send over. So when a potential partner asks for a proposal, I say absolutely, I can put it together and ask these questions: what would you like me to send you? Who else is going to be looking at it just you? Okay. Oh, you've got to bring in some other team members, what will they want to see? How many pages? What do I not need to cover? What do I need to ensure is in there for you to take this forward and sell it?”

“What I have learned is the earlier you bring a possible issue forward to a partner, the more support you get in the solution, because nobody at this point wants to see  failure. Everybody is committed to make the partnership successful. So, let people be part of the solution.”

Resources from this Episode

The Good Partnership

Raise a Dream

Connect with Charmaine on Linkedin

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We’re so busy taking care of everything that often we forget to take care of ourselves first. How do we create space for ourselves in our day to day so that we build resilience in the long run? Tune in to this amazing conversation with Komal Minhas, a resilience educator with a mission to help people rise through adversity 

Myths that Komal wants us to leave behind

1. We need to build resilience or learn to be resilient. You’re already resilient. We’re all resilient by being able to live through life and overcoming difficult things. Believing that you already have resilience in you is the first time towards building an even more resilient system of habits and behaviours for yourself. 
2. We need to avoid burnout and low points in life. Instead, accept that we will inevitably experience burnouts and low points in life, and focus on when we do experience those difficult periods, what is the system in our life that will help us get back to baseline, and how fast. 

Komal’s tips for cultivating resilience in the long run

1. Celebrate what we have overcome. Celebrating moments that you have exercised resilience and perseverance to overcome difficulties is just as important as celebrating the positive moments in your life. Only when you start seeing and recognizing your incredible resilience that you can cultivate it further.
2. Create space in your day to day for yourself. Are you reserving time and space for yourself to move, eat, relax, breathe? Be a better friend to yourself every day, rather than waiting for your mind and body to be totally burned out to step up your self care game. 
3. Cultivate your identity and wholeness outside of work. Find joy and fun things that nurture your soul outside of your work so that work and productivity are not the only things that define you and confine your life. 
4. Build wellness habits that you enjoy and have an accountability buddy or community. The key is to focus on wellness habits that you truly like to do. Start with small things, and try to find a buddy or a community of people to keep you accountable. That will likely make the habits stick. 

Favourite Quotes from Today’s Episode

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“We often say celebrate your birthday; celebrate the promotion; celebrate the good things. How often do we encourage each other to celebrate those difficult things? But it's equally as important, if not more important, because we expect only positivity to be celebrated when in fact like that tenacity, perseverance, resilience we have for overcoming difficult things is really what makes those positive moments matter that much more.”

“How do we cultivate a wholeness in our identity outside of work when we are confined to our homes. This is the challenge we face in this pandemic. And if instead of feeling victimized by that, we can flip the switch and say, I'm going to rise to this challenge. I'm going to make game nights with my friends online or with my family. I'm going to constantly move my body, I'm going to find pockets of joy, I am going to turn off my laptop at six o'clock. I'm going to set boundaries with work. We can almost gamify developing our wholeness, outside of our productivity, and for me that's a big aspect of resiliency that we need to talk about in our work-addicted culture.”

Resources from this Episode

The Good Partnership

Komal’s website

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We often think about branding for our organizations as something that speaks to communities we serve and stakeholders we answer to. We forget to count our staff and prospective staff in that list. How is your organization speaking to current and future employees? On today’s podcast, Laura Tolhoek, President of Essential HR, shares with us how to build your employer brand and recruit and keep the talents your team needs. 

Laura’s tips on building your employer brand

1. Understand and clarify your organization’s value proposition to employees and show that in your job posting.  What experience are you offering to your team? What are your values and what is your culture like? Answer these questions internally and make sure you communicate these in job postings. 
2. Build a pay compensation framework. This will help guide the leadership team in hiring, and if you are confident in your pay compensation framework, there is no reason why the organization cannot share salary range in job posting. Pay range transparency is what candidates look for as an indicator of the organization’s value in pay equity. 
3. Amplify what’s working and aligned with your employer brand. So often we focus on what is not working in our HR practice and our culture, and forget about things that are working. Lean into what is already working so well and amplify those aspects in your organization. 
4. Make onboarding a priority. The onboarding process can make or break a new hire’s experience. Don’t just hand off a bunch of documents and policies to the new hire. Make sure to have someone introduce the organization and be available to the person. If you are the hiring manager and you do not have the capacity, that’s ok. Assign this task to people in your company who are keen on doing this and love meeting new people. 

Favourite Quotes from Today’s Episode

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“If you can provide yourself with the pay compensation framework that you're confident in, and if you're confident in those numbers, then there's no problem providing those numbers to other people and include in job posting, because you can give the reasons why they're there.”

“Anything to do with HR, top to bottom, is about communication. There is no such thing as over-communication in the recruitment process.” 

Resources from this Episode

The Good Partnership

Essential HR

Laura on Linkedin

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More and more organizations are prioritizing diversity and inclusion as their strategic priorities. But how are organizations actually doing this work? On today’s episode, Trish Mandewo, Founder & CEO at Synergy on Boards Consulting Group and Coquitlam City Councillor, shares with us how to distinguish D&I tactics that are lip service and perpetuate harm from those that have a lasting and meaningful impact. 

Myths that Trish wants us to walk away 

1. If we have diverse representation in our leadership team and on our board, our organization will be inclusive. Tokenism is far from diversity and inclusion. As well, don’t automatically assume BIPOC people have the expertise or responsibility to push for diversity, inclusion and equity at the organization. 
2. We will do a D&I training and we will have done “the work.” If your mindset is that D&I work is something to be done within a short span of time with limited effort and resources, you’re already starting at the wrong place. Diversity takes time, and diversity, inclusion and equity is a commitment, not a temporary goal. 

Trish’ tips on building diverse and inclusive culture

1. When you recruit, look outside of your own circle. If you’re struggling to look for diverse talents, it’s not that there are none. Most likely, it’s because your organization has been looking at the same places or engaging the same exec search firm that doesn’t include diverse talents in their network. Get out of your familiar circle and cast the net wider.
2. Assess your inclusive framework with all kinds of inclusion in mind. Don’t limit your equity and inclusive framework and policy to inclusion based on race. There are many kinds of discrimination, gender based, age based, disability based etc. Look at everything with an inclusive lens. 
3. Don’t do preferential hiring based on diversity measures and then shove all the EDI responsibilities to those employees or board members. This in itself is perpetuating the narrative and culture of discrimination. No one wants to be seen, valued or hired solely based on their race, gender, age etc. Trust and value diverse talents for their competencies and apply true meritocracy. 

Favourite Quotes from Today’s Episode

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“We need to not wait to be invited to come to the circle. We need to invite ourselves into the circle. Because when you experience inequity over the years, you get to a point where you just think you’re just going to stand outside the circle and look in. Keep inviting yourselves into the circle.”

“Inclusion starts now, and diversity takes time. Show me that your company actually has an inclusion framework so that when the person that you're looking for comes in,  they're going to come into your place that’s welcoming, where they can feel like they belong. If your organization is just going to hire diverse candidates and do nothing else, then you might be bringing in people into an environment which is not ready or welcoming for them.”

Resources from this Episode

The Good Partnership

Trish on Linkedin

Synergy on Boards

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How can charities become “investment-ready”? On today’s podcast, Narinder, Managing Partner at Marigold Capital, shares with us what impact investors, grantors, and other funders, are looking for when choosing charity partners, and how charities can assess whether an investor or funder is the right fit for them. 

Myths that Narinder wants us to walk away 

1. We have to fit a program into funders’ objectives. If you are tweaking a program so much to fit funders’ objectives to the extent that it does not align with your organization's mission and vision anymore, you have to pause and ask yourself what is the long term value that this funding will bring to your organization. 
2. Never say no to money. It takes courage for the leaders of a nonprofit to assess any given funding is aligned with their mission and vision. Be very clear of what your vision is. If there is no alignment, it is ok to walk away. 

Narinder’s tips on becoming investment ready:

1. Do your research on similar charities in the space and highlight your unique value proposition. Your understanding on who else is doing similar work as your charity and rationale for why your organization’s work is different, unique or needed will show to the funders that you have a deep understanding of the space you’re in and what your organization’s role in the space is. 
2. Celebrate your leadership team’s lived experience. More and more, funders and impact investors are just valuing the leadership team’s professional experience. They also assess the lived experience of the board and staff to get a sense of their potential community expertise and perspective. 
3. Have a clear vision on how the investment will fit into your strategy, not the other way around. Constantly inventing programs to fit a funding requirement not going to work. Impact investors care about the sustainability of your organization’s business model. They would be less likely to invest in your organization if they don’t see themselves adding value to your work in the long term. 

Favourite Quotes from Today’s Episode

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“Asking a simple question of who else is doing what you're doing and how is your approach different sometimes is the most revealing. If what your organization is doing is unique that no one is coming close to what you're doing, but you don't have a sense of your neighbor who's doing a similar program, that tells me a lot about the actual work that you're engaging in and potentially the why.”

“As a funder, I most appreciate when the executive directors say - this is my strategy, and this is your funding bucket and this is how it fits into my strategy that I've already defined. That way you're not unintentionally getting into mission drift and find yourself creating many different programs that may or may not drive value for the organization.”

Resources from this Episode

The Good Partnership

Narinder on Linkedin

Marigold Capital

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What do funders really look for in a proposal? How do they decide what to fund and what not to? These are the burning questions we have when laboring hours and hours of work for a funding application. On today’s podcast, we go behind the scenes with a funder and connect with Stephanie Rebello, Manager of Sustainability and Inclusion at LoyaltyOne to tackle all your burning questions. 

Myths that Stephanie wants us to walk away 

1. Getting a corporate grant is a cheque exchange. Gone are the days that corporate philanthropy is transactional relationship. Corporate funding managers like Stephanie care deeply about how corporate and charitable partners can co-create sustainable values.  
2. Don’t report on bad news. Trust that your funders value resilience and adaptability and have faith in your expertise. When facing problems like the unexpected impact brought about by the global pandemic, be transparent with your funders, tell them the problems you’re facing, outline your pivot plan, and let them know how they can support you. 

Stephanie’s tips on building partnership with funders

1. Propose joint value proposition. Whether it’s for a pitch or a funding application, do your homework in thinking about what the funder can bring to the table and what your charity can bring to the table to co-create values for each other. Oftentimes, charities will have insights into specific communities that the funders would never have, and funders will have certain capabilities and capacities in a specific sector that the charities don’t have. Think holistically and creatively about how those cross sections can bring about collaboration and impact. 
2. Take a co-design approach. One size does not fit all. Understand specific funders’ needs, objectives and capabilities in partnering with you and design the partnership proposal with both your charity and the funder’s perspectives in mind. Be open to get feedback and design with the funder. This process might take longer but the result will be rewarding for both parties in the partnership. 
3. Lean in to your community insights and subject expertise. These are valuable assets that the funders won’t have or won’t know. Lean in your strength and inspire your funders in both your proposal and reporting. 

Favourite Quotes from Today’s Episode

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“Ask what are some joint value propositions of what we're doing and what you're doing. One thing I love about working with some nonprofits is that deep knowledge that they have on their community members that I will never have. But I have some of the products, services, some of the data analytics and some of the powerhouse tools and resources. When you put them together, it’s really awesome and you can see some amazing sustainable impacts” 

“We’re seeing such a transition and such a disruption in both the corporate social responsibility sector and the philanthropy sector, because we're no longer looking at transactional relationships. We're now more actively involved with purpose driven work products and services that give back.”

Resources from this Episode

The Good Partnership

Connect with Stephanie on Linkedin

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Social media is one of those things that almost everyone has, but very few use it well. On today’s podcast, we invited Brock Warner, fundraiser and author of the book From the Ground Up: Digital Fundraising for Nonprofits to walk us through how to build a consistent and effective social media strategy. 

Myths that Brock wants us to walk away 

1. All my followers will see every post I post, right? Only about 10% of your followers will see each of your organic posts. For your posts to make it to more people’s feeds, it needs to attract engagement (sharing and commenting)
2. There is a secret for making viral posts: there are so many factors that will inspire people to share, and different audience personalities behave differently. There is no one strategy that will work all the time other than consistently trying, testing, and understanding your audience. 

Brock’s tips on increasing social media engagement 

1. Empathize with your audience and be intentional in your social media posts. Who is your donor base? What are they interested in? What is it that you would like your posts to do for your audience? Take time to come up with hypotheses for these questions and let the answers guide the way you craft your posts. 
2. Build loyalty consistently over time. Post consistently, be available and be transparent to your followers. When people interact with your posts and ask you questions, be there to socialize with them. Test out different kinds of content and see what works. 
3. Connect your social media strategy with your email marketing strategy.  Email remains one of the most effective ways for storytelling and converting audiences to become donors. Plan for evergreen content on your social media with a call to action for them to subscribe to your email list. 

Favourite Quotes from Today’s Episode

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“The golden rules apply now more than ever. In fundraising, people give to people telling good stories, relating on a very human level, being open and honest and transparent. These are the things that no matter what the algorithm is people like and are going to resonate with.” 

“For a smaller organization, you can quickly come up with what 40% of your donor base tends to look like and sound like and be interested in. So if you start with putting yourself in that person's shoes. What would that person want to see. Let that guide your decisions about the tone, the voice, the length you use in your social media posts.” 

Resources from this Episode

The Good Partnership

Brock’s Linkedin

Brock’s book: From the Ground Up: Digital Fundraising for Nonprofits

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If things are not broken, why change?

But what are some fundamental assumptions and myths that we believe in working in the charitable sector that hinder us from enabling changes and delivering impact? On today’s podcast episode, Rickesh Lakhani, Executive Director of Future Possibilities for Kids and a passionate champion of grassroots organizations, joins us to bust these myths and question status-quo that does more harm than good. 

Big questions about the sector we tackle on this episode 

1. Is it ethical to invest in our staff? Investing in our staff and our team is key to the long term sustainability of our organizations. Moreover, investing in the organization’s infrastructure, system and process is equally important. 
2. Do we have to choose between being donor-centred and being community centred? Fundraising is supposed to enable us to do our work for our communities, not hinder it. Donor-centricity doesn’t mean to please donors at all cost. Do not be afraid to have difficult conversations with donors when their approach of philanthropy does not align with your values and might cause harm to the communuty. 
3. Who can give?  We often make assumptions about who has the capacity to give and who doesn’t. We also often normalize the practice of 100% staff and board giving but don’t customize the strategy and approach for the organization. There are many ways people can contribute to the organization, and there are also donors that can and will give but the organization precludes them right from the prospecting stage. 
4. Can charities do harm? Just because charities set out to do good, it doesn’t mean they can’t do harm. Doing good and doing harm can co-exist. If we let people in the sector get off the hook just because they intend to do good, we are reinforcing racism, seixsm, and other systemic issues.
5. Is our work political? By law, charities’ work needs to be bipartisan, but it doesn’t mean our work is apolitical. By nature, our work is political as we push for social changes. Charities can add values to enabling social changes and responding to societal crises like the pandemic by being nimble innovators and community connectors.

Favourite Quotes from Today’s Episode

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“If we are not investing in our infrastructure, our system, our process, our people - our future, how are we going to tackle the magnitude of the work that we set out to do?” 

“I don’t want the kind of fundraising that donors can have so much power that they can harass a staff member and walk away.  I don’t want the kind of fundraising that reinforces the stereotypes of communities. I don’t want growth that is at the expense of our employees.” 

“People who do community work are some of the most resourceful people I know. Imagine giving them enough funding and resources - what might be the impact and changes they bring?” 

Resources from this Episode

The Good Partnership

Connect with Rickesh

Rickesh’s Twitter

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Good financial health is the cornerstone of a sustainable nonprofit. As nonprofit leaders, we all know the importance of financial management, but budgets and audits still give us the worst headaches. How can we build up our financial management muscles and confidence? On today’s episode, Betty Ferreira, Founder of GoodCasting who has trained and coached many nonprofit leaders on financial management, shares with us how we can figure out our organization’s finances without headaches and tears. 

Myths that Betty wants us to walk away

1. You have to be good at math to manage your finances. Managing finance doesn’t necessarily require you to be good at math. A lot of it is exercising your logical thinking muscles. 
2. You have to have all the answers whenever you’re talking about finance with your board. Don’t aim for perfection. Aiming for perfection will trap you into the habit of avoiding talking about your organization’s finance with your board of directors. No one has all the answers. Work with your board together on figuring out your finances. 

Betty’s tips on figuring out your finance

1. Know that you can transform your organization’s business model and financial structure. Many inherit the business model and financial structure from their predecessors and assume that they can’t change them. You can (and in some cases, should) absolutely make changes to the financial structure to suit the changing needs of the organization. 
2. Have a thorough and transparent discussion about finance with your board. It’s tempting to provide the minimum and most succinct version of your financial statements to your board. But in order for them to do their job of providing financial oversight, you should present them more comprehensive information including the financial position statement of your organization. Expect that this process will take time and effort in going back and forth with your board. 

Favourite Quotes from Today’s Episode

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“Doing the match and sorting out your finance is connected to social justice -- they’re about your organization’s resilience and impact.”

“For both fundraising and finance management, don’t wait for the crisis to build the competencies” 

Resources from this Episode

The Good Partnership

Find Betty at GoodCasting

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