The Influential Nonprofit

Running a nonprofit can be lonely, and your board of directors may never think about your growth as a leader. In this episode, Allison Wyatt explains how to build a personal "circle of champions," so you always have someone to call when things get hard.

Key Takeaways:

• Your board of directors supports the organization, not you. Your growth as a leader is up to you.
• Each seat on a personal board fills a different gap. A sponsor opens doors, a coach keeps you accountable, a mentor saves you from trial and error, and a feedback giver tells you the truth.
• Good leaders go first. When you model growth and talk openly about your mistakes, it's safer for your team to try new things.
• Feedback should work like a pitching coach: small corrections as you go, not a surprise at the end of the season.
• Fill the seats before you need them. Being clear about who you call for what means no one friend gets asked for everything.

“You need somebody you can trust who's willing to be really honest with you and not just affirm you.”

“That's the thing we see in a lot of organizations is that people are really scared to try new things because failure is not safe.”

“We are going to make some mistakes. We are going to learn things. We are going to use that data to do better the next time.” 

- Allison Wyatt

Allison Wyatt is the Founder and CEO of Edgility Talent Partners, where she leads the delivery of equity-focused talent management, executive coaching, and compensation strategy for nonprofit and social sector organizations. A former Vice President of Human Capital Consulting Services at Koya Leadership Partners and Vice President of Human Assets at Education Pioneers, she brings deep expertise in building scalable HR practices, performance management, and pay equity frameworks. Allison holds an MBA from the MIT Sloan School of Management and a BA in East Asian Studies from Wesleyan University.

Reach out to Allison Wyatt at:

Website: https://www.edgilitytalent.com/team/allison-wyatt 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/allisonwyatt/ 

Toolkits: https://www.edgilitytalent.com/building-your-personal-board 

Let’s Work Together to Amplify Your Leadership + Influence

1. Group Coaching for Nonprofit Leaders

Want to lead with more clarity, confidence, and influence? My group coaching program is designed for nonprofit leaders who are ready to communicate more powerfully, navigate challenges with ease, and move their organizations forward.

2. Team Coaching + Training

I work hands-on with nonprofit teams to strengthen leadership, improve communication, and align around a shared vision. Whether you’re growing fast or feeling stuck, we’ll create more clarity, collaboration, and momentum—together.

3. Board Retreats + Trainings

Your board has big potential. I’ll help you unlock it. My engaging, no-fluff retreats and trainings are built to energize your board, refocus on what matters, and generate real results.

Get your free starter kit today at www.theinfluentialnonprofit.com

Connect with Maryanne about her coaching programs:

https://www.courageouscommunication.com/connect

Book Maryanne to speak at your conference:

https://www.courageouscommunication.com/nonprofit-keynote-speaker

At 60, Maryanne discovered her hair had been naturally wavy all along — she'd just never created the conditions for it to show. In this solo episode, she turns that surprise into a fundraising lesson: your next donor, partner, and big idea are probably already in your orbit, waiting to be activated.

Key Takeaways:

• Capacity is usually present; conditions are what's missing.
• "I need more" often means you haven't fully seen or used what you already have.
• Most people give because they were asked — the connection-to-action gap is usually a missing invitation, not a missing audience.
• Your email list and existing relationships outperform purchased lists and cold social media.
• One simple question activates a network: Who do you know that needs this?
• Certainty and control are myths; chasing them manufactures frustration, while experimentation makes room for something new.

“Sometimes we are asked to look outside of ourselves for tools and solutions that may already be in us.”

“There are people who want to act; they just haven't been asked.”

“Influence isn't about forcing movement; it's about creating the conditions in which movement becomes possible.” 

- Maryanne Dersch

Let’s Work Together to Amplify Your Leadership + Influence

1. Group Coaching for Nonprofit Leaders

Want to lead with more clarity, confidence, and influence? My group coaching program is designed for nonprofit leaders who are ready to communicate more powerfully, navigate challenges with ease, and move their organizations forward.

2. Team Coaching + Training

I work hands-on with nonprofit teams to strengthen leadership, improve communication, and align around a shared vision. Whether you’re growing fast or feeling stuck, we’ll create more clarity, collaboration, and momentum—together.

3. Board Retreats + Trainings

Your board has big potential. I’ll help you unlock it. My engaging, no-fluff retreats and trainings are built to energize your board, refocus on what matters, and generate real results.

Get your free starter kit today at www.theinfluentialnonprofit.com

Connect with Maryanne about her coaching programs:

https://www.courageouscommunication.com/connect

Book Maryanne to speak at your conference:

https://www.courageouscommunication.com/nonprofit-keynote-speaker

By gathering the right people around a bold vision instead of trying to carry everything alone, nonprofit leaders can completely transform their strategy. In this episode, you’ll hear how shifting paradigms, redesigning meetings, and embracing generative conflict unlock new levels of impact, funding, and sustainability.

Key Takeaways:

• The way leaders see their role and their ecosystem determines which strategies they even recognize as possible.
• Vision doesn’t have to mean more weight for one person; it can become lighter when leaders intentionally gather others around the work.
• Treating meetings as spaces for inquiry—not just report-outs—creates more engagement, better problem-solving, and stronger culture.
• Generative conflict requires both attentiveness to others’ needs and the courage to name your own, so solutions can move beyond win/lose thinking.
• Sustainable impact on the outside depends on modeling sustainability, participation, and alignment inside the organization.

“We need to be generative, not just kind.”
 

“Board members are there because they want to serve, they want to contribute, they don't just want the information dump.”

“Am I here to carry this whole thing on my back, or am I here to actually gather the team needed internally and externally?” 

- Jeanine Becker

Jeanine Becker works where personal growth meets strategy. She partners with founders, funders, and executives responsible for moving millions — in grants, revenue, policy, and people — in the shift from carrying to gathering. She taught negotiation and collaboration at Stanford for a decade and founded On Purpose Together. 

Reach out to Jeanine Becker at:

Website: https://www.onpurposetogether.com/ 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/beckerjeanine/ 

More Information: https://www.onpurposetogether.com/jeanine-becker-lib 

Book your Discovery Call here: https://www.onpurposetogether.com/call 

Let’s Work Together to Amplify Your Leadership + Influence

1. Group Coaching for Nonprofit Leaders

Want to lead with more clarity, confidence, and influence? My group coaching program is designed for nonprofit leaders who are ready to communicate more powerfully, navigate challenges with ease, and move their organizations forward.

2. Team Coaching + Training

I work hands-on with nonprofit teams to strengthen leadership, improve communication, and align around a shared vision. Whether you’re growing fast or feeling stuck, we’ll create more clarity, collaboration, and momentum—together.

3. Board Retreats + Trainings

Your board has big potential. I’ll help you unlock it. My engaging, no-fluff retreats and trainings are built to energize your board, refocus on what matters, and generate real results.

Get your free starter kit today at www.theinfluentialnonprofit.com

Connect with Maryanne about her coaching programs:

https://www.courageouscommunication.com/connect

Book Maryanne to speak at your conference:

https://www.courageouscommunication.com/nonprofit-keynote-speaker

Tired of chasing donors and over-following up? Learn how stepping back, releasing control, and trusting the “edge of your agency” can transform your donor relationships.

Key Takeaways:

• Obsessing over the perfect number of follow-ups misses the real issue: you cannot control another person’s timing, readiness, or decisions.
• Your responsibility is to communicate clearly, create safety, and make the next step obvious, not to force movement or manufacture urgency.
• The moment you cross from honoring someone’s agency into trying to control their response, you’ve shifted from influence into pressure and risk pushing them away.
• Acceptance means recognizing there is nothing more for you to do, not that there is nothing you can do; that distinction turns helplessness into freedom.
• Leaving space, doing nothing after you’ve fulfilled your role is part of true influence, because it allows the other person to exercise their own sovereignty.

"When you cross that boundary, when you start to try to affect their agency, that's called pressure, and that's where your influence ends, and pressure begins."

"The more you try to make it happen, the less it's going to happen."

"Sometimes action isn't strategy; sometimes the action is self-soothing, and it may relieve your discomfort in the moment, because you don't have to sit in uncertainty, you don't have to feel rejected, and you don't have to acknowledge that you might not get the outcome that you want."

- Maryanne Dersch

Ask for and receive all you want, need, and deserve without feeling rejected, ineffective, or pushy. Learn to manage your mindset, lead yourself and others more effectively, and have the meaningful conversations that drive your most important work. 

Let’s Work Together to Amplify Your Leadership + Influence

1. Group Coaching for Nonprofit Leaders

Want to lead with more clarity, confidence, and influence? My group coaching program is designed for nonprofit leaders who are ready to communicate more powerfully, navigate challenges with ease, and move their organizations forward.

2. Team Coaching + Training

I work hands-on with nonprofit teams to strengthen leadership, improve communication, and align around a shared vision. Whether you’re growing fast or feeling stuck, we’ll create more clarity, collaboration, and momentum—together.

3. Board Retreats + Trainings

Your board has big potential. I’ll help you unlock it. My engaging, no-fluff retreats and trainings are built to energize your board, refocus on what matters, and generate real results.

Get your free starter kit today at www.theinfluentialnonprofit.com

Connect with Maryanne about her coaching programs:

https://www.courageouscommunication.com/connect

Book Maryanne to speak at your conference:

https://www.courageouscommunication.com/nonprofit-keynote-speaker

Scarcity-driven fundraising tactics-chasing, over-following up, pushing too soon-might be quietly sabotaging your donor relationships. In this episode, Maryanne Dersch shows you how to shift from pressure to flow.

Key Takeaways:

• Scarcity in fundraising often begins as a nervous system response to uncertainty—like being behind goal or a donor going quiet—and can drive behaviors such as chasing, over-following up, and pitching too soon, which donors experience as pressure.
• Maryanne’s Donor Flow Framework (Awareness → Interest → Connection → Action) emphasizes moving people at their natural pace; scarcity wants to “skip ahead” to the ask, while flow means meeting donors exactly where they are and offering the next natural invitation.
• Shifting from pushing to curiosity, pitching to connecting, and chasing to inviting creates conditions where donors lean in rather than pull back, because they feel understood, sovereign, and not treated like ATMs.
• Sustainable fundraising grows from confidence, connection, and influence—trusting the value of your work, understanding what matters to donors, and creating conditions for movement—supported by intentional mindset practices like mantras about time and money that keep you out of scarcity loops.

"Not responding is a response."

"Scarcity tries to manufacture movement. Influence creates the conditions for movement, and that is my whole life's work in that sentence: creating conditions for movement."

"Sustainable fundraising doesn't come from pushing harder. It comes from creating the conditions in which donors naturally want to move closer."

- Maryanne Dersch

Reference:

Scarcity Donor Flow - https://drive.google.com/file/d/1F1Q-Lbp1BQ5bklAsNqAf92zScepjBBOF/view?usp=sharing

Ask for and receive all you want, need, and deserve without feeling rejected, ineffective, or pushy. Learn to manage your mindset, lead yourself and others more effectively, and have the meaningful conversations that drive your most important work. 

Let’s Work Together to Amplify Your Leadership + Influence

1. Group Coaching for Nonprofit Leaders

Want to lead with more clarity, confidence, and influence? My group coaching program is designed for nonprofit leaders who are ready to communicate more powerfully, navigate challenges with ease, and move their organizations forward.

2. Team Coaching + Training

I work hands-on with nonprofit teams to strengthen leadership, improve communication, and align around a shared vision. Whether you’re growing fast or feeling stuck, we’ll create more clarity, collaboration, and momentum—together.

3. Board Retreats + Trainings

Your board has big potential. I’ll help you unlock it. My engaging, no-fluff retreats and trainings are built to energize your board, refocus on what matters, and generate real results.

Get your free starter kit today at www.theinfluentialnonprofit.com

Connect with Maryanne about her coaching programs:

https://www.courageouscommunication.com/connect

Book Maryanne to speak at your conference:

https://www.courageouscommunication.com/nonprofit-keynote-speaker

Scared of planned giving because it feels too technical, expensive, or “only for big institutions”? In this episode, you’ll learn how even the smallest nonprofit can launch a simple, effective planned giving program in just one week—without a big budget, complex gift vehicles, or a team of experts.

Key Takeaways:

“[Planned giving] is a conversation that’s the opposite of death. It's a conversation about life: the life, longevity, and sustainability of your nonprofit in your community.”

“MEAL is an acronym for Meals Expertly Allow Learning.” 

“The most powerful idea in planned giving is also the simplest: start.”

- Tony Martignetti

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.

All the book info is at PlannedGivingAccelerated.com.

He started as a front-line Planned Giving fundraiser in 1997 and kicked off his consulting in 2003. 

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.

Reach out to Tony Martignetti at:

Website: https://www.plannedgivingaccelerated.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tonymartignetti/

Let’s Work Together to Amplify Your Leadership + Influence

1. Group Coaching for Nonprofit Leaders

Want to lead with more clarity, confidence, and influence? My group coaching program is designed for nonprofit leaders who are ready to communicate more powerfully, navigate challenges with ease, and move their organizations forward.

2. Team Coaching + Training

I work hands-on with nonprofit teams to strengthen leadership, improve communication, and align around a shared vision. Whether you’re growing fast or feeling stuck, we’ll create more clarity, collaboration, and momentum—together.

3. Board Retreats + Trainings

Your board has big potential. I’ll help you unlock it. My engaging, no-fluff retreats and trainings are built to energize your board, refocus on what matters, and generate real results.

Get your free starter kit today at www.theinfluentialnonprofit.com

Connect with Maryanne about her coaching programs:

https://www.courageouscommunication.com/connect

Book Maryanne to speak at your conference:

https://www.courageouscommunication.com/nonprofit-keynote-speaker

What if you didn’t have to choose between trusting an expert and trusting yourself? In this solo episode, Maryanne unpacks how to find the right guide to navigate uncertainty—without ever giving up your agency, autonomy, or judgment.

Key Takeaways:

“A poor guide says, Here's what you should do. I want you to do this. A great guide says, Here's what I know.”

“We don't remove the uncertainty; we work to navigate it together.”

“Sometimes the obstacle isn't the situation; it's the story we've attached to the situation.” 

- Maryanne Dersch

Episode Reference:

Grisel Castaneda

Let’s Work Together to Amplify Your Leadership + Influence

1. Group Coaching for Nonprofit Leaders

Want to lead with more clarity, confidence, and influence? My group coaching program is designed for nonprofit leaders who are ready to communicate more powerfully, navigate challenges with ease, and move their organizations forward.

2. Team Coaching + Training

I work hands-on with nonprofit teams to strengthen leadership, improve communication, and align around a shared vision. Whether you’re growing fast or feeling stuck, we’ll create more clarity, collaboration, and momentum—together.

3. Board Retreats + Trainings

Your board has big potential. I’ll help you unlock it. My engaging, no-fluff retreats and trainings are built to energize your board, refocus on what matters, and generate real results.

Get your free starter kit today at www.theinfluentialnonprofit.com

Connect with Maryanne about her coaching programs:

https://www.courageouscommunication.com/connect

Book Maryanne to speak at your conference:

https://www.courageouscommunication.com/nonprofit-keynote-speaker

What if your leadership wasn’t defined by urgency and chaos, but by calm, clarity, and presence? In this episode, you’ll learn how to become a regulating presence whose nervous system quietly shapes the entire culture of your organization.

Key Takeaways:

“You don't make somebody calm; you make calm accessible through productivity, through predictability, through curiosity, consistency, psychological safety, clarity, and simple next steps.” 

“Clarity creates leadership that reassures.”

“If urgency becomes contagious, so can steadiness.”

- Maryanne Dersch

Let’s Work Together to Amplify Your Leadership + Influence

1. Group Coaching for Nonprofit Leaders

Want to lead with more clarity, confidence, and influence? My group coaching program is designed for nonprofit leaders who are ready to communicate more powerfully, navigate challenges with ease, and move their organizations forward.
 

2. Team Coaching + Training

I work hands-on with nonprofit teams to strengthen leadership, improve communication, and align around a shared vision. Whether you’re growing fast or feeling stuck, we’ll create more clarity, collaboration, and momentum—together.
 

3. Board Retreats + Trainings

Your board has big potential. I’ll help you unlock it. My engaging, no-fluff retreats and trainings are built to energize your board, refocus on what matters, and generate real results.

Get your free starter kit today at www.theinfluentialnonprofit.com

Connect with Maryanne about her coaching programs:

https://www.courageouscommunication.com/connect

Book Maryanne to speak at your conference:

https://www.courageouscommunication.com/nonprofit-keynote-speaker

What if your leadership wasn’t defined by urgency and chaos, but by calm, clarity, and presence? In this episode, you’ll learn how to become a regulating presence whose nervous system quietly shapes the entire culture of your organization.

Key Takeaways:

“You don't make somebody calm; you make calm accessible through productivity, through predictability, through curiosity, consistency, psychological safety, clarity, and simple next steps.” 

“Clarity creates leadership that reassures.”

“If urgency becomes contagious, so can steadiness.”

- Maryanne Dersch

Let’s Work Together to Amplify Your Leadership + Influence

1. Group Coaching for Nonprofit Leaders

Want to lead with more clarity, confidence, and influence? My group coaching program is designed for nonprofit leaders who are ready to communicate more powerfully, navigate challenges with ease, and move their organizations forward.

2. Team Coaching + Training

I work hands-on with nonprofit teams to strengthen leadership, improve communication, and align around a shared vision. Whether you’re growing fast or feeling stuck, we’ll create more clarity, collaboration, and momentum—together.

3. Board Retreats + Trainings

Your board has big potential. I’ll help you unlock it. My engaging, no-fluff retreats and trainings are built to energize your board, refocus on what matters, and generate real results.

Get your free starter kit today at www.theinfluentialnonprofit.com

Connect with Maryanne about her coaching programs:

https://www.courageouscommunication.com/connect

Book Maryanne to speak at your conference:

https://www.courageouscommunication.com/nonprofit-keynote-speaker

When do you ignore the red flags your body, brain, and intuition are screaming at you—and what does that cost your leadership? In this episode, learn how to stop outsourcing trust and start making calm, confident decisions rooted in your own inner knowing.

Key Takeaways:

"You can have every signal, every red flag, every fact, every intuitive knowing, and still betray yourself."

"Our goal is to become people who never have to abandon themselves in order to avoid getting hurt."

"Because when you trust yourself, you don't have to know how the story ends. You simply have to know that you'll stay with yourself through every chapter."

- Maryanne Dersch

Let’s Work Together to Amplify Your Leadership + Influence

1. Group Coaching for Nonprofit Leaders

Want to lead with more clarity, confidence, and influence? My group coaching program is designed for nonprofit leaders who are ready to communicate more powerfully, navigate challenges with ease, and move their organizations forward.

2. Team Coaching + Training

I work hands-on with nonprofit teams to strengthen leadership, improve communication, and align around a shared vision. Whether you’re growing fast or feeling stuck, we’ll create more clarity, collaboration, and momentum—together.

3. Board Retreats + Trainings

Your board has big potential. I’ll help you unlock it. My engaging, no-fluff retreats and trainings are built to energize your board, refocus on what matters, and generate real results.

Get your free starter kit today at www.theinfluentialnonprofit.com

Connect with Maryanne about her coaching programs:

https://www.courageouscommunication.com/connect

Book Maryanne to speak at your conference:

https://www.courageouscommunication.com/nonprofit-keynote-speaker