The Rich Nonprofit

Last week, Lisa told you why she renamed her community to Impact Rebels. This week, she's going deeper. She's calling out the six patterns she sees in women who care deeply about a cause but haven't built anything yet: Some of them she's been guilty of herself. This isn't Lisa on a soapbox. It's her handing you a mirror. 

Main Topics Covered in this Episode:

• The Mission Statement Mirage and why your About page isn't impact
• Why showing up at the gala once a year doesn't count
• Why polished leadership doesn't move people
• The lie of "I just need more revenue first"
• The single move to take this week if any of these landed

Resources Mentioned in the Episode:

• Book your Impact Reality Check, 30 minutes, $97 (https://tidycal.com/poppygrovellc/impact-reality-check)

Connect with Lisa Avila:

• LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/lisamavila/
• Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/lisathestrategist/
• TikTok - https://www.tiktok.com/@lisaavila.co

More About The Rich Nonprofit Podcast: The Rich Nonprofit is for cause-driven women who are starting or scaling a nonprofit, or integrating impact into their brand. Each week, Lisa Avila delivers straight talk on strategy, leadership, and legacy.

Lisa sat down for a four-hour Telegram session with her mentor this week and realized something had to shift. Not the business. Her. In this episode she tells the story of what happened, why the good girl identity has to go, and what it means for every woman still showing up as the polished version of herself in her business.

Built for Bigger is now Impact Rebels. This is where she explains why. If you were raised to be nice, agreeable, and not too loud, and you're starting to feel that version of yourself isn't going to build what you came here to build, this episode is for you.

Main Topics Covered in this Episode:

• Why the Catholic school good girl training was killing her business voice
• The moment she decided to shed the polished version
• What Impact Rebels stands for and who belongs in it
• Why the polished version of your content doesn't land the way you think it does
• Finding the women who've been waiting for your volume to come up

Resources Mentioned in the Episode:

• Join the Impact Rebels FREE Telegram Community (https://poppygrovellc.myflodesk.com/impact-rebels)

Connect with Lisa Avila:

• LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/lisamavila/)
• Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/lisathestrategist/)
• TikTok (https://www.tiktok.com/@lisathestrategist_)

More About The Rich Nonprofit Podcast: The Rich Nonprofit is for cause-driven women who are starting or scaling a nonprofit, or integrating impact into their brand. Each week, Lisa Avila delivers straight talk on strategy, leadership, and legacy.

Last week Lisa talked about the women who stop showing up for you. This week, she's talking about why YOU don't stop — even when it's thankless, even when it costs you friendships, even when you're exhausted and nobody's clapping. Inspired by a blog post she read about justice and why some people are wired at a deep level to fight for fairness, Lisa breaks down the difference between ambition and a calling, why women in impact work burn out, and how to build sustainability around the fire inside you.

She also gets into what happens when the people around you feel threatened by your growth, and why their reaction is never about you.

If you've ever laid awake thinking about funding, programming, and why the city council still hasn't emailed you back, this is Part 2 of a two-episode series. Start with Episode 60 if you haven't heard it yet.

Main Topics Covered in this Episode:

• The difference between ambition and a calling, and why it matters for how you build
• Why some women are wired to fight for justice and literally cannot look away from unfairness
• The burnout trap: how "I'll just do it myself" keeps your impact small
• What happens when people around you feel threatened by your growth
• How the 4 P's framework turns your calling into something sustainable and scalable

Resources Mentioned in the Episode:

• Brand Impact Strategy: build impact into your business without burning out (https://poppygrovellc.com/brand-impact-strategy)

Connect with Lisa Avila:

• Join impact rebels free Telegram community (https://poppygrovellc.myflodesk.com/impact-rebels)
• LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/lisamavila/)
• Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/lisathestrategist/)
• TikTok (https://www.tiktok.com/@lisathestrategist_)

More About The Rich Nonprofit Podcast:

The Rich Nonprofit is for cause-driven women who are starting or scaling a nonprofit, or integrating impact into their brand. Each week, Lisa Avila delivers straight talk on strategy, leadership, and legacy.

You drove home from the event. You checked your phone. Nobody said anything. Nobody recorded your talk, nobody tagged you, nobody sent you a text that said "that was amazing." And you sat with that.

This week on The Rich Nonprofit, Lisa gets personal about the loneliness of leading as a woman building impact. She shares what happened with a friend she supported for over a decade who got a big opportunity and then acted like she barely knew her. She talks about the pattern she sees in her own life and in her clients' lives: women who pour into other women, champion them, believe in them, and then one day look around and those women are gone.

This episode is about what happens when "empowered women empower women" doesn't play out the way it should, why it hurts so much when the people closest to you go quiet, and why Lisa is choosing boundaries over bitterness and not slowing down.

Main Topics Covered in this Episode:

• The pattern Lisa sees in her own life and her clients': pouring into women who disappear once they level up
• Lisa's personal story about a decade-long friendship that went silent after a big opportunity
• Why nobody talks about what happens when "empowered women empower women" doesn't play out
• The difference between setting boundaries and getting bitter
• Archangel Michael energy: boundaries up, heart open, vision clear

Resources Mentioned in the Episode:

• Brand Impact Strategy: build impact into your business without burning out (https://poppygrovellc.com/brand-impact-strategy)
• DM Lisa on Instagram: (https://www.instagram.com/lisathestrategist/)

Connect with Lisa Avila:

• Join Built for Bigger FREE Telegram Community (https://poppygrovellc.myflodesk.com/built-for-bigger)
• LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/lisamavila/)
• Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/lisathestrategist/)

More About The Rich Nonprofit Podcast:

The Rich Nonprofit is for cause-driven women who are starting or scaling a nonprofit, or integrating impact into their brand. Each week, Lisa Avila delivers straight talk on strategy, leadership, and legacy.

You've got the mission on your heart and the drive to match. But should it be a nonprofit, or should you keep running a mission-driven business? And once you decide, what does the money side of this look like when nobody's handing you a manual? This week on The Rich Nonprofit, Lisa sits down with bookkeeping and QuickBooks expert Erika Millard for an honest, back-and-forth conversation about what it takes to start and scale a nonprofit, from both the strategic and financial sides. They cover when a nonprofit makes more sense than a business, the systems you need before you think you need them, how to stop avoiding your numbers, and why paying yourself as a founder is not optional. If you've been sitting on a nonprofit idea or you're early in the build and feeling overwhelmed by the financial piece, this episode gives you the clarity and the structure to move forward.

Main Topics Covered in this Episode:

• How to know if your idea should be a nonprofit or stay a mission-driven business
• Why Lisa recommends starting with impact in your brand before going full nonprofit
• The first systems every nonprofit founder needs (donor management + bookkeeping software)
• TechSoup: the money-saving hack most founders find out about too late
• Finance Friday and other ways to make bookkeeping a habit you keep
• Why keeping personal and nonprofit finances separated matters from day one
• How networking fuels nonprofit funding (and it's simpler than you think)
• Board relations, grant applications, and why your numbers need to be dialed in
• When and why nonprofit founders should start paying themselves

Resources Mentioned in the Episode:

• Brand Impact Strategy: 90-minute intensive to map impact into your brand - https://poppygrovellc.com/brand-impact-strategy
• TechSoup: discounted software for nonprofits (techsoup.org)

Connect with Lisa Avila:

• Join Built for Bigger FREE Telegram Community - https://poppygrovellc.myflodesk.com/built-for-bigger
• LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/lisamavila
• Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/lisathestrategist/

Connect with Erika Millard:

• Website: https://erikamillard.com/

More About The Rich Nonprofit Podcast:

The Rich Nonprofit is for cause-driven women who are starting or scaling a nonprofit, or integrating impact into their brand. Each week, Lisa Avila delivers straight talk on strategy, leadership, and legacy.

A woman DM'd Lisa about her teenage son, who's already making an impact in his community. No business, no team, no funding. Just an idea and action. Meanwhile, the women Lisa works with have the revenue, the audience, and the experience, and they're still telling themselves they're not ready. This episode is a mirror. Lisa gets into the real reason successful women stall on building impact (it's not logistics, it's identity), and walks through what a first step can look like when you stop waiting for someday.

Main Topics Covered in this Episode:

• Why "someday" is not a strategy and what's keeping successful women stuck in research mode instead of action
• The identity tension: she's been rewarded for building wealth, not for leading impact
• Why the fear isn't paperwork. It's putting her name on something and not being able to follow through
• What first steps look like when you don't need (or want) a nonprofit

Resources Mentioned in the Episode:

• Brand Impact Strategy: 90-minute intensive to map impact into your brand

00:00 - The DM about a high schooler creating community impact 

00:57 - You have everything he doesn't except the willingness to start 

01:28 - Someday is not a strategy. It's a hiding place 

01:58 - Why she hasn't started: it's not laziness, it's caring too much 

02:27 - The identity problem: rewarded for wealth, not impact 

03:25 - What she's really afraid of (and it's not the 501(c)(3)) 

04:49 - You don't have to start a nonprofit to start creating impact 

06:17 - Scholarships, giving programs, partnerships, and saying it out loud 

08:04 - The 4 P's framework and Brand Impact Strategy 

09:03 - You've had this idea longer than he's been alive. What are you going to do about it?

Connect with Lisa Avila:

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/lisamavila

Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/lisathestrategist/

More About The Rich Nonprofit:

The Rich Nonprofit is for cause-driven women who are starting or scaling a nonprofit, or integrating impact into their brand. Each week, Lisa Avila delivers straight talk on strategy, leadership, and legacy.

Gabs Hayes came into her strategy session with a plan to build a Reddit community, launch an in-person event in April, and keep producing her family podcast. Three months later, all three have changed.

In this episode, Gabs sits down with Lisa to talk through every pivot, why she made each one, and what it looks like to build a nonprofit without white-knuckling the whole thing.

If you've ever felt the pressure to be on every platform, force growth before you're ready, or hold every key to the kingdom yourself, this one's for you.

Main Topics Covered in this Episode:

• Why Gabs scrapped her in-person April event and what she's doing instead (hint: dance party in a box)
• The Reddit experiment and why building a community on a new platform wasn't the right move for this season
• What happened when her husband went all-in on their annual fundraiser
• Pausing the podcast and letting go of content that wasn't driving the mission forward
• How to build a nonprofit without holding all the keys yourself

Connect with Lisa Avila:

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/lisamavila

Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/lisathestrategist/

Connect with Gabs Hayes / Overwhelmed and Over It:

Website: overwhelm.family 

Resources Mentioned in the Episode:

• Overwhelmed and Over It: overwhelm.family

More About The Rich Nonprofit:

The Rich Nonprofit is for cause-driven women who are starting or scaling a nonprofit, or integrating impact into their brand. Each week, Lisa Avila delivers straight talk on strategy, leadership, and legacy.

You watch the news, feel that pit in your stomach, and then go right back to your content calendar. You're not alone. Most successful women have separated "impact" from "business" in their heads, and that separation is keeping them stuck. In this episode, Lisa breaks down why you don't need a nonprofit to start using your brand for more than selling, and walks through ways to build impact into what you already have.

Main Topics Covered in this Episode:

• Why successful women keep putting impact in a separate box from their business
• Ways to create impact without a 501(c)(3)
• How to stop defaulting to end-of-year donations and gala appearances as your entire impact strategy

• Why complicity isn't just silence. It's having the resources and choosing comfortable over committed

Resources Mentioned in the Episode:

• Brand Impact Strategy: 90-minute intensive to map impact into your brand - https://poppygrovellc.com/brand-impact-strategy

Connect with Lisa Avila:
- Join Built for Bigger FREE Telegram Community: https://poppygrovellc.myflodesk.com/built-for-bigger
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lisamavila/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lisathestrategist/

More About The Rich Nonprofit Podcast:
The Rich Nonprofit is for mission-driven women who are starting or scaling nonprofits. Each week, Lisa Avila delivers straight talk on nonprofit strategy, funding, leadership, and legacy.

What does running a nonprofit look like when you’re also a mom navigating your daughter’s surgery, managing a growing team, chasing pharma sponsorships, and trying to remember the last time you took a day off? This week on The Rich Nonprofit, my client Brindley Brooks, founder and CEO of HS Connect, is pulling back the curtain on all of it.

HS Connect is a nonprofit raising awareness for Hidradenitis Suppurativa (HS), a chronic skin condition that affects 1 in 100 people and is rarely talked about. Brindley went from working a full-time job while building her nonprofit on the side to running a global organization, pulling off a runway show on the largest billboard in Times Square in 60 days, and closing in on $1.75 million in funding. She treats her nonprofit like a business because it is one. And she learned that lesson the hard way.

This conversation covers nonprofit funding strategy, what nonprofit founder burnout looks like when no one sees what’s happening behind the scenes, how to pivot your nonprofit strategy without losing your mission, building a team and letting go of your ego, going global, and the advice Brindley would give any woman thinking about starting a nonprofit. If you’re running a nonprofit or sitting on an idea for one, this is the episode you need to hear.

Main Topics Covered in this Episode:
- How Brindley started a nonprofit while working a full-time job
- The Times Square billboard and runway show (and pulling it off in 60 days)
- Nonprofit funding strategy: the chicken-or-the-egg budget problem every founder faces
- How to pivot your nonprofit strategy midstream without losing your mission
- Nonprofit founder burnout: the invisible cost of leading as a mom, wife, and CEO
- Why your nonprofit is a business and should be treated like one from day one
- How chronic illness steals everyday experiences and how HS Connect gives them back

Connect with Lisa Avila:
- Join Built for Bigger FREE Telegram Community: https://poppygrovellc.myflodesk.com/built-for-bigger
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lisamavila/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lisathestrategist/

More About The Rich Nonprofit Podcast:
The Rich Nonprofit is for mission-driven women who are starting or scaling nonprofits. Each week, Lisa Avila delivers straight talk on nonprofit strategy, funding, leadership, and legacy.

You've been told that the most noble form of giving is anonymous. Quiet. Behind the scenes. And that wanting your name on a foundation or nonprofit is ego.

In this episode, Lisa calls that out for what it is: conditioning that keeps powerful women on the sidelines of philanthropy. She discusses why visible leadership isn't vanity, it's accountability. Why your great-grandchildren deserve to find more than a LinkedIn profile when they look you up. And why the double standard around women claiming credit for their impactful work needs to end.

If you've been thinking about the foundation you want to build, this episode will encourage you.

Main Topics Covered in this Episode:

•  Why wanting your name on a nonprofit or foundation isn't ego

•  The conditioning that keeps successful women giving quietly instead of leading visibly

•  Accountability, visibility, and legacy: the three reasons your name matters

•  The double standard women face when they claim credit for impact work

•  What happens to women who never claim their philanthropic vision

Resources Mentioned in the Episode:

•  Join Nonprofit Ready on Telegram (free): https://poppygrovellc.myflodesk.com/nonprofitready

Connect with Lisa:

•  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lisathestrategist/

•  LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lisamavila

More About The Rich Nonprofit:

The Rich Nonprofit is for mission-driven women who are starting or scaling nonprofits. Each week, Lisa Avila delivers straight talk on nonprofit strategy, funding, leadership, and legacy.