This article was written by Ariel Glassman. She is no longer with Ostara, but we want to preserve this piece so that you can learn from her and from the work she did while part of the Ostara team. GiveBIG is coming on Tuesday, May 3. But you knew that already, right? You’ve already registered your nonprofit to participate. You’ve seen the GiveBIG blog. You’ve seen The Seattle Foundation’s GiveBIG FAQ. You’re signed up for the next webinar on April 14.  You’re salivating over this year’s big innovations: real-time leaderboards, scheduling donations early, and giving donors the option to cover the credit card processing fees for their own gifts. It’s ChrismaHannuKwanzikuh for fundraisers! And it’s easy to get lost in the slew of hyper-specific tactical campaign tricks and tips on display. But after 5 years of helping many nonprofits grow their GiveBIG results, we want to remind you of 3 key strategies that every nonprofit can use and adapt to maximize their GiveBIG haul – no matter your mission space or how many development staff you have. These are focused not just on helping you raise money on May 3, but on helping you create and maintain long-term relationships with your GiveBIG donors. 1. Provide your own matching funds to inspire and incentivize donors. Yes, GiveBIG has its own proportional stretch pool. Whatever percentage of the overall contributions given on May 3 your organization takes, it will receive the same percentage of The Seattle Foundation’s stretch pool. But the stretch pool amount changes every year, and can grow right up until the day of GiveBIG. It’s a moving target. So, this all means it can be tricky to message to donors – it’s a tough concept to explain in a single tweet or Facebook post. Here’s why securing a 1:1 match from a major donor or a group of donors on top of your stretch pool allocation will help your campaign. It can set your campaign apart from other groups. Every participating nonprofit benefits from the stretch pool. If a donor is choosing between two organizations for their last $50 gift, and one organization can tell them their $50 becomes $100… who do you think the donor will choose? It can move the needle on your major donor relationships. Helping you generate new donors or more dollars through GiveBIG is a major accomplishment. All great major gifts work helps major donors achieve a specific impact that they care about. So asking the right donor to match other gifts on GiveBIG will boost your relationship with everyone involved. It shows your donor base that others have skin in the game. In the era of social proof dominating online giving, transparently demonstrating that your campaign was worthy of investment before it even began will motivate many other people to give – or give more than they otherwise would have. 2. Fundraise for a specific project, not just for your organization. Most organizations use GiveBIG as an opportunity to raise sorely needed unrestricted dollars. But, like most fundraising opportunities, the more specific your ask, the more likely donors are to give – and give more. Everyone wants to know their dollars accomplish something real and meaningful. At its heart, fundraising is giving your donors a problem to solve. When you focus on a specific problem, it makes it easy to crystallize your outcomes for donors. This is true in every type of fundraising scenario – events, major gifts, capital campaigns, grants, you name it. And it can be especially hard to connect donors to the specific outcomes for a general operations ask in a rapid-fire, competitive communication moment like GiveBIG. But with smart planning that connects the dots between your budget needs, what matters to your donors, and realistic assumptions about how much you can raise that day, you can have your restricted giving cake and eat it too. For example, you can ask your GiveBIG donors to: Provide the seed or start-up funding for a new project or program that’s in your budget this fiscal year.  For example, an arts organization can ask their GiveBIG donors to help launch their new festival. Cover new equipment or capital costs that were already in your budget. For example, a food bank can ask donors to help fund a new roof to keep their food donations dry and safe. It’s easy to show how leaks mean less hungry people get fed. It’s a concrete problem to ask your donors to solve. Help under-resourced people served continue to participate. For example, a youth leadership organization can ask donors to fund a specific number of scholarships for participants whose families can’t otherwise afford it. Another very easy problem to explain to donors. It’s also much easier to tell the story of your need through effective email communications and social media when you can focus on something specific. Another upside to a specific project-based approach to GiveBIG: it’s easier to create excellent donor stewardship efforts. Which leads us to… 3. Create a great stewardship plan for your GiveBiG donors. Fundraising isn’t just the coaxing, the convincing, the asking, and then the sigh of relief. Once your donors give, you have to follow up with them, tell them how awesome they are, and show them that you’ve put their money to good use. That’s how you get a second gift – or a bigger one. If you don’t have a stewardship plan that defines when and how you thank and report back to different types of donors as part of your annual development plan, make sure you develop one for next fiscal year. Creating one for this year’s GiveBIG donors will help ease you in. There are two types of donor stewardship: love stewardship, which shows how grateful you and the people you serve are to the donor; and impact stewardship, which shows the donor what their funds accomplished. Volunteer opportunities can be an especially effective type of impact stewardship – you can literally put your donors in the mix with your programs and service recipients. Every effective stewardship plan involves both kinds of outreach. Here’s an easy path to effective GiveBIG donor stewardship: Invest in short-term instant love stewardship. Donors report that when their thanks arrive quickly, it makes them feel special – like a real person knows that they did something meaningful, not just an online robot. If many of your donors follow you on social media accounts, it’s easy to do real-time Twitter shout-outs and Facebook posts to both thank your donors and leverage social proof to other potential donors. But that’s a big “if.” There’s another way: GiveBIG’s automatic email receipt infrastructure makes it easy to reach out to your donors lightning-fast after they give. Have your staff take shifts monitoring the email inbox where you receive GiveBIG donation notifications constantly, and give them a goal of responding to every gift within 15 minutes. It’s as simple as re-forwarding the notification receipt to the donor with short, sweet, and easily customized personal note of thanks. This will mean the world to your donors. Develop a plan for long-term impact stewardship. The more specific your ask was, the more obvious it will be how to report back to the donor later. Depending on the time scale of your ask, make a plan for digital and analog communications and volunteer opportunities back to your GiveBIG donors 3, 6, and/or 9 months out from their gift. Tier them so that higher-level donors receive more personalized communications. And make sure you reinforce that with a final touch that lands one month before next year’s GiveBIG. Now go forth and raise big!

In 2015, the Ford Foundation started to talk about inequality in a big way. Ripples of intrigue and hope spread through the fundraising and nonprofit community, and many people eagerly awaited the foundation’s next move. I know I certainly did. Ford Foundation President Darren Walker publicly acknowledged that he has heard the community loud and clear: “Time and again, the organizations we support have said that our prioritizing project support, as opposed to general operating support, tends to stifle their work, forcing them to focus on incremental outputs rather than long-term organizational strategy and effectiveness.” Walker, in his role as president since 2013, is making a name for himself as an exuberant, compassionate champion of global equity. His background and his outspokenness position him as a potential game changer in national and global philanthropy. The New Yorker profiled him and his work recently – Larissa MacFarquhar’s article is worth a read. Of the discussion the foundation is having around how to increase nonprofit sustainability, she notes their acknowledgment of the dark side of general operating support, “You could drown an organization with too much money the way you could drown a plant.” Admirably, Walker has worked through a complicated web to bring the Ford Foundation’s work home to Detroit for the first time in decades, brokering a new bond between the foundation and the Ford family. And, he clearly grapples with the starkly unbalanced power dynamic between the Ford Foundation and the grantees – or more explicitly, the people served by the grantees. MacFarquhar describes, “It was a strange and uncomfortable thing to be a social-justice person in a social-justice foundation committed to ending inequality and yet to find yourself every day in relations that could scarcely be less equal…He was perched on the top of a mountain of money so high that he could barely see the bottom.” Grantstation’s most recent “State of Grantseeking Report” brings to light some data that illustrates these challenges from the other side. Collecting feedback on a broad variety of grant-related issues, the report consolidates roughly 2,500 responses from around the country, representing a wide range of nonprofit organizations in size, sector, and types of revenue sources. Grants for project support were reported as the most frequent type of grant 44% of the time – compared to only 20% of the time for general operating support. Eleven percent (11%) of respondents reported that non-government funders would not cover indirect costs. Meaning that most non-government funders do cover some portion of indirect costs. Any executive director knows that allowing 10% or 15% indirect costs in a project budget is not the same as a general operating gift. Restricted gifts versus unrestricted gifts: the former is more focused on the funder’s needs and priorities, while the latter provides unparalleled freedom for the grantee to do the work. Nonprofits to foundations: “We need the freedom to do our work!” Uncertainty around indirect cost support is rampant; even this partial assistance is not utilized most effectively. 21% of respondents who receive government grants were unsure of exactly how much indirect costs were supported by those grants, and 12% were unsure of the indirect cost allocation in their non-government grants. I can tell you that it’s quite a challenge to make a case for indirect cost support – or general operating support – when the applicant is not clear on these kinds of details. Foundations to nonprofits: “Show us that you will be reliable stewards of large, unrestricted amounts of money!” The Ford Foundation is onto something, because while foundation grants were reported as the smallest revenue source for indirect funding (13%), this figure has doubled over the last 12 months. Individuals still reign as the most frequent source of indirect funding at 37%. When Walker announced the Foundation’s official new goals and priorities, he proudly highlighted the fact that they will now double their overhead allowance from 10% to 20%, calling out the “overhead fiction” that his own organization is complicit in perpetuating. Seattle’s own Vu Le (of Rainier Valley Corps and Nonprofit With Balls) has called this practice to the mat loudly and publicly for many years now. The push for nonprofit sustainability is in direct conflict with the reality that project support is the main type of funding available. “Many funders and business people seem to believe that if nonprofits just try hard enough, they’ll reach this state of funding Nirvana and be self-sufficient and “sustainable.” And if they’re not actively working toward reaching fiscal enlightenment, they shouldn’t be supported.” So, we are at an impasse. It is easy to understand Le’s conundrum – the chicken-and-egg syndrome that infuriates many nonprofit fundraisers and leaders into the wee hours of the morning. And, if the Ford Foundation is representative of a new brand of forward-thinking, equity-driven grantors, then we see that while they understand the need to increase support for overhead, they are not overtly committed to fund general operations (for fear of drowning the plant). The revolution has not arrived. But it may be brewing. A 2007 report from Grantmakers for Effective Organizations, “General Operations,” goes into great detail about the purpose and benefits of general operating funding. Why don’t more grantors provide general operating funding? Program grants are easier to connect to measurable outcomes. What is needed to encourage more general operating grants? Trust between grantor and grantee. There is a national discussion being had about these issues, and Grantstation’s report shows that general operating funds are increasing at a rapid rate, although still a very small piece of the whole picture. But more importantly, a fundamental change in the beliefs of the role of the philanthropic sector will help to push the general operating initiative into the mainstream. The Ford Foundation did not invent this idea, and I don’t see that they have made any drastic changes in their priorities that speak directly to this need. However, they have the ability to bring this topic to the forefront, and they have demonstrated a willingness to do so, even when it is uncomfortable. They are clearly going to great lengths to remind those who need reminding – themselves and others – that philanthropy and social justice are two faces of the same beast. Jennifer Teunon, Executive Director of the Medina Foundation, recently chimed in on this discussion with one of the most encouraging perspectives yet: “We always need to remember that we are investing in their work, not ours…We contributed to them; we can’t take credit for them. And, unless we are fully funding the work, that has to be enough.” Equitable practices really have to come from everywhere – they rise up from the people in the trenches, and they trickle down from the positions of power. Here’s hoping they run into each other somewhere in the middle, in a land where all those involved are meeting their greatest potential – rather than pass each other by like ships in the night.

This article was written by Ariel Glassman. She is no longer with Ostara, but we want to preserve this piece so that you can learn from her and from the wonderful work she did while part of the Ostara team. We want you to trust our experience and our counsel. But to trust us, you have to know us! Over the course of 2016, our blog will feature a profile of a different Ostara consultant each month. We begin with our amazing Vice President, Rebecca Zanatta! 1. What’s the biggest challenge you see for the nonprofit sector? The turnover we see in our staff. Fundraising is a relationship business. We need to remember to build relationships between our donors and the organization, in addition to building them with one person. People give to people; we have to ensure donors have many touch points with different people in our organizations. 2. If you ran your own nonprofit, what would it be? That’s a tough question. Most likely, it would involve women and girls, and an international bent. 3. If you were an animal, what would you be? Definitely an ant: teamwork, persistence and organization. 4. If you were a sandwich, what would you be? Practical and necessary: peanut butter and jelly. 5. If you weren’t a fundraiser, what would you be? An athletic director at an NCAA institution… so, still a fundraiser. 6. What have you learned from collaborating with other Ostara consultants? There’s always more than one way to solve a problem. Solutions come from creative thinking and teamwork… there’s that ant piece of me again! 7. What difficulties did you face earlier in your career (and how did you overcome them)? “You’re so young, how do you know anything?” Developing the confidence in my abilities, and aligning myself with smarter people than me to endorse and support me and my ideas. 8. What is something you wish you knew in the beginning of your career? Focus on planned giving! If you have the luxury of a prospective planned giving donor pool, there is way more ROI than the slog through annual and major gift fundraising. 9. What’s the best piece of advice you’ve been given? Fundraising related? Never go through a day without engaging with at least one donor. Non-fundraising related? Do what you say you’re going to do. 10. What advice would you give to someone starting out in fundraising or nonprofit management? Find a good mentor, someone to work with and learn from. Working with a good leader is almost as important than picking the right mission or organization in the beginning.

This month, the Smithsonian Institution announced a new initiative called American Philanthropy, and a new exhibition called Giving in America. They are hiring a full-time Curator of Philanthropy, expanding their permanent collection, and developing research and scholarship alongside the effort. I. The Smithsonian plays an important and vastly complex role in American identity, preservation, and learning; it’s a philanthropic marvel. Most Americans don’t know that the Smithsonian’s origin lies in the somewhat mysterious bequest of James Smithson, a British scientist who had never been to America. Close to two hundred years later, we now know just how catalytic this extraordinary gift became. Philanthropy is part science and part magic. The combination of detailed strategy and game-changing generosity can be awe-inspiring. In the case of James Smithson, his generosity conjured a world-changing institution out of thin air. II. As a kid in the DC area, I grew up with that classic mix of disdain and wonder with regard to the Smithsonian. I complained about every field trip to the Portrait Gallery or the American History Museum, but I adored the Air and Space Museum’s antique planes, Hubble telescope images, and astronaut ice cream. The Museum of Natural History’s gemstone exhibit boggles my mind to this day. I simply cannot wait to show my young son the taxidermied elephant that lives in their lobby, the preserved giant squid, and the dinosaur skeletons. And then there’s the National Zoo, and the giant pandas, and their cubs. Everyone has their own favorites. But the Smithsonian is so much more than museums. It has a broad reach in the research and preservation sciences, with huge institutional support aimed at everything from environmental sustainability and astrophysics to American art and museum preservation. The Smithsonian Archives are a national treasure. As a songwriter, performer, and scholar of 20th century music, I cannot emphasize enough the importance of the Smithsonian’s acquisition and continuation of the Folkways record label to help preserve and educate our citizens and visitors. Everyone has their own favorites. III. According to 2014 figures, nearly 80% of the Smithsonian is funded by the feds – a combination of appropriations (64%) and grants (15%). When talking about billion dollar budgets, it can be difficult to stop and think about, conceptually, how this could relate to nonprofits in our community with budgets that are 0.05% of that size. But I get a little caught up in imagining what it may have seemed like to old James Smithson. What purpose did he envision for his gift? Did he intend to ignite a civic institution unique in the world? Did he anticipate the thousands of people it would employ, or the millions of lives it would touch? I don’t doubt that many of you reading this have dreamily contemplated the profound efforts of philanthropists and nonprofits alike. Nor do I doubt that you have seen small gifts yield extraordinary outcomes, far greater than could have been imagined. As fundraisers, we often discuss ways to engage new donors and ways to describe impact. Again, this is part science and part magic; some critical things can be predicted, measured, and repeated, while others simply happen whether they were meant to or not. Our job is to generate the opportunity for both science and magic in order to create the foundation for change in our community. IV. The Smithsonian’s vision, “Shaping the future by preserving our heritage, discovering new knowledge, and sharing our resources with the world,” is one that most philanthropists share. From Andrew Carnegie to Bill and Melinda Gates, philanthropists strive to continue to fulfill this vision in myriad ways. There is no right way to make an impact on a person, a family, a city, or a society. Nevertheless, there is great value in appreciating what has worked in the past, how lasting contributions came about, and what conditions allowed them to thrive. Seattle has a long and rich philanthropic history. Wealth generated from natural resources and manufacturing far pre-dates the tech boom of recent decades, and corporations like Boeing, PACCAR, and Weyerhaeuser continue to be important players in the philanthropic landscape of our region. Later, the wealth generated by Microsoft spurned a new wave of extreme growth and innovation in giving. That we are currently experiencing outsized growth of Amazon, radical income inequality, and also social justice advocacy is not mere coincidence. Correlation, of course, does not imply causation, as we who produce grant reports well know. But wealth, philanthropy, and social justice are inextricably linked. Depending on one’s political persuasion, one might add government to that group as well. Given the specialized nature of our region’s economic success and innovation, our potential for national and global influence on the philanthropic landscape is astounding. At Ostara, we often get to learn about new philanthropic initiatives and new nonprofit programs that address our most pressing issues. Many Seattle organizations are deeply involved in promoting a better society – en masse, or one person at a time. Our clients help people with disabilities gain satisfying employment, provide emotional and financial support for cancer patients and their loved ones, provide food for struggling families, educate vulnerable students of all ages, support their college readiness, and mentor them through complex social and emotional learning challenges. Some clients focus on ensuring access to healthcare, some bring the arts to the chronically underserved, and some boost the capacity of other non-profit organizations. That’s just the tip of the iceberg; everyone has their own favorites. The Smithsonian, too, is engaged in this important work on a different scale. Since I left the DC area, they have helped build the national conversation on these topics in their way, first with the opening of the American Indian Museum (2004), and next year with the completion of the National Museum of African American History and Culture (2016). Giving in America adds tremendously to the depth of this conversation. As with most things, it won’t fix the problem, but it is a start.

I’m an idealist. I always have been, and I hope I always will be. This idealism is what drew me to the nonprofit sector at an early age (instead of becoming a lawyer, which is what my mother would have much preferred). You have to be something of an idealist to do this work. Somewhere inside each of us is a voice that says, “I know we can do better [providing equal access to education, meeting basic human needs, protecting natural resources] and I want to devote myself to helping.” We do a great job in the nonprofit sector imagining a better future for society. But we do a “meh” job envisioning a better future for the organizations we create to make that future happen. At any nonprofit happy hour, you’ll find staffers one-upping each other with stories of organizational woe. Healthy nonprofits can be hard to find. In his blog, public-sector leadership expert Bob Behn (a faculty member at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government) suggests there is an Anna Karenina principle at work in government agencies. This idea, drawn from the famous opening line of the great Russian novel, suggests that all happy nonprofits are alike, and that every dysfunctional nonprofit is unhappy in its own way. At Ostara, we have the privilege and responsibility of looking inside nonprofit organizations, seeing what makes them tick, and seeing what gets in their way. In our experience, the nonprofit universe has its own version of the Anna Karenina phenomenon – every organization is unique, and so are their problems. But there’s one thing many struggling organizations have in common: leaders are so busy doing that they avoid the big and vital questions, and problems build. This work is hard. But avoiding the big issues makes it much harder. So how do you get your thinking up to that 30,000-foot level? There’s no right answer, but we’ve put together a list of 13 questions every nonprofit should be able to answer that can give you better insight into your organizational health. If you can’t answer one of these questions, something unhealthy is going on. It may be time to let a problem employee go; invest in evaluation; set a new financial policy to build a cash reserve; write a new development plan; or surprise an exhausted team by unexpectedly canceling a day of work and taking them bowling. If nonprofit leaders are brave enough to ask and answer these questions, it can help jumpstart the process of building a healthier organization. If we can apply some of our idealism in-house, looking bravely at the state of affairs and getting help when we need it, we can move forward and create more perfect organizations. 13 Questions Every Nonprofit Should Be Able to Answer IMPACT Do the people in my organization have a shared definition of success? Does our definition of success have external credibility? Is there a system for measuring our impact against our stated goals? (i.e. what impact does our organization have?) HUMAN CAPITAL Is our staff motivated and engaged? Is there a person (or people) holding the organization back in a significant way? Is there an efficient process for resolving major personnel issues? Is our team having any fun? FINANCE Do our leaders have a solid understanding of the organization’s financial position? Is there a written development plan for how to acquire funding? Does our organization have a reserve, or at least a plan for building one? MISSION Do people in the organization have a shared sense of purpose they can describe? Is our purpose distinct and necessary in the nonprofit marketplace of ideas and services? Does our purpose meet a current and on-going need? Can you think of any others? Feel free to chime in with a comment!

The nonprofit sector has always had its share of challenges. I’ve been involved with nonprofits for over 20 years, and I’ve lived through many of them. But as pressure on nonprofits has increased in recent years, one of the symptoms of a greater problem in the sector has gotten much worse: turnover in development and fundraising staff. Fundraisers are fleeing their organizations and the sector in droves, or they’re turning to cushier jobs at large organizations that are already well-resourced. It’s one of the most disruptive problems in our sector today, and it’s the direct result of a disease that often sets experienced, knowledgeable fundraisers directly at odds with their nonprofit leaders and boards of directors. What is this disease? An unhealthy culture of philanthropy. To be perfectly honest, too many nonprofit leaders view — and treat — fundraising as “less than” their program-focused work. Many talented fundraisers who have developed highly specific skillsets through years on the front lines of development are treated like the used car salespeople of the sector — or even worse, like our chosen profession comes down to begging for handouts. Like we should carry out our work apologetically instead of with pride and satisfaction; and with as small a budget as possible instead of a reasonable investment in our people and systems. This attitude is short-sighted and self-defeating, and it does a real disservice to both the nonprofit organization and the fundraising professional. When you consider the fact that achieving long-term financial stability remains the nonprofit sector’s greatest challenge, you quickly realize it’s an attitude that nonprofits can no longer afford to have. Whether you’re a big-city hospital or a small-town arts center, you simply can’t survive — much less thrive — without the revenue fundraising provides. Yet, over and over, organizations assume this attitude that costs them dearly and makes their fundraisers flee – which leaves their donor relationships out in the cold. Here are a few concrete examples. When an organization budgets for philanthropic revenue without considering their fundraisers’ perspective on what the donor base and department workloads can bear, its leaders place a potentially unbearable weight on the shoulders of development. When budget performance problems arise mid-year and leadership decides that they’ll just put on a “new” fundraising event to fill the gap – without thinking through the timing, the potential audience base, or tactical load the staff is already bearing – it’s like throwing an anchor to a fundraiser who actually needs a life preserver. When an organization tries to save money by hiring younger, less experienced fundraising staff into leadership roles with high expectations and little support, it sets itself up for another costly hire within the next year and contributes to a trend that drives young talent out of our sector. Sound familiar? It should. Many of us are familiar with the Haas Jr. Fund/CompassPoint report Underdeveloped, which offers some enlightening insights into the challenges faced by organizations and their fundraising staff (and should be required reading for all executive, development and finance directors). These include: Too little investment in development capacity Unrealistic plans for mission-area growth that lead to even more unrealistic budgets A lack of understanding around the roles of the fundraiser, the board, the executive director and of every other member of a non-profit organization’s team in fundraising Lack of training and a diverse pipeline of fundraising professionals Successful fundraising requires partnership among all teams in an organization; in other words, it takes a true culture of philanthropy. Every single person, from the administrative assistant to the executive director, from the program staff to the board president, needs to understand and value what philanthropy can accomplish for the organization, and how vital it is to success. Even if a nonprofit does the best work on earth, over the long haul it simply won’t survive without a healthy culture of philanthropy. At The Ostara Group, we offer our nonprofit clients the unvarnished truth. This means that if there’s a schism between the leadership and fundraisers, we don’t shrink from that reality — we take it on and help build the necessary organizational bridges. We’re continuing our truth-telling to nonprofit leaders through this blog. Our team at Ostara will draw from almost a combined century on the ground in nonprofits of all stripes to engage our nonprofit community and thoughtfully address these challenges on an ongoing basis. We’ll offer strategic thoughts and specific, practical tips on how every nonprofit can grow its revenue and build a sustainable culture of philanthropy from the ground up. Creating and sustaining an effective culture of philanthropy is an absolute must for nonprofits today, and we need to create community and support around how to do it. There’s just too much work to do, and too many problems for our organizations to help society solve, to let misunderstandings about fundraising get in the way of the mission.

This article was written by Ariel Glassman. She is no longer with Ostara, but we want to preserve this piece so that you can learn from her and from the work she did while part of the Ostara team. Nonprofit organizations are traversing uncharted terrain in the 21st century. And, in the process, they’re being forced to address a complex series of questions about their ability to change the world; their relationship to the private sector; their leaders, boards; and missions; their diversity; and their capacity to raise money and innovate. We’ve committed ourselves to telling our clients and nonprofit leaders the unvarnished truth on the ground in their organizations and in the sector. Sometimes, there are no clear-cut answers. But we’re all part of a thriving nonprofit community that is in constant conversation with itself about how to address these questions and challenges; our consultants see it in motion on the ground with clients every day. We can all help each other by freely sharing what we learn. So to do our part, Ostara is going to talk about it. We’re going to blog about it. We’re going to podcast about it. We’re going to host conversations about it. We’ll raise important questions and bring our clients and other nonprofit leaders into the conversation to move us all closer to realistic answers and real solutions. We’re going to live out our commitment to truth-telling online, too. Stay tuned in the coming weeks and months as we carve our own space in the conversation, forged from almost 100 combined years of experience on the ground with nonprofits of all shapes, sizes, and missions. There’s a lot we need to get off our chests, and a lot for us to learn from each other.

There’s something magical about a team that collaborates so well, they make their success look effortless. But you know the truth: There’s nothing remotely effortless about success. Whether you lead a small nonprofit moving mountains with a tiny budget or manage hundreds of people at a multi-million-dollar organization, success takes hard work — more than you ever think it will and sometimes more than you think you and your team have it in you to muster. But like a jumble of ants hauling a hunk of food hundreds of times their body weight (as shown in the video above, which I captured during my recent travels to Central America), a dream team can boldly tackle seemingly impossible feats — more successfully than you ever could solo. How? Because you’ve invested the time to get to know everyone. Maybe you’re assembling a team from scratch. Maybe you’re pushing an existing team to accomplish bigger and better things. Either way, leaders who accept that team-building takes time, then make the time to get to know everyone well, have a leg up on those who lead way too far ahead of their pack. Hold one-on-ones as often as you can. Even on busy weeks, you can make it a priority to connect with your teammates on a personal level. Take colleagues out to coffee or lunch or happy hour, or carpool to meetings together. Find out what makes your teammates tick. Venture beyond résumé or LinkedIn material. What’s your favorite/least favorite memory from high school? Where are you traveling next? What are you looking forward to in the next six months? Challenge your view of “strengths and weaknesses.” As you get to know your teammates, keep your ear to the ground for clues (obvious or obscure) about work they love to do and work they can’t stand to do. Simone Janssen, a fantastic leadership coach, calls this analysis “cake or cringe.” It’s a more action-oriented, less judgy alternative to “strengths and weaknesses.” When your project hits a rough patch (and you know they always do), colleagues who know each other on a cake-or-cringe level can more effectively lean on one another and get things done. Be open, honest and OK with vulnerability. A crucial part of getting to know your team is giving them the opportunity to get to know you. Embrace the vulnerability of what you don’t know about your teammates, and what they don’t know about you — yet. If your colleagues aren’t as assertive as you are about the getting-to-know-you process, find your own way to tell your story. Be as generous with the insights you share with your team as you ask them to be with you. See tension and dissent as starting blocks, not roadblocks. No one wins when a poorly functioning team keeps slogging through whatever’s not working. Sometimes, it takes an uncomfortable meeting, with personalities flaring, for everyone on your team to come to a common understanding of changes that need to happen for you to move past obstacles and reach your goals. Share and invite honest feedback. Ask critical questions. Doing so as a team will give everyone a sense of ownership in the results. Say no to “That’s not part of my job.” If this is something you’ve heard or said yourself in the last 30 days, it’s time to reassess your comfort level with the “other duties as assigned” category. Individually and collectively, everyone on a great team needs to be open to shifts in roles and responsibilities that can better support the team’s vision. Done right, those shifts can boost in productivity and morale. Sure, staffing challenges can be terrifically tricky to solve. But if you’ve invested the time in getting to know your people, if you’ve fostered a work environment where open and honest communication is a shared expectation, you can make big, bold leadership decisions with decisive confidence.

Relationships are important in any business. They’re especially important in fundraising. Building trust and showing true interest in a person’s experiences, beliefs and values will lead you to lasting rewards — both personally and professionally. When you nurture strong and authentic relationships, your network will grow — and so will your potential for fundraising success. Here are some tips on the art and science of relationship-building that I often share when I’m coaching executive directors or leading a board retreat: Remember something. When you meet someone new, remember their name — say it out loud a few times or write it down if you have to — and at least one other thing: where they work, what their dog’s name is, where they traveled last. Remember something that gives you a starting point with your next conversation with them. Give every new relationship a solid foundation that you can build on as you expand your network. Ask, listen and repeat. People love to talk about themselves. It’s human nature — our way of sharing our take on the world. So whether you start a conversation or join it, ask good questions and give people a chance to talk your ear off if they’re so inclined. Shoot for three to five questions every time you meet someone new. It’s OK to stick to the same topics — pick whatever you find most interesting. My faves: family, work, travel and hobbies. Lean into LinkedIn. If you haven’t updated your résumé in a while, carve out an hour to polish it up. Then make your LinkedIn profile sparkle. If it needs a lot more than a polish, don’t let yourself get intimidated. Take it step by step. When you’re ready, follow LinkedIn guru and WiredAdvisor Stephanie Sammons’ “10 in 10 rule” — spend 10 minutes per day making one-to-one connections with 10 of your LinkedIn contacts. (More on this in Entrepreneur’s recent article, 8 ways to better market yourself on LinkedIn.) Connect others — and connections will come your way. One of the best ways to build out your network is to connect people within it. Is there a friend, colleague or client who’s grappling with a challenge in their organization? You probably know someone who’s worked through similar issues. Connect them — and there’s a good chance that they’ll return the favor someday by referring a potential who could use some help from someone with your skillset. Follow up. Especially if you ask someone to introduce you. Once you meet, don’t let your relationship-building mojo fade away as fast as time flies. Reach out, build time into your busy schedule for a coffee or lunch or happy hour with them before you become “someone they met at some event somewhere … what was her name again?” Following up is most important if you ask someone to introduce you. As you nurture these new relationships, go back to the beginning and be thoughtful about making introductions. Patrick Ewers, an early LinkedIn exec who’s now a relationship management coach, offers some great tips on strategically managing your networking introductions. May the networking force(s) be with you!

“Successful leaders see the opportunities in every difficulty rather than the difficulty in every opportunity.” REED MARKHAM, AUTHOR Making big decisions can be hard — especially for leaders who thrive on consensus-building. Over my many years of working with nonprofits, I’ve seen smart and passionate people get overwhelmed by tough decisions they wish they didn’t have to make. How can we stay true to our mission when our biggest funder keeps insisting we try a new approach? Is your board so dysfunctional, you wonder if it’s time to fire everyone and start fresh? Other organizations are doing what we do — only better. Should we change up our programming, merge with them, disband? There’s a philosophy in social work that you lean into discomfort. You embrace it as something that will guide you out from between that rock and hard place. You trust that you’re about to learn some valuable lessons that will make the next big problem you face seem oh so much easier to solve. I did all those things and more as part of a multi-year collaborative process that led to one of the boldest and smartest decisions I’ve ever been a part of. While serving as president of the Northwest Development Officers Association, NDOA and our cross-town colleagues at the Association of Fundraising Professionals Washington Chapter (AFP WA) took a huge step together. We decided to unite the two organizations into one. On our path to that decision, we held countless meetings, went on retreats, surveyed our members and consulted with organizational and business development gurus. It was hard work, but every step of the way, we reminded ourselves that we were all in it for the same reason: to figure out how to better serve our members, our nonprofits and our communities. Here are five great lessons about leadership that guided me through that process: Get the right people on the bus. Whether you need input from just a few folks or a diverse team of stakeholders, don’t call on people who always agree with you. The smaller the group you assemble, the more important it is that you choose people who will challenge you. Communicate clearly and openly. State your goals early and often. Refine them with input from your team if you need to. Encourage your team to give honest and constructive feedback throughout the process. Be transparent every step of the way. Stay focused on solutions. When you’re trying to solve a problem, it’s easy to fixate on the challenges that might stand in your way. That’s OK. Think of the process like an obstacle course. Remind your team that every time you put a hurdle behind you, you’re getting closer to a solution. Don’t fear dissent. Your most important job as a leader is to make decisions. It’s impossible to make everyone happy. Don’t get bogged down by waiting for an unequivocal thumbs-up from every last person you’ve included in the process. Help your team see your vision of success as you see it: in crystal-clear focus with a can-do attitude. When it’s time to move forward, move! Don’t let yourself get all hung up and mired in the multitude of options that are on the table. There comes a time when you’ve gathered enough input — sometimes more than enough. Trust your instincts and when it’s time to make that big decision, remember this: Your job isn’t to come up with The Perfect Solution. It’s to take action. You might start with baby steps. You might get bogged down in that messy middle between the starting point and finish line. That’s OK. The most rewarding lessons you’ll learn in work and life are the ones that push you way outside your comfort zone — where you make big things happen.