CWGAH Live Series: Empowering Nonprofits for the Future with Allyse Hazeltine

At our 2026 Chicks You Give a Hoot live event, we did something a little different. We brought three nonprofit leaders onto the stage together for a live panel conversation, and we recorded the whole thing. But because our show runs about 10 minutes, we're releasing each panelist as their own episode so you can really sit with what they shared. Today, you're hearing from Elise Hazeltine.

She's the executive director of Azura Literacy in Mesa, Arizona. They're a children's literacy initiative working to get quality reading support into the hands of kids in low-income and foster homes. Five years in, and she has been building something really important. Can't wait for you to hear this episode.

Welcome to Chicks Who Give a Hoot. This is a podcast for women who are building bold businesses, unapologetic brands, and lives that actually align with who they are. I'm your host, Sarah Chambers. I'm a brand strategist, TEDx speaker, best-selling author, and the CEO of Ellie and Nora Creative.

I also founded Chicks Who Give A Who as a nonprofit dedicated to mobilizing women entrepreneurs as a force for good through media, mentorship, and community. This podcast is one part of that mission. Each episode is done in under 10 minutes and designed to respect your time while delivering something real. Sometimes you'll hear from me, sometimes from a guest.

You might not recognize her name, but you'll always know exactly what you're going to walk away with before you even press play. We skip the long origin stories and surface level advice. Instead, we focus on one clear idea at the intersection of branding, visibility, business, and impact so that you can leave with an insight you'll actually use. If you care about substance over noise, clarity over hype, and building something meaningful without disappearing in the process, then you're in the right place.

Let's get into it. Okay. What pulled you into this work? I would say I'm like a quiet fury about lots of things, particularly about children's well-being.

That's something I'm very passionate about. I think if we want a thriving society, I honestly believe that starting with making sure every kid's physical and mental well-being is taken care of is the first step, right? If we were to do that, those kids grow into the adults that take part in our society. And so that's what I care really deeply about.

I also really love reading. I've always loved reading. As a kid, there were times I slept with books in my bed instead of stuffed animals. So I just want to spread that joy to kids too And just knowing how critical it is that they able to read is part of that passion too Absolutely Smart ambitious women are also readers I think there's a correlation.

Okay. So I want to know what is a day-to-day reality really look like for you? Because you are in constant problem-solving mode regularly because you have these big missions that you are. And naturally, nonprofits are solving problems.

You're like naturally signing up for that. And then in that, I feel like there's a lot of misconception. But the day-to-day is logistics of running tutoring sessions every day and communicating with families and tutors and developing and fine-tuning curriculum. And then you have all the big parts that you always need to take care of that are kind of woven in wherever there's time in between the logistics, like fundraising and reviewing grants and making partnerships and meeting with other literacy partners and program design.

and making sure that you're staying on top of what's current. So all those things are just a swirl of your everyday. I think misconceptions, sometimes there's an idea that nonprofit equals volunteer, solely volunteer, and that there shouldn't be any overhead, right? We have to have people working full-time positions to do this stuff, and we try to keep it as lean as we can, but we do have to make this work somehow.

We want it to be quality work that we are doing, And so we have to have people who are getting paid to do that. And I think sometimes that misconception kind of goes with if you're a small nonprofit, that means you're not doing really great, important work. And that's just not the case. Everybody has to start small.

You got to start somewhere. And also, I think sometimes smaller organizations are a little more deeply embedded in the community. They have a little closer relationship with the community and the needs there. and they tend to have teams that are just really deeply passionate about what they're doing and are willing to make it work with however many people they have.

Oh my goodness, thank you. So I'm hoping that maybe you're starting to see that there is a lot of overlap between the work that these ladies are doing in non-profit organizations and perhaps your experience in entrepreneurship or your own career. A lot of the same skills are super necessary, so I'm wondering if you can share a little bit more about perhaps maybe some missed opportunities or some ways that you think that the women in the room can partner with you or ways in which we can build more of that bridge between some of the entrepreneurs in the room and your all organizations?

Yeah. I mean, like you guys said, we need volunteers. We always need money to run the program That the big nonprofit things You like we need volunteers and we need your money And I get scared of like I don want to ask people for money you know but it like it not for me you know I not asking for me I asking for the kids who need it right Who need this help or expertise, right? If you have expertise that could help us as we're building curriculum or whatever, that could be helpful too.

But one thing I'll say as well is I think when businesses are partnering with nonprofits or giving to nonprofits or supporting them in whatever way, of course you get the warm and fuzzies and whatever you want to call it. But I think it's often forgotten that when you're supporting those organizations that are helping the community and uplifting the community and creating upward mobility for people, that that is going to directly affect you too in your business. Then we have people who are more financially stable and who are growing the economy and all those things relate to each other.

The more stable everyone is, the more stable everyone is. um I believe that it was John Green an author and he talked about like I don't have any kids but I want to support kids who read because I don't want to live in a society with a bunch of dumb people like it don't quote me on that I'm sure it was more elegant than that but like that's what it reminded me it was like good enough right Elise you've worked in directly into title one schools and now obviously focusing on literacy.

We've talked a lot about the impact of literacy here today, but I would love to hear maybe a brief story or an experience that you had with a student that has really stayed with you and kind of supports the narrative that we've been sharing with everyone here today around the importance of literacy. Yeah, when we first started the program, we were piloting, had small groups, so I was also doing some of the tutoring sessions. And one of the students that came to us one summer, her name was Mary, we'll call her Mary.

She was a third grader. She was in foster care. She had moved around to different schools. You know, just by the time she was in third grade, it had been multiple schools, very behind in reading, very low in confidence.

She'd been told she was a bad reader by multiple people. You know, I think in trying to help sometimes adults say things that they don't understand are really harmful to kids. So she came to us. She started with me.

We started our first session and she was completely shut down, refused to read anything, barely gave me a shrug or an answer to anything. And so I was like, all right, we're going to have to scrap everything I thought we were going to do. And we're going to have to start really simple and make sure that she, first of all, feels safe physically and mentally and emotionally safe. And I got to figure out how to engage her in reading in any way that I can.

So we scrapped the lesson plans the scripted curriculum all that stuff and I just started with okay look here the library What looks good to you You know are any of these books interesting to you She picked some and I just read to her And then a few sessions in I was starting to get some little responses a little more than a shrug here and there. I could tell she felt more comfortable with me. I had created a safer space where she could open up. And then I could get her involved in the reading in little ways.

And with a lot of constant positive reinforcement for every effort that she made. and it was amazing the transformation that she had in just a couple of weeks where she suddenly was wanting to read every page of every book we read I'd say do you want to take turns no I want to read it all and it's hard for me not to cry when I talk about that and that to me was already a win right now we can work on okay increasing your fluency and your comprehension but until I get your engagement and know that you feel safe and you have enough confidence to try at something that's hard for you, we're not going to get anywhere.

And so that really drives how I train our tutors. That drives what we do in our program. We don't want this to be just an extension of the school day. This is a space where we are human first, right?

These are not little robots that we just have a one-size-fits-all approach. These are human beings, and they're going to come to us with a lot of different feelings every day. It may be different every time. And if we can't acknowledge that first.

And the first step being that we are acknowledging you're human, and this is how you feel today. And I am here as a safe person for you to try at these hard things with, and I'll be here to support you. That's number one. And then we can get them engaged, and then we can do the hard work.

But we're always human first, trauma sensitive. Those are the things that drive what we do. Can we just get like a round of applause for these incredible women and these, this amazing leadership, please consider if you have a donation amount in your mind and you can donate all of it to one of these organizations or disperse that across all of them. And if that is not the answer for you today, that's okay.

There's no shame. I would love for you to think about how you might engage with these organizations in other ways, just so that they walk out of this room feeling incredibly supported by the community here.