S7E13: The Business of Impact - How CEO’s, Boards & Business Leaders Rethink Philanthropy w/ Rob Tonus

Speaker A: Welcome to Rev up youp Leadership with Hilda Gann. The podcast for forward thinking, proactive leaders who believe in a people centric approach to business. Whether you're an executive, a seasoned manager, business owner, or a novice manager, this show is for those who know that putting people first drives real, lasting success. Each episode I sit down with passionate guests, leaders who share real world experiences, proven frameworks and insights from their industries. Together we explore what it takes to lead with impact, stay ahead of the curve and build thriving future ready organizations. If you're ready to lead with purpose, inspire your team and think strategically, it's time to rev up your leadership and rev up your success.

Speaker B: Welcome to another episode of Rev up youp Leadership. Today my guest is Rob Thomas and we are going to be talking about the business of impact. How CEO boards and business leaders rethink philanthropy. So I'm so delighted that Rob's joining us. Rob. Rob is the president of the fundraising company. He has been a non profit leader with over three decades of experience in all sectors. He helps nonprofit leaders maximize impact and fundraising, supporting them to be bold and to build partnerships that will support their organization having the greatest impact. He primarily works with small organizations that have, uh, finances to hire a full time fundraiser, but need the expertise of somebody like Rob to help them meet their goals. Welcome Rob. I'm so delighted to have you join me today.

Speaker C: Thank you, Hilda. Happy to be here.

Speaker B: You and I talk about philanthropy. We talk about the roles that those in the nonprofit sector have and those in the corporate sector have. And I know you have strong opinions on this and really want to shed some light on what you call impact. So give us your initial thoughts on the matter.

Speaker C: Sure. Uh, well, when someone makes a donation to a, uh, charity or a nonprofit, um, I like to say they don't give to the organization, they give through the organization because they don't really look at how many staff you have or um, what programs. I mean the programs are really a means to an end is how many people are you helping them? How specifically are you helping them and what are the short term and the long term impacts of that? That what I really mean by impact, um, and if we want to put it in business terms, it's the same thing. If you're running a business, you are looking at the future. How are you growing? What's your, uh, revenue going to be? How many staff do you have? People think about, about giving to a nonprofit, the same way they do is running their business. But we're not very good at having that conversation.

Speaker B: Let's talk about the fact that currently there are a lot of charities out

Speaker C: there and over 85,000 in Canada.

Speaker B: Thank you. And they're not all successful at getting the funds they need.

Speaker C: Right, right.

Speaker B: And uh, I know you and I have talked about it before is that in order to be smarter, you know, non profits really need to start thinking in a, uh, business mentality. And oftentimes they don't have that, that, that experience. Many of them start off, you know, with their passion for helping others and they become managers or case managers. And then they start growing and before they, they, they've done it a lot, they become an ed. But not necessarily having the background comments on that more.

Speaker C: Yeah. And, and that really is the lifeblood of nonprofits. Um, people become cause it's not a high paying work. It's ah, you know, you look at an executive director tends to make maybe 60, $80,000 a year. Program managers, 45, $50,000. This is work of passion. And they become experts. This is the one thing I really want to stress. People who work for nonprofits are experts at what they do, but they are good at the program delivery. When it comes to administration, when it comes to fundraising, when it comes to engagement, um, they do the best they can, but they learn as they go along. They're not trained like a lot of business leaders are. So when they come into leadership position and they need to connect with foundations, with individuals, with businesses, they really, they're doing the best they can, but they don't have the experience. So they stumble over themselves. They try and often, sometimes they stop. They just do what they can. But they really need support to take those next steps.

Speaker B: And that's sort of where you come in, right?

Speaker C: Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. I've uh, managed some multimillion dollar capital campaigns. I've worked at universities and hospitals managing large portfolios. Um, but most of my work is focused on helping small organizations. So I take that large organization experience and I bring it to the smaller ones.

Speaker B: So what kinds of things could you help a smaller organization given all that experience that you had to do that?

Speaker C: Yeah, uh, um, it starts off with vision. Um, I'm um, one of my clients. For instance, right now most charities, they have a budget they run from year to year and they might have a strategic plan that gives an overall view. What we're doing is we're developing a five year budget and it's not just the money, but how are we going to grow as an organization, how many more people are going to impact? And with that in mind, we can then um, reach out to businesses, to foundations, government agencies and say an investment now. And I call it investment versus a donation. An investment now is going to have these impacts five years down the road. So it starts off with a vision and then it's a matter of looking at what are the costs going to be. I look for where the funding opportunities are and then I raise the money in partnership with the organization so they learn how very much. So it's a knowledge transfer, it's a skills transfer. So they become stronger on their own. And in the short future, two, three years down the road, they don't need my support because they have the ability to do so themselves.

Speaker B: And we use the term fractional, um, so I'll call you a fractional fundraiser. In business we use that because a lot of small, medium sized businesses have the funds to hire a full time expert, right? What they sometimes do is they hire somebody as, as the manager with some experience and pay the same amount because they think they need a full time person. But if you took those funds and had the person who's got 20 years of experience for that same amount, you don't need a person full time but you have this expertise that is much richer in its ability to provide. And I remember I sat on the board at United, uh, way and I was actually part of one of the committees that looked at all of those agencies they funded, needed to report that they were viable, that they were making money, that they had a strategic plan as a check mark to getting the funds that the United Way donated. And my observation was, and their support was they basically helped many of these organizations and managers do the strategic plan, uh, do their budget because they didn't have that knowledge. And so I mean that, that was decade or so ago. And guess what I'm reinforcing is that it's okay to not know but it's not okay to continue because there are so many fund, uh, so so many charitable organizations now and funding has decreased. Corporations are not donating as much. Government grants are not as, as prolific as they used to. And so a lot of people who were relying on these major donate donations now are trying to scramble to provide the services with less money. And so it's those people that are a little bit more business minded, a little bit more uh, as you say, have a vision of how to do it and almost creative and innovative in competing for dollars. Are you gonna go with a sexier campaign than you are with a. Oh, we've done this always. So let's just keep Doing it. Well, that's. You're not gonna, you're not. I. If I had two choices of giving to a, uh, to an organization, which one am I going to do? Maybe something that's a little bit more innovative, that sounds fun, I can do with my family or something that shows me you're spending your dollars wisely.

Speaker C: Right? Yeah. And first of all, thank you for explaining the fractional model for fundraisers, because that's exactly it. It's bringing that decades of experience to an organization. And I say it's not just that my experience allows me to do the work in a more efficient time, efficient manner, is that my experience allows me to see opportunities that organizations don't. You know, you talked about earlier, um, what charities do, and they keep on doing the same thing. That is very common because that's a comfort zone. Right. So they run events and it was very difficult during the pandemic to operate because they were so based on those events. Maybe they'll, um, hold a gala, uh, maybe they'll do some government grants. But as you said, that funding has dried up. So what are the other sources? And that's where I come in. And I can look at especially those business connections and not just asking a business for money, but if a business makes a donation, can you help us to secure donations from your colleagues? Can we partner in this? Because once you've made a donation, whether it's an individual or a business, you want to have that organization succeed. So again, here are the experiences that I bring. Here is the, uh, perspective I bring and ability to see opportunities. And once people work with me, they begin to start seeing them as well.

Speaker B: Yeah. And I think too, because you don't just have one client, you've had the experience of many clients and you see trends and you see, you know what's out there, what, and you're staying current, you're thinking best practices and you're bringing all of that knowledge to this organization who only knows what their sphere of, of influence and connection is. Your sphere of influence, connection and your level of knowledge is much, much broader. So I think I wanted you to come on the show because, you know, philanthropy is near and dear to my heart. And I wanted to make sure that those nonprofit leaders who have the courage now to understand where the climate is and to stretch out of their comfort zone, both as business minded, um, custodians of their, of their non profit as well as knowing that they're competing for limited dollars, those that have the courage to stretch and grow are going to Succeed. Um, I remember talking to another colleague, and they said, hilda, frankly, how many food banks do you need in one geographical location? All competing for fundraising dollars. So those that are the strongest, from a business perspective, and engaging with the community and getting funds to support them, they're the ones that are going to succeed. Uh, where others struggle.

Speaker C: Yeah, but see, this is the challenge with the charitable sector, is that we don't merge organizations. We don't build the hierarchy. It's just more come on the scene, more compete. And so if you are a donor, whether as an individual or a business or another agency, who do you support? Um, we do need to do a better job of talking to each other. So going back to the earlier point about impact, how do we have the best collective impact in the community? By working together.

Speaker B: Yeah. And I know you said, I do this and I do that, but you said, I do it in partnership. So you do have this we mentality of helping not for profits, and. And business partners, maybe you. Let's kind of focus on those business leaders who are donating. And a lot of them are shifting because they're not spending as much money, um, supporting charities. Give us what your insights are into this part of the partnership, the equation.

Speaker C: Thank you. Yeah. And this is a good touch point from what you said earlier about those organizations, um, being bold and reaching out. This, um, is I see as one of my prime, sort of, let's call it, unique value proposition. What I bring, how I help. Because when you are in an organization not reaching the funding, you become more entrenched. You think, okay, how am I going to succeed? And so you just do what you do over and over again, trying to do it more rather than learning ways. So with my perspective and experience, I bring in the ability to say, okay, here's. You've got these many donors, you've got these many corporate partners or whatever. We could do this. We could talk to individuals about giving more, about maybe hosting an event or maybe a garden party. Let's say, invite some friends. At the same time, when we're thinking about the business outreach, businesses are successful because they're great at strategy, they're great at implementation, at planning, at tracking, um, at really building strong teams for success. And so the potential for partnership with charities is very strong if those charities are willing to partner. So, for instance, I was working with a sailing charity. They provide, um, sailing opportunities for youth from disadvantaged, uh, communities. And one organization said, you know, we're going to increase our donation this year, increase it from like 15 to 20 thousand dollars that year. And they said, we'd like to help you as well. We want to reach out to our business colleagues. We want to, um, open doors for you and ask with them. And so this became a partnership where we were the subject matter experts. We were able to bring some of the people who volunteered to provide sailing experiences for these youth and some of the youth participants, and it created this whole new opportunity. So that's the one part of the opening doors where charities need to be better, is welcoming in the experience and the expertise of, uh, business leaders around what I mentioned earlier. Strategy, marketing, uh, implementation, tracking all those pieces. So especially in a competitive environment, the wise charities will be the ones who seek a partnership. And I think, you know, in my experience, I think there could be more those organizations that find the opportunity to put their expertise to use in that charitable environment and to help more people than the charity is helping now. Very satisfying opportunity.

Speaker B: And I know some corporations now are just going to, oh, you know, we can do care days. Let's team build and have our staff go to a shelter and help feed, feed, feed people for a day. Um, and now we've got the sense of we've donated something, our time, we've, we've built our teams. So it's almost like two, two things in one, and it's effective. But then they save that money that they, instead of giving you 10,000, $20,000, what did it cost them? Well, it actually cost them the staffing time too. But, but they think that it's better. And I guess that's where some of that potential dollars has gone to when, when some organizations, especially in times of uncertainty as businesses, they pare down what they were doing. And this is. So how do we help build up now that we're kind of post Covid and we're getting used to things that are happening south of the border. Get that mentality of philanthropy from a business sector perspective.

Speaker C: Well, as I said, there are 85,000 Terry's across Canada. It's about $30,000 in the GTA Golden Horseshoe, just a huge number. Um, so if I were in the shoes of business leader looking for an organization to help, um, I would be looking at charities that align with the, with the vision and the mission of what the company does. So for instance, if I was there, I had a couple of charities that helped in the Peel region, strong black populations. And so if what you want to do is help with, um, providing youth education or support for elders or whatever might be good opportunities there. Right. And so sometimes you'll get organizations will reach out. How can we help? It's like, well, you can make a donation. No, no, no. We want to get more involved. It's starting the conversation now. The hard part for a, uh, business will be not knowing how they can help. So if they're clear ahead of time how they could help. As you said, the build days like that, participation strategy, marketing businesses, especially large ones, have very strong marketing departments. Can they provide marketing support? Very important for nonprofits. Um, if you're clear on what you want, want to do, then you can reach out to organizations that align with your corporate vision and then build that partnership.

Speaker B: I think the term I, I hear is pro bono. Right? I mean, lawyers do pro bono work, but it's not just lawyers. I remember when I sat on the board at Markham. Sorry, at United, um, way we got one of the big five.

Speaker C: Okay.

Speaker B: Uh, big five consulting companies in Canada do pro bono work to help us with our strategic plan. So having those kinds of partnerships. I know, even though I was, even when I was a board member, they asked me for my HR expertise and to educate their staff on some of the things that they could do to be, you know, more knowledgeable about how to build healthier work, culture, experience, et cetera. So tap into those resources, you know, create that partnership.

Speaker A: I hope you're enjoying this episode of Rev up youp Leadership with Hilda Gann. Are you looking to build stronger teams, enhance communication, or lead with a people first approach? I'd, uh, love to invite you to a free 30 minute discovery call to explore how we can help you with strategic HR consulting, leadership training and team and communication effectiveness training. Visit peoplebrightconsulting.com to book your call. Now let's get back to the episode.

Speaker C: Good.

Speaker B: Uh, companies, when they get to a certain level, want to build a sense of community and feel connected. And when my husband and I had our company, itrends to us, the sense of community was our professional community, which meant we did things, supporting our engineering professionals work. And then the other thing was the community. So we had our own United Way campaign, which was the highlight of our, our team building perspective. Every year somebody would, you know, we, we were such a nice bunch of people until the Olympics came. And then that Olympic year, we decided we'd have teams from now on. And we, because we're. Yeah. And because we were an engineer, a transportation engineering company, we created three teams. Yellow, Green and red.

Speaker C: Okay.

Speaker B: And all of a sudden these nice, nice people were really competitive. I said, what happened? It's only for two weeks Hilda, I

Speaker C: said, I know Canadians in sports. I hear you.

Speaker B: And so it was team building. But I think a company that has a moral compass wants to give back to their community. And we looked for ways to give back to our engineering, um, community and to our community geographically, wherever we were. So yeah, I would encourage companies who feel that sense of wanting to do something to connect with causes they feel important, uh, and care about. And I would, I would encourage, um, the, the nonprofits to find people who, you know, maybe they are business owners and they want to give back in some ways and then to connect and create that possible partnership with them.

Speaker C: Yeah. Ah, well, you're speaking to a need that, that I've been exploring for a while and you and I actually haven't discussed this yet. Um, but, but many people have been approaching me and asking that question, how do I know which organization to support? Um, how do I know who to give to? Um, I could give to a large hospital, university, but I want to support a small organization. Um, so I'm looking at the opportunity of providing that research for companies, for individuals having a conversation. What moves you? How do you want to have an impact? What kind of impact do you want? What, do some research, bring information back and say, you know, here are five, six, eight organizations that seem to align. What are you interested in exploring and then doing further research and whether they want to give thousand dollars, ten, fifty, a hundred thousand dollars, then they know that there's an alignment. Because as we said earlier, you don't know what you don't know. If you're not in the nonprofit sector, how do you know which organizations are effective? How do you know which ones are having impact? If you've got someone with my experience, I can do that work for you.

Speaker B: Yeah. Uh, I, uh, want you to share some examples of how you've really helped to, to help organize like non profit organizations. I know we've had some, you know, meals together and I remember one and it was like, wow, did you open their eyes? And, and then you help them get funds? I think it was the holiday season funding.

Speaker C: Yeah, that was, that was very exciting. I was a colleague of ours and then she brought me in, um, and it's a women's theater and it's been around for over a century and believe it or not, they had never in all their time period sent out appeals. At the end of the year. They had simply just asked people, if you're going to buy a ticket, do you want to make an extra donation? And it was a challenge convincing them of the benefit of doing that because we were going to send emails to 1500 people who were on their email distribution list. And they had a fear, which is so common in nonprofits. Well, if we reach out to these people, they're going to get mad that we're asking, and they're going to stop coming to the shows. But who else is going to support your organization than someone who knows you already? So I was able to show them opportunities where it had been done with other organizations before, and in fact, other theaters. And many of these people received regular emails from these other theaters and donated because they were asked. And it just, it didn't align in their thinking that they are exactly the same. Like there's a phrase we use in, uh, um, charities, in fundraising in particular, that comes from Sports. You miss 100% of the shots you don't take. And so I had to convince them, let's try this. Okay? It's very low cost. It's just my time to put into it. And I'll tell you what, we sent out four emails, and just in the month of December, we raised over $30,000. And that had never happened before. They had had donors before, but there were a lot of new names on that list, people who had never given before because they were never asked. And it was such a simple thing to look at. And it made them realize, oh, what other opportunities do we have out there? So that's where we're exploring right now.

Speaker B: And this is where you add value. I mean, uh, I love how you said it. A lot of not for profit sort of say, oh, we can't do that. People get angry at us. The thing is that you, uh. And it's Wayne Gretzky that said that.

Speaker C: Yes, it is.

Speaker B: I'm sure it's Wayne Gretzky. And you just make it sound so jealous. Let's give Wayne credit where credit's due. Right. But it's right, and the other alike is you fail if you fail to try. Yes, that's another analogy of that. Right. And so what you're doing, what your, your, Your opportunity to help organizers is to open their door, to get them comfortable, to, to kind of help them, um, have liquid courage to take that step and look at what that yield. Right. $30,000 on a, on a campaign. Nobody stopped buying tickets, I'm sure. And I want to get to this idea of the story because it's the story that makes us want to connect. Right. If somebody says, hi, we're, you know, could you just add a few dollars if you Want to give a donation to the ticket. That's not a story. But when you introduce this, this organization, say it's a, it's a woman led theater, uh, that's been around for 100 years. All of a sudden the woman in me, the whoa. They've been around for 100 years. Like you didn't even have to tell me much more of that story. You got me. Right. But when, when you can craft a story that makes me feel, it's. I uh, I feel relating. I can relate to this story. I feel a sense of care and giving. That's when people will do things. It's not. You're trying to trick them, you're trying to help them see the connection between you and, and that organization. And, and so story is powerful.

Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. And I can follow up on that narrative because there uh, was a play reading back in uh, November. Um, and so this organization researches a number of plays. They do Canadian plays typically and they'll put on three the next year. But they researched 50. They chose 25 in the short list and then they put on play readings for seven of those. And there were maybe about 30 people in the room, different ages. There was actually, there was a woman involved in the organization since she was 17. She's now 93 years old. That's the longevity. But more importantly, there was a young woman in her probably mid-20s. She had recently graduated from university film and that's already a theater program. And she wrote a play in high school when she was 14, 15 years old. And she went to the people at this organization who helped her to hone that play that she was doing and actually got put on that following year and that launched her into the next career. And now she herself runs a theater. So the mentorship within that organization you think about. I'm getting chills just talking about this.

Speaker B: I just got one back here.

Speaker C: But you know, giving to an organization like that, that is going to mentor young person to build a career and influence society and tell stories in her own way. That is the power of a donation. And honestly more organizations need to do that. Not we help, you know, 60,000 families, you know, over the years. It's like how many individuals, how did you help this particular family? You know, talk about food banks. Providing food allowed the kids to be able to focus on their homework and then go on to college. University gave the parents the ability not to worry about those bases because they knew it was taken care of. And then the, these youth went on, uh, not just to be successful professionals, but to help others. So a donation a decade ago has this kind of larger impact right now. And this is where most charities aren't very good at telling those stories. And honestly, this is where a corporation can come in and help them to craft that, ask the questions, what's the impact? What's there? Use their media to film, to record, whatever. There's lots of opportunities for corporations to help in very practical ways because they have.

Speaker B: I mean, many of them, the larger ones have. Have departments that could. Could pro bono give some of that expertise to that organization.

Speaker C: I know they're more importantly than that. Excuse me for interrupting. Doing what I do. Train them, train the marketing staff how to do this so they build that strength internally.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. Like, and. And I think sometimes getting to know your donors makes a difference. We, we chose the United Way camp to do. When we. When we got to about 25 people in our organization, I said, well, now there's enough people so that if people want to donate, nobody knows what they donated because there's, you know, you can hide in those numbers.

Speaker C: Right.

Speaker B: And we chose United Way because it goes back to my high school days when we had United Way campaigns and we were fundraising for whatever, you know, car washes, etc. And I learned that United Way gave to multiple agencies. Right. So my gift was being given to not just one organization because I couldn't decide. And so that experience as an adolescent. Right. Uh, in my mind was, yes, this is a good organization. They give and they support. And so I got involved. Involved and spent close to a decade being, you know, involved in the United Way. So think about as not for profits. Get to know those people, because that can open up a possibility that you didn't even think about.

Speaker C: Yeah. And. And a lot of. A lot of charities say we're too busy to do that, but if you don't, you're missing opportunities, because someone who gives a small amount, maybe they have the potential to leave a large amount. I was working with a nature charity back about three years, and it was around the Christmas period that they received a notification from a lawyer that they were going to get a donation of $330,000. What. Where did that come from? And they found out that it was this woman who came to their nature walks. And then during the pandemic, she participated in the, um, they did zoom meetings. And they, uh, brought some experts in. And this woman was a retired teacher, no children. So what she had was her house. It had increased in huge price from what she had bought in. And she gave a Million and a half dollars to five favorite charities. And they were one of them. And they had no idea who she was because they had never struck the radar. But getting to know your donors, as you say, making them feel that you care about them, you care about just any contribution they make, it's going to have lasting impact on how they choose to give and how they choose to support and champion your charity.

Speaker B: And we're not, I'm not suggesting that they go to everybody, but in their campaign and their strategies, they need to have some kind of outreach to different people.

Speaker C: Well, actually, you can. I worked with a health organization about six, uh, eight years ago, and they had a collection of volunteers, about a dozen people. Every donor, when they made a donation, got a phone call and every person even was $20 or $1,000, and they said, I'm going to sign up for monthly giving, got a phone call from a volunteer to say, thank you. This is wonderful. Um, why did you give? How can we help you? And it made that person feel very important. And I've actually made a lot of those calls myself. It's so unique that people love it. M again, there' another place where, uh, let's say you've got a business that has a call center. They have people who have the skills to do that. What a great way to help a charity.

Speaker B: Yeah. So lots of creativity. Right. Because that's what you need nowadays to be competitive. You need people who are able to think outside the box and come up with some ideas and then evaluate them. Um, I want to put in a thought for people. We haven't focused on this, but in order to be more effective and efficient, non profits need to get more comfortable with technology, assessing it, using it, because it will give you predictability, it'll give you metrics, it will give you, um, efficiency and effectiveness. So again, it's because we don't get the experience, because we choose to be. Not profit, because we care about people, not about the technology or the science. But organizations need to bring digital transformational adoption in order to be competitive, in order to not let people fall through the cracks, uh, to be felt that they are connected to the dollars that were funded. So, so I'm just going to put that comment in.

Speaker C: Yeah, and that's very important. And, uh, businesses have adapted to that, so that's something else they can bring. We, um, really are still working with a sort of a paper file kind of paradigm in nonprofits. Even if you have, um, an online system, it just, it's uploaded and it's set There, um, you miss opportunities for efficiency. You also miss opportunities to give volunteers an opportunity to contribute. So we saw a lot of need for that digitization during the pandemic. There were grants for that. Many organizations received that. But then implementing it as part of normal operations post pandemic, very few have.

Speaker B: Yeah. And I know I'm working with a partner right now to create. We've created a certificate program and helping non profits get comfortable with it. And it is, it is a certification program and it's through Charity Village. So that's my little plug. But I really do want to help organizations be better from, uh, many, many different ways. And that's why you and I have had this conversation. To really help people think and businesses to think about how can we create partnerships. Is there anything you want to share? Share about what we've talked about that we haven't quite covered yet before we close.

Speaker C: I think we've covered it. It really is that idea you've touched on a couple of times. Becoming comfortable with discomfort, learning new ways of doing things. Um, one thing that we see regularly in nonprofits we mentioned at the beginning is, um, someone becomes a program manager, they move up into leadership. Nobody teaches them how to be a leader. You know, leadership development is just part of the operations of the business and government sectors. It's not within the charitable sector. And even if you have a good external coach, like an executive coach who specializes nonprofits going to cost you five, six thousand dollars a year, boards will say, oh, um, you know, we don't have the money for that. That's a place where business could step in to provide that kind of leadership coaching. If they have either internal coaching methodology. Some of the larger organizations like the banks do that. Um, some higher external executive coaching. What a great way to make a very practical donation of the funding to provide that or to provide the coaching secondarily. It's one thing to provide that coaching, it's another to follow up. So back around to what are the practical expertise, touch points that businesses can bring to a nonprofit to help them succeed? Uh, there really are some tremendous opportunities.

Speaker B: Such good food for thought, both for not for profit sector as well as for businesses in thinking about philanthropy and how we all can have impact and make a difference. So, thank you very much.

Speaker C: My pleasure.

Speaker B: What's next for you?

Speaker C: Um, well, we touched on a couple of my clients. Um, you know, as I said, I work with small organizations that don't have the capacity to hire a full time person. If they do, it's a junior person. So really, it's looking for opportunities where people might know, they might sit on a board, they might have a family member who volunteers. Um, they might just be interested in the charity and say, you know, can I introduce you to this organization? Maybe there are possibilities. And these conversations start off with, how can I help? Now, not every organization is going to have an immediate alignment right now. But I feel that the more conversations I can have, the more I'm going to be able to find clients who have the ability and the need and the readiness to work with me. Um, again, the sky's the limit. And what we can do, so long as we keep talking partnership.

Speaker B: I love your approach, Rob, because I think you have this knowledge, um, and you're one of those people that kind of stays abreast of what, what's the current things, what are going to help organizations meet today's needs. And you have this approachability from the way you, you don't tell people what to do. You, you create a partnership and you, and you open their eyes to things. And if they need some liquid courage to take that next step, you're there to support and guide them. And this is what I love about what you do. And we did introduce this idea of, of having a fractional fundraiser.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker B: Because that is better use of your dollars and bringing on somebody full time who's learning. They're learning just like you. What you need is an expert. So take that money and use an expert, and that money will grow your donations faster than somebody who's learning to grow in the organization.

Speaker C: Yeah. And as I said before, it's not just the experience and expertise, it's seeing the opportunities. And this is where I think a lot of businesses hold back because it's like, well, I don't know how to help, so I'm not going to. That's where I can step in, say, well, you could do this. You can do that. Building the partnership starts off with a conversation. So much potential.

Speaker B: Yeah. That's one of your gifts. You, you have the gift of, of being innovative, coming up with ideas that, that, uh, some people kind of have to really think hard, but you have many, many ideas and you, you think. And when you hear people telling their story, you can come up with ideas that will help them in growing their, their, their organization.

Speaker C: Yeah, but within that context, it's, it's not just providing advice. It's with that idea of people don't know what they don't know. And I might make some suggestions like, oh, well, we can't do that. It's like, well, okay, let's take a break here. Let's look at this. Build it according to their comfort level and if they're willing to work with me. Yeah, they go very far.

Speaker B: Good, good. How do people get a hold of you?

Speaker C: Um, well, they can connect with me on LinkedIn and uh, they can reach out to me at uh, my website, Fundraising Co ca. Um, and it's ah, great to connect with people, build others. Um, I do occasional videos about how to support charities, how to have implementation. Um, and that's what I really again, it's part of education because there's so many organizations that need support that I'll never be able to get to. But if I can provide advice that they can then implement, happy to do it.

Speaker B: Well, thank you very much for joining me today. It was a real pleasure having this deep down conversation about philanthropy on both sides of the coin, profit sector and the not for profit sector.

Speaker C: Yeah, I love your wisdom, your experience, your perspective, your support for others. It's always a pleasure speaking with you.

Speaker B: Thank you. Thank you. And for those of you who are listening or, or, or viewing my podcast, give this a thumbs up if you haven't subscribed, subscribe. There are so many different topics that I like to help business owners and leaders think about how you can be a better business and give you perspectives from some of these thought leaders that really tell you how to maybe do a better job or bigger job. Thank you.

Speaker A: Thanks for tuning in to rev up your leadership with Hilda Gann. Be sure to like comment and subscribe to our podcast on YouTube and Spotify to stay up to date with our latest episodes. For more leadership and HR tips and strategies and to learn how you can create a people centric workplace, visit our website@, uh, peoplebrightconsulting.com.