Listen in as Eric shares insight on how to use storytelling and branding to not only communicate your organization's mission, but also connect with those who can work with your organization to help create meaningful impact.

You see, technology is about more than just having the latest app. It's also a critical way to share information and resources with vulnerable communities that need them most. And we cannot close the digital divide (or the wealth and the equity gap) without leveraging it to strengthen our infrastructure.

In this episode, Nic shares 4 key considerations about technology that inform nonprofit needs, practices, and ultimately, culture and policy.

We spend a lot of time talking about good grant making, but not as much time talking about good grant "receiving."

This week's episode talks how to receive and manage significant grants with organizational integrity.

Having built infrastructure for nonprofits all over the world to receive and manage significant grants, Nic shares her 3 recommendations to design an infrastructure that allows an organization's values to confidently guide how that organization accepts funding.

How are you managing and receiving grants?

Do you know which you one(s) should be working with? How to strengthen your partnership(s)? How to remain compliant with nonprofit laws while partnering with a for-profit company?

Having structured many of these partnerships, Nic knows that regardless of the amount of leverage or resources you bring to a partnership, you should control key aspects of the partnership.

In this episode, Nic talks about how to successfully form a corporate partnership; sharing 2 considerations to help guide how you engage with corporate partners.

Strong partnerships can have strong impact and change the narrative and course for so many communities. So, let's make sure they are built well.

What do you think about corporate partnerships?

Knowing your organization's infrastructure.

And we have seen organizations with a firm grasp on their organizational infrastructure needs fare considerably better than organizations that are unaware.

Why should you think about building infrastructure when you are fundraising or engaged in development?

In this episode, Nic gives you 3 reasons why you need to pay critical attention to your infrastructure if you want to secure funding; all based on her time as counsel with a fundraising nonprofit and global funders as well as her work as an advisor to nonprofit organizations globally.

How are you using infrastructure in your fundraising and development efforts?

In fact, those lingering thoughts are what inspired this episode!

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) is a critical component in building a robust infrastructure, especially one that both reflects and aims to support various communities throughout the world. And by having a diverse group of people on your team, equitable governance, and an inclusive framework, actualizing your organizational goals and making an impact becomes much more tangible.

Have you tried incorporating DEI throughout your organizational infrastructure? If not, why?

In this episode, Nic shares the final indicator of infrastructure strength that is connected to an organization’s ability to say, “No,” to funding – storytelling.

Having structured grants to support communities in nearly every region of the world, Nic knows the power of a compelling story. And she appreciates the connection between storytelling and infrastructure.

In this episode, Nic shares the second of three indicators of infrastructure strength that are connected to an organization’s ability to say, “No,” to funding – brave infrastructure building.

When you have the ability to say, “No,” it indicates that you are unapologetically building a strong foundation and infrastructure to support your work, which is what our communities need.

Being terrified of even the thought of saying, “No,” to a sizable grant is often an indicator of a weakened infrastructure, namely insufficient revenue diversification. Revenue diversification feeds your sustainability. And your sustainability impacts the way you serve vulnerable communities.

Diversifying your revenue often strengthens both your ability to say, “No,” and your infrastructure.

In this episode, Nic shares the second building block about infrastructure and innovation – true innovation requires accountability. Having built organizational infrastructure for years now, Nic sees accountability as the element that heavily contributes to sustained innovation. And sustained innovation transforms worlds and lives.

In the nonprofit sector, we often hear the word, innovation, but we do not talk as much about how an organization “becomes innovative.” And we struggle with determining how to fund innovation or defining innovation in the first place.

In this episode, Nic encourages us to dissect this topic; this episode explains the first of two building blocks about infrastructure and innovation. This first building block is meant to raise questions for you about how you think about and pursue innovation.

If you are not making grants to individuals because you do not know how or are afraid of what it might entail, you are missing a key component of your strategy. Making grants to individuals is a critical part of how we change outcomes for vulnerable and marginalized communities. In this episode, Nic shares two key considerations for building sustainable individual grant programs all over the world.  

In this episode, you will hear 3 key recommendations that will help funders and these organizations sustain a movement, ideas, and change. We will also provide a link to a previous Fast Build Friday episode about effectively working with intermediary organizations, which may be another way to fund these organizations, in the show notes. 

In this episode, Nic shares the second of two key considerations for transitioning to public charity status. It is part two to last week's Fast Build Friday Episode 41.   

The second key consideration is to take the time to plan your strategy. This planning includes articulating your vision, mission, priorities, proposed activities, and other goals that you have for your organization. Trust us, the time that you take to think critically about your organization will pay off in multiples. 

In this episode, you will hear the first of two key considerations for transitioning to public charity status. The first consideration, which is critical, is to determine if you should, in fact, be a charitable entity. If you skip this step and go straight to assuming you should be a public charity simply because you want to have social impact, you will lose out on a lot of the vision and mission setting that is critical for building infrastructure and will likely be in an inappropriate entity, both of which will ultimately have an impact within the communities you serve. 

Jeanette is the Founding Board Co-Chair of Foundation of Freedom. She is an organizer, producer, and recent law school graduate of Northeastern University School of Law. 

Earl is the Founding Board Co-Chair and Executive Director of Foundation of Freedom. Formerly, Earl was a Partner at The Soze Agency, a creative agency that produces large scale social impact campaigns with clients that include the New York Civil Liberties Union, March For Our Lives, fwd.us, HBO, and The Leadership Conference.

Before listening to this episode, we encourage you to ponder a few questions. As a nonprofit or social-impact startup, how much can you do with limited capacity? With no capacity? Do you want to find out or do you want to learn how to build your capacity almost immediately? We can tell you that without capacity, your compelling programmatic vision and strategy do not matter. As a startup, it is therefore critical that you build capacity to support your vision and strategy.

In this episode, Nic shares the second of her two fundamental considerations - capacity - and discusses three ways to build capacity almost immediately. It is part two to last week's Fast Build Friday Episode 21. 

We think a compelling vision and strategy is at the core of sustainability for nonprofit and social-impact startups. Many of the guests from past episodes of the Nonprofit Build Up would agree that you cannot transform outcomes or sustainably build without both. It is a topic we have discussed extensively. Still, should a startup really spend considerable time creating a compelling vision and strategy when it has to attract funding and resources from donors, partners, and supporters to survive in those early stages?

In this episode, you will hear the first of two fundamental infrastructure considerations for nonprofit or social-impact startups. Nic shares why you need a compelling programmatic vision and strategy in order to build a strong infrastructure and a sustainable organization.

In this episode, Nic shares funding conversation fundamentals that nonprofits can use during and post-crisis. You will hear Nic talk about crisis funding conversations, key funding elements, amending grant agreements, and innovative funding tools. All are critical to nonprofit sustainability.

Although a year and a half has passed since the original presentation, we felt that it was pertinent to share this information once more as we continue to battle COVID-19 on all fronts. The pandemic continues to disrupt life as we know it. It has changed the way we work and even where we work. As a result, nonprofits are being asked to increase their services and resources to some of the most vulnerable and marginalized communities around the world while experiencing some of the greatest financial impact of this global crisis. 

In this episode, Nic shares practical ways for nonprofits to address the difficult questions that have surfaced as a result of the crisis about their viability and provides concrete ways to move forward in this crisis and prepare for sustainability post-crisis.

In this episode, Nic gets technical and discusses how to request general support grants and how to structure these awards to nonprofits and social-impact entities. Angelyn and Nic also address how to build relationships and trust and redefine risk to effectively transition to general support.

You will hear us talk a lot about general support funding or flexible funding on the Nonprofit Build Up podcast, including last week’s episode introducing the importance of general support grants. Many leaders in the nonprofit sector are speaking out about how crucial general support funding is for creating sustainable and effective organizations. And we agree. This episode goes a little deeper into discussing why the majority of funding is not general support and what the delays are that slow down general support grants from becoming the default grants of the sector.

You may hear us talk a lot about general support funding or flexible funding on the Nonprofit Build Up podcast. Many leaders in the nonprofit sector, some of whom we have had as guests, are speaking out about how crucial general support funding is for creating sustainable and effective organizations. Nic made our first Fast Build Friday video about this topic as a 2020 trend for the nonprofit sector. But we did not want general support funding to simply be a trend, and this episode explains why. 

Sarah has held executive or leadership roles at the Alliance for Climate Education, Green For All, Cargill and Best Buy over her 15+ years of experience in brand strategy and social change.

There are so many definitions of infrastructure floating around. And since we use the term ‘infrastructure’ frequently throughout this podcast, we wanted to take a moment and provide insight on how we define it. Once we have defined infrastructure, we need to build it stronger and faster because communities are counting on us.

Shawn shared so many rich insights during this conversation and we wanted everyone to receive those insights so we broke this conversation into two parts. Make sure to listen to last week's episode, Episode 18, for a full bio and more leadership wisdom.

Shawn shared so many rich insights during this conversation and we wanted everyone to receive those insights so we broke this conversation into two parts. Stay tuned for part two next week.

Veta is widely recognized for corporate governance leadership, having been named to the prestigious Directorship 100 list four times. Previously, as executive director of the Minority Corporate Counsel Association , Veta was widely recognized for thought leadership in the areas of diversity and inclusion and advised hundreds of Fortune 1000 companies and multinational law firms to establish and strengthen their diversity and inclusion programs. 

Jim was the co-founder of Amandla Enterprises and the former Deputy Secretary of Education and founding Executive Director of My Brother’s Keeper under President Barack Obama. He also worked in business, government, and the non-profit sectors as an operator, investor, and entrepreneur. In these roles, Jim has utilized management, policy, and programmatic innovations to increase access to opportunity. 

Lawrence has held operational and legal leadership roles for philanthropies ranging from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation to Humanity United, a startup human rights foundation created by eBay’s founder. Earlier in his career, he spearheaded The Pew Trusts’ change from domestic grantmaking foundation to international operating nonprofit as well as its successful effort to save Philadelphia’s Barnes Foundation. 

In this episode, Geoff shares tremendous insight, knowledge, and practical advice for everyone listening, helping us to build and lead bravely.

Carol’s passion and expertise are so clearly illustrated in this episode as she speaks about the work of Legal Momentum and its focus on providing support during the inequities of the pandemic. She also shares practical advice for nonprofits and funders about the power of prevention in social justice and the importance of shifting from an ecosystem of competition to collaboration within the sector. This conversation is going to encourage you to embrace new ways of working and collaborating within the nonprofit sector.

Jay is so thoughtful and clear in how he explains the role of democracy in dismantling systemic racism and how to build and maintain this momentum, particularly through advocacy. And Jay explains the role of community foundations as critical capacity builders and their role as a support and resource within communities. 

During this conversation, Jay speaks to the importance of compromising positions (instead of compromising principles) and why we need to shift the mindset of failure and risk in philanthropy. This conversation forces us to ask ourselves a critical question: “Am I willing to redefine the way I see and understand my organization’s role and what it means to be in relationship with others?”

During this conversation, Jean asks the question, “How can we improve our communities to show humanity, to show kindness?” Such a powerful question. It forces us to think about how we can continue to support organizations that will allow us not to go back to a time that was unacceptable to those of us who are committed to social justice.  

This conversation encourages us to use the moment we’re in to not only focus on surviving, but to use our leadership to improve our commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion in order to build thriving communities. 

Ricardo also discusses the importance of funding infrastructure development to ensure that all organizations, including grassroots organizations, can share the important stories of marginalized communities. This conversation encourages us all to reflect on how we can adapt to the needs of the moment and how we can thoughtfully build more resilient organizations. 

In this episode, Angelyn shares her advice for nonprofits to remain true to their mission and goals to continue to show up for the communities they’re serving instead of pivoting for short-term returns. And she discusses the role of philanthropy in increasing access for grassroots organizations that have been traditionally excluded from conversations. This conversation encourages us all to reimagine what the sector and society could become if we placed big-bets on grassroots organizations.

In this episode, Dorian focuses on how funders can and should listen to, work alongside, and partner with communities they’re serving in order to problem solve and also about how to ensure that those communities can create ways to be self-sustaining. This conversation inspires us to reflect on sustainability models, how we can create them on our own, and community partnership in order to change the way we address the root causes of inequity.

In this episode, Kay talks about the role that journalism plays in ensuring that marginalized voices are heard. She shares her perspective on what’s currently happening in journalism, the impact on small nonprofit news organizations, and changes on the horizon within the sector. She gives advice to nonprofits and funders on how to navigate the uncertainty and unrest that was at play last summer, and, in many ways, is still at issue now.

During our conversation, you’ll hear Kay say that, “There is still room for innovation.” And that is why this conversation is so powerful. It encourages all of us to keep experimenting, to keep building, and to keep supporting nonprofit growth, particularly the growth of news organizations, to become sustainable.

Randal really highlights the role of for-profit companies that are focused on social impact and the role that the for-profit sector can play in building and supporting equity. He offers advice to nonprofits and funders on the role of infrastructure and how to leverage big data to better understand and support stakeholders in determining community needs.

Susan’s advice is so incredibly transparent, honest, and powerful. It encourages us to rethink what it means to have vision, how to invest in marginalized communities, and how to build sustainably. We encourage you to listen and absorb all of the information Susan shares about how we can each write and appreciate a new narrative. 

Melanie shares so many insights for nonprofit leaders who are ready to listen, have honest conversations, and are ready to do the work. We encourage you to not only listen carefully to Melanie’s advice and insights, but to also ACT on that advice and her insights. They will change the way you show up in the sector. 

As Amanda shares in our conversation, let’s reimagine what’s possible. 

Nic is passionate about using her legal training, operations and strategy expertise, and knowledge of nonprofit law to think creatively to transform the way organizations work and learn from their work. Now, on the Nonprofit Build Up podcast, she brings that same dedication and passion to help nonprofits and philanthropies consistently and sustainably support the marginalized and vulnerable communities they serve.

The Nonprofit Build Up provides fundraising and development ideas, program strategy, innovative thinking, organizational structuring, and grant-making policies and practices for the sector to help you transform the way you and your organization work. For nonprofits, securing funding for work and operations, making better grants, designing stronger programs, and strengthening organizational infrastructure can be daunting while also trying to effect change in the communities they serve. And philanthropies can be challenged with how to support their grantees to create sustainable outcomes for the marginalized communities they serve. The bottom line is if you are struggling with how to build capacity and scale your impact, you are diverting your focus from the communities that need you.

Start the power shift. Here. Now. Join Nonprofit Build Up with A. Nicole Campbell today.