Stay ConnectedNonprofit Pulse is a nonprofit podcast that explores trends, insights, and resources that help nonprofits accomplish their mission.
Each episode features conversations with nonprofit leaders and experts, delivering practical ideas and fresh perspectives to help you grow your impact.
Christina Tzavaras Edwards has trained more than 10,000 nonprofit professionals across 20 countries, and she wants leaders to build fundraising systems that run like an engine instead of betting the budget on one annual event.
She is not anti-event. She is against high expense, high time, and high people power for diminishing returns. A fundraising engine carries momentum through the year, gives donors more than one moment to participate, and creates repeatable campaigns that compound over time.
In this episode:
What makes a $10K+ sprint campaign different: a clear goal, a defined audience, and less than 30 days
How clients raised $20K in 20 days and $10K in 10 days with sprint campaigns
Why recurring-giving sprints moved one organization from 12 to 120 recurring donors
Why PayPal is not a donation tool, and how a poor donation experience can block recurring giving
How email, a 3-to-5-part welcome series, and personal texts can outperform a social media campaign
You will leave with a practical first step for launching a sprint in the next 30 days, a way to choose a real goal, and a better case for reallocating time from reactionary fundraising. Forward momentum includes hearing no, falling, and getting back up.
Episode highlights: (0:00) Stop betting the budget on one event (1:12) Fundraising as an engine (4:48) What scattered fundraising has to stop (6:42) What to prioritize before the next campaign (8:33) The anatomy of a $10K+ sprint (12:06) Campaigns that earn repeat giving (15:36) Storytelling beyond the transaction (16:44) Building a digital giving engine (21:30) Scaling mistakes to avoid (24:01) The first 30 days of your first sprint (24:48) Forward momentum, even after no
Guest: Christina Tzavaras Edwards, Founder of Splendid Consulting, Splendid Consulting Sprint campaign class: https://splendidcourses.com/sprintclass
Full transcript and show notes: https://www.anedot.com/blog/nonprofit-pulse-fundraising-engines
More episodes and the monthly newsletter: https://www.nonprofitpulse.com/
If this was useful, follow Nonprofit Pulse wherever you listen.
Nonprofit Pulse is a podcast by Anedot that explores trends, insights, and resources that help nonprofits accomplish their mission. Hosted by Josh Breland.
Dacia Moore says nonprofit leader burnout is too late. A licensed professional counselor and Founder of Second Wind Counseling and Consulting, she helps people build sustainable mental wellness and challenges leaders to stop treating themselves like machines.
Mission-driven work can make it easy to ignore the indicators and push through. Dacia explains that strength includes asking for help, taking basic care of yourself, and recognizing that leaders are interdependent. The nature of the work may not change, but what leaders do to manage it can.
In this episode:
Why Dacia cites 95% of nonprofit leaders as worried about staff, while one third are worried about themselves
The 1-to-10 exhaustion check leaders can use to compare how they feel now with last year
Why a client who went to bed at midnight and got up at 3 a.m. to work needed a different approach
How lunch outside the office at least three days a week can create space away from the pressure
Dacia's 15-minute focus and 10-minute break version of the Pomodoro method
You will leave with small, sustainable ways to notice burnout sooner, protect time, and build a culture where counseling, coaching, and an EAP can be used without shame. Start now. Little things matter.
Episode highlights: (0:00) When mission work makes self-care feel optional (1:26) Why leader well-being cannot wait (4:58) What leaders carry behind the scenes (10:24) Early warning signs leaders miss (13:17) How burnout changes culture and retention (15:20) Well-being practices that fit mission work (20:31) Small habits that protect your capacity (25:33) A culture that makes support usable (34:04) Boundaries in mission-driven work (39:37) Little things matter
Guest: Dacia Moore, Founder, Second Wind Counseling and Consulting
Full transcript and show notes: https://www.anedot.com/blog/nonprofit-pulse-nonprofit-leaders-mental-well-being
More episodes and the monthly newsletter: https://www.nonprofitpulse.com/
If this was useful, follow Nonprofit Pulse wherever you listen.
Nonprofit Pulse is a podcast by Anedot that explores trends, insights, and resources that help nonprofits accomplish their mission. Hosted by Josh Breland.
Karen Alonso believes nonprofit event planning is not about a singular focus. As Chief Advancement and Communications Officer at United Way of Southern Nevada, she designs experiences that can fundraise, educate, build a supporter base, and turn attendees into advocates for a cause.
The work continues after people leave the room. Karen explains why every event needs a mission connection, participation before and during the experience, and a timely follow-up plan. The payoff is not just a dollar total. It is whether people remember the mission and choose to engage again.
In this episode:
How United Way of Southern Nevada brings more than 1,000 volunteers together for Fall Day of Caring
Why a save-the-date sent six or nine months ahead helps protect a fundraising gala from calendar conflicts
The personal photo experience that gave attendees images they later used as Facebook and Instagram profile photos
Why calling every attendee within 48 hours, with no ask involved, prevents the next-year-only follow-up mistake
How a Salvation Army emcee's story of addiction and homelessness made the mission more memorable than figures alone
You will leave with a practical plan for designing an event people participate in, talk about afterward, and connect back to the mission. Measure the experience through engagement, follow-up, and the relationships it creates, not attendance and donations alone.
Episode highlights: (0:00) More than a fundraising event (1:24) Mission-first event design (7:35) Engagement before and during the event (13:52) Interactive moments people remember (18:18) Turn attendees into lasting supporters (23:31) Stories that make the mission stick (29:08) Success beyond attendance and donations (32:22) Follow up while the experience is fresh
Guest: Karen Alonso, Chief Advancement and Communications Officer, United Way of Southern Nevada
Full transcript and show notes: https://www.anedot.com/blog/nonprofit-pulse-nonprofit-event-planning
More episodes and the monthly newsletter: https://www.nonprofitpulse.com/
If this was useful, follow Nonprofit Pulse wherever you listen.
Nonprofit Pulse is a podcast by Anedot that explores trends, insights, and resources that help nonprofits accomplish their mission. Hosted by Josh Breland.
Courtney De Ronde says instinct can get a nonprofit to a certain level, but it cannot be the only guide when the organization is trying to grow, launch a program, or enter a new geography. As CEO of Forge Financial and Management Consulting, she helps leaders build reliable intelligence around the decisions that matter.
Hope is a great virtue, she says, but not a wonderful strategy. Courtney does not argue that leaders should ignore their gut. She argues that they should supplement it with clear outcomes, a system for gathering information, and a way to see what the organization needs to do next.
In this episode:
How one client modeled best-case, better-case, and worst-case scenarios after governmental funding was affected
The four areas in Courtney's system: finance, leadership, productivity, and human intelligence
Why reliability, visibility, predictability, and flexibility must come before a dashboard can help
The difference between a six-year-old small-dollar campaign anecdote and a measurable 3% annual-giving goal
How 1- or 2-question pulse surveys can reveal more than isolated feedback from leaders or coordinators
You will leave with a way to move from gut-only decisions toward a system that makes instincts more valuable over time. Begin by getting visibility into where your organization is now, then define the result before you measure it.
Episode highlights: (0:00) When instinct is not enough (1:03) From gut calls to reliable insight (5:27) When funding cuts test your decisions (9:25) What insight-led decisions look like (11:58) Track the results that matter (18:03) Insights for donors, fundraising, and volunteers (24:49) A learning culture without losing creativity (27:43) The first move beyond gut instinct (29:14) Start with visibility, then define the result
Guest: Courtney De Ronde, CEO, Forge Financial and Management Consulting
Full transcript and show notes: https://www.anedot.com/blog/nonprofit-pulse-nonprofit-leadership-insights-over-instincts
More episodes and the monthly newsletter: https://www.nonprofitpulse.com/
If this was useful, follow Nonprofit Pulse wherever you listen.
Nonprofit Pulse is a podcast by Anedot that explores trends, insights, and resources that help nonprofits accomplish their mission. Hosted by Josh Breland.
Nathan Young has spent more than 12 years helping leaders use nonprofit storytelling to connect, inspire, and lead the narrative. The founder of StoryCulture Consulting says storytelling is more than recounting events. It is the cognitive tool people use to make sense of the world.
Instead of searching for one emotional story that sells, Nathan urges nonprofits to keep sharing many stories that make their work recognizable over time. The same discipline can shape fundraising, internal culture, and a leader's vision for the community.
In this episode:
How the Mingei Museum connected a capital campaign to three distinct audiences, from younger millennials to legacy-minded donors
Why opening every meeting with a story and sharing a story of the month can make storytelling part of the culture
How accountants, HR staff, and volunteers can connect their everyday work to the mission statement and organizational values
Why a leader's vulnerability sets the emotional tone, and why confidence matters even more than a polished story
How fight, flight, freeze, and fawn can keep leaders from telling the bigger, more honest vision
You will leave with practical ways to find stories already inside your organization, invite more people to share them, and connect a near-term fundraising need to the community change you want to create.
Episode highlights: (0:00) Why stories do more than sell (1:34) What makes supporters feel a story (5:48) Finding stories without a big moment (7:40) A culture built on stories (10:22) Getting staff and volunteers to share (13:11) Storytelling as leadership vision (16:18) Vision mistakes leaders make (20:56) Building a narrative that inspires (23:01) Naming the change you want (24:47) Growing confident as a storyteller (28:06) Start with stories you already have
Guest: Nathan Young, Founder, StoryCulture Consulting
Full transcript and show notes: https://www.anedot.com/blog/nonprofit-pulse-how-storytelling-builds-powerful-engaging-leaders
More episodes and the monthly newsletter: https://www.nonprofitpulse.com/
If this was useful, follow Nonprofit Pulse wherever you listen.
Nonprofit Pulse is a podcast by Anedot that explores trends, insights, and resources that help nonprofits accomplish their mission. Hosted by Josh Breland.
Lyn Wineman, founder, president, and chief strategist at KidGlov, says nonprofit branding is not a logo-and-colors exercise. After more than 15 years of nonprofit branding work, she sees tangled brands drain time, blur the mission, and leave leaders misaligned.
The usual impulse is to jump straight to a name, tagline, logo, or font. Lyn's eight-step framework starts somewhere else: visioning, audience research, peer analysis, and alignment before a nonprofit invests in creative elements.
In this episode:
Why KidGlov's first five of eight brand-framework steps are strategy based, not creative
The 30% marketing-time efficiency Lyn sees when an organization has a strong brand
How a confusing name that sounded like a government agency became a fresh identity and better messaging
Why storytelling produces emotion, emotion produces trust, and consistency signals quality
The two facilitated conversations that bring leaders together before the fifth-step brand strategy session
You will leave with a way to diagnose whether your brand needs clarity, align the people who have to carry it, and begin before a major rebrand. Lyn's practical starting point is the brand compass, with fewer than ten questions.
Episode highlights: (0:00) Brand clarity before creative (2:16) Why Untangling Spaghetti tells a fable (4:41) The eight steps before the logo (6:31) Why clarity is worth the investment (8:46) How brand clarity changes culture (10:35) How clarity earns trust and loyalty (13:38) Why logos cannot create clarity (15:43) Getting leaders on the same page (21:17) The tools inside Untangling Spaghetti (23:43) The brand compass starting point
Guest: Lyn Wineman, founder, president, and chief strategist, KidGlov Kidglov.com
Full transcript and show notes: https://www.anedot.com/blog/nonprofit-pulse-tangled-brand More episodes and the monthly newsletter: https://www.nonprofitpulse.com/
If this was useful, follow Nonprofit Pulse wherever you listen.
Nonprofit Pulse is a podcast by Anedot that explores trends, insights, and resources that help nonprofits accomplish their mission. Hosted by Josh Breland.
James Misner has more than 20 years of fundraising leadership, and he says donor retention is not a mystery outside a nonprofit's control. The Founder & Owner of The Kipos Group identifies three reasons recurring donors stop giving, and says two of them come down to what an organization does after the gift is made.
The goal is to reinforce that a donor made an amazing decision from the moment they hit submit. That requires an experience built around appreciation, stories, and signals that catch a lapse before it becomes permanent.
In this episode:
Why monthly donors leave when they do not know they made a difference or do not realize that they lapsed
How a physical welcome packet can stay in a home for an average of four to six months, long after an email falls down the inbox
Why James recommends hearing from your organization at least twice a month, with impact stories, frontline reports, and thought leadership
The donor-appreciation finding behind random handwritten thanks, and why anniversary celebrations can give people an excuse to unsubscribe
How 17 to 20 touchpoints reactivated a donor who gave $50,000 at the 17th touchpoint, then grew to $100,000 and eventually $250,000 a year
You will leave with concrete ways to welcome recurring donors, use stories instead of facts alone, monitor early-warning signals, and give a lapsed donor campaign enough time to work.
Episode highlights: (0:00) Why recurring donors quietly stop giving (1:00) The three reasons donors leave (3:45) An experience that earns long-term loyalty (7:19) The twice-a-month contact rhythm (8:53) Creative thanks that keep donors close (11:35) Stories that make the impact real (14:27) Using data to find lapsed donors (16:52) Personal outreach that reconnects donors (20:35) A retention plan you can start today (23:57) Give the campaign time to work
Guest: James Misner, Founder & Owner, The Kipos Group
Full transcript and show notes: https://www.anedot.com/blog/nonprofit-pulse-how-to-maximize-donor-retention More episodes and the monthly newsletter: https://www.nonprofitpulse.com/
If this was useful, follow Nonprofit Pulse wherever you listen.
Nonprofit Pulse is a podcast by Anedot that explores trends, insights, and resources that help nonprofits accomplish their mission. Hosted by Josh Breland.
Pat Taggart, Founder of SkyBlue Creative, says nonprofit video storytelling does not need an $8,000 camera or a word-perfect script. The former documentary filmmaker believes the cell phone in your pocket can be a better tool, because people do not want perfection. They want humanity, honesty, and authenticity.
Video has the power to move people from knowing something exists to feeling something. Pat explains how nonprofits can make that connection without forced performances, inflated production budgets, or videos that keep talking after the story is over.
In this episode:
Why a cell phone, tripod, light, and microphone can cost about 100 bucks all in
How six, eight, or ten video FAQs can turn repeated questions into a human touch point
Why scripts are the enemy of great content, and how an editor can shape an unscripted conversation
The test for video length: as long as the content is compelling, and not a second longer
Why Pat points to The Bonnell Foundation and Leaven Kids while discussing how to let people into your world
You will leave with a simpler way to put people on camera, select a useful format, and judge whether a video is working. You do not have to look into the lens. Start with a real conversation and let people into your world.
Episode highlights: (0:00) Why honest video beats polished video (1:12) How video moves people to feel (3:49) The ingredients of a story that works (7:38) Quality video on a 100-dollar budget (12:28) Video mistakes that lose the story (14:03) Choosing the right format and length (17:11) How to make camera conversations feel real (20:25) What makes a video work (25:35) Let people into your world
Guest: Pat Taggart, Founder, SkyBlue Creative SkyBlueCreative.com
Full transcript and show notes: https://www.anedot.com/blog/nonprofit-pulse-video-storytelling-for-nonprofits More episodes and the monthly newsletter: https://www.nonprofitpulse.com/
If this was useful, follow Nonprofit Pulse wherever you listen.
Nonprofit Pulse is a podcast by Anedot that explores trends, insights, and resources that help nonprofits accomplish their mission. Hosted by Josh Breland.
Laura Bonnell founded The Bonnell Foundation in 2010 and says nonprofits need to act like they are in it to win. The foundation provides tools to navigate the difficulties of living with cystic fibrosis, and Laura views herself as its CEO because financial health is what sustains programs for people across the country.
That mindset means asking confidently, spending strategically, and treating other leaders as potential collaborators. Laura does not see a nonprofit as a lesser kind of organization. She sees an organization that needs a financial plan, a strategic plan, and the confidence to tell its story everywhere.
In this episode:
Why Laura stopped asking larger companies for $10,000 and began asking for $25,000
How a Meijer grant request received a yes in 24 hours and yielded $1,000 after a $2,000 ask
The $4,000 strategic financial planner investment that Laura says paid for itself
How a $40,000 cystic fibrosis vitamin program came together when The Bonnell Foundation could commit $15,000
Why Laura says every event produces either funding or friends, including a new camp idea for parents
You will leave with a corporate-minded approach to setting bigger asks, investing in expertise, and building reciprocal relationships with donors and peers. Take your organization seriously, share what you know, and keep asking for support that matches the work.
Episode highlights: (0:00) Nonprofits that think like businesses (1:23) The corporate mindset for nonprofit growth (4:27) Treat your nonprofit as a revenue generator (6:50) Strategic planning that supports scale (8:51) Collaboration that multiplies impact (12:40) Deeper relationships with donors and peers (17:45) When investing in expertise pays off (19:53) Mentorship for a stronger network (21:44) Changing how the public sees nonprofits (23:13) Ask for support that matches the work
Guest: Laura Bonnell, Founder, The Bonnell Foundation
Full transcript and show notes: https://www.anedot.com/blog/nonprofit-pulse-nonprofit-growth-seeing-nonprofits-as-corporations More episodes and the monthly newsletter: https://www.nonprofitpulse.com/
If this was useful, follow Nonprofit Pulse wherever you listen.
Nonprofit Pulse is a podcast by Anedot that explores trends, insights, and resources that help nonprofits accomplish their mission. Hosted by Josh Breland.
Joe Allio and Maryanne Miller believe a diverse nonprofit board needs more than a mix of résumés. As President and Vice President of the Leaven Kids Board, they argue that character, humility, and a real servant-leadership mindset are what turn different perspectives into impact.
Their conversation moves past box-checking. A board may not always look like the community it serves, but it must have a heart for the people it serves, the courage to ask hard questions, and the discipline to stay focused on governance rather than operations.
In this episode:
How Leaven Kids moved from a like-minded church committee to a board with business and public-sector experience
Why the right fit is more than your network, and how showing up in rooms where people do not know you creates new recruitment opportunities
The onboarding approach that has kept every participant so far and left new members with clearer focus
How finance, operations, marketing, and personnel committees keep a working board aligned with mission, vision, and stewardship
Why a board debating whether 2,000 pencils should be replaced at 50% or 60% used is in the wrong weeds
You will leave with a sharper lens for vetting board candidates, welcoming them into meaningful work, and making space for disagreement without making the board about ego.
Episode highlights: (0:00) What makes a board diverse in practice (1:02) Why diversity needs more than resumes (1:24) Finding board members beyond your network (19:15) The gaps your board needs to see (21:48) A board with heart for its community (25:15) Welcoming new members into real work (28:24) Making room for unique perspectives (29:57) Moving past barriers to diversity (30:24) How Leaven Kids broadened its board (32:22) Where to start with your board
Guest: Joe Allio, President of the Leaven Kids Board, Leaven Kids Guest: Maryanne Miller, Vice President of the Leaven Kids Board, Leaven Kids
Full transcript and show notes: https://www.anedot.com/blog/nonprofit-pulse-how-to-build-a-diverse-high-impact-board-of-directors More episodes and the monthly newsletter: https://www.nonprofitpulse.com/
If this was useful, follow Nonprofit Pulse wherever you listen.
Nonprofit Pulse is a podcast by Anedot that explores trends, insights, and resources that help nonprofits accomplish their mission. Hosted by Josh Breland.
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